Interview Questions for Demand Generation
I get asked a lot about how to find the right demand generation person. Too often we bucket Demand generation people in a bucket. It doesn’t matter if they worked for Wayfair, LogMeIn, or Workday, we see them as all the same. The truth is that there are critical questions you can ask yourself before starting the process and ask them during the process to make sure they are the right fit for your company.
What is the average deal size and how has that impacted your strategy?
A critical thing to understand is what type of demand generation environments they've been in previously. Has it been a high transaction volume and low transaction size, or a low transaction volume and high transaction size?
If you get someone who only knows demand generation for a company like Constant Contact where the average MRR is $60 per month, they are going to be lost in a company that sells $100k deals. Likewise, vice versa is the same.
I like to use this blog post as a framework for understanding the 5 different types of demand generation. Each type of company requires a different strategy. If you're selling $1M deals the marketing strategy is more of a sniper approach, if you're selling something for $10k it’s more of a spray approach (sorry for the grim analogy).
What would you think about building lead qualification criteria for our company?
A good answer will show they have a strong understanding of who your customer is and when they will be coming to you. You also will get to see how much they think about the impact leads will have on sales vs. how hard they are trying to just hit their number. Do they mention feedback they've previously gotten from the sales team, and how that impacted their qualification criteria? Do they give examples of when the sales team was wrong about the criteria for a qualified lead and how they pushed back and get sales onboard?
The best way to qualify leads for sales is by looking at match to ICP and the level of intent of the lead. ICP is measured by job title, company size, industry, etc. and intent can be seen through the offer they filled out, typically demo form, chat, pricing request, or trial start.
Good Answers: “We qualify people who raise their hand.” or “we look to get feedback from the sales team on the best leads they get and build qualification criteria based on that”
🚩🚩🚩 (red flags) They talk about a super sophisticated lead score model
What is your current relationship with your sales organization?
Additional questions can help you get context. In this part of the conversation, you want to learn how they keep sales accountable, and how their team is held accountable by the sales team. Do they have an SLA? If so, what are the metrics that each team is paying attention to? How do the marketing and sales systems work together? What are the points of friction between the teams? How do the sales and marketing leader move towards the ultimate goals of the company, which are revenue and profit?
If they are extremely negative about the sales team, then it’s not a complete non-starter, but it's a Strike for sure. There are incompetent sales and marketing leaders out there, so as I said, don't completely block them from the process, but dig in and listen to their reasoning. Have they ever had a good relationship with a sales leader in a successful company?
Good answers: “there were some challenges in the beginning but we overcame them by…”, or “we meet with them weekly and I connect regularly with the head of sales”
🚩🚩🚩 “We don’t work closely with sales”, “Our VP of sales is kind of a jerk”
What are the metrics your team is accountable for? How have you done against those targets?
You already are asking a variation of this when you ask about LTV to CAC. Basically here we're just trying to figure out how they feel about goals, what they think the role of demand generation is in the revenue generation process, and how they rally their team to hit those targets.
Good answers: Pipeline Generation, Sales Meetings, and MQLs (but ask them to define what an MQL is)
🚩🚩🚩 When they say Leads, Visits, or other vague metrics. MQL metrics are based on gated content and not highly qualified leads.
How would you build goals for the coming year?
Similar to the above, we just want to learn how they approach goal setting, and if their method is sound. It doesn't need to be perfect, but you can lose a lot of momentum by not setting goals, and by not setting realistic targets. The way someone sets goals shows a lot about how they think about developing the strategy for the next 12 months. Ultimately one of the values of a demand generation team is how predictable it is because you will be hiring sales headcount based on the lead numbers you project.
What is the goal of demand generation in B2B?
Ultimately the goal is to build interest and drive demand into the sales team that generates revenue. A lot of demand generation folks will simply say, “revenue”. Sure! But there are important steps to get to revenue that marketing needs to pay attention to.
Good Answers: support sales in the sales process, to drive pipeline, and/or generate demand in the form of (good) MQLs, SQLs, or sales conversations.
🚩🚩🚩 Drive leads, visits, or when they don’t mention the sales team at all.
How do you approach your technology stack?
Personally, I am wary of people who like shiny objects. Technology can get in the way, so I am a marketing tech stack minimalist.
Good answers: “I try to keep it simple because there is a cost of resources for a complicated tech stack.”, or “we need to do XY and Z so I’d look at bringing in these solutions to do it, and keep it as simple as possible.”
🚩🚩🚩 “how big is your tech budget, I want to bring in my marketing automation system, terminus, metadata, oribi, bla bla bla”
Places to hire:
Linkedin: Figure out companies that have executed a similar go to market strategy, build an Airtable or Google Sheet listing them out. Call this table “Hunting Grounds”. Scout linkedin for people who currently work at these companies or have.
Get introductions asking for advice of how to hire for this role, don’t jump straight into “Do you want to work for us”. Getting them on the phone will make it much more likely they will be open to learning more about the role, and much more likely that they will refer someone. People love to give advice
DGMG Job Board - Dave Gerhardt has built a really popular job board among tech marketers.
Delivering Value Job Board Andrew Capland has built a job board for companies in the PLG space looking for growth folks.
Jobs by Workable - Workable continues to build awesome products, and their job board produces.