Hiring Your First VP of Marketing

You have a great company, a product or service that sells well enough to have driven your growth so far, and a good team of A players in finance, operations, and sales.  Now you are thinking that your next critical hire is an A player in marketing.  So far the marketing function has been handled by some combination of you (president/CEO) and the VP of Sales, and has consisted of writing a blog, speaking and exhibiting at industry events, and networking.  Most sales still come from referrals and personal relationships and you want to make the selling process more systematic.  While this seems like just another one of those crossroads you have encountered many times -- I propose that it is quite different.

Bringing in professionals to run your company almost always means importing talent from larger companies so that they can help you pull the company up to the next level.  This is certainly true in finance and operations.  You want people that have been there and know what to build.  It can sometimes be true in sales, but in sales you are mostly looking for domain expertise that may not always be found in a larger company.  When it comes to marketing however, a senior person from a larger company may not work out.  And to raise the stakes a bit more, you will probably not know if it works out for a year or two.  That is a long time to be paying the big bucks without being able to measure the results.

Here are a few things that can go wrong:

Sales VS Marketing:  In the case outlined above, sales and marketing have gotten along great -- because marketing has been part of sales and hey, salespeople love themselves!  Your A player in sales will support the hire in pursuit of more leads, but the chances are pretty good that the departments will get out of alignment pretty quickly.

Long Lead Times:  Marketing takes consistent and repeated investment before it will pay off.  Some of the activities involved in the investment are just plain hard work including cataloging your products and services, inventorying existing marketing assets, mapping the competitive landscape, and developing your marketing voice.  A new senior leader may want to recruit people to do this work instead of grinding it out themselves.  This is often leads to disagreements on the budget and timeline to results.  

Turning the Dials:  Everyone wants to be on the cool new project and everyone wants to have a hand on the tiller, be in the driver's seat, or whatever your favorite metaphor is for being in charge.  A new marketing person may be one too many drivers for your bus.

An Alternative Approach

Build the Marketing Muscle First:  Use the resources at your disposal to do the heavy lifting of inventory, standardization, and categorization first.  These activities take time and effort but do not require a VP of Marketing.  

Develop The Strategy You Want:  Armed with the main bricks for your marketing foundation and some momentum separating the marketing function from the sales function, work with your existing team to develop a high level strategic marketing plan.

Recruit with the Roadmap in Place:  Now that you have your high level roadmap in place, you are more likely to find a marketing leader that fits with your priorities, expectations and budget.