How to Buck the Trend of Short-Lived CMOs

The Get: Finding And Keeping The Best Marketing Leaders in B2B SaaS

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel talks with Monica Ho, CMO of SOCi, the leading AI-powered marketing platform for multi-location businesses. Monica reflects on her CMO journey as revenue has grown from ~$10MM to ~$100MM. She gets real about how she has built her adaptation muscles and her boardroom voice, and she shares how AI and efficiency have reshaped her org chart and choices.

Monica and Erica discuss:

• How "earning and re-earning" your seat at the table is imperative as the business evolves
• Rethinking the organization at every stage of growth, and pivoting towards "more strategists than doers"
• "Forcing" AI adoption by taking away tools that the team previously relied on
• The importance of reverse mentoring – interns and junior employees can bring in creativity and have better results, "because they are having more fun."
• Fueling experimentation, not just with tests and tech, but by collaborating in different ways
• Bringing specificity to the hiring process by asking a candidate for their current boss's name and that boss's perception of the candidate
• Making yourself uncomfortable in Board meetings by sharing "the bad stuff -- that way, you're not in defensive mode but rather in collaborative problem-solving mode

Notable quotes:

• "If I'm not in a changing environment, I produce that myself."
• "A successful life has to be earned and re-earned over and over again. Just because you're successful at something doesn't mean you're going to keep being successful….  I liken that to the CMO role. 'I had a great year. We crushed our goals.' Guess what? No one cares anymore. What am I doing next year? What am I doing this next quarter? And that earned and re-earned concept is just really instilled in me."
• "I have learned that you earn your seat at the table, yes, but then you have to make sure you have a voice, and you've got to keep earning that seat at the table. If I'm not coming with really good insight or an opinion or what we need next, I'm going to lose that seat."
• "So if I went back to my pre-CMO self, it would be to get out of my head, find my voice. One of the things I remember so clearly was it was a room full of very big personalities, and I'm also a big personality, but I'm a little bit more thoughtful. I like to listen before I speak. There was no time for me to speak. There wasn't a pause, and what I learned is that I had to interrupt people. That's not natural for me, but in order to get my thoughts out, that was just an uncomfortable place I had to put myself in, and I got a lot more comfortable with it as I held that board or held that seat."

00:00 Introduction to The Get

00:32 Meet Monica Ho, CMO of SOCI

01:13 Monica's Journey and Leadership Insights

14:49 The Impact of AI on Marketing

23:41 Hiring and Career Advice

30:05 Concluding Thoughts and Industry Changes

The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing. We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

This season’s theme is how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.

If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety, rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at [email protected]. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.

The Get is produced by the team at Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy