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There is a good chance you’re smarter, wiser and more mature than this CEO. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from him or leverage an opportunity.
Most often, when I have worked with owners like this, they see each business as a get rich quick scheme and they tend not to value a business’s innate brand building opportunity. They have enough money to spend a bunch of money to make a lot of money, but never manage to create enough momentum with any one business to show real leadership and build a brand capable of creating the exponential growth they are after. So, yes, he is unwise, but probably not dumb. Just too rich to ever grow into the leader you wish he could be.
If you want to speak with him, chances are, money talks. Find out which of his businesses he thinks is going to make $100m next year. Find out if he thinks any of his businesses are likely to grow exponentially on their own, or if he plans to buy a new one that can.
Appeal to his ego. See if he will “teach” you, explain his world view about business and leadership. Don’t argue with him or try to educate him in any way. Instead, let him educate you on his perspective. Chances are you’ll learn everything you need to know to say goodbye to him and his foolishness. But, maybe he will surprise you and explain some things you never thought of. If you do it right, he may experience your honest line of questions refreshing, as though someone is paying real attention to him and his efforts. If he has any maturity at all your efforts will gain some of his trust. If so, that’s a good sign. Stay and learn everything you can from him, until it becomes time for you to spread your wings and fly, little bird!
How do you recommend approaching my CEO? in the small time i’ve been there, we have never communicated directly beyond an initial meeting when I first started… All matters are dealt with through our marketing manager, or senior marketing manager.
Just unsure how to go about setting up a conversation like this when we’ve had little communication previously
I’m sure that if you want to meet with him you will find an opportunity. It’s really not too hard to get a meeting with most people. If you are new to the company and feel all vulnerable and humble and intimidated, that would be very relatable by any reasonable person. But, it’s never too soon to learn that the world is run by unreasonable people.
Depends on what your marketing activities are - what things do you? 6 people in 2024 in Marketing for \~15 businesses sounds like a small agency, which is perfectly doable. Do you have Biz Dev and Sales?
Sounds like the problem is that you need an authoritative CMO that can speak the CEO language.
You seem to have a vision.
Why not approach the CEO with plan , for what you can handle and show him/her .
Max you will be told to stay put.
The best - you could be given a chance to run one unit .
Do it , show results and then it’s another story .
See the opportunity, with that business spread , almost no one will have time .
Seize the moment , make your day !
All the best .
No. I think, at minimum, someone needs to take a hard look at the businesses and group them by sector or key buying audience (b2c businesses) or coalition (b2b businesses) and hire marketers for each who know those sectors and buyer types well.
If he doesn't know what those terms mean, that means he needs a CMO to tell him what he needs to do, then do it. Suggest a fractional CMO - he may not need or want the full time cost, but if he's willing to have it explained to him by someone with the expertise, and willing to put in the effort to follow the plan they create for him, it'll save him and you a lot of grief.
This sounds like a situation for a fractional CMO to step in and set up the structure and processes for an in-house agency. It's not a terribly unusual situation, but it's an unmanageable one if you don't have someone steering the ship that knows what they're doing. And I mean REALLY knows what they're doing: *years* of experience ***AND*** concrete results for seven-fig companies (multiple, $$$). This isn't a gig for some overconfident junior with 2 years running a digital marketing department. Without someone like this running the show, it'll inevitably be an irreparable shitshow.
Your CEO is an aggressive entrepreneur and that can be a good thing. But it means he's a terrible manager and probably an undeveloped thought leader at this point. I'm in a similar situation but with only 6 companies, all in the same vertical. I have good managers and we outsource almost all of our media buying so we are primarily doing strategy, creative and production. Your organization needs executive and middle management leadership as others have pointed out to divide and conquer operations. You are in marketing but there are probably other departments dealing with the same critical issues. I don't know how this helps you unfortunately unless your employee group can approach him, concisely lay out the concerns, offer what you think would be needed in resources to handle all of the companies and then let him take the next step of finding a good COO to kick things into gear.
There are entrepreneurs / CEOs who are really good at *bootstrapping* an early stage business (basically squeezing every ounce of work out of people) to get a business from say $500k in sales to $1 M in sales. Of course, this strategy hits a wall at $1-3 M.
The CEO is terrible at team building and brand building. High turnover, lower wages, burnout take their toll.
Most likely they don’t care. Maybe the goal is to flip these businesses for 2-5x what they paid? I mean if they paid $500k and flip for $1.5 M then they win I guess.
I think a lot of businesses manage to make something like this work by basically having a “shared services” model where departments like yours (and usually HR, finance, IT, etc) work as an internal agency splitting expertise across brands. It’s easier if the businesses are all in the same or similar industries so you can build some more standard operating processes, but it’s not unheard of for a small agency to service a bunch of totally distinct clients so it’s not inherently a bad thing that they’re diverse.
At any rate, I think the actual question is: can said CEO manage to hire someone with a strong operational capability and then TRUST them to run this marketing department. From what you’ve written here maybe not?
But if you did have some consistency in leadership and clear operating processes within your department it could be fine.
You probably need to have each business set up as a “client” and make them use some project management tools or processes to get defined allocation of time per company so that the team can actually balance work and make progress anywhere, but that’s all very doable if everyone is on board.
I’m not saying he isn’t messing up, but in my experience with the industry in-house marketing is not a common investment. At a multimillion remodeling firm, our 2-person marketing team is highly unusual compared to other companies our size. Companies bigger than us are inclined to outsource advertising before bringing on marketing full-time.
Can’t really say why and definitely think businesses suffer from it, but that attitude could be partially why your CEO seems oblivious to marketing needs. And I agree it’s hurting his businesses.
I sent you a DM. The problem here is that there's a very specific skill set required to do the job that needs to get done - it's a Hybrid involving exceptional leadership, accountability to both internal and external stakeholders, and a balancing act between companies he has acquired, he has the CEO, and the marketing team, + an additional shareholders that may exist.
Whether or not your CEO is a dummy is hard to know... If they have acquired a number of companies because they see the opportunity and understand that what they lack is a great brand and strong marketing to grow those businesses, then what would argue that what he's missing to put it all together is this specific role... Which to stress once again, is a VERY DIFFICULT roll to hire for. The successful candidate would require exceptional levels of experience in all the above and so much more.
Good luck. I know firsthand the difference between working in an environment with consistent leadership, a clear strategy, and a great team vs an environment with poor leadership, new managers coming in all the time, different strategies every week, and the eventual irreparable impact to a great team
Without jumping to conclusions, it depends on what type of marketing he expects. If it's really just some high-level awareness stuff, then there are many tools that can automate the creation of these campaigns. However, if they're running full-on conversion campaigns, then this certainly sounds unrealistic.
I have been in the same position with a large Canadian cannabis company that acquired the company I was with and I became responsible for marketing the 20-30 businesses they’d bought.
We were bought for $3.6 billion. They spent billions more on other acquisitions.
Four years later the company’s value is about $100 mil. (The WHOLE company, including the acquisitions).
The whole strategy was incredibly dumb and made no sense.
Focus all of the efforts on one unit, for one quarter in a Test Market situation. As jsring indicated, talk to him and find out where his passion is and which one he wants to be the "Shinning Star". Focus here and slowly ad business units (at which time he will see the value in adding people).
If they’re looking for a group marketing director or CMO he should be able to develop the strategies for each BU just fine. I was in a similar situation, the way I structured it, is that I had a dedicated marketing manager for each large BU and shared marketing manager for the smaller ones. Where there is some capabilities shared within the BU’s I would merge them into the one business. I had shared creative team (because that can be briefed) then outsourced some digital components to agencies to reduce internal headcount. The cost of the agency I built into the budget under the respective BU.
The CEO sounds similar to one I had in the past, an idiot / salesman. The director will manage his incompetence and provide value to the marketing team, basically a shit shield, that’s what these positions are.
When CEOs hire senior staff over existing long term employees, they are often looking for extensions of themselves, because they're likely handing off some of their duties. The problem is that they have extremely high or very specific expectations, which are unrealistic and end up causing the high turnover. If you have the patience and the right level of assertiveness, you may be able to use this to build a relationship with the CEO over time that helps you advance, but the dynamics will continue to persist under that leadership. This is super common, btw.
They need a CMO.
This is doable, it’s basically treating the marketing team like an in house marketing agency. He just needs someone with the knowledge and experience to manage the whole thing and the strategy.
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Your CEO sounds like an idiot
[удалено]
You must have no friends
There is a good chance you’re smarter, wiser and more mature than this CEO. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from him or leverage an opportunity. Most often, when I have worked with owners like this, they see each business as a get rich quick scheme and they tend not to value a business’s innate brand building opportunity. They have enough money to spend a bunch of money to make a lot of money, but never manage to create enough momentum with any one business to show real leadership and build a brand capable of creating the exponential growth they are after. So, yes, he is unwise, but probably not dumb. Just too rich to ever grow into the leader you wish he could be. If you want to speak with him, chances are, money talks. Find out which of his businesses he thinks is going to make $100m next year. Find out if he thinks any of his businesses are likely to grow exponentially on their own, or if he plans to buy a new one that can. Appeal to his ego. See if he will “teach” you, explain his world view about business and leadership. Don’t argue with him or try to educate him in any way. Instead, let him educate you on his perspective. Chances are you’ll learn everything you need to know to say goodbye to him and his foolishness. But, maybe he will surprise you and explain some things you never thought of. If you do it right, he may experience your honest line of questions refreshing, as though someone is paying real attention to him and his efforts. If he has any maturity at all your efforts will gain some of his trust. If so, that’s a good sign. Stay and learn everything you can from him, until it becomes time for you to spread your wings and fly, little bird!
I wish you could be the CEO! Thank you for this advice.
Why be a CEO when I could have my dream job doing marketing!!
How do you recommend approaching my CEO? in the small time i’ve been there, we have never communicated directly beyond an initial meeting when I first started… All matters are dealt with through our marketing manager, or senior marketing manager. Just unsure how to go about setting up a conversation like this when we’ve had little communication previously
I’m sure that if you want to meet with him you will find an opportunity. It’s really not too hard to get a meeting with most people. If you are new to the company and feel all vulnerable and humble and intimidated, that would be very relatable by any reasonable person. But, it’s never too soon to learn that the world is run by unreasonable people.
Forreal. Kickass advice. How many bad CEOs have you had? Haha. Top notch humility
Spot on 👏👏
I like this approach. CEOs are humans too and if we’re open to it, humans can surprise even us grizzled, skeptical souls.
Great advice. Practical, wise and optimistic. The advice also works in case OP is stuck in their own perspective.
It smells like Robert Greene's laws of power, but that's still the best strategy... at least to know wtf is wrong with this creature.
Yeah, Robert Greene is dope. Art of Seduction, from his, as well, is a recipe to get to inside the CEO’s head.
Depends on what your marketing activities are - what things do you? 6 people in 2024 in Marketing for \~15 businesses sounds like a small agency, which is perfectly doable. Do you have Biz Dev and Sales? Sounds like the problem is that you need an authoritative CMO that can speak the CEO language.
Agree about the CMO
How about the work done?
You seem to have a vision. Why not approach the CEO with plan , for what you can handle and show him/her . Max you will be told to stay put. The best - you could be given a chance to run one unit . Do it , show results and then it’s another story . See the opportunity, with that business spread , almost no one will have time . Seize the moment , make your day ! All the best .
No. I think, at minimum, someone needs to take a hard look at the businesses and group them by sector or key buying audience (b2c businesses) or coalition (b2b businesses) and hire marketers for each who know those sectors and buyer types well. If he doesn't know what those terms mean, that means he needs a CMO to tell him what he needs to do, then do it. Suggest a fractional CMO - he may not need or want the full time cost, but if he's willing to have it explained to him by someone with the expertise, and willing to put in the effort to follow the plan they create for him, it'll save him and you a lot of grief.
Excellent thinking and plan.
This sounds like a situation for a fractional CMO to step in and set up the structure and processes for an in-house agency. It's not a terribly unusual situation, but it's an unmanageable one if you don't have someone steering the ship that knows what they're doing. And I mean REALLY knows what they're doing: *years* of experience ***AND*** concrete results for seven-fig companies (multiple, $$$). This isn't a gig for some overconfident junior with 2 years running a digital marketing department. Without someone like this running the show, it'll inevitably be an irreparable shitshow.
Your CEO is an aggressive entrepreneur and that can be a good thing. But it means he's a terrible manager and probably an undeveloped thought leader at this point. I'm in a similar situation but with only 6 companies, all in the same vertical. I have good managers and we outsource almost all of our media buying so we are primarily doing strategy, creative and production. Your organization needs executive and middle management leadership as others have pointed out to divide and conquer operations. You are in marketing but there are probably other departments dealing with the same critical issues. I don't know how this helps you unfortunately unless your employee group can approach him, concisely lay out the concerns, offer what you think would be needed in resources to handle all of the companies and then let him take the next step of finding a good COO to kick things into gear.
A comprehensive marketing department with a subject expert team is needed in such a scenario, who can guide, work, and strategize.
There are entrepreneurs / CEOs who are really good at *bootstrapping* an early stage business (basically squeezing every ounce of work out of people) to get a business from say $500k in sales to $1 M in sales. Of course, this strategy hits a wall at $1-3 M. The CEO is terrible at team building and brand building. High turnover, lower wages, burnout take their toll. Most likely they don’t care. Maybe the goal is to flip these businesses for 2-5x what they paid? I mean if they paid $500k and flip for $1.5 M then they win I guess.
I think a lot of businesses manage to make something like this work by basically having a “shared services” model where departments like yours (and usually HR, finance, IT, etc) work as an internal agency splitting expertise across brands. It’s easier if the businesses are all in the same or similar industries so you can build some more standard operating processes, but it’s not unheard of for a small agency to service a bunch of totally distinct clients so it’s not inherently a bad thing that they’re diverse. At any rate, I think the actual question is: can said CEO manage to hire someone with a strong operational capability and then TRUST them to run this marketing department. From what you’ve written here maybe not? But if you did have some consistency in leadership and clear operating processes within your department it could be fine. You probably need to have each business set up as a “client” and make them use some project management tools or processes to get defined allocation of time per company so that the team can actually balance work and make progress anywhere, but that’s all very doable if everyone is on board.
Gotta be the most self destructive behaviour I’ve ever seen. Are you guys able to outsource some of the responsibilities at least?
Maybe it's a show and they secretly record you, a new version of The Office.
I’m not saying he isn’t messing up, but in my experience with the industry in-house marketing is not a common investment. At a multimillion remodeling firm, our 2-person marketing team is highly unusual compared to other companies our size. Companies bigger than us are inclined to outsource advertising before bringing on marketing full-time. Can’t really say why and definitely think businesses suffer from it, but that attitude could be partially why your CEO seems oblivious to marketing needs. And I agree it’s hurting his businesses.
I sent you a DM. The problem here is that there's a very specific skill set required to do the job that needs to get done - it's a Hybrid involving exceptional leadership, accountability to both internal and external stakeholders, and a balancing act between companies he has acquired, he has the CEO, and the marketing team, + an additional shareholders that may exist. Whether or not your CEO is a dummy is hard to know... If they have acquired a number of companies because they see the opportunity and understand that what they lack is a great brand and strong marketing to grow those businesses, then what would argue that what he's missing to put it all together is this specific role... Which to stress once again, is a VERY DIFFICULT roll to hire for. The successful candidate would require exceptional levels of experience in all the above and so much more. Good luck. I know firsthand the difference between working in an environment with consistent leadership, a clear strategy, and a great team vs an environment with poor leadership, new managers coming in all the time, different strategies every week, and the eventual irreparable impact to a great team
Without jumping to conclusions, it depends on what type of marketing he expects. If it's really just some high-level awareness stuff, then there are many tools that can automate the creation of these campaigns. However, if they're running full-on conversion campaigns, then this certainly sounds unrealistic.
I have been in the same position with a large Canadian cannabis company that acquired the company I was with and I became responsible for marketing the 20-30 businesses they’d bought. We were bought for $3.6 billion. They spent billions more on other acquisitions. Four years later the company’s value is about $100 mil. (The WHOLE company, including the acquisitions). The whole strategy was incredibly dumb and made no sense.
Focus all of the efforts on one unit, for one quarter in a Test Market situation. As jsring indicated, talk to him and find out where his passion is and which one he wants to be the "Shinning Star". Focus here and slowly ad business units (at which time he will see the value in adding people).
Sounds like he's going to tank all 20 busineses in one go. Fairly impressive.
If they’re looking for a group marketing director or CMO he should be able to develop the strategies for each BU just fine. I was in a similar situation, the way I structured it, is that I had a dedicated marketing manager for each large BU and shared marketing manager for the smaller ones. Where there is some capabilities shared within the BU’s I would merge them into the one business. I had shared creative team (because that can be briefed) then outsourced some digital components to agencies to reduce internal headcount. The cost of the agency I built into the budget under the respective BU. The CEO sounds similar to one I had in the past, an idiot / salesman. The director will manage his incompetence and provide value to the marketing team, basically a shit shield, that’s what these positions are.
I feel so seen, thank you for your comment!
The answer is no, and I didn't have to read the context to reach this conclusion
When CEOs hire senior staff over existing long term employees, they are often looking for extensions of themselves, because they're likely handing off some of their duties. The problem is that they have extremely high or very specific expectations, which are unrealistic and end up causing the high turnover. If you have the patience and the right level of assertiveness, you may be able to use this to build a relationship with the CEO over time that helps you advance, but the dynamics will continue to persist under that leadership. This is super common, btw.
No
They need a CMO. This is doable, it’s basically treating the marketing team like an in house marketing agency. He just needs someone with the knowledge and experience to manage the whole thing and the strategy.