SaaStr is my favorite conference and I’ll be speaking there again this year on Monday, Sept 27th at 1:00 PM Pacific with a session titled A CEO’s Guide to Marketing. I will be doing the speech live, I’m not sure if they’re live broadcasting or not, but they will certainly record it and make it available as they have done in years past.
I chose this session title because I find that in my work with founders and C-level startup executives that people are, well, just not entirely comfortable with marketing. I spend an increasing amount of time explaining the basics of marketing to founders and startup execs, because most of them don’t come from marketing backgrounds and too many marketing leaders either deliberately hide behind marketing complexity or are just plain not good at explaining marketing.
Either way the result is the same, and e-teams often hearken back to the old WC Fields quote when thinking about their marketing:
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.”
In this fast-paced session, I’ll:
- Explain how product founders are often surprised to find themselves running distribution business.
- Tell you the scariest thing a CEO can and does hear in every quarterly business review (QBR)
- Discuss the reasons why marketing is confusing and misunderstood
- Present the 5 things every CEO and startup exec should know about marketing
- Provide concrete actions I think companies should consider taking
- Include “pro tips” on managing funnels and thinking about models
- Share my “magic secret” of marketing messaging
- Discuss CMO hiring and pillar profiles
- Provide 3 pages of links to resources and 5 recommended marketing books in the appendix
I look forward to seeing you there! Here’s the session link.
For a taste of my presentation style and/or to dive into my previous content, here are links to my prior SaaStr presentations:
- 2020: Churn is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention
- 2019: The Five Questions Startup CEOs Worry About
- 2018: Ten Non-Obvious Things About Scaling SaaS
