Preparing Your Team for Growth

B2B SAAS, SOFTWARE, TECH: PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR

GROWTHSamuel J. Woods

Your existing team and structure.

Your existing systems and processes for attraction, acquisition,

retention, and growth.

Your marketing and sales vision, and how your team is formed to

execute on that vision.

B2B SAAS, SOFTWARE, TECH: PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR GROWTH

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If you’re a B2B software/tech company, how do you go from traction to scale?That’s a big question, but the start of a solution comes down to:

Now, whether your team consists of 1 or 10, and anything in-between, before you start publishing lead magnets (whitepapers), populate your site with landing pages, and push PPC in classic omni-channel flair…

…You will waste a lot of resources, time, and team member talent if you haven’t structured your team for scale.

Models, frameworks, strategies, processes, and tactics are crucial – but they serve your vision for growth and team model.

THE RIGHT TEAM MODEL COMES FROM MINING YOUR EXISTING

PLATFORM FOR INSIGHTS

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You start noticing trends when you’re immersed within a specific market and solving a specific problem.

If a B2B software/tech company is in that growth phase stage, and they’re looking for scale, there are a few core concepts (the 80/20, if you will) that will make the biggest, exponential difference in terms of scale velocity and volume.

I’ve been helping companies with demand generation for the past couple of years now, by blending what’s working with inbound, outbound, and implementing marketing automation.


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Often, the first constraint to growth we need to deal with has to do with their existing team model as well as systems and processes for marketing and sales.

You don’t need a full, complete overhaul, but some tweaks are required and you often need to formalize processes at that point.

If your team and systems aren’t setup for scale, you won’t achieve scale, no matter how many “hacks” you try.

The first place to start is re-modeling your team – again, you only need to make tweaks when you’re in the traction stage and looking for growth. Your business should be flexible enough to withstand eliminating bad practices and implementing what will work.


THE TYPICAL MARKETING TEAM STRUCTURES YOU’LL COME

ACROSS

MARKETING STRATEGY

Account ServicesResearchAccount Planning

ADVERTISING

Account ServicesCreativeMediaProduction

PUBLIC RELATIONSAccount ServicesMedia RelationsProduction

DIRECT

Account ServicesDesignProgrammingCreative

DIGITAL

Account ServicesDesignProgrammingCreative

SUPPORT

FinancialOfficeITHuman Resources

THE TRADITIONAL TEAM MODEL

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PRESIDENT & CEO

FACTORS FOR IT TO BE SUCCESSFUL• Drop the politics.• Business and financial objectives

need to be complimentary.• Disciplined approach to process.

WHEN TO USE IT• When you have large and separate divisions.• Little need for cross-client sharing.

ISSUES THIS STRUCTURE ADDRESSES• Clear line of authority.• Defined career path and opportunities.• Focused on the best capabilities.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS CREATED BY THIS STRUCTURE• Agency and structure comes first,

and clients tend to end up second.• The division can create redundant

functions; drop in effectiveness.• An “impersonal” structure can stifle

innovation and ideas.

THE TRADITIONAL TEAM MODEL

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THE INTEGRATED TEAM MODEL

10

PRESIDENT & CEO

ACCOUNTSERVICES

Ad, Direct, PR, Digital

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Ad, Direct, Collateral, Digital

MEDIADIRECTOR

Research, Plan, Buying, Digital

RESEARCHDIRECTOR

Database, Research, Trend, Planners

COO

Operations, Studio, IT, Office, Human Resources

BRAND TEAM #1

BRAND LEADER

DISTRIBUTOR REP

DIRECT EXPERT

CLIENT REP

CONSUMER REP

MEDIA EXPERT

BRAND TEAM #2

BRAND LEADER

DISTRIBUTOR REP

DIRECT EXPERT

CLIENT REP

CONSUMER REP

MEDIA EXPERT

FACTORS FOR IT TO BE SUCCESSFUL• Requires talent to take advantage of integration• Deference to functions and departments;

one person is not above the team.• Generous compensation plans.

WHEN TO USE IT• Clients requires brand servicing.• You have large and complex accounts.• Unified voice is more important than execution.

ISSUES THIS STRUCTURE ADDRESSES• Remove divisional barriers amongst functions

and teams.• Enables more “intimate” client relationships.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS CREATED BY THIS STRUCTURE• Conflicting priorities and leadership.• You need to maintain high performance on output.• Maintaining an effective balance between

strategy and tactics.

THE INTEGRATED TEAM MODEL

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THE SPECIALIZED TEAM MODEL

12

PRESIDENT & CEO

BUSINESS TO BUSINESS

ACCOUNT SERVICES

CREATIVE

MEDIA

RESOURCES

Production, Studio, Buying, Digital, Direct, Promotion, PR

Office Services

HEALTHCARE

ACCOUNT SERVICES

CREATIVE

MEDIA

RESOURCES

FRANCHISE

ACCOUNT SERVICES

CREATIVE

MEDIA

RESOURCES

MEDIA SERVICES

Research, Digital

FACTORS FOR IT TO BE SUCCESSFUL• Maintaining focus on specialization.• Balancing the centralizing an de-centralizing

of functions.• Recognize and placement of talent.

WHEN TO USE IT• You serve complex markets and industries.• You actually have specialize talent readily available.

ISSUES THIS STRUCTURE ADDRESSES• Using only the resources needed.• Leadership priorities are clearly defined.• Consistency in work produced and approach.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS CREATED BY THIS STRUCTURE• Usually, you’ll need to develop proprietary

capabilities.• Heavy investment in talent and leadership.• Effectively utilizing shared resources and avoiding

monopolization.

THE SPECIALIZED TEAM MODEL

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THE DELIVERY TEAM MODEL

14

PRESIDENT & CEO

MARKETING STRATEGYCOACHES/EXPERTS

MEDIA ECD

DIRECT DIGITAL

PR PROMOTIONS

CLIENT GROUP #1 CLIENT GROUP #1 CLIENT GROUP #1 TEAM SERVICES

AGENCY SERVICESAccount ServicesProduction

CreativeMedical

FinancialTB

Digital, Database, Studio,Financial, HR, IT, Office

FACTORS FOR IT TO BE SUCCESSFUL• Aligning and matching work with capabilities.• Balancing your executional orientation with strategy.

WHEN TO USE IT• You have well-defined work and clients.• The “numbers” make sense, i.e. tight economics.• You need quick turnaround on high volume.

ISSUES THIS STRUCTURE ADDRESSES• Your client is placed in the center.• Allows for “Intrapreneurs” to flourish.• Priorities are in focus, and politics reduced.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS CREATED BY THIS STRUCTURE• Keeping specializations and career in focus.• Utilization of resources and cross-fertilization.

THE DELIVERY TEAM MODEL

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ACCOUNTSERVICES

CREATIVE MEDIA DIRECT INTERACTIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS

THE “VIRTUAL” TEAM MODEL

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PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM

PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM

FACTORS FOR IT TO BE SUCCESSFUL• Tools and environments will matter and compensate for

lack of other elements.• You need motivated, quality talent.• Your delivery mechanisms need to allow for flexibility.

WHEN TO USE IT• You have access to exceptional sub-contractors.• You’re using short sprints and high-effort, high-impact

workflows.

ISSUES THIS STRUCTURE ADDRESSES• The need for a fluid, energetic environment.• The need for spontaneity, autonomy, and flexibility.• Leadership is base on performance and merit.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS CREATED BY THIS STRUCTURE• Follow-through on execution can be a problem.• Resource availability might be strained

and cause conflict.• Agency economics need to be tightly managed.

THE “VIRTUAL” TEAM MODEL

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The objective is always to create a running operation within and with a marketing team that allows for experimentation, growth strategies to be implemented.

Often, you’ll need a revision, or at least a translation, of a company’s strategic vision into internal systems, processes, practices, people, and structures to be able to achieve the vision.

See? It always comes back to vision when you’re dealing with making adjustments and changes to how your marketing team pursues growth.

TYPICAL MARKETING TEAM STRUCTURES

PRIMING THE PUMPS FOR RE-MODELING YOUR MARKETING

TEAM

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The core takeaway: your growth marketing strategy, systems, and processes determine the team structure and function.

When you build a growth team, or re-work your current marketing, you’re changing the way you work.

Because of that, you’re in need of re-organizing.

Improving profitability, developing a new systems plan, streamlining productivity, moving into a team-based environment, and so on, will all be addressed.

You need to translate your strategic growth vision into a organizational structure, systems, processes, skills, and technology needed to actually move from vision to reality.

THE CORE TAKEAWAY

So, what should a growth team look like? You only form one when you’re at product/market fit and are ready to scale your growth.

If you’re a startup, you do not need a “growth team”. Maybe a “growth hacker”, but the focus there is marketing for traction, which is different than growth.

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You’re not going to win the “marketing lottery” with a campaign that generates hockey-stick growth.

You will probably never go “viral” or be a YouTube sensation.

The days of global vitality is largely over, as channels are becoming more fragmented and niche, while simultaneously disappearing.

For a B2C company, you don’t want to go viral anyway – you want bursts of growth that gives you momentum and vitality does not.

For a B2B company, your target market is not big enough – and that’s a good thing.


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But you can, actually, achieve “hockey-stick” growth.

However, that’s only possible if you lay the groundwork with specific strategies, models, and team structure.

If your models, strategies, processes, campaigns, and team aren’t built for growth, you won’t see it.

Marketing, an online marketing in particular, has changed dramatically in just the past 3 years, and it continues to morph and adjust.

You can actually apply a modified version of Moore’s Law to marketing.


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Requirements have shifted, from the focus of big national campaigns with award-winning creative (there’s still a time and place for that) towards blending creative, data and analytics focused, experimentation, and models and team structures that are agile, “lean”, but still impactful.

Your marketing should still deal with owned, earned, and paid media; sales and marketing alignment against pipeline and revenue; go-to marketing programs and partnerships, and so on.

But you absolutely need to make some adjustments to how you’ve used to do things.

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YOUR CONSTRAINT TO GROWTH BY MARKETING IS PROCESS,

NOT RESOURCES

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Every business faces constraints of different kinds, and most marketing teams and leaders tend to assume their major constraint is resources.

But actually, your constraint is process.

Let me explain.

You’ve likely seen and read all about “the lean startup” and being “agile”. It’s a great model for startups to find Product/Market Fit, which in itself is obviously crucial (without it, you have no business).

But can you copy the “lean” model into a process of agility for marketing teams?


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Smart people think you can, and have done so: enter the term “growth hacker”.

The process of “hacking” growth can also, in turn, be translated into a process for developing, deploying, and optimizing your marketing campaigns.

This process-focused way of working means you have to adjust your team structure.

And here is the biggest shift marketing leaders have to make in order for their marketing efforts to yield exponential ROI:

GROWTH HACKER

You have to fundamentally shift your focus, from resource-oriented to process-oriented. And in turn, you’ll build a stronger, agile, and effective team.

When you’re a team of one or a few, needing to go from 0 to Traction, your processes look one way.

When you’re a team of a few, wanting to go from Traction to Scale, your processes look different.

TRADITIONAL MARKETING TEAM RESOURCE TABLE

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DEMAND GENERATIONS

Pipeline Contribution TargetRevenue Contribution TargetField EventsDemand Gen Activities & Budget

Demand GenEvent Specialist

Regional EventsRegional NutureProgramRegional SEMManagement

PRODUCTMARKETING

Bill of MaterialsSales EnablementProduct DescriptionsPricingSales Training

Product MarketerProject ManagerBusiness Manager

P&L ManagementProduct LaunchesCustomer PollsLocalization

CONTENT &COMMUNICATIONS

Public RelationsEditorialContent Calendar

EditorPR ManagerCorporate Journalist

Buying Journey StagesDevelopmentContent DevelopmentOversight (regardless where it is produced)PR Outreach

MARKETINGOPERATIONS

ReportingAnalytics/DataTestingWebsite

M.A.P./SFDCAdministratorWeb DevelopersProject ManagementData Scientist

Sales & MarketingFunnel ManagementWeekly ReportingAd Hoc AnalysisWebsite Development

CREATIVE

BrandDesignBrand Writing

BrandDesignBrand Writing

Website Design/CopyEmail Design/CopyPhysical Collateral

OWNERSHIP

FUNCTIONS & ROLES

EXAMPLE TASKS

YOUR FOCUS ON GROWTH PROCESS NOW UNLOCKS POTENTIAL

YOU DIDN’T KNOW EXISTED

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A simple shift of focus can open up new resources or a new way of using resources that were previously hidden from you.

If the priority and goal of your marketing is growth, you need to align your resources with that.

To broad categories of Creative, Marketing Operations, Content & Communication, Product Marketing, and Demand Generation can remain as categories, but if you’re trying to achieve Traction or go from Traction to Scale, your campaigns only job is to make that happen.

So, for either a B2B or B2C company, you should prioritize Demand Generation.


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Now, other types of companies can pick this up too, but talking more specifically about B2B SaaS and software companies, funneling sales opportunities to your inside sales team is the prime concern.

If you’re a Startup looking for Traction, or a business looking for Growth, this absolutely applies to you.

You blend inbound and outbound to develop campaigns that attracts, captures, nurtures, and feed MQLs to your inside sales team.


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The model just about everyone has adopted so far is the “Predictable Revenue” strategy, by Aaron Ross.

But that’s from 2004, and B2B lead generation has moved on and changed.

Still, it’s a valuable and useful place to start, and I’d tell anyone to start there.

However, if the focus is on growth and process, you still need agility in execution and team.

Why?

Because if cold emailing prospects with an aggressive cadence worked 6 months ago (and it did), it doesn’t work quite the same now (it doesn’t).

The capabilities to change, modify, adjust, tweak, and generate new campaigns and ideas is imperative for your demand generation to ever show results.

You need to develop a process that helps your team develop and deploy growth campaigns, retain their knowledge for future posterity, and the capabilities to quickly make changes.

Now, let’s look at your marketing team.


WHEN & HOW TO START ADJUSTING YOUR TEAM FOR

GROWTH MARKETING SUCCESS

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One big question a lot of VP’s of Marketing, Sales, Directors, CMO’s, and so on, asks me is this:

“Should I have a dedicated growth team or make a change to my whole marketing team structure?”

The only true answer is: it depends.

Also, if it makes sense to you, you can think of it this way, too:

If you’re in the “Zero (or seed funding) but need Traction” phase, you need a dedicated team.

If you’re in the “Traction but want to Scale” phase, you usually need a dedicated team but depending on revenue and/or funding, you could set aside a dedicated “growth special team”.

If you’re in the “Relatively Established but want to 10x our Growth” phase, then you need a dedicated growth team-within-your-team.10X


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One big question a lot of VP’s of Marketing, Sales, Directors, CMO’s, and so on, asks me is this:

“Should I have a dedicated growth team or make a change to my whole marketing team structure?”

The only true answer is: it depends.

Also, if it makes sense to you, you can think of it this way, too:

If your marketing team is less than 5 people, you make a change to the whole team. You need to treat your team as a dedicated growth team.

If your marketing team is more than 5 people, you start with a small dedicated growth team. You’re then free to keep it a special team, or roll out changes to the rest of the team later.

Your mileage will vary, but this is a great place to start – it’s always best to move ahead and modulate direction as you go.

< 5

> 5


HOW YOU CAN MAKE ADJUSTMENTS WITH YOUR TEAM

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My work as a Growth Marketing Coach or Consultant involves looking at existing systems, teams, and structures and finding potential for empowering executing on growth campaigns.

The teams I’ve worked with so far are brilliant and experts at what they do. It’s a privilege to meet and work alongside such talented people and teams.

Next, you’ll find a brief discussion on a few, select marketing team structures that lend themselves to adopting a “growth mindset”.

Normally, I mostly work with clients who are looking for Traction or Growth (tend to be startups and companies in the 6-figure range who want to scale), and these examples are of large marketing organizations – but it still applies to you and your company.

How?

You need to understand where Growth Marketing fits in, and how to structure your systems, processes, and team around a growth process and mindset.

You might be a team of 1 or a handful of people, but the roles and capabilities for growth are largely the same.


THE ELASTIC ORG

CMO

Product Marketing Managers (1 Per Product)

GROWTH MARKETING TEAM, EXAMPLE #1

First out is Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, from when he was CMO of Mindjet (but now with Mozilla):

VP, PRODUCT MARKETING

VP, MARKETING & OPS

CONTENT & COMMUNICATIONS

MANAGERCREATIVE SERVICES

DIRECTOR VP, FIELD MKTG

Marketing Manager

Channel Marketing

Customer Marketing

Customer Retention& Nuture Flow

Central Marketing Delivery Manager

Channel Marketing

Marketing Manager, SE

UK & NEMEA Marketing Manager

Copywriter & Editorial Director

Design & VideoWebsite Product Manager

Web Developer

Data Scientist

Manager, Marketing Intelligence

Analyst, Marketing Intelligence

THE ELASTIC ORG

CMO

Product Marketing Managers (1 Per Product)


First out is Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, from when he was CMO of Mindjet (but now with Mozilla):

VP, PRODUCT MARKETING

VP, MARKETING & OPS

CONTENT & COMMUNICATIONS

MANAGERCREATIVE SERVICES

DIRECTOR VP, FIELD MKTG

Marketing Manager

Channel Marketing

Customer Marketing

Customer Retention& Nuture Flow

Central Marketing Delivery Manager

Channel Marketing

Marketing Manager, SE

UK & NEMEA Marketing Manager

Copywriter & Editorial Director

Design & VideoWebsite Product Manager

Web Developer

Data Scientist

Manager, Marketing Intelligence

Analyst, Marketing Intelligence

A Growth Marketing approach will need to deploy processes between Product Mktg, Ops, Creative, and Field Mktg - Collaboration between members and deploying specific growth experiments is key

As marketing continues to evolve, this organizational structure will adapt to whatever needs come about. Coupled with the adoption of new business processes like Agile Marketing, I believe functional depth expertise, coupled with cross-functional management of the work your team is focused on, will keep a steady stream of ideas flowing, more analytical decisions about which of those ideas to implement, and ultimately create predictability in the outcome of you and your team’s efforts.

“Jascha Kaykas-Wolff

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WHERE DOES A “GROWTH TEAM” AND “GROWTH PROCESS” FIT IN?

The strength of this team is the ability to adapt, evolve, and stay agile. In general, collaboration between the specific members I’ve noted above will be instrumental in pursuing growth.

If one was to set aside a dedicated Growth Team with a structure like this, it would involve the Product Marketing Managers (PMM) being team lead, while a small core of 4 members (creative, channel, analytics/data, and developer) could be given the challenge, resources, and budget to pursue experiments.

Of course, it’s never about throwing stuff against a wall to see what sticks – any experiments are rooted in a scientific approach and staying on brand.

THE INBOUND ORG

CMO

Inbound Marketing Manager


This org structure comes courtesy of HubSpot and Mike Volpe (CMO):

VP, DEMAND-GEN VP, PRODUCT MARKETING VP, BRAND & BUZZ VP, CONTENT

Blogging

Educational Resources & Offers

Creative Director PRProduct Marketing Managers - Product

Launches

Web Development

Product Marketing Managers - Sales

Enablement

Channel-Specific Marketing

Inbound Marketing Manager (Persona-Specific)

International Marketing

Customer Marketing

Marketing Ops

Growth Hacker

Events

Design &Multimedia

Influencer Relations

(Social, email, paid, etc.)

THE INBOUND ORG

CMO

Inbound Marketing Manager


This org structure comes courtesy of HubSpot and Mike Volpe (CMO):

VP, DEMAND-GEN VP, PRODUCT MARKETING VP, BRAND & BUZZ VP, CONTENT

Blogging

Educational Resources & Offers

Creative Director PRProduct Marketing Managers - Product

Launches

Web Development

Product Marketing Managers - Sales

Enablement

Channel-Specific Marketing

(Social, email, paid, etc.)

Inbound Marketing Manager (Persona-Specific)

International Marketing

Customer Marketing

Marketing Ops

Growth Hacker

Events

Design &Multimedia

Influencer Relations

A Growth Marketing Team for an inbound-focused org will require a “growth hacker” or similar role to pursue outbound strategies. This will help with speed, analytics, and iteration of campaigns. The VP of Demand Gen heads up a dedicated growth team and integrates a strong outbound element.

“I threw my old org chart in the trash when I joined HubSpot and started from the beginning. We built our entire company for the inbound era, from marketing to sales to service, because the buyer has all the power today and you need to realign your company for that. I think our org chart is the future of the marketing org because of that – we focus on an inbound experience that the buyer drives, with us providing value along each stage.

Mike Volpe

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The challenge for an inbound-centric marketing team is figuring out where, and how, to implement specific outbound growth strategies. Mike Volpe has formed a team that focuses on the inbound experience and it’s working – they recently hit 15,000 HubSpot partners.

Because they’ve already built up such a momentum and existing deal-flow, pursuing growth with a dedicated team would be to expand market share by seeking dominance in various channels.

Also, if you have a dedicated Growth Team, HubSpot could utilize those capabilities for growing new products, like Sidekick. Testing for go-to-market strategies could be a good goal to pursue.

HubSpot also finds itself well beyond the intitial Startup and Traction phase, and is in the Established phase. Where a Growth Team can fit in, more specifically, depends on what their goals are for the next stage of their company.

THE FUNNEL FOCUSED ORG

CHIEF MARKETING & STRATEGY OFFICER


This next example of from Forrester Research and their CMO, Jeff Ernst:

PR/CORP COMM VP, MARKETING PRODUCT MARKETING CREATIVE

NA Field Marketing

EMEA Field Marketing

APAC Field Marketing

Database Marketing

Account-based (Customer) Marketing

Digital Marketing

TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3

+

THE FUNNEL FOCUSED ORG

CHIEF MARKETING & STRATEGY OFFICER


This next example of from Forrester Research and their CMO, Jeff Ernst:

PR/CORP COMM VP, MARKETING PRODUCT MARKETING CREATIVE

NA Field Marketing

EMEA Field Marketing

APAC Field Marketing

Database Marketing

Account-based (Customer) Marketing

Digital Marketing

TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3

+

A Growth Marketing Team can be quickly and easily configured because the base funnel-focus lends itself to growth marketing. The whole team can participate and bring in other resources as needed. Implementing a team-wide culture of growth could work well.

“I try to rationalize this structure by saying that team 1 is above the funnel, team 2 is top and middle of the funnel, and team 3 creates materials for the bottom of the funnel and acts as a service bureau to the rest.

Jeff Ernst

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Because of the funnel-focus already existing, you don’t necessarily need a dedicated team. Making room for growth experiments, and having the teams collaborate, could unlock potential in the organization that might otherwise be under-utilized.

Team lead would be the VP of Marketing, and not every team member need to be involved on all experiments, and because of that, it’s important to track, measure, and collect knowledge that everyone has access to. It would probably be a good idea to have review meetings where everyone discusses growth campaigns and their results.

For an organization like this, infusing a “growth mindset” across all teams would yield more than setting aside a dedicated team.

WHAT DOES YOUR MARKETING TEAM LOOK LIKE & WHAT’S NEXT

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Of course, these structures are for companies that have mostly gone past the Growth phase, and are fairly established.

But if you’re a Startup, or company in the Traction or Growth phase, you have an advantage if you switch towards a growth-centric model for your processes, campaigns, and team now.

In fact, I would argue that you stand little-to-no chance of sustainable growth unless you do.

Your team might consist of 1, or a handful of people. But models and frameworks like these can yield disproportionate and exponential results for your growth.


Date post:	15-Apr-2017
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