For more than 15 years, Ed has been helping high growth products and services companies build effective sales and marketing programs. Most recently, he was the CMO for Modulr, an award-winning FinTech company that raised over £60M in funding and consistently doubled revenue and pipeline YoY. Prior to this he led EMEA marketing for Appirio. His background in sales and recruiting, along with his experience as an entrepreneur building his own companies, has made him a sought after coach, advisor and fractional Chief Marketing Officer or Chief Customer Officer for VC-backed startups.
Why are you so passionate about helping entrepreneurs?
I love the build phase, and helping companies and people get to the next level. It’s incredibly exciting to help form the strategies, processes and teams that help a company achieve their vision, change a market, and make an impact on their industry. A number of years ago I started a weekly newsletter for aspiring entrepreneurs and successful revenue leaders who needed to understand more about the B2B marketing space. What started as a passion project has become a community.
You’ve spent 15+ years leading marketing and sales programs at services companies like Appirio to one of the hottest product companies in fintech. What advice would you give to first-time founders looking to build out their sales and marketing operations?
Marketing is often perceived as the poorer relation in a company’s go-to-market strategy, but with changes in the sales funnel and the expanded impact of marketing to revenue, the function needs to be taken seriously. Most CEOs and founders do not have a background in marketing and the first thing they do is hire a sales team. But without marketing as the enabling function, those sales people may struggle. The key is to align marketing across the whole customer journey, including marketing, sales and customer success. Marketing is not just events, it’s so much more.
You do a lot of work with investors and founders to evaluate and improve sales and marketing alignment. What are the most common blindspots companies have in this area?
Far too many companies don’t spend enough time refining their value proposition and messaging. Without that as a foundation, sales and marketing alignment will suffer, and sales capabilities will be much lower than they need be. The other blind spot is a general lack of understanding and willingness to invest in marketing to drive sales. Marketing is too often seen as a cost centre rather than a revenue driver.
