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Spoiler alert: your first hire to strategically position and grow your business probably isn’t what you think
coLAB starts every engagement with the assumption that a job well done will mean being out of that job as quickly as possible.
Why?
Because we know that the marketing strategies and staffing needs of a company change dramatically at different inflection points in growth, and that if we do our work well, we’ll help our clients quickly get to a point where they have outgrown our uniquely specialized, highly tailored, revenue-focused services.
Our clients know from the moment we begin discussions about a potential engagement that we’ll be planning succession from day one. A core goal in all of our engagements is to move as quickly and effectively as results allow from one stage of a GTM motion to another. Progress will eventually, inevitably mean we are no longer the best candidate to do the work in the new phase of a client’s GTM.
After all, we don’t want to overstay our welcome.
As a result, we’ve helped dozens of startups make their first full-time marketing hire, and are eager to share how we do it.
Conventional wisdom need not apply
No, you don’t need a CMO
In order to establish who you do want to bring onto your team, we find that it’s first helpful to understand who you probably don’t want to bring on.
Our take? It’s probably not a CMO.
We know and love CMOs, but the reality is that the tasks and responsibilities of the role are not generally well suited to the needs of an early stage startup.
When making your first growth hire, the fit between the expected activities and responsibilities of that hire and the stage of your company are by far the most important match to look for. Except for perhaps the fit between the personalities of the founders and new hires. But that’s a post for another time – back to CMOs.
The title of Chief Marketing Officer tends to come with expectations. It’s prestigious, and is held by people who have generally earned a good bit of respect and authority. Those who have worked as CMOs generally put the day-to-day slog of marketing implementation behind them in their movement into the strategic, executive level oversight role. These individuals typically expect to have a team at their backs, eager to execute on the vision and roadmap.
The problem is, the expectations of what comes with being a CMO is not at all what an early-stage startup tends to need to find PMF and build a revenue system around early traction. An early stage startup needs hard charging, scrappy, enthusiastic doers who want to both strategize and execute. Who want to come up with the ideas and actually go out and implement them. Who don’t have expectations of team leadership and oversight, and instead expect to be working day in and day out.
The individual we’re describing is not typically a CMO.
Five corners? No, stars are T-Shaped and they come with clues
The right candidates to supercharge your business will have a track record of having done so before
Hiring is already difficult, and doing so for a role that is heavily dependent on competencies across both hard and soft skills, like growth marketing, is very difficult. But it can be done, and we’re here to share how!
There are two high level pillars that serve as good indicators of a startup-focused growth marketer’s quality:
- T-shaped: Competent in a broad range of growth marketing skills, highly skilled in one or two
- History of participation and success as a first or second marketing hire at early-stage startups
Let’s unpack each.
T-shape
Good startup marketers are T-shaped, meaning they have broad knowledge of the general skills and activities necessary to run a successful go-to-market motion, with deep, proven expertise in one or two.
A T-shaped marketer is well rounded and likely a proud generalist. They probably have respectable experience in copywriting, brand fundamentals and design thinking, with a notable expertise in data analysis. Or, the opposite may be true.Some T-shaped growth marketers will be broadly proficient in data analysis and technical implementation, while holding absolute mastery of content writing.
This profile of a T-shaped is perfectly suited for the needs of a startup finding its early stride.
At this early stage in a company’s growth, it is most likely that only one or two, maybe three channels, at most, have been shown to work, meaning that a growth professional’s time will need to be focused on those channels that have already demonstrated viability.
A T-shaped marketer is flexible, making them widely applicable to a variety of channels and GTM strategies. This allows them to start and grow the growth marketing function in an early-stage startup environment that will likely require adaptability and open-mindedness.
This profile stands in stark contrast to enterprise marketers, who are typically deeply niched down into one subset of marketing, meaning they struggle outside of that lane.
Prior startup experience required
Now, we know you’re looking for superstars. But that’s easier said than done. So what to look out for?
The single most important thing you’ll want to identify is prior experience at another early-stage startup, ideally as the first or second growth marketing hire.
This is more important than their industry experience, more important than their pedigree of previous roles, more important than their age and experience, more important than their educational background, etc. Proven experience as an early hire building marketing functions from the ground up at startups is the single biggest indicator of their likelihood of having success doing it at your startup too.
Why? Well it’s simple really - it means they can get sh*t done in a resource constrained, fast-paced, intense environment that is do or die every day. Exactly like the business you’re probably running.
These candidates likely have a slew of titles like Growth Marketing Manager, or Product Marketing Manager, and maybe a Lead role or two on their resume.
Now you’re probably thinking “ok thanks Noelle, that sounds great, but every time I interview a marketer they just spew a bunch of jargon I don’t understand. How do I figure out if they’re good?”
We got you. Here are some step-by-step tips:
- Focus your interview questions on real scenarios. Ask them for step-by-step explanations of projects they’ve done, and then ask them to repurpose those processes and skills to real scenarios happening right now at your company. If they start to abstract, politely nudge them to focus on real, tactical decisions and actual things they’d do.
- Ask follow up questions about details. Then ask follow up questions about their answers. A true expert in their craft with proven experience will typically be able to continue to answer longer than you can think of new questions.
- Look for organic mention of soft-skills. Marketing is highly cross-functional in nature, and this individual will likely have to work with everyone at the company. They should naturally speak towards how they work well with others as a default.
When to hire
And yes, there is a right and wrong time
Unless a company has a marketing maven in the founding team, it probably doesn’t make sense for there to be a growth marketing hire until PMF has been achieved with at least one customer acquisition channel being clearly proven as viable and resilient.
Prior to finding a channel that will grow the business, proving that initial latent demand capture is everyone’s responsibility, and hiring one person to do it actually becomes counterproductive. Don’t hire one person to do the most important thing for the company at that point, because until that point has been proven, every single person should be focused on doing it together.
Once it’s been done though - get everybody focused on their personal best use of time, and bring on a growth pro for future efforts post-PMF to do it as the best use of their time.
Note that a fractional team of marketers with freelance resources is more than sufficient to validate initial strategy alongside the founding team. This distribution of resource overhead gives you flexibility to adjust channels with reduced fixed costs. It also prevents commitment to a specialized contributor before the demand for their expertise is clearly proven.
Win-win-win!
Note that thinking about when to hire is inextricably linked from what we’ve covered already, which is who to hire. The people who are good at quick experimenting and iterating quickly are not necessarily the people you need to build and scale your marketing org. But, we have seen time and again that they are the people you need to help set the foundation and direction.
Ready, aim, hire or fire?
Whether you’re looking to hire your first growth marketer or fire your agency (that could be us!), CoLab is here to help.
Download our simple guide that you can use to start hiring growth leaders and early marketers at your startup, today. No strings, just value.
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