Written by Alex Olley - CRO, Co-founder at Reachdesk

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CEOs care about the success of their company, their reputation and winning. Your relationship with your CEO is way better as a Marketing leader if they believe you know your stuff and they are confident that what you do helps the company succeed. They want to be certain their job isn’t on the line and that overall everyone will win as a result of what you do. No pressure!

Sam Jacob’s said it best “Everything is an expense until YOU make a case that it’s an investment.” If a CEO is saying no to your ideas/suggestions, it’s either a terrible idea or you haven’t done a good job at persuading them why you should do it.

It’s also critical you get your CFO on your side. Ensuring they are on the same page and understand the investments you want to make only helps your case. They tend to expect more detail on the numbers, so be prepared to go deeper into the detail once questions inevitably get asked. The goal is to get aligned on core metrics, what each metric means and how you will calculate each one.

This document is designed to help you with these conversations specifically when you need to unlock more dollar. It’s designed to help you get more investment.

How this doc works:

1️⃣ To kick things off, this document was created for real. It helped me guide a critical conversation with our CEO and our board and helped secure additional budget that was gated. The focus is on acquiring new logos here. It can be adapted for Customer Marketing. I’ve intentionally left out some items as the data is sensitive. Instead I’ve given examples on what to insert 🧑‍💻

2️⃣ There are [SQUARE BRACKETS] to give you guidance and where to insert your own narrative. I’ve added in my narrative for Reachdesk with parts intentionally removed so I don’t get fired for sharing sensitive information. There are narratives within this document to help guide you

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They look like this

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3️⃣ This document MUST be worked on between Sales and Marketing to get you aligned. The goal is to help drive revenue. You’ve succeeded if your CEO can easily articulate what Marketing does at your company, they want to invest MORE into Marketing and Sales are happy because Marketing is helping drive revenue 🤑

4️⃣ CEOs / Boards want to be confident you know your shit. So you need to know key metrics. The detail sits in this doc. However, you need to create a summary to explain your findings. When they ask difficult questions - which they do (it’s their job so don’t get upset) - refer back to the detail.

5️⃣ Create an updated version every quarter with fresh data and findings. It might take a while the first time round. Second time round it’s fast and easy.

6️⃣ There’s a checklist that makes sure you’ve ticked all the boxes. Tick them all. Leave no stone unturned!

Let’s get into it!