About Me
Meet the CMO Pro
I’ve had the honor of leading marketing teams at three of the fastest-growing B2B SaaS companies (Slack, Zendesk, and Salesforce). I’m eternally grateful for my time at each of these companies and the opportunity to introduce a modern, customer-centric marketing and growth playbook that I believe helped supercharge our growth. All three of these companies went public, and two were acquired after their IPOs (Zendesk and Slack).
SVP MARKETING
CMO
CMO & CRO
B2C Background
Before B2B Bill there was B2C Bill (doesn’t quite rhyme as well).
I spent 15 years on the B2C side harnessing my marketing and growth strategies. Some highlights include co-founding a gaming startup right out of college, which we grew to 10 million members and successfully acquired. I also led marketing at IGN Entertainment, which included flagship sites IGN.com, RottenTomatoes.com, AskMen.com, and others. We were on track for an IPO but were acquired by News Corp before that happened. At News Corp, I served as SVP of Marketing and helped create growth and brand strategies for their portfolio of companies, including Fox Sports, American Idol, Fox.com, The Wall Street Journal, and others.
A young nerd
I was a fan of all things business very early in my life. My mom got us a subscription to The Wall Street Journal, and I would eagerly consume it every morning. I also started reading The Economist, Forbes, and BusinessWeek when I was in the 6th grade. (Note: this early business nerdom did not help my dating life in school.) But it did open my eyes to the wonderful world of startups and business strategies.
Today, I LOVE to nerd out talking about pricing and packaging, PLG, AI growth strategies, freemium models, NPS, high velocity, customer centricity, ABM… it is a never-ending list. And before SaaS CMO Pro, my wife was subjected to listening to this for hours every day. But now that I have SaaS CMO Pro, I can talk with people all over the world. Hmmm, now that I’m thinking about it, perhaps that is why she encouraged me to do these videos.
Marketing & growth philosophy
Maybe 30 years ago you couldn’t measure if
marketing worked, but you sure as hell can now.
My views on marketing, growth, and GTM have often been shaped by my experiences as an end user and buyer of AI and B2B SaaS software. Too often, I experienced awful buyer journeys with horrible websites, bad forms, gated content, pushy salespeople, opaque pricing, hidden terms, and really hard-to-use software. I’ve always believed there had to be a better way. All these negative experiences were impacting their brands.
Personally, I believe a brand is the sum of every experience that a person has with your company. And often for B2B, a big chunk of these initial experiences originate from your marketing, sales, support, success, and legal touch points. When we spew out bad experiences for our prospects, is it any surprise that they don’t recommend us as customers?
I often view the world (as the geek I am) from a Net Promoter Score lens. Think of your AI or SaaS software as a factory line where a constant stream of customers come out and tell the world about your company. These customers will either love you and recommend you or hate you and tell people to avoid your service like the plague.
Ok, there are technically neutrals in NPS lingo, but you get my point. You want to be minting out promoters (those are the ones that love you and score you a 9 or 10). Promoters are like gold; they tell other people to buy your service, spend more, and attrit less… all the things that make SaaS metrics go up and to the right.
The other big thing that has shaped me is my desire to use a modern playbook. I spent 15 years on the B2C side, which had some really cutting-edge strategies. When I came over to the B2B side, it was like I had gone into a time machine and was sent back 30 years. The B2B growth strategies were the same things being used from a distant age (top-down selling into the c-suite, sending press releases, holding expensive events).
I truly believe that marketing, growth, and go-to-market can be a competitive differentiator for your company. But to have this come to fruition, you have to embrace a modern playbook! You can build the most advanced AI or SaaS tool, but if you use a dated GTM playbook, you will fall behind. I’ve seen too many good products die because they adopted a really dated GTM motion.
The last area that really drives me is creating and embracing capital-efficient growth strategies. I co-founded a startup in the Midwest right out of college with three other grads. We didn’t know about VCs or how to get a big investment round, so we just worked with the “capital” we had. And by “capital,” I mean we didn’t have anything. So everything we did from a growth perspective (creating viral loops, SEO, freemium, brand in product, in-product messaging, cross-pollination, partnerships, etc.) didn’t have any hard costs. We eventually grew that site substantially, monetized it, and sold it.
So even now, I’m constantly thinking about how to develop capital-efficient growth strategies for AI and SaaS companies. It’s easy to “buy” growth, and sometimes I’ve seen startups go down a bad path of really expensive growth. This may work in a world of zero interest rates, but the current economic climate is forcing all of us to really think about how to scale efficiently.
Because of this, I tend to track a lot of marketing metrics. I want to see the CAC payback, the magic number, the LTV, the CPL, and more. I also always advise tracking your brand metrics as well (aided recall, unaided recall, sentiment, share of voice, share of conversation, etc.). I want to see your Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score. These all have huge influences on your growth and the capital efficiency of that growth.
Interests
I’m a huge fan of all things SaaS and AI. I love working with founders and GTM leaders to craft really modern, cutting-edge strategies. I’m also passionate about customer-centric strategies that focus on the prospect and user experience.
Outside of startup land, I’m a big Chicago Bears fan (grew up in Chicago during the ’85 “Da Bears” and have been hoping for a repeat of that for about 40 years). I’m also an avid gardener and will nerd out with you on container soil structure and ideal drip irrigation schedules if you want.
I also grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in my humble opinion, Picard is, was, and will always be the consummate leader. I shaped a lot of my leadership and management styles based on that guy. I think that is a good future video topic.
I’m an eternal optimist and believe the world is getting better. I think there has never been a better time to create a startup. I try to bring a positive attitude and a lot of smiles to the world.
Lastly, I’m a huge sloth fan! What is not to like about these incredibly cute critters? When I told my family I was going to use a sloth as my mascot, they thought I was crazy. And I get it… they are a bit slow, but from an evolutionary standpoint, they are just being incredibly calculated and methodical with their movements. Plus, they use a lot less energy, and their slow movement helps deter predators. I just love nature, and sloths are my spirit animal. So, sloths it is.
SaaS CMO Pro is born
I created SaaS CMO Pro as a way to help founders, CEOs, VCs, and marketers learn about modern SaaS and AI marketing. I wanted to democratize this information and allow more people access to it. I’ve always been a big content fan and noticed there was a dearth of good SaaS and AI marketing content online and on social platforms from people who truly worked in these roles as operators and leaders. Also, this was a good excuse to get sloths into more videos and content.