Khalid El Khatib is the Head of Marketing and Communications for Stack Overflow, which reaches 100MM people per month -- more traffic than the New York Times website! Khalid shares how his career path prepared him for this role, and how he has structured his organization to serve not just Stack Overflow's developer community, but also its paid SaaS products.

You'll hear about:

• Avoiding the mistake of underinvesting in brand awareness, especially in PE-backed companies
• The wisdom of mastering how to articulate the value of a brand investment to CEOs and CFOs
• How to respond when CEOs say they need a CMO but you suspect they really need a demand gen director
• Looking around the corners when hiring, and staffing up ahead of a growth curve
• Experimenting with freelancers before hiring in-house
• Reserving regular time on the calendar for marketing to meet with other business functions – creating a forcing function for "finding synergies wherever they exist"
• The wisdom of hiring someone who fulfills the job 90% and is motivated to stay long enough to fulfill all of the job

 

Favorite quote: "If you don't make a brand investment, you can wonder why competitors are beating you and why demand generation isn't working….A rising tide lifts all boats and an investment in brand awareness is that rising tide."

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Key Links

• Khalid El Khatib on LinkedIn
• Stack Overflow website

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Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing. 

We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

This season’s theme is Solving for the Scale Journey.

The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS. 

If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety - rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at [email protected]. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn, or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com. 

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

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