So you’ve hired your dream CMO—here’s how to set them up for success at the company
Given the seniority of their position, correctly onboarding your CMO is so important. Different companies will have different approaches, from the ‘sink or swim’ approach of launching them straight into the role to see how they’re doing, to more effective integration of gradually feeding them responsibility.
It’s worth remembering that CMOs have among the highest turnover of any role in the C-suite—and all too often, this will be the result of bad onboarding. Ultimately, doing this right is all about giving your new hire all the information, context, and resources for them to thrive in their role.
There are of course a number of practical things to check off: giving them their laptop, relevant logins, a tour of the facilities, setting them up on the payroll, and so on. This should be fairly consistent across roles, so it makes sense to have a standardised checklist.
Now, the real onboarding begins. Start off by getting them up to speed. No matter how good your interview and assessment process was, there’s no way any candidate can really hit the ground running. Here you should ensure they have a complete understanding of the business and all its processes. Invest time early on to ensure they’re aware of the SWOTs, KPIs, OKRs (whatever framework you use) of the business. This gives them the opportunity to demonstrate their credibility early on to their team and colleagues.
From here, you should start to allow them to take charge. Introduce them to the team, let them take a fresh look at talent without influencing their opinion in advance. Now of course, it’s still important to bring them up to speed on performance and development, but try to remain as objective as possible.
Starting to get them to build up their relationships with various stakeholders is important too. CMOs, as with any new leaders, arrive with minimal relationship equity, so they need to invest time in building relationships with their boss and peers. You can support them here by encouraging key people to reach out and find time to catch up with them.
Linked to this is understanding and engaging with the culture of the organisation. This isn’t just the polished version you would have projected in the interview, but also including all the norms, acceptable and expected behaviours, etc. They must understand this first before seeking to evolve it.
Finally, you want them to step up to start shaping strategy. Ultimately, your CMO is going to be a leader in your business, and they need to set out their path ahead—whether that’s a continuation of the existing strategy or defining a completely new one. They must bear in mind, however, that implementing a new strategy will require the structure beneath it to evolve in order to execute effectively.
Making any hire requires significant investment—of time and effort—to ensure you end up with a great candidate. For CMOs and any other CXO position, this is even higher stakes. If you need help with leadership hiring, Vine Talent helps DTC brands from Seed to Series B and beyond, helping you with all the elements and processes mentioned above. Click here to find a time in Josh’s diary (Founder of Vine Talent) to discuss your requirements further.
