Conversations with the Experts: Interview with Rebecca Schuette, VP Marketing, KUDO

We recently placed Rebecca Schuette in her role as the VP of Marketing at KUDO, a fast-growing SaaS startup in the language space, and we spoke with her about the challenges marketing organizations face today and the role of the marketing leader.

Our conversation with Rebecca touches on: data that bring together the different departments and the ‘why’ behind the numbers, the challenge of story-telling in the feature-led world of SaaS, and how to assess marketing leadership talent in the interview process. Read on for our conversation!

CFW: Recently, it seems revenue organizations have become more interdependent and, thus, interconnected. As the VP of Marketing, how do you align your organization with Sales and Customer Success organizations? Where do you start?

RS: When looking to align Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success, I first look to the data. Once you have a solid grasp of what your revenue funnel looks like, then you can dig in with each department on the “why’s” behind the numbers, and then work together to come up with a plan to optimize each aspect of the funnel. I believe that Marketing should be playing the role of “Voice of the Customer” through this process and as Sales and Customer Success are on the front lines with customers and prospects every day, it’s so important for there to be a steady flow of communication throughout the three departments.

CFW: What would you say is the primary challenge faced by marketing leaders in SaaS right now? What keeps you up at night?

RS: SaaS products tend to be feature-rich and so much engineering and development effort go into the production process that oftentimes, there’s a push to lead marketing efforts with feature descriptions. However, B2B buyers are still people, and people are inspired by emotional connections. So, the challenge is to uncover the “why” beneath each purchase and infuse your key value proposition with that emotional connection and then weave those features into that story-telling process.

CFW: What are the most essential skills a Marketing leader needs in order to tackle this and other challenges? What would you look for if you were hiring, well, a YOU?

RS: Marketing today encompasses so many things: PR, branding, demand generation, marketing automation, content marketing, analytics, sales enablement, internal communications to name just a few. The strongest candidates, therefore, are marketing generalists, who can assess all the potential opportunities, prioritize them and then orchestrate a broader team so that all of these tactics are optimized and working in concert. Additionally, as marketing leaders are often turned to as a Company spokesperson, candidates who are inspiring, both from a leadership perspective and as communicators, are strong choices.

CFW: How did KUDO assess these skills in your interview process?

RS: We had a combination of behavioral/cultural fit interviews coupled with a case study exercise, enabling me to build a high-level annual marketing plan. The beauty of the planning exercise is that I’ve been able to use it as a foundation for my actual marketing plan development once I joined the company, and considering what a sprint these first 90 days have been, it was great to have that uninterrupted time to think prior to starting the job. For KUDO, they were able to use this plan to assess my skills in prioritization, breadth of marketing experience, and analytical capabilities to align revenue goals with marketing activities designed to achieve those goals.

CFW: How do you get acclimated to a new organization when you’re expected to lead from day 1?

RS: When entering a company that’s in a high growth phase, you need to recognize that you’ll need to be ready to make critical decisions while you’re still learning about the company, team, product, and industry. Multi-tasking is key; for example, during each onboarding call or meeting with other members of your organization, focus on building a new relationship, understanding what areas of expertise each person has AND finding out where each person thinks marketing can help the most.

Also, if you’re joining an organization that hasn’t previously had a marketing leader or has previously been operating in reactive mode, you’ll go a long way in earning the trust of your team by simply adding a layer of organization, foresight, and planning.

KUDO is a language-as-a-service platform disrupting the way companies and organizations across sectors, from Facebook and Citibank to the UN and NATO, conduct multilingual meetings. Through their network of vetted interpreters and streamlined conferencing platform, KUDO enables web meetings and live conferences with real-time multilingual language interpretation.

Contact us if you’re seeking a marketing leader for your team or if you’re a marketing leader seeking your next role. We’ll bring our experience and perspective to both conversations. rachel@cfwcareers.com or cynnie@cfwcareers.com