Our best practices for presenting your marketing plan to the board of directors as companies are in the thick of 2024 planning.

General guidelines:

First, there are general guidelines you should always keep in mind when presenting your plan to the board:

• Come prepared - Don’t present plans that aren’t pressure tested. If you ask for money, be ready to answer questions about the specifics—results, how you’ll get there, data behind your hypotheses. 

• Lead with the red - You’re not expected to be perfect at your job, but you do need to show that you’re the perfect person for your job. There will always be things that don’t go according to plan—you need to differentiate between what's relevant and irrelevant. Leading with things that can be done better can give you credibility. Don’t hide things that aren't working right now.

• Come with solutions - Prioritize and propose solutions for the things that didn’t go well. There are many ways to add revenue to the bottom line without creating new leads or MQLs. Think about other levers you can pull to impact revenue—here are 50+ examples to consider.

• Adopt a GTM mindset - Approach these conversations with the perspective that you are a go-to-market leader, not just a marketing leader. Everything in your company is intertwined. Ensure you're aligned with (and supporting) your other GTM leaders—Sales, Product, Success, etc.—in their efforts. Don’t present a marketing plan; present a holistic go-to-market approach and demonstrate how marketing’s role fits into it.

Presenting your plan to the board.

Your goal at the board meeting is to get alignment between the board and the CEO on three core metrics:

1. Overall growth target - Your company’s reasonable growth aspiration. Consider what’s happening in the overall market and category you play in. This number gives you a foundation to forecast what you need to generate from your funnel.

2. Net-revenue retention (NRR) - What will your revenue look like after expansions, upsells, churn, and contractions? For context, 2–3% churn is best-in-class. Aim for NRR above 100%.

3. Profitability - What's the balance between growth and the cost of that growth? For every dollar that you spend, what will get returned?

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Links shared in this episode:

• The Ansoff Matrix exercise for aligning your team around your growth priorities
• 50+ growth lever examples for your go-to-market plan 
• Jason Lemkin’s C10/C60/C90 framework
• T2D3 CMO Masterclass
• Suggest a topic for our podcast

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About B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks

B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks (BSMS) is a podcast produced by Kalungi that simplifies complex marketing topics in small bites. Hosted by Mike Northfield, Kalungi’s Chief Evangelist, and Stijn Hendrikse, Kalungi’s co-founder.

Kalungi is a marketing agency that works with early-stage software startups. Kalungi is an instant-on marketing department that builds and deploys go-to markets for early-stage B2B SaaS companies using T2D3 methodologies. Clients get access to a strategic marketing leader that can be held accountable to results and is supported by a team of tactical marketing specialists.