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Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter - read by 20,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 4,000 other members at exitfive.com.

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✅ Behind every successful event is a checklist

The Exit Five team is riding high from our first ever meet up in Austin last week – with an NPS of 50, safe to say we’re pretty excited about how it went.

There was a lot to think of, from sourcing excellent CMOs in Austin to sourcing a venue sight unseen… there was a lot that could have fallen through the cracks.

That’s why I love a good checklist – and I’m a firm believer you should never reinvent the wheel and start from scratch.

Our friends at Zuddl (which we used for our event in Austin) have put together a whole hub of checklists and templates for everything event related, like:

• Virtual events
• User Conferences
• Event Agenda templates
• What to do after the conference

If you’ve got an event coming up, I’d highly recommend checking these out, downloading a copy and customizing it for your needs.

🧠 CMO Secrets: 3 Lessons for marketing leaders in 2024

What’s really top of mind for CMOs right now?

We wrangled 3 of the top CMOs in Austin for a live panel last week, and Dave asked them to share everything from what’s working (and not working) for them right now to how they’re dealing with their CFO, and more.

And man, did they deliver.

I was sitting in the corner furiously taking notes so that we could get you the highlights ASAP.

Without further ado, let's meet the CMOs and get into what they dished out in Austin.

Meet the CMOs:

We put out a call to the Exit Five community in Austin, and these three CMOs got mentioned time and time again:

• Kimberly Storin: CMO, Zeyo Group
• Ido Mart: CMO, Manychat
• Megan Lueders: CMO, Sonatype

We're beyond lucky that Kim, Megan, and Ido joined us last week to share their insights.

1. CMO Roles Are What You Make of Them (So Make Them Count)

Kim (CMO at Zayo) reminded us that the CMO role is largely undefined. Unlike the CFO, which has a clear remit, CMO roles are shapeable.

This can be a huge opportunity for you to lean into your strengths and make the role yours. Whether you’re a brand expert, demand gen pro, or product marketing mastermind, use what you’re best at to build a function that has impact.

Megan (CMO at Sonatype) emphasized that understanding how your CEO views marketing is vital— you need to have the same definition of the role, otherwise you’re fighting an uphill battle.

Ido had a great point that your success is often determined before you even take the role – different companies have vastly different needs. Sometimes they need strategy more than execution and vice versa.

He recommends asking yourself, “what needs to get done in the org to be successful?” and matching that up with your own skills.

Takeaway: Define your role before someone else does. Build around your strengths and make sure leadership is on the same page.

2. “Marketing Is Never Green When the Business Is Red”

There were audible gasps and more than a few claps when Kim dropped this gem of a one-liner. It truly captures the reality of being a CMO today.

Marketing’s success metrics can’t live in a vacuum; they need to reflect the broader business health. Vanity metrics like high MQLs or social engagement numbers don’t mean much if they’re not translating into real value that drives the company forward.

It’s a reminder to all marketing leaders: our goals and metrics should align with the company’s overall health. Celebrating isolated wins, like increased lead volume, is hollow if the deals aren’t closing or revenue targets aren’t being met.

Kim suggests focusing on “business value drivers,” such as how marketing influences deal velocity and deal size—essentially, measuring how marketing impacts the outcomes the company cares about most.

Ido (CMO at Manychat) added a cautionary note on over-relying on attribution. It’s great for insights but not scorekeeping. Treating attribution as gospel can create unnecessary friction, especially with CFOs focused on profitability.

Takeaway: Track business-driven metrics that reflect marketing’s true impact on the business and remember that attribution is a tool, not the answer.

3. Growth-at-All-Costs Is Dead—Here’s What’s Taking Its Place

We’re officially in the era of “growth with a conscience.” Gone are the days when marketing could push for growth at any cost. Ido mentioned how profitability is becoming the company-wide metric, a shift that can challenge CMOs to balance growth with sustainability.

His advice? Don’t let the CFO start dictating marketing tactics just to meet EBITDA goals. Instead, defend marketing’s strategic role – but don’t rely on attribution to do it.

Megan does this by constantly analyzing the impact of marketing's involvement in deals. How much faster do they close vs deals where only sales is involved? She wants to show that when marketing sources or touches a deal, they’re faster to close and bigger contract values.

She also shared a cheeky tip: stop itemizing every single marketing channel. It gives the CFO the opportunity to dig in and pick them apart.

Takeaway: Growth is still the goal, but you’ll need to balance it with a clear, profitability-focused plan. Protect marketing’s influence in strategy discussions.

P.S. The bad news? I don't have a recording of the panel to share with you just yet  – but stay tuned!

The good news? We're planning on hosting a few more of these meetups in 2025. Would you come to one? What cities should we make sure we get to?

Just reply to let me know – as you know I cherish each one :)

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

🎤 Exit Five LIVE | B2B Paid Spend: A 2025 Roadmap for Marketers

When done right, paid spend is like throwing gasoline on the flames of what’s working in your marketing. Done wrong – it’s just a huge waste of time and money.

Join our next Exit Five Live session with John Short, CEO of Compound Growth Marketing, and learn tried and true strategies they’ve built from managing over $50 million in paid spend.

You’ll learn:

• How to choose which strategy is best for you and exactly how to target the right ICP
• The three keys to successful paid media, like setting up actionable reporting
• How to identify how much you can spend for leads/account at each stage of the sales and marketing funnel

Plus, we’ll wrap up with a Q&A session where you can ask your burning questions on Paid Media spend.

If you can’t make it live, sign up for the recording – but it’s always better to come live and ask your questions first hand. The session chat is full of B2B marketers just like you, so don’t miss out!

Join us live

🏢 OPEN ROLES

Who's Hiring Right Now?

HOT JOB OF THE WEEK: We're hiring at Exit Five – we're looking for an Account Manager to be our sixth teammate. You'll be the primary owner of our sponsorship business - a $1m/year revenue stream. We've barely scratched the surface of what’s possible here, and you'll be the driving force in taking us to the next level.

Interested? Apply here.

Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:

• RightMetric is hiring a Founding Marketer
• Wynter is looking for marketing leaders to participate in their research
• SpeedWork is hiring a Senior LinkedIn Ads Specialist
• Dragon360 is hiring a Advertising & Media Strategist
• AROYA is hiring a Performance Marketing Manager
• Rhapsody is hiring a Content Marketing Manager
• Peak Support is hiring a Head of Marketing ($140k-$185k)
• PDQ is hiring a Senior Customer Marketing Specialist
• Circle is hiring a Head of Marketing

See All Open Roles >>

Have an open role and want to make sure the best B2B marketing talent sees it?

Just reply to this email and we'll send over more info on how you can post it on our job board + get it in front of 20k+ marketers.

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