Jason M. Lemkin (YouTube, Aug 16, 2023) argues that founders must ensure marketing truly delivers pipeline to sales. He emphasizes the need for a real VP of Demand Generation (or equivalent) who produces leads/opportunities, warns against mismatched marketing hires (e.g., growth hackers) relative to company ACV, and frames honesty about marketing capability as a strategic imperative for supporting sales.
One super strategic. And then we'll have one last tactical point, the super strategic point, and I see so many founders not doing this enough, is if you want to help the sales team, you've got to be honest. Do you have a real VP of Demand gen? Does your head of marketing, whoever she or he is, whatever level, whatever the title, are they really delivering pipeline, leads, opportunities, whatever the right metric is for your company, or whatever you are, they really delivering it to sales? And sounds silly, but it's not. They know corporate marketing, they know brand marketing, they know product marketing, they know other types of what we call marketing. But they don't know how to get you leads, not really. They'll hire a growth hacker when their ACV is 100,000, right? Or they'll, they'll, or they'll do the opposite.
