#382 | Rob Sobers has been CMO of Varonis for 15 years - through its growth from startup to public company doing over $700 million in revenue. Dave talks with Rob about how he's stayed sharp enough to keep the job this long, starting with the fact that as an engineer, he still writes JavaScript and even fixes bugs on the Varonis website from time to time. Rob explains why no manager on his team oversees work they don't do themselves, why he'd rather keep marketing simple than layer on complexity as the company scales, and his "reasonableness test" for deciding which programs don't need to be forced into a pipeline number. They also cover his approach to saying no to his own team, and why longevity gives him a wider lens on the business.
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Timestamps
- (00:00) - - Meet Rob Sobers, CMO of Varonis for 15 years
(01:18) - - Why Rob still writes JavaScript and fixes bugs on the website(05:06) - - Learning a new marketing discipline every time he was out of his depth(05:55) - - Why there are no career middle managers on the Varonis marketing team(07:24) - - The communication tax of overstaffing a team(09:59) - - Keeping goals dead simple: opportunity creation as the north star metric(14:28) - - Getting good at saying no to his own team, but not too good(18:02) - - The reasonableness test: why not everything needs a pipeline number(20:49) - - Reverse-engineering the marketing budget from the revenue number(23:04) - - What separates a CMO from a VP of Marketing(26:26) - - The ClickUp $1M "one-person marketing team" debate(35:26) - - Marketing to skeptical CISOs, acquisitions, and why B2B brands need a mascotJoin 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
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