There are the CMOs who work for large enterprises and need to think big. There are the CMOs who work at startups or small businesses and need to focus on growth. Then there are the CMOs who need to think and act like they could be an organization of either size. Santiago Solanas falls into that third category.
As the marketing leader for Sage, Solanas is part of an international organization with more than hundreds of thousands of customers of its accounting and other software products in Canada. Most of those customers, however, are still far from being on the Fortune 500. That means Solanas has to not only run a huge marketing department internally, but to put himself in the shoes of peers who might only be working on a team with a handful of other employees. No matter how tiny the organization, however, the dream is typically one of scaling up, something Solanas noted is easier said than done.
“The key transition is turning from visionaries to pragmatists,” he told Marketing over the phone during a recent stop in Vancouver. “In my experience it’s when you have to think about things that are not important at the beginning, like managing your cash flow. Do you really understand customers’ needs over the next 18-24 months? Might there be incumbents that take on an idea you’ve had and push you out of the market?”
Sage’s products are designed to help companies deal with some of those issues, of course, such as managing sales activities and tracking costs. Beyond that, however, Solanas said he often advises clients on developing three “amplifiers” that are proven to make growth possible. This starts with capital.
“Without solid financials, it’s difficult to take an idea and turn it into a real business,” he said. Next, the people on your team are critical, though he said the team that founds a company might not be the one to take it to the next level. Third are advisors, which could come in all shapes and sizes. “The companies that survive surround themselves with advisors or mentors. You can either stumble on them or make a plan and a determined effort to find them,” Solanas said.
Sage has needed all three of those amplifiers as it continues to compete in a tough market for software companies. Sonalas said this had lead to a major transformation of his marketing team, which has been fragmented because of various acquisitions the company has made.
Another priority is anticipating customer needs. What are their ambitions, their aspirations. We have to design for applications and uses that meet those needs.”
When Sage launched Sage Live, its integrated cloud-based accounting system, for example, Solanas and his team sat with real customers rather than the product team much earlier in the process. “We didn’t ask about functionality – we asked, in their business, what would you like to accomplish? What is difficult about your day-to-day?’” he said.
“It wasn’t a typical design with an alpha (version) or an MVP (minimum viable product) and then we iterated. It was designed based on customer input from the very beginning. It was not thinking about competitors, but leapfrogging those competitors.”
This willingness to change processes and approaches is necessary at any stage of a firm’s life, Solanas said, adding that SMBs can never begin mulling their future success too early.
“You might be good with 50 customers,” he said, “but what about when you have 50,000?”
