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Secrets from a CMO - Andrea Kayal
Jason Lalk
October 10, 2023
Read Time: 2 mins, 33 secs
Secrets from a CMO - Andrea Kayal
Andrea Kayal is the Chief Revenue Officer at Help Scout (~200 employees) and the Dean of Pavilion’s CMO School.
Before that, she held CMO roles at several growth stage startups that were backed by tier 1 investors — Greylock, Index Ventures, Primary, Bessemer, GGV, First Round…the list is ridiculous.
She has incredible experience building world class marketing teams.
FAVORITE TAKEAWAYS
Here are 2 of my favorite pieces of the conversation:
How to Prepare for a Board Meeting
How to Pick Your Next Company
Keep scrolling to see the full details on takeaway.
How to Prepare for a Board Meeting
Every board meeting, Andrea prepares 2 main items: Metrics and Discussion Topics from the CEO’s narrative.
Metrics
You need to know your numbers. Point blank.
You’re going to have 10 minutes to walk through your numbers and insights (remember, the entire board is there).
For marketing leaders, make sure that you’re cozy with Rev Ops. You’re going to need their help with:
Data collection. Data capture. Data formatting.
Build a monthly cadence for these things with Rev Ops. This will be your foundation. From there, just focus on the insights.
Discussion Topics from the CEO’s Narrative
For every board meeting, the CEO has a narrative they’ve put together. You’ll know this narrative beforehand.
Your biggest responsibility is to create intelligent conversation around these topics and get your board’s perspective.
Most recently, for Andrea and the Help Scout team, they focused on two topics:
How AI is impacting their business
If 15% is a reasonable growth target
The most important part of these topics? Being intellectually honest with yourself and the board.
“Make sure you can use your board members’ time as wisely as possible.”
How to Evaluate Your Next Company
Your career is like an open ocean. There are boats for any direction. Some companies are yachts and others are paddle boats.
The most important factor for you? Picking the right boats.
Andrea has picked several winning companies throughout her career. How does she do it?
She uses a rigorous checklist to make sure she is set up for success. Below are some of my favorites (you can steal her full list here):
Is the CEO a jerk? — only work for kind people
Gross Retention Rate (GRR) — target above 90% for enterprise and 80% for SMB (be careful of Net Dollar Retention)**
Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) — too many companies tout TAM, but that’s pointless. Instead, focus on the limitations the product has that prevent the company from serving the actual TAM.
That’s a more realistic way to view your addressable market.
**Why GRR instead of NDR?
SaaS companies can successfully upsell clients even if there are product issues, especially in different pricing tiers.
If you remove upsells from the equation, it gives you a better read on how happy your customers are with your product.
🎙️Full Podcast Episode w/Andrea Kayal
📚 Previous Editions
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