How I went from CMO to CRO
Do CMOs make good CROs and should you make that leap?
I went from CMO to CRO just under a year ago and people seem to be curious as to how to make that leap, why make it, does/can it work, and what are the pros and cons.
There aren’t that many of us who have made that leap and there are a bunch of folks (SaaS influencers, CEOs, VCs) who think it can’t work, but I’m proof that it can.
The path for me was not one I got up in the morning and said “I want to be CRO someday.” It was never on my radar. But, I’m a helper and when the business needed my help, I felt the need to step up and wear the hat because I love a fun challenge. Now that I’ve done it, and was successful at it (58-72% increase quarter over quarter growth), plus we were acquired and I’d like to think that had something to do with it, I want to share my experience in case it is something you might be interested in.
Here are my observations and advice if you are thinking about this career path.
Challenges with not having a sales or demand gen or ops background. If you don’t have a sales background then you will experience challenges with the incumbent sales team. You’ll need to prove yourself to them that you know what it’s like to be in the trenches with them. It took me one quarter-end and one year-end close to prove I knew what I was doing and to be trusted and respected by the sales team. If you come from an OPS background or Demand Gen background, you have an easier path than if you are a brand marketer or product marketer, imho.
The benefits. Of course having a holistic view and joint KPIs, having everyone work toward the same revenue goal are hugely beneficial. However, if marketing is doing well and sales isn’t, then you fail together. If sales and marketing are doing great, then you win together. It’s all one big team.
Tip 🎩: one thing I did out of the gate was combine the teams, rename us to the Revenue team so that we were all talking together about the problems we were trying to solve. Plus, it’s important the company view you as one team, one dream, and see the KPIs are aligned and under one team.
Data Analysis. You need to be able to forecast accurately. To do that you need to understand not only your customers, but how the deal cycles work for each segment at your organization.
Tip 🎩: you can always take a course for this. This is a learnable skill. Fortunately, I had 15 years of OPs and data analysis experience, but if I didn’t, I would have maybe signed up for Winning by Design’s Revenue Architecture course or have read Brandi Starr at Tegrita’s book “CMO to CRO, the revenue takeover by the next generation executive” or maybe do both.
Know your allies. If you weren’t already besties with Finance in your marketing role, you’ll soon become BFFs because you’ll be working closely on comp plans and reverse funnels. You now own and are holding the whole bag.
Marketing needs strong leaders. You should only make this move if you have strong marketing leaders you can depend on while you dive into the Sales side of things. I was fortunate enough to have 2 (one on the brand & content side, and one on the DG side). But if I hadn’t had this, I probably would not have been as successful having never run sales before.
Tip 🎩: ask yourself why you want this role and are you set up for success if you take it? I took it on because we were in between sales leaders and it was offered to me and it seemed like a fun challenge I could do in a safe environment. I trusted my CEO to let me fail and he believed in me enough to win. If you don’t have the support, like any other role, it’ll be tough.
Not every CMO needs to become a CRO and not every CMO would make a good CRO. That said, CROs should only run marketing if they have a marketing background. When a CRO who only has a sales pedigree is put in charge of marketing, it never works. Why? Because Sales people don’t know how to manage Brand marketers, they think it’s just pretty pictures and swag. They also have a grave misunderstanding of what’s entailed in Demand Gen and Account Based Marketing. They do, however, rightfully understand product marketing, messaging, competition, and enablement. But a CMO understands all of this, has a pulse on the market and the industry (not just benchmarks), and talks to not just prospects, but other people in the industry to learn. Sales people only talk to prospects.