Working in enterprise B2B marketing at startups can be incredibly frustrating. It seems like everything is a fight, but there are several battles that routinely pop up that are completely draining, and I hope to never have to fight again.

In no particular order here they are with my hot take.

1) Ownership of the Website and its Roadmap

The website is the single most important medium through which a marketing team can operate efficiently and convey its value. While everyone has an opinion about the website, what it should look like, and what it should say, the marketing team needs control over this from a development, design, and messaging standpoint. Period.

Marketers need to be able to access the website, easily make changes, and evolve the website rapidly. They also need a strong infrastructure to integrate other systems, drive accurate analytics, and ensure quality code, content, and design are being delivered.

Too many times have I endured a CEO who demands a website redesign in 8-12 weeks. This is a glaring display of the ignorance most CEOs have around:

1. The technical complexity of a well-built website
2. The other systems that depend on the website like MAP, analytics, etc.
3. What a website redesign ACTUALLY delivers (99 times out of 100 it ISN’T a 500% increase in traffic or sales)

The power to make decisions around the website and its roadmap needs to live with an individual who knows the ins and outs of the website.

If they don’t, the team will likely cause more damage than improvement in the form of technical debt, compromised messaging, and poor visual design.

2) Ownership of the MarTech Budget

Marketing is the single biggest consumer of tech at any given company; more than IT.

However, for some reason, at many companies, IT is still in charge of determining the needs of the marketing department. The nature of the investments, the speed with which those investments change, and the ability to actively manage this budget can provide any company a serious competitive advantage or drastically hinder the marketing team’s ability to move quickly.

If marketing tech spend is set at the beginning of the year, but something changes, and the spend needs to be revised 2 months into the year, but the IT department is unyielding in revisiting this… you have to wait an entire year to change from one solution to another.

3) Minimum Headcount – Benchmarked at X% of total FTE

Again, too many times have I seen a CMO start only to have their headcount and budget axed…. Not because of budgetary restraints but because the CEO decides that marketing doesn’t need what he originally promised them. YET, marketing is still held to the original expectations set out by that same CEO.

There NEEDS to be a pre-established floor when it comes to marketing headcount, and it needs to be accompanied by a change in expectations if a CEO decides that headcount needs to be reduced.

4) Minimum Budget – Benchmarked at X% of ARR

Like headcount, budgets for marketing often experience wild swings based on the temperament of the CEO. A marketing budget might be cut in half, while the CEO still expects the CMO and the marketing team to deliver on goals established with the previous budget.

There needs to be a floor, and appropriate adjustments to expectations when and if the budget changes.

5) The Marketing Credit Card

When you go to an event and need to cover ad hoc expenses, when the website experiences a burst in traffic and you need to upgrade the server….. what happens when a marketing team doesn’t have a credit card and needs to cover time-sensitive expenses is that the employee closest to that expense typically ends up covering it on their personal card.

This is an unacceptable use of the employee’s personal resources. Marketing needs the ability and flexibility to cover charges on a credit card when necessary.

6) Co-ownership of the CRM

Second the the website, the CRM is the single most important and integrated piece of tech for the marketing department. The ability to create, modify, and evolve the CRM to meet marketing needs is critical. Expecting the marketing department to liaise with, and rely on, another functional group that isn’t aligned with the goals of the marketing group is unrealistic.

Often times I see marketing having to rely on a “Sales Ops” function to work with the CRM. Simple requests take days or weeks because they are prioritized against sales ops’ other projects.

This slows down marketing progress at an exponential rate.

Marketing needs co-ownership of the CRM, and the headcount and talent to manage the work that needs to be done within the CRM.

7) Sales’ Use of the CRM

It’s a tale as old as time. The CEO wants to see how campaigns are performing. The marketing team has worked tirelessly to create a multitouch attribution program to measure revenue performance…. ANDDDDD the sales guys never attach their contacts to opportunities in the CRM so tying campaign performance to end-of-the-line revenue is IMPOSSIBLE.

If marketers can learn 30 different pieces of martech and be expected to still do their jobs, then sales folks can learn the 1 piece of tech they truly need to do theirs.

If I’m a sales leader in 2024, I am ensuring my team meticulously keeps track of their work in the CRM otherwise…. they are FIRED. Period. Gone.

8) Marketers are Not Office Managers or Assistants

In early-stage startups where everyone is doing several jobs and no one respects marketing what typically happens is that marketers get sacked with managing the office, snacks, and other bullshit until an office manager or executive assistant is hired.

THIS SHIT NEEDS TO STOP. Marketers != Office Managers. Two very different jobs.

9) Everyone Contributes Content

A non-marketer is far less likely to complain about “how the website hasn’t changed in months” or gripe about the quality of marketing if they are required to write a blog post every quarter.

Suddenly it’s, “This blog is the biggest inconvenience, and takes hourssss to write”.

Perspective.

EVERYONE at the company, especially those with critical domain knowledge, should be contributing content to the marketing team on a quarterly basis to help drive thought leadership, website traffic, and keep their finger on the pulse of the market.

At high-performing companies, employees WANT to do this and are rewarded for it.

10) All Marketers Need to Know the Tech, and Get Certified

Plain and simple, the reason a lot of marketers don’t get respect is that they aren’t perceived to have any hard skills, and half the time a marketer is asked to do something perceived to be part of their role by someone internal to the company, THEY CAN’T DO IT.

• Can you change this word on the website?
• Can you tell me how much traffic we got last week?
• Can you update this person in the CRM?
• What are you working on in marketing?

I don’t care if you’re a field marketer or a web developer. Every marketing team member needs to know the following technologies, be certified in them, and if you’re not, you’re off my team.

• Marketing Automation (Marketo, HubSpot, etc.)
• CRM (Salesforce)
• Website (WordPress, Drupal, etc.)
• Analytics (Google Analytics)
• Project Management (Asana, Wrike, Trello, etc.)

11) Power to Terminate Employees

The CEO asked the CMO to hire a nephew to do marketing of some kind. The CMO obliges, but then the employee fails to perform. The CMO can’t let the nephew go the same way the CFO would be able to if the nephew was underperforming.

OR maybe the CMO inherits an employee that is good friends with a regional sales leader or some other exec and the CEO is worried about the reaction of that leader when the CMO lets the marketer go…

The CMO needs to make personnel decisions with the same autonomy as the CFO. There is no difference here other than a fundamental disrespect for the function.

12) Established IT Support

At many companies, especially early-stage startups, there is an abundance of work that requires IT. Whether that is configuring SPF/DKIM records for a MAP, connecting a sales enablement tool to Gmail, or coordinating the infinite tasks involved in a website project,  the IT department is going to be involved.

I see IT functions far too often that are overworked and overburdened as it is, and end up pushing marketing priorities to the bottom of their backlog.

In organizations going through rapid change, IT support for marketing needs to be prioritized.