Hiring a Top 10% VP of Marketing that Actually Fits Your Business

One of the most critical moments in the commercial growth path of an early stage SaaS company - developing a true, scalable, top performing and revenue producing marketing engine. A real team from the top down that is going to elevate your brand, 10x your buyer awareness, drive qualified leads in the door, and help indirectly add millions to your top line revenue.

While extremely vital to do so - designing, finding, and actually hiring for a top-tier marketing program can be one of the biggest challenges in the way of growth. And with the current hiring trends and recruitment market, every effort should be made to increase your chances of landing top tier talent.

Getting the right VP of Marketing in place, the first time around, can make or break it for your org.

Here are some of the key take-aways and insights I have from placing dozens of marketing leaders across my executive recruitment career:

1. Is the timing right to bring someone in? What does a top marketing leader expect before joining a new company?

The biggest mistake and cause for frustration in efforts to hire a top marketing professional - hiring them too early to be highly productive. If your product-market-fit is not quite there, if your sales funnel is seeing large churn at later stages, if your ICP is not extremely well defined... then it will be hard to attract top talent to join, and even harder to make them successful.

Before you go out to hire a new marketing leader or expand the team, make sure these facts are straight:

• Product is well established, core functionality is top-tier, roadmap is aligned with industry trends and customer interest, and the infrastructure is ready for large growth in customers/usage. Company is scaling on the back of the sales team, not the product team.

• ICP is extremely well defined and narrow. You know what industries you work in well. You know what buyer personas are involved in your sales. You have a targeted list of the top 10-100+ companies that fit your customer profile perfectly, and some of them are already on board.

• Sales pipeline (even if small) runs smoothly, with minimal churn rates. Conversation rates from SQLs -> Demos -> Close should be solid and consistent over a period of time. Pain points in the sales engine should come from top-of-funnel issues at this stage.

• Brand and Company Image is solid (even if still relatively unknown). Mission is attractive and real, qualifiable goals are set for growth over the next 5 years.
  

Having all of these in-line will be extremely critical in attracting top talent - as no top-marketing leader will want to come in without all of this in place. If you need to work on these things, but want to get the marketing ball rolling, making a more junior hire or contracting the work can be an excellent option.

2. How do you qualify candidates when you're ready and ensure that they will be the best fit for you org? Here's what I advise to look for (not too dissimilar from hiring a sales leader):

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭/𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 - Have you sold into the same/similar market? Do you know their buyer persona?

• This is all about seeing who can position the 'value' of your product most appropriately and understand your customers as quickly as possible. Sure, you could hire someone that is out of industry if they are an excelled marketing tactician with a deeply quantified track record - but be ready for 6-12 months of 'ramp' time for them to truly understand the right messaging, verbiage, competitive landscape, etc and really make it all 'click'
  

𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬 (Pipeline 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡) - What is the direct, and indirect, quantifiable success you've seen in previous leadership engagements? What specific actions lead to increased revenue?

• This is all about the facts. You want someone that can confidently put a dollar sign on the impact they've had on previous businesses. Marketers, even in the earliest stage environments, are driven by data an analytics in today's age - and if they can't show you what they've done, clearly and concisely, then maybe they haven't done much....

• The numbers you want to see will depend on stage, market segmentation, customers, product, etc - but, have an idea of what you want to achieve (12-24 months out) and align as close as you can to that.
  

Similar Stage Experience - What 'kind' of environments have you been in, what stages of organizations have you led, and what are the quantifiable metrics associated with growth you've lead?

• Look at the type of business someone had led. What did it look like when they started, and then again when it ended? Stage, Revenue, Market Size, Funding, etc.

• 0-1M is a hell of a challenge. 1M-10M is no joke. 10M-25M is hard as hell. They're all different journeys - yes someone can very well do them all, only time will tell, but as this stage you need to find the best alignment possible for your current growth benchmarks - and that comes through similarity in experience. Remember, "Building" is different than "Growing." Which marketer do you need?
  

3. How do you get them? Recruiting this person is tough - where do you find them?

Build as much as you can without them. Make it the easiest, most well put together, resourced, and eager marketing program that a VP of Marketing has ever walked into.

Companies need to compete with with more than just compensation in today's market - you need to show them that your growth plans are achievable, success can be found, they will be supported, and that you are truly 'investing' in a marketing program.

Call me if you need some help knowing where to look.