Boards
There's only one executive who should ever say, "the board brought me in," and that is the chief executive officer (CEO). Yet, you'd be surprised how often you hear other executives -- chief revenue officers (CROs), chief marketing officers (CMOs), chief product officers (CPOs), and
Competition
I sometimes get asked about how to structure an enterprise software marketing organization and the relative roles of product marketing vs. competitive analysis. In this post, I'll share my (somewhat contrarian) thoughts on this topic. My first job in marketing, which served as my bridge from a technical
Management
In this post, I'll present what I view as the minimum sales management framework for an enterprise SaaS startup -- i.e., the basics you should have covered as you seek to build and scale your sales organization [1]. 1. Weekly sheet 2. Pipeline management rules, with an optional
BI
I admit that I’ve been more than a little slow to put out this post, but at least I’ve missed the late December (and early January) predictions rush. 2020 was the kind of year that would make anyone in the predictions business more than a little gun shy.
Enterprise
About twenty years ago, before I ran two startups as CEO and served as product-line general manager, I went through an intrapreneurship phase, where I was convinced that big companies should try to act like startups. It was a fairly popular concept at the time. * I got all excited
Management
The good people of Costanoa Ventures invited me to speak at their summit where they gather portfolio company CEOs to participate in an impressive set of sessions related to building and scaling startups. I was honored to be in the company of friends and respected colleagues like Nick Mehta and
Leadership
I remember one time having an argument that went like this: Joe: I think there's enough detail in there. Dave: No, there's not. There's no underpinnings, there's no rigor in the thought process. Remember, David Ogilvy always said "good writing is
Management
The folks at Plannuh, specifically Peter Mahoney, Scott Todaro, and Dan Faulkner, asked me to write the foreword for their new book, The Next CMO: A Guide to Marketing Operational Excellence. (Free download here.) Here's what I wrote for them. CMO is a hard job. Early in my
Leadership
One of the hardest things about running a startup is you're never sure who to listen to. Your board members own big stakes in the company, but that doesn't automatically align them with you. Your late-stage investors want low multiples on big numbers. Your early-
Management
Many moons ago when I was young product marketing manager, I heard a new VP of Marketing speak at a marketing all-hands meeting. He spoke with a kiwi accent and his name was Chris Greendale. What he said were six words that changed my career: Marketing exists to make
Management
I'm amazed by the number of times I see companies performing searches, even for key positions, without a clear idea of what they're looking for. Rephrasing Lewis Carroll, "if you don't know what you're recruiting for, any candidate looks great."
Customer Success
The CEO. Thanks for reading. # # # I was tempted to stop there because I've been writing a lot of long posts lately and because I do believe the answer is that simple. First let me explain the controversy and then I'll explain my view on it. In