Jason M. Lemkin argues that marketing succeeds when CEOs and marketers are aligned on strategy and execution. He warns that many marketers fail by trying to run a playbook the CEO doesn't believe in and recommends a practical hiring step—a collaborative working session after the offer letter—to ensure alignment and avoid later conflict.
And then a lot of CEOs that are good at marketing want to be very involved in marketing strategy, right? And I find so many, so many sales folks fail because there's disalignment on what to do in the beginning, even though they're great. And so many marketers fail because they want to execute a marketing playbook that the CEO doesn't believe in. The CEOs. No. Look, I know you, I know you worked at wherever Slack, but that's not the way it works here. This is working and I just want more of it. And then I see these, the heads of marketing just flame out in new roles because they want to do their playbook, but not what the CEO wants. So they don't do this working session either, right? And so in today's world, there's so many more veterans today, right? There's SaaS. Companies are. They go through phase transitions and folks leave and they move on. Or the directors want VP gigs or the right VP at 5 million is not the right one at 50 million. And there's so many great folks you can meet. But do this last step after the offer letter so the candidate does not feel like they have to oversell you, right? Do it. And magic comes of it. That's brilliant.
