Ep 27 - Former HubSpot Leaders: Scaling a B2B Marketing Organization with Sam Mallikarjunan, Jenn Stele, and MK Getler

Unlike Sales which can have linear growth, Marketing Organizations have to build for where the company needs to go next. The way you design and allocate marketing resources within the organization needs to change as the company grows. Learn from former HubSpot leaders who have helped built & scale B2B Marketing organizations.

In this episode, our panel of experts dives into scaling B2B marketing organizations and gives all their trials and tribulations of getting there.

Here’s What We Discussed: 

• [00:55] Our panelists share their backgrounds and experience 
• [09:42] As you're building out your channels, what is an overlooked channel that actually performed really well? 
• [12:12] The effectiveness is authenticity – How sending emails that aren’t templated will boost your response rates  
• [18:10] If you could only have 3 people on your team to start, what function/roles would they be?
• [27:40] The optimal marketing team structure for a small to mid-size B2B organization 
• [34:40] When do you scale to building out a full sales team? Creating a unified relationship between the sales, account management, and marketing team
• [41:47] What you need to have in place before hiring your first sakes person – How to set them up for success
• [46:00] Our panel shares their mistakes and lessons in building a B2B marketing organization 

About Our Speakers 

Sam Mallikarjunan, Co-Founder & CEO at OneScreen.AI – Sam helps build organizations that drive growth. Enduring companies build engines of growth and teams with the right muscles to test, experiment and challenge assumptions. Growth isn’t mysterious magic, it should be intentionally and methodically executed.

It’s not the impossible goals he’s personally hit or big competitors he’s personally beaten that makes him the proudest. His greatest definition of professional success is that if he were hit by an asteroid today, he could go to that great CRM in the sky knowing he’d still had an immeasurable impact on the world because of the incredible impact the people he’s helped grow, will have on the world.

Jenn Stele, CMO, ex- Madison Logic – Jenn Steele is director of product marketing at Kissmetrics, a product intelligence platform that helps eCommerce businesses make smart product decisions. She previously worked for Amazon and HubSpot and holds degrees from MIT and Simmons School of Management.

MK Getler, Head of Marketing at Alyce – Human to human marketing executive and public speaker, MK Getler, is on a mission to bring authenticity and empathy to B2B organizations around the globe. With over a decade of experience building and leading marketing and business development teams, a keen ability to make meaningful marketing, and a passion for bringing inclusion and equity to the conversation, MK thrives on empowering others to actualize their potential in and out of the workplace.

When MK is not flipping tables in the marketing world, they’re found either in the surf or snow. Or perhaps off finding adventures big or small with their fiancé, Natasha, and pup, Kody.

About Our Moderator

Anish Shah is the CEO & Founder of executive search agency Bring Ruckus. Anish has worked in-house in Growth roles at Snapfish and Getable. He started Bring Ruckus as a Growth consultancy 11 years ago working with 40+ clients, then re-focused his firm on executive recruiting for Growth leaders.

Quotes

 

“The more authentic you are with the approach, not the channel, but the approach that you take within the channel, that's where effectiveness comes into play.” – MK Getler 

 

“When you have a team that's small, for me, it's mostly about balance. Identify how you create balance and where you fit in.” – Sam Mallikarjunan

 

“If you can't find someone who has the lived-in experience, then you need to find a customer marketer who can go immerse themselves in that experience. I think that the new CMO needs to do a stint in the customer marketing world because our lives are stretched across the entire customer journey, not just in the pre-sale process.”  – MK Getler 

 

“My job as a marketing leader is not just to build marketing and not just to build revenue, but also to build people.” – Jenn Stele

 

“I build marketing and product organizations after I do the sales thing. I mean, we don't know what to build until we started selling.” – Sam Mallikarjunan

 

“When you have too many direct reports, sometimes the direct report that is the loudest is where you're gonna end up spending most of your time with. That doesn't always mean that's the right person to be spending your time and energy on. You need to be investing time and energy with the folks on your team that are actually going to drive the impact that your organization needs to make.” – MK Getler 

ABOUT RUCKUS

We are growth leaders who recruit your game changers. Visit https://bringruckus.com and connect on LinkedIn. Subscribe and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Google Podcasts, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts!  

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