Signs that your next Head of Marketing candidate won’t work out
I’ve talked to a number of frustrated founders over their latest big shot hire. Things were going swimmingly… until they weren’t. What’s going wrong?
1 min read
Here are some signs that your next Head of Marketing candidate won’t work out:
1) Is worried about a title
2) Has no startup experience
3) Is great at storytelling but loosey-goosey on what they actually contributed in their last position
4) Talks about top of funnel a lot
5) Thinks your biggest problem is lack of brand awareness
6) Is not concerned with the P&L
Founders are creators. They usually are not good operators. At least, it’s rare. What has made your business successful thus far has to do with the early connections and buzz you’ve created. You’ve managed to break through – and that’s amazing. Now that you’re growing it’s time to hire help.
Hire for the skills and experience you lack, and don’t abdicate your entrepreneurialism.
Why would I say that?
Because many experienced folks that are good operators are not comfortable with nimbleness and concentrated founder power. This makes them not good in startups. They are used to working in large teams with a lot of support which means that even if they are willing to roll up their sleeves they don’t know how.
Secondly, especially if they came from Big Food, they don’t know how to adapt classical marketing methodologies to a startup (see last post). If you don’t talk about it in the interview, it’ll manifest on the tactical and take you by surprise.
One example of how this happens is with strategic planning. You’ll be aligned on strategic goals but when it comes to how to achieve them, things falls apart.
For instance: Strategic Goal = increase D2C revenues by X
You were thinking paid ads leveraging users and track a conversion metric, but they want to do a display campaign with impressions as the KPI. This is a classic brand awareness move and it’ll be a waste if it’s not done with a huge budget and over a sustained time period.
Don’t learn the hard way that someone isn’t going to work out. Share your strategic plan in the interview and ask what their first 100 days looks like. Double check the list of watch-outs at the top of this post.