@Livelikecloud The suggestions from @danmoyle and @Gilempert are excellent. Speaking as a former CMO, here’s what I would add (and it has little to do with becoming an expert in B2B marketing):
- Find and achieve an early win -- preferably by fixing a problem identified by your CEO.
- Do not ask what your CEO wants you to do. Ask what the barriers to revenue growth are, and make a plan to overcome them. Review the plan with your CEO and other executives for feedback and buyin.
- In your plan, commit to “hitting a number” that aligns with business goals. I suggest “sales qualified leads” (leads that are ready to be contacted by sales) because it is a strong sign of commitment.
- In your plan, ask for sufficient budget to deliver on your commitment. If you don’t get the budget, you are not being set up to succeed. You should then change your commitment to meet the budget you are given. Whatever you do, do not make a commitment you cannot deliver.
- As part of developing your plan, learn how leads are currently handled inside the company and identify the breakdowns and bottlenecks. In my experience, the “lead to close” process most often breaks down when marketing hands off “sales qualified leads” to the sales team.
- Avoid spending your inbound marketing budget until you know how to solve the breakdowns and bottlenecks in the lead to close process. If your company has problems with the marketing to sales handoff of SQLs, it is critical that sales is trained on how to qualify leads correctly, and tag those who are not ready to buy in the CRM for continued nurturing.
Good luck! Stay focused on identifying barriers to growing sales, building a plan and making sure sales knows how to handle leads. You should consider working with a HubSpot partner who has B2B marketing expertise and knows how to get results using the platform..