CMO Zen

CMO Zen is a boutique outsourced CMO firm accelerating the revenue journey for companies from $1M to $50M in ARR.

CEO/Founding Partner

Fractional Executive Collective

The Fractional Elite Collective is a curation of the top fractional, C-suite executives in the USA.

Founding Member of the Fractional Elite Executive Collective

University of Utah

Teaching venture capital and new venture financing (FINAN 6300 & 6310) to graduate students in the David Eccles School of Business.

Adjunct Instructor, Venture Capital

The Elements Financial Planning System™

* Recruited to spin out a fintech B2B SaaS company from its RIA parent and position it for hyper-growth. Led the strategy and execution from pre-revenue to regular growth in ARR.
* Evangelized Elements and the way it's revolutionizing the way financial planners engage with clients.
* Positioned the company to show traction required to close $4M in seed funding.

President and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) | Fintech | SaaS | B2B

GoReact

* Hired to grow edtech B2B SaaS revenue and squeeze every ounce of ROI from a startup budget. 2X fastest growing companies list in UT, 4th fastest growing co. in UT 2018.
* Leveraged a creative go-to-market strategy to overcome an unfavorable academic seasonality, built a funnel of 140K prospects, grew inbound MQLs/mo. to 3.5K+, and 25X sales increase. 
* Generated domain authority, page rank, and lead flow via effective content strategy and SEM. Attracted top influencers in edtech to our podcast and digital events.
* Grew average ticket 400% from $2K to $8K. CODiE finalist, Top 25 under 5 in UT, and 5X winner of the EdTech Digest award. 
* GoReact is still the preeminent video coaching software brand in the U.S. for skills-based courses in higher education.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | EdTech | SaaS | B2B

Head of Marketing | EdTech | SaaS | B2B

wakeupnow

* Recruited to execute a marketing turnaround and drive growth. Right-sized and reinvented the brand into one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS companies in direct sales. 
* Built insane demand gen and a word-of-mouth marketing machine via video and digital content, influencers, events, SEM, social and referral marketing.
* Hired and led a team of 20 to create a scalable customer acquisition model yielding explosive MOM sales growth from <$50K to $6.5M+ per month in two years.
* Executed an international integrated marketing strategy supporting launches in Canada, Mexico, Barbados, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | Fintech | SaaS | B2B/B2C 

Western Credit Service Company

* Founded this B2C Fintech startup in the wake of the financial crisis. Raised $7.2M and grew the company to 50 employees.
* Launched proprietary underwriting and loan tracking software product supporting over 50K lender-borrower relationships.

CEO | FinTech | B2C

Workfront (formerly AtTask)

* Hired to 2X inbound MQLs/mo. via PPC within limited budget. Delivered 4.5X MQLs/mo. (6,000+) in 18 mo. despite crazy competitive keywords.
* Developed a B2B SaaS lead-scoring/SDR program increasing sales effectiveness by 40%. 320% sales growth Y1, and 200% in Y2 contributed to a $7M Series A. 
* PR & AR campaigns put us in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, helped us win the CODiE award, and attract marquee customers: Adobe, Apple, AT&T, Boeing, Disney, Electronic Arts, Google, and others.
* Delivered an app for the first iPhone within a month of its release (2007).

Marketing Director | SaaS | B2B

Provo Craft

* Brought on to maximize ROMI. Deployed $1M+ advertising budget, increased ROI by over 45% at biannual events, expanded PR reach over 400% in two years. 
* Conducted initial product launch for the Cricut paper cutter in retail—the most successful B2C electronic paper crafting product ever.
* Successfully rebranded and positioned a chain of 12 retail craft stores (33,000± SKUs ea.) producing over 40% comp store increase in sales (10% of $300M total co. sales).

Marketing Director, Retail Division | CPG | Retail | Tech | B2C

Founder/CEO—right-sized senior marketing talent for startups. 🚀

CEOs and marketing teams find big wins with CMO Zen. 

Our unique marketing playbooks helps tech CEOs and teams nail their marketing motion and hit key milestones to support hyper-growth… and create a revenue monster. 

I bring proven strategies for: integrated marketing strategy, brand & identity, demand generation, go-to-market, ICP/personas, pricing, positioning, messaging, content, campaign ROI, marketing ops, lead gen, inbound/outbound, performance marketing, email, PR, AR, direct response, events, SEM/SEO/PPC, paid social, influencer and video.

Always intellectually curious, I thrive on the creative, and depend on the data. 

How it goes when SaaS and fintech VCs suddenly become "deeptech" investors. 

Happy Monday!

#vc #venturecapital #startups #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #tech #technology #innovation #deeptech #money #business

Chad Jardine

It’s been 90 days since I’ve had a drink of alcohol, and I feel superhuman. 

I’ve tracked my performance and habits for more than 5 years using WHOOP and in my data it’s super clear:

Alcohol is one of the worst things you can do to limit your performance - both physically and mentally. 

There’s a shift happening in Austin, TX and I’m sure it’s happening in other parts of the World as well, where lots of people are choosing to abstain from alcohol. 

There’s starting to be less of a negative stigma around not drinking alcohol, thankfully. It's crazy that for so long it's been socially weird to *not* drink alcohol, despite the clear, obvious data about the negative effects. 

In the business World and in lots of B2B companies I’ve worked at before, “Culture” revolves around alcohol. 

Let’s get everyone drunk at Sales Kickoff so people can bond. 

Let’s have a networking event at a bar. 

Let’s do a happy hour for business development. 

Let’s all go out to the club in Vegas and then be hungover in the tradeshow booth all day tomorrow. 

Hopefully more companies and the business World at large start to shift away from this outdated social norm. 

__

I'm not sure this is a forever thing for me, but it's definitely working for me right now. 

When I make changes in my life and start to feel a lot of positive momentum, I always keep it going. 

Lots of people say the positive effects continue to grow the longer you abstain from alcohol. I'll continue to report back on my own personal experience. 

Anyone else trying this? Seeing this shift? What's been your experience? 

It feels like this is a topic we need more on LinkedIn and in business generally. 

#b2b #alcohol #whoop #performance 

p.s. soda water with lime tastes just as good as a tequila soda lime 🙂 

You can drive brand awareness without creating demand, but creating demand requires more than driving brand awareness

2008: SaaS is Really Hard
… 2016: SaaS is Really Hard

2017: SaaS is a Great Business
2018: Everyone Invests in SaaS
2019: SaaS Eating the World
2020: I’m Genius
2021: King of World!
2022: Nothing Makes Sense

2023: SaaS is Really Hard
2024: SaaS Still Hard But Smidge Less So

Why we think we have a marketing problem:
 - Not enough leads
 - Not enough pipeline 
 - Not enough marketing activity (blogs, social posts, etc)

Why we *actually* have a marketing problem:
1. We don’t know our exact target customer
2. We don’t have a compelling message for that customer 
3. We don’t have an efficient channel that we can scale 
4. We don’t have the resources/expertise to scale the channels that are working 
5. We haven’t properly tested new channels that could scale in the future 
6. We don’t have alignment between marketing and sales on ^^

The best marketers change the trajectory of the business by finding & deepening product-market fit. Where’s the Webby for that?!?

---

🎁 For weekly growth insights delivered to your inbox, subscribe to Growth Unhinged (it's free): https://lnkd.in/exTbjKaM

#marketing #startups #growth

SaaS seems to love complicated metrics. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love a few of them, too.

An increasingly important metric is shockingly simple: annual recurring revenue (ARR) per full-time employee (FTE). 

👉 It’s a metric you can’t hide from.
👉 There’s no complicated math or financial engineering to do.
👉 You don’t need to be a CFO to calculate it.
👉 You can (relatively) easily compare yourself to peers.

Here’s how to tell whether you’re on the right track -- disclaimer: the bar is far higher than last year:

📈 $1-$5 million ARR:
 - Good: $90k
 - Great: $150k+

📈 $5-$20 million ARR:
 - Good: $150k
 - Great: $250k+

📈 $20-$50 million ARR:
 - Good: $200k
 - Great: $275k+

📈 More than $50 million ARR: 
 - Good: $250k
 - Great: $300k+

Public SaaS companies see a median of $283k ARR per FTE and a top quartile of $369k ARR per FTE based on data powered by the team at Virtua Research. A few examples:

 - Box: $420k
 - Splunk: $455k
 - Adobe: $617k
 - Twilio: $771k
 - Dropbox: $799k

I unpacked what “good” ARR per employee looks like, how expectations are changing, ways to improve this metric, and common pitfalls to avoid.

Dive in, then let me know what you think: https://lnkd.in/eCS_DQS5

#saas #benchmarks #finance #growth

You can spend your way to brand awareness, but not demand creation. A simplified breakdown of the two 👇

TL;DR - you can spend your way to brand awareness, but not demand creation

Brand Awareness
- Messaging: high-level with a focus on answering what you do and/or a memorable tagline
- POV/differentiation: NO strong POV/differentiation statement
- Audience: total addressable market (broad + large)
- Timeline: "always on"
- Measuring success: brand recognition + brand recall

Demand Creation
- Messaging: high-level with a focus on answering what you solve for
- POV/differentiation: VERY strong POV/differentiation statement
- Audience: ICP (smaller + specific)
- Timeline: constrained by success measurements (next point)
- Measuring success: pipeline + revenue

Real-world example: Monday.com

Remember the past few years when it seemed like every time you went to watch a video on YouTube, you first saw an ad for Monday.com? I do 🙋‍♂️

I can tell you exactly what they do (project management software)

...but I can't tell you how they're different from all of the other competitors in their space (Asana, Trello, Basecamp, etc.)

Their ads were very successful in that they got my attention + communicated what they do, but they never convinced me WHY they are the only option I should go with, what they provide that's different from their competitors in making their customers more successful, or added any value to me that positions them as THE experts in this space

If I got a survey from YouTube or a third-party firm asking if I had heard of Monday.com, the answer would be a resounding yes

BUT if they asked if I considered buying their software in the next 12 months, the answer would be no

Why? Because they didn't *create* any demand

- They didn't give me a sense of urgency around what I'm missing out on by not using them
- I didn't receive any compelling feeling that they are THE project management platform I should use
- They didn't educate or provide me with any value with insights that they uniquely know as experts in the space

Long story short, they didn't break out of the commodity bucket - they're simply another option

Creating demand means:
- Communicating a unique POV about your category + why you're the only option
- Sharing data + insights around how customers have seen success, along with actionable takeaways others can do to improve even if they don't use your product (aka show they understand the problem, their market, and are invested in their customers' success)
- Constraining your measurement timeline to understand if the marketing efforts you make today are driving noticeable increases to your pipeline + revenue numbers after a few quarters (and if it isn't, it's not creating demand + you need to go back to the drawing board)

- - - - - - - - - -

Justin Norris and I geeked out on demand creation, getting exec buy-in, and more on a recent episode of his podcast RevOps FM + was one of my favorites to date. 100% worth a listen.

Be kind

To your coworker that made a mistake, even a big one 

Be kind

To your cofounder that was great for a while, but just can't go much further 

Be kind

To your boss that did great things for you, even if later they took advantage 

Be kind

To the ones that tried

Does outbound still work?

It’s funny, two of my fastest growing investments sell to SMBs. 1-2 call closes, low ACVs.

One has mostly abandoned outbound. Doesn’t move the needle and was a big distraction. The other has doubled down here and seen it grow to 30%+ of new customers. Different industries, different teams.  

But most importantly, perhaps, different CROs. Different DNA.

We can all agree the old “break up email” sequences run by kids straight out of school has very limited effectiveness today.

It doesn’t mean outbound is dead though

I think what’s most important in 2024 is that outbound truly adds value to the prospect. The break-up email chain never did. 

Email remains a magical thing. If the email is strong, and importantly, the value strong — it will get opened and it will get read.

That’s something right there

Always feel energized after a trip to the US. It's like powering up on ambition and optimism. ⚡️ 

#vc #venturecapital #startups #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #tech #technology #innovation #future #money #business

I've helped 50+ SaaS companies implement a marketing strategy for today's world, and there's 1 thing I've found that indicates if it'll be successful:

(and it has nothing to do with the marketing strategy itself)

*Expectation setting*

The best thing you can do for yourself and this new strategy is to CLEARLY set expectations with leadership. AKA what to expect, when to expect it, and how to validate if we are on/off track. I like to do this in two ways.

1) Timeline

The first way is by giving an overview of the timeline for this shift, but still in an easy-to-understand way for non-marketers.

Getting started (days 1-30)
Experiment (days 31-90)
Validate + iterate (days 91-180)
Scale + iterate (days 181+)

The key here is setting expectations that it's going to take one QUARTER to get experimental results and ANOTHER quarter from there to validate our findings before we're able to get ready to scale.

2) What to watch

The second way to successfully set expectations with your leadership team is to tell them EXACTLY what we will be watching to understand if things are working and when we will be watching for those signals.

The first thing you’ll notice is that we’re aligning these KPIs with the 4 stages of the timeline we walked through moments ago. 

The second thing to notice is that we are calling these KPIs (key performance indicators), not goals. 

Our goal is to increase revenue from marketing. Like the name states, KPIs are indicators that we’re on track to hitting our desired goal.

Getting started (days 1-30)
Historical performance will continue (remember: we’re getting things in place here, not executing).

Experiment (days 31-90)
# new users (direct + branded) to website
# visits to high-intent pages
ICP engagement % on social channels you’re active on
# “leads” from paid search + paid social* (if previous strategy was lead gen, this will decrease)
Cost per lead* (if previous strategy was lead gen, this will increase)
*Note: It is ok and EXPECTED if the above two go that direction - we’re focusing on downfunnel impact

Validate + iterate (days 91-180)
# high-intent handraisers
“How did you hear about us?” responses referencing the new tactics/mediums you’re using
BDR/AE feedback on if ICP has heard of your company before (will change from “Who are you and where are you calling from?” to “Ohh yeah, I’ve heard of your company before, I love your content!”
# discovery calls completed
Conversion % of handraiser > discovery call completed
Conversion % of discovery call completed > qualified opportunity

Scale + iterate (days 181+)
# qualified opportunities
$ qualified pipeline
Win rate
HDYHAU responses referencing word of mouth
Sales cycle length
$ revenue
Advertising customer acquisition costs (CAC)
Advertising CAC payback period

Pro tip: turn the KPI bullets at each stage into checkboxes so you can show them the exact progress you’re making as you move along the new journey

#marketing

In 2024, you can be a pretty darn good SaaS company ...

And still be 100% unfundable by VCs

In fact, maybe assume that's the case until you learn otherwise

Signs of spring in VC land. 🌱

#vc #venturecapital #startups #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #tech #technology #innovation #future #money #business

2024 👉 Pipeline is dry and marketing can't spend. 

Here's the framework I use to calculate how fast BOFU SEO traffic can be profitable: 

1. List BOFU keywords (competitors, status quo, jobs-to-be-done, etc.) relevant to my business and product.

2. Calculate how much traffic each keyword can generate based on the search position it's ranking for. 

3. Add all keyword traffic for each position 

i.e: If our articles rank #3 for these 15 keywords, we can get X traffic per month.

4. Using your current website's conversion rate, project how many leads or sign-ups you can get per month if articles start ranking. 

5. Calculate the ARR potential for your new BOFU traffic using your monetization rate for sign-ups and close rate for leads. 

6. Depending on how much you're spending on SEO, calculate your monthly CAC and SEO profit (new ARR minus costs-to-date). 

▶   Step 6 will give you your payback period if your articles all rank for a specific position. 

Repeat for every position to see how long it takes to get positive ROI if you rank #2, #3, #4, etc. 

#seo #growth

For startups, distractions are the enemy. 

But distinguishing distractions from opportunities, that's strategy.

I blurred the faces to protect the guilty. 🫣
I'm not here to say this is good or bad.

But think about it for just a minute. 🤔 

Because good or bad... it just is.

🤖This is contemporary social selling with an AI engine behind it.

The first wave of #AI has us awash in mediocre vanilla.

We're drowning in sameness.

And it's just getting started. 

Rather than handwringing about how awesome or terrible this is...

...let's talk about the antidote to universal uniformity? 🧪

There's never been a better time to lean in on #positioning and #differentiation.

Because old has become new.

We've ALWAYS been lost in a sea of undifferentiated sameness.

And the antidote for sameness is the same now as it was then.

I'm a fan of April Dunford's "Obviously Awesome." If you haven't, you should read it.

April starts her book talking shots at traditional brand positioning statements and Al Reis and Jack Trout's classic "Positioning: the Battle for Your Mind."

And then she repackages the EXACT same ideas. 🤺

No dis on her... they were due for repackaging and I love how she did it. 

But it underscores the point that AI content creation is like a horde of high-schoolers churning out voluminous high-school-level content. 

Sure, it's going to get better. But most of it isn't.

Because quantity is so much easier than quality.

I don't see that changing.

For the sake of your customers, arm yourself with the principles of positioning and differentiation.

It's only going to get more important to stand out. 

#cmozen #marketing

Founder Dedication: 
- Spending four hours on a Saturday at a dress rehearsal in preparation for Investors Choice
- Traveling from around the country and even Canada to present at Investers Choice

https://lnkd.in/gxHXjjDx

Founder Dedication

wsj.com • Subscription may be required

Exclusive | Utah’s Tech Hub Powers America’s Hottest Job Market, WSJ Ranking Finds

ViewPoint Simulations | Bring Learning to Life has been selected to pitch at the Kinect Capital Investors Choice Pitch Event! Come check it out and use our code for discounted entry! 

Link in comments!

There ain't no rest for the wicked... 🎶 

We're at it again, excited to host Jennifer Black-Janke, Carina Wytiaz, AnnaBelle Weyland, and Brad Knickerbocker from Vasion.

This panel is all about marketing team cohesion and how we can break down silos that keep us from greater output and efficiency. 

Huge shout out to Nichole Harrop for making this one happen, especially so soon after the Silicon Slopes Marketing Summit.

Lunch will be provided.
Rad giveaways may be happening.
Fun will be had.

Come join us on May 1st at 11:30 am at the HQ building in Lehi.
2600 W Executive Pkwy, # 140

The registration link is in the comments.

Taplio

Chad Jardine's Linkedin Analytics

Chad Jardine

Chad Jardine's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Taplio

.css-1jgreyo{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39,43,72,1) 0%, rgba(33,47,183,1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Chad Jardine's Linkedin Analytics

Chad Jardine

Chad Jardine's Best Posts .css-qqfgvy{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);}(last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Chad Jardine's Linkedin Analytics

Chad Jardine's Best Posts (last 30 days)