Danilo Vuk Capric’s Post

I don't have any hard data or cool charts to share, but I can tell you (anecdotally) that things in tech are improving, even since just Q1 / spring. And no this is not a sponsored post by the NASDAQ Here is what I'm experiencing: 1) Sentiment for training. There is a strong interest amongst revenue execs to invest in their peeps. It's almost night and day how much more "bought in" leaders are right now, than in previous quarters / years. Investment in people = growing (and stabilized) companies. 2) Funding rounds. You've likely seen more updates in your feed about companies who have raised lately. Me too. Plus based on updates I read from places like Carta and Pitchbook, the overall funding environment seems to be trending in the right direction. 3) Hiring for execs. I'm getting made aware, basically weekly at this point, about CRO / VP sales / Head of RevOps roles. This is good news. Yes, some are to replace the incumbent leader. But this is a stark contrast to how things had been, when companies just were not hiring leaders, period. 4) Smiles. We've done many IRL events the last 3-4 months. People are simply happier. In better moods. When I ask how biz is going, they're more positive and energetic. (Booze helps) 5) Investments. Companies are buying new tools and services within enablement, at a much faster clip than I can remember in recent history. Seems every call I'm on lately, they're telling me about how they either just bought this or that tool, or are actively looking to implement 1, 2 3 things. Again, this is all anecdotal. And you might read this and have a very different feeling based on your business or place in the ecosystem. But personally, I'm seeing lots of positive stuff right now. And it's exciting! PS - if #1 above resonates with you, DM me. Sales Assembly can help :)

The truth is that companies can succeed with or without a GTM operations structure. That’s because GTM ops is an org design strategy - a deliberate choice of team arrangement. To understand this, take basketball for example: 2 popular defense strategies in basketball are 1 to 1 (often called man-to-man) and zone defense. 1 to 1 assigns a defender to each member of the opposing team, and zone defense assigns a defender to specific areas of the court. Two DIFFERENT strategies - that would unlikely be applied in every single situation. GTM operations is a strategic choice to combine ops teams (marketing, sales, CS, finance etc) into one team. Here are some pros and cons of GTM operations as a strategy: ADVANTAGES - Natural alignment on top business priorities - Less conflict between ops teams from different departments - More visibility and transparency across data and work streams - Enables quicker decision-making - less hoops to jump through - More holistic view of customer journey More objectivity in priority-setting DISADVANTAGES - Few leaders have the skill set to effectively run a team of this varied scope - Without nuanced prioritization, low-hanging fruit and smaller requests may go unfulfilled - This can create a very technology-focused team and culture that can lead to disconnect from business stakeholders - Brand, community, and experience can be deprioritized since it is difficult to connect these initiatives to revenue - Overtime, unified team can produce bottlenecks Overall - consider all of these efforts when planning the best team structure for your organization. What do you think? #marketing #martech #marketingoperations PS: Two things for you 1 - Join our marketing ops career success at our virtual breakout event, link in the comments. 2- Subscribe to the marketing ops leader newsletter for more guidance like this: https://lnkd.in/g_3YC7BZ

Hiring the right talent is the most important job you have as a CEO. At AdTribe, we use a three-step decision framework to make sure we’re bringing on the best of the best. 1/ Am I learning more from them than they are from me? If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re the bottleneck. Hire people who are better at their job than you are. If you’re still deep in fulfilment, telling people how to do their job, you don’t have a business. 2/ Do they speak in metrics? Top performers know their numbers and the impact they’ve made. Example: “As Head of Ops, I reduced client churn by 25% at my last agency by doing X, Y, Z...” If they can’t explain how they moved the needle at their last company, keep looking. 3/ Do they raise the bar for the team? Ask yourself, “Is this person better than our best team member?” If not, pass. If you hire people below the team average, you’ll eventually dilute your company’s talent pool. Always aim to hire people who push the team to level up. Does this mean you have to keep hiring better and better people? Damn straight. That’s the whole game of business. P.S. As David Ogilvy said, “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

As Marketing/Revenue Operations people, we often feel misunderstood. And because leadership often doesn't fully grasp the challenges, the teams are always under-resourced. The go for many in this dilemma is to: • Try to explain how hard and technical the job is • Explain how under-resourced the team is I have tried this approach many times. And honestly, I don't think it works that well. Because leadership is hearing this from every team. For scale-up B2B SaaS companies, it's likely every team needs more headcount, every team is stressed, and every team has a lot of complexity to manage. So instead of explaining our challenges we need to flip the script and explain our value. The engineering team = building the product you're selling to customers. Marketing/Revenue Ops team = building the go-to-market "product" that you will use to market and sell your product. To make money you need: a product + a repeatable system to market and sell your product. We are a critical part of how a company drives revenue and grows. And we need to explain that better and tie our work to revenue. Execs will notice an ROI narrative a lot sooner than an under-resourced narrative. PS: We're working hard at getting better at this at CS2 as well. Will post lessons learned as we go. #marketingoperations #revenueoperations #gtmoperations  

Marketers everywhere are shooting themselves in the foot left & right. It also slows the heck out of career advancement.   We're all determined to improve metrics like rev, CAC, and ROAS.   But this is shortsighted.   It's not that these metrics don't matter.   They're just not enough to get you seat at the Exec Team table.   You have to think bigger.   The North Star of any growth function--whether Sales, Marketing, or Product--should be this:   **Maximize the enterprise value of the company.**   The sooner you build a plan around this vs. a few KPIs, the sooner you win the respect of the big-time decision makers.

To truly disrupt the market CEOs and Founders must acknowledge one key thing: Customer intimacy You may be armed with tech, teams, and vision, But you can still hit a high, invisible wall The key isn't just innovative ideas—it's understanding the people they serve 🙌 Enter strategic advisors: industry experts who are deeply connected to your target market 🤝 They bridge the gap to customers' needs, desires, and insights Founders often ignore market whispers, missing the chance to truly connect with the most important part of their business Their customers True disruption starts with understanding the rhythms and pains of the market 💥 And strategic advisors are the (not so) secret sauce that will help you to build meaningful connections beyond products or services What is your experience of hiring a strategic advisor? #strategicadvisor #gotomarket

It’s true that marketing has evolved more rapidly over the last three decades than any other discipline which makes hiring a great CMO even more challenging. And while I agree that all great CMOs share the four attributes discussed in this article - a passionate people analyst, a creative problem solver, a prioritization machine and a lifelong learner - what really matters when hiring a great CMO is alignment. There’s much research on the decreasing tenure of CMOs and the dramatic increase in external hires. But when you net it all out, the single biggest driver is the lack of alignment between the CEO and CMO on objectives and success metrics. Marketing for the mostpart is a long game but that does not preclude short term gains. Finding the right balance is both an art and a science and requires clarity on what the business needs most. It’s a partnership that requires continuous dialogue, transparency and agility about priorities. #CEO #CMO #strategy #alignment #business #partnership

🚀 Case Study: Navigating Growth with Smart Team Moves! 🔍 The Challenge: A company itching to scale up but feeling stuck in the "who to hire" dilemma. They weren't sure whether to go for a jack-of-all-trades admin assistant or a specialist. Plus, the CEO? Drowning in day-to-day tasks! 💡 The Real Issue: They needed a roadmap to illustrate how to free up the CEO's time. ✅ The Solution: We analyzed ops, goals, and team needs. Then came the light bulb moment, tailored restructuring plans! We polished sales targets, crafted hiring frameworks, and clarified roles and responsibilities for the whole team. 📈 Results: We revamped the team structure and streamlined workflows within three months. And the CEO? Finally breathing easy, focusing on big-picture stuff! Ready to chart your growth journey? Let's chat! #OperationalExcellence #CEO #SuccessStory 

Let’s talk about the other F word that’s often overused, but holds incredible value—fractional. I've seen firsthand the transformative power of fractional roles. As a Fractional CMO, I partner with companies of all sizes in tech, media, and entertainment to grow their business. I've covered a lot, from leading the entire function as the interim CMO to setting up sales infrastructure/demand engines. I built a marketing team for the U.S. headquarters of an Australian company and developed AI strategies and implementation, among many other roles. Here are a few key benefits: 1️⃣ Deep Expertise Access seasoned professionals with years of industry experience. 2️⃣ Speed to Impact Fractional executives make a significant impact quickly. They hit the ground running, leveraging extensive experience to drive quick transformation. 3️⃣ Flexibility Sometimes, you don’t need a full-time executive. A fractional role offers the flexibility to bring in top-tier talent based on your needs. 4️⃣ Cost Efficiency Access to high-level expertise without the financial commitment of a full-time hire. Need I say more? What do you think as a fractional exec or someone who has hired them? #FractionalCMO #CMO #AI #Leadership #Founders #VC #PE #BusinessGrowth #innovation

I ran a survey this week targeted to Founders, CEOs, Growth, Revenue and People Leaders from Series A - Series C companies. 70% ->have equal heads of sales + marketing (peers) 25% ->marketing reports to sales 5% ->sales reports to marketing Across all of these cohorts, the top reason for hiring a fractional CMO is to get immediate access to strategic talent that can flex as needed. The top reason for having an in-house CMO, is for hiring and managing an internal marketing team. There are some interesting takeaways here: 1) Fractional CMOs and in-house CMOs can work together. As a CMO, you are being pulled in a million directions internally, including hiring/managing teams, endless meetings, requests for data to prove your spend is effective, etc. Leaning on a fractional peer for strategic support wherever you need it most can elevate your impact in a cost-effective way. 2) Marketing reports to sales more often than the reverse I'm going to trend this survey over time, to see if these patterns change with macro-economic trends. If rates loosen and companies get back to profitability, marketing budgets should open back up again and sales/marketing may again be equally resourced. 3) People leaders are hiring for very different reasons than business teams People leaders were much more concerned about cultural values alignment and cost-effectiveness. Business teams (CEO, Growth, Revenue) scored cost-effectiveness highly, but scored immediate business impact higher. What are you seeing out there, in terms of reporting structures and strategic, flex talent? #marketing #business #cmo #cro #growthmarketing