August 22, 2022 • 36min

Mark Leslie: Silicon Valley Go-to-Market Legend (Part 2)

Pattern Breakers

In this episode of the Pattern Breakers podcast, Mike Maples Jr. interviews Mark Leslie, a veteran technology CEO, investor, and Stanford lecturer. They discuss Leslie's perspectives on the role of a CEO, his framework called Leslie's Compass for determining optimal sales and marketing approaches, and how go-to-market strategies evolve as companies scale. Mark Leslie brings decades of experience as a technology executive, having served as CEO of Veritas Software for 11 years and grown the company from 12 employees to over 6,000. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business and invests in frontier technology startups.

0:00

-0:00

Key Takeaways

The CEO's primary role is strategic vision and leadership, not day-to-day operations. CEOs should focus on developing a 5-year vision for the company that informs all decisions.
Leslie's Compass is a framework for determining the optimal sales and marketing approach based on product characteristics like price, market size, and complexity.
Products fall on a spectrum from purely marketing-driven (e.g. consumer goods) to purely sales-driven (e.g. enterprise software). Companies need to align their go-to-market strategy accordingly.
In marketing-driven businesses, sales serves marketing. In sales-driven businesses, marketing serves sales. Understanding this dynamic is crucial.
As companies scale, they often need hybrid approaches with multiple sales channels to capture all available demand in the market.
Metrics-driven marketing focused on lead quality and pipeline efficiency has become increasingly important, especially for high-volume businesses.
Product-led growth can enable both self-serve adoption and enterprise sales motions in parallel as companies scale.

Introduction

In this episode of the Pattern Breakers podcast, Mike Maples Jr. interviews Mark Leslie, a veteran technology CEO, investor, and Stanford lecturer. They discuss Leslie's perspectives on the role of a CEO, his framework called Leslie's Compass for determining optimal sales and marketing approaches, and how go-to-market strategies evolve as companies scale.

Mark Leslie brings decades of experience as a technology executive, having served as CEO of Veritas Software for 11 years and grown the company from 12 employees to over 6,000. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business and invests in frontier technology startups.

Topics Discussed

The Role of a CEO (01:35)

Leslie argues that the CEO's primary job is not day-to-day operations, but rather strategic leadership focused on the long-term vision:

Macro leadership: Evangelizing the company vision externally and inspiring employees
Micro leadership: Building a high-trust executive team with agency to represent the company
Daily priorities: Managing calendar, tracking quarterly/annual goals, and most importantly, thinking about the 5-year vision

Leslie emphasizes: "I have a deeply held conviction that what makes a company successful is great strategy, not great execution. So execution without strategy, the trains were on time. They don't go anyplace. They go in a circle. Great strategy allows you to transform your company."

He argues CEOs should constantly ask: "Does this move us closer to our 5-year goal?" when making decisions. This long-term vision should inform all activities.

Leslie's Compass Framework (13:28)

Leslie introduces his framework for determining the optimal sales and marketing approach based on product characteristics:

Price: Is it a large or small economic decision for the buyer?
Market size: How many customers need to be reached?
Complexity: How much explanation/customization is required?
Fit and finish: How polished does the product need to be?

Products fall on a spectrum from purely marketing-driven (e.g. consumer goods like toothpaste) to purely sales-driven (e.g. jet engines for aircraft manufacturers). Most B2B products fall somewhere in between.

Leslie explains: "As you go from these characteristics to those characteristics, the marketing intensity goes down and the sales intensity goes up, which is where you get the crisscross curve."

Marketing-Driven vs Sales-Driven Approaches (24:04)

Leslie outlines how the relationship between sales and marketing differs based on where a product falls on the spectrum:

Marketing-driven (sales serves marketing):

Common in consumer goods
Sales focuses on product placement, inventory management
Marketing drives strategy around pricing, positioning, etc.

Sales-driven (marketing serves sales):

Common in enterprise B2B
Marketing provides leads, content, sales enablement
Sales drives customer relationships and closes deals

Leslie notes: "The most important measure that a sales organization puts on marketing is quality of leads. If you give me leads that I can go get an appointment and go close the deal, then I love you."

Evolution of Marketing (29:22)

Leslie observes how B2B marketing has transformed:

Historically more artistic, focused on advertising/PR
Now very metrics-driven with sophisticated tools
Emphasis on pipeline efficiency, lead sourcing analytics

He advises: "You want to get a marketing demand ninja, someone who really knows how to get the right products in, get the right pipeline built, be able to look at every deal that we've done and track it back to its source."

Aligning Go-to-Market with Product Characteristics (30:59)

Leslie uses the example of Gusto (payroll software) to illustrate how product characteristics should inform go-to-market strategy:

Low price point
Large customer base
Low complexity
High fit and finish
B2C-like buying process

Despite being a B2B product, these characteristics indicate Gusto should use a marketing-driven, low-touch sales approach. Leslie notes: "It's a marketing business is what it is. And sales is there - once you've done all that stuff, if someone calls up with a question, you can close them on the phone. That's what sales does. It's a very low touch, low impact business."

Product-Led Growth and Hybrid Approaches (32:23)

Leslie discusses how product-led growth models and scaling companies often require hybrid approaches:

Product-led growth: Enables both self-serve adoption and enterprise sales (e.g. Zoom)
Multiple channels: As companies scale, they often add channels to capture all demand

He gives the example of Veritas developing 5 sales channels as they grew: "Enterprise sales, commercial sales, inside sales, distribution, and self-serve. So you can do it all. It doesn't mean one eliminates the other."

The goal becomes capturing all available market demand, regardless of how customers want to buy.

Investing in Frontier Technologies (34:30)

Leslie reflects on his career in technology and current focus on investing:

Joined the tech industry in 1966 at IBM
Now invests in "exotic" frontier technologies
Expects to lose money on most investments, but occasional big wins make it worthwhile

He notes: "I love the fact that I've been in the technology industry since its infancy... Every day you learn about something new and think about something new. And I've been very grateful for serendipitously falling backwards into this industry."

Conclusion

Mark Leslie provides valuable insights on strategic leadership and go-to-market strategy based on his extensive experience as a technology CEO and investor. His framework, Leslie's Compass, offers a structured approach for aligning sales and marketing efforts with product characteristics. As companies scale, they often need to evolve their strategies and adopt hybrid approaches to capture all available market demand.

The discussion highlights the importance of long-term strategic thinking for CEOs, the evolving nature of marketing in B2B contexts, and the need for flexibility in go-to-market approaches as companies grow. Leslie's continued involvement in frontier technologies demonstrates his enduring passion for innovation in the tech industry.