Diary of a first-time CMO - A proud CMO moment
Hey B2B marketers
Here it is. Four years, $50m+ ARR and 200 pages later… My journey as a first-time CMO.
Covering the key learnings I've gathered in four years of leadership. This diary reveals the lessons that helped me scale Cognism from $3m to $50m ARR, build a team from 3 to 39, and transform our set-up from a classic lead gen function to a demand gen engine.
It’s my handbook for B2B marketers looking to thrive in leadership.
(especially if you’re as daunted as I was when I started out!)
A proud CMO moment
This was definitely a highlight of 2021 for me.
It was a real ‘stop and look how far you have come’ moment.
And this wasn’t anything to do with my talk at the B2B Expo, it was seeing all of my amazing team in action - sharing all of their learnings in front of 100s of fellow marketers.
I promise, I’m not just saying this because I’m biased - but they all stood out. They were delivering truly inspiring, actionable content, setting the standard for B2B marketing in the UK.
We were addressing marketing tactics and execution that most people had not been able to start doing yet which was huge!
All the strategy, planning and execution in the world won’t get you very far as a team of one.
You have to build a team that will take the foundations and run with them.
I’ve found much more success hiring people who might be a little less experienced with marketing, but fundamentally understand the shift we are making in our demand gen first philosophy. We can teach them the execution skills much more easily than the mindset.
A CMO’s superpower has to be hiring. It’s so critical.
So this was a great time for me to take stock of my incredible team of demand first marketers.
I watched in awe at how easily they took on the challenge of speaking at this event and sharing all of their knowledge and insights.
