Frida Ahrenby

Franco Caporale:

Welcome to new episode of the Demand Generation Club Podcast. I'm your host, Franco Caporale. Our guest today is Frieda Ahrenby, chief marketing officer at GetAccept. GetAccept was founded in 2015 as part of Y Combinator. Their mission is to redefine the way companies run sales, providing a sales enablement SaaS platform to design, send, track, and e-sign sales documents in one place. GetAccept has operation across six offices, in U.S., UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and France, and has clients in over 50 countries.

Frida is passionate about leadership and building growth oriented marketing teams. She has been part of three growth journeys in the last decade, and has gained broad experience in how to rapidly scale performance driven teams and businesses, while at the same time creating a company culture where people work together to achieve something truly special. So, I'm really happy to welcome today Frida Ahrenby, chief marketing officer at GetAccept.

Frida, I'm really glad to have you on the episode today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Frida Ahrenby:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Franco Caporale:
So, I like to ask you right away some question about your background. Now you're the CMO at GetAccept. How did you end up in that role, and what's your career trajectory?

Frida Ahrenby:
Well, I've been with GetAccept since November 2019, so it's like one-and-a-half years. And before joining GetAccept, I spent three years within the FinTech industry at a company called Bambora. It's not Bombora that some people confuse it with, but it's actually Bambora with an a. It's actually a global payments company, but it started in the Nordics in Sweden, so it comes from there.

And I more or less had a similar role as I have now. I was heading up the marketing team. I was scaling the team, building a digital business, so to speak, and a global brand. And before joining Bambora, I spent a couple of years within the telco business, so working for one of the bigger telco companies in the Nordics called Telia. And I actually did quite a lot of different roles there.

So, I started within sales. My DNA is definitely sales. I worked within sales for several years. But I've also did product management. I did business development a couple of years. And the last thing I did was actually building up a SaaS service or a SaaS portfolio within that telco company that they provided to their SMB customers. So, that is more or less how I ended, or my first way into the SaaS industry.

Franco Caporale:
What made you transition from sales, which you said is like your core, your background, to marketing?

Frida Ahrenby:
That's a good question. To me, it is the same thing, but different sides of the same thing. And especially the way marketing has developed and transitioned the last couple of years. So, going from very traditional marketing to, of course, being digital, and that to me is sales. So, either it's sales directly as it would be if you were supporting marketing within an e-commerce organization, for example, or if you are within some kind of other organization, it supports sales in one way or another. Or growth. Whether it's a sales organization or if it's product led growth, there's marketing there as well. So, to me, it's very closed connected.

Franco Caporale:
So, your relationship with your sales counterpart is probably pretty strong.

Frida Ahrenby:
Definitely. I would say that I'm allergic to this sales and marketing fight. I do not believe in it at all. So yes, I find that that's the core, to have a strong relationship to both sales and product, I would say.

Franco Caporale:
Awesome, fantastic. From my conversation with you, one thing that really stood out is your ability, even your current role and previous role, to really focus on the team building and really developing and creating from scratch this high performing marketing teams. So, I would like to understand a little more what is your approach when you join a company, especially when it's more early stage, so maybe you don't have a ton of budget and resources. How do you approach building the team from scratch, and what are some things that you really focus on?

Frida Ahrenby:
To start with, the background that I have and what I've done before, I don't come in at a early, early stage of a company. A startup phase is not when I come in. Then I would say the company needs more specialized expertise. So, I come in when there is some momentum to actually start building the team. So, there needs to be some kind of foundation or ways to build a team in place.

But how I approach it is definitely to, of course, understand the overall company strategy. That is key. And then understand how is marketing fitting into this organization. How does marketing support the overall company strategy? What's the reason for marketing to exist within this company?

I mean, and that can be, as you and I talked about before, it can be, well, marketing definitely needs to support an outbound sales organization. Or this is a product led company. Marketing needs to more support product marketing and the product. Or we need to build brand and thought leadership, whatever it might be. That, to me, creates the baseline for, okay, then I need to build a team like this. If we're going from this to this, I need to start with different things depending on the strategy.

Franco Caporale:
So, figuring out the goals and objectives is your first step. So, once you know that, how do you spot the gaps within your existing team? Because probably you come in when there is already someone doing the job, maybe some specialized or more generalists. How do you spot the gap and then starting building the rest?

Frida Ahrenby:
Well, it's all about, of course, getting to know the people that are already on board and their competencies and their strengths, but also understanding where they want to develop or if they want to develop into another area or role. And then based on that understanding, okay, this is what we have, and this is what we need to add or complement with. So, it's like a puzzle where you have to, once again, understand the strategy. What kind of competence do we need to make that happen within a certain timeframe? And then looking at what do we have and what do we need to make that happen step by step.

Franco Caporale:
I really like the analogy of the puzzle in building the team. Because sometimes a piece looks like is in the right place, but maybe it's not in the ideal place. I know many times there were people that have been doing a certain role just because they were asked, but actually, their passion lies somewhere else, and they would like to develop into something else.

Frida Ahrenby:
Yeah, you might have a person who on paper looks like he or she definitely wants to step into this next role. But when you start understanding and knowing the person, you realize, no, this person is perfectly happy where he or she is. And then you don't want to push that person maybe into another role. So, it's all these ways to get to know what you have and the people you have to understand how you are to build from that.

Franco Caporale:
And so, now once you spot the gaps, which obviously takes quite some time at the beginning, but once you know who you need to hire, what's your approach to recruiting? Because especially today there's a lot of like... it's a big fight for talent. Are you looking for talent in a specific location? Are you open to hire anywhere where that person might be? What's your approach, and how do you attract those high profile people?

Frida Ahrenby:
Many questions in one. I start with like what was the first question? How do you attract.

Franco Caporale:
Yeah, how do you attract them, and then how do you looking on specific location only, or are you okay working totally distributed?

Frida Ahrenby:
I mean, I would say the first depending on what company you are at. But at GetAccept, for example, we take big pride in and we have a very, I would say, thorough and well thought through recruitment process.

So, we do most of our recruitments in-house. That is, of course, very time-consuming. But we also find that when we do that, we control the whole process, and we get the chance to really get to know the candidates, and they really get to know us during the process as well. Which in the end is very valuable because we've spent a lot of time together during the process and there's no surprises, or it's less surprises when that person get in and actually start to work.

But then, of course, we also try to combine that with looking in our own networks to find the talents that we need. I mean, there's always great people know great people. So, that is also something that we do. But on the other hand, I also think that that is something that you might need to be careful with as well. Because if you only look in your own networks all the time, you might end up adding or hiring people that are exactly like yourself, and then the dynamic of the team might be gone.

So, it's a combination, I would say. That's always quicker to look in your own network, or it's usually quicker, but you have to think about that. And maybe sometimes it's okay that it takes a little bit longer, but then you actually do your homework correctly, and you have a bigger chance of really nailing that person that adds that extra into the team.

Franco Caporale:
From an interviewing perspective, there are a lot of people that look good on paper, but then after two or three, four months they start working, you realize that maybe they're not cut out for that specific role. How do you limit these false positives during the interview process? Is there any trick or advice that you might have to really understand how this person is going to perform in their role?

Frida Ahrenby:
I would say it's back to having a rigid process. We have several touch points in our recruitment processes. So, the candidate meets with several different people within the organization. We do case interviews. We do tests, personality and logic tests. And just by doing that, I would say we have the chance to get a very good picture of the candidates so that those mistakes, if we call it that, is minimized.

But it's also, just to emphasize, very good for the candidate, because once again, the candidate gets to know us and the company very well during this process. So, there's less mistakes that the candidate make a mistake in choosing us as well. So, I think it's back to letting it take time, having several people involved in the process, and then having certain touch points where you actually test things so you can combine all these insights into one common understanding of the person.

Franco Caporale:
Do you also include, I would say, like working session to try to simulate how it will be working with that person, like whiteboarding, for example, or working on specific problems?

Frida Ahrenby:
We've done that, actually, before. I haven't done it, to be honest, but we do have more reality focused cases where that person gets to prepare and present something. And during that case presentation, we try to make it very reality like where we actually discuss the case and the situation and the project that that person has prepared. So, that is on what you're asking.

Franco Caporale:
Yeah. Yeah, I found it to be valuable both when I was interviewing, when I interviewed people, to try to mimic as much as possible a real situation. So then it should represent there are always room for errors. My next question is about once you have found the right people, you have a team, how do you measure their performance, and how do you maintain the standard high? Do you use OKR, or what is your month to month approach?

Frida Ahrenby:
Yes, we are. We use the OKR framework throughout the whole organization. So, we have company-wide OKRs that are then broken down into the teams. And we do that together, the whole marketing team. We look at the overall company OKRs, and then we together decide in a workshop where we do breakout sessions to how do we break these objectives down into one or two or three marketing objectives, and what KRs do we connect to those objectives. And once we have that, we take it one level further and break it down on individual basis as well.

So, we have a very clear line from company-wide strategy and targets down to the individual level. So that for once, I would say, is very helpful to get the team on track in terms of growth and direction and where we're steering. But then also, the targets that we look at on a weekly basis, for example, is always very growth oriented.

And the whole marketing team are measured on the same targets, such as leads, yes, booked meetings, closed customers, ARR. So, it's very sales oriented targets that we in marketing also look on and are measured upon just the same as sales, which, of course, keeps the marketing team on their toes all the time to make sure that we deliver or carry out activities that adds to those targets.

Franco Caporale:
How do you approach the fact that some part of marketing are easy to measure? If you run campaigns, Demand Generation. But when you do branding or you do PR, how do you translate that into measurable key results?

Frida Ahrenby:
That's super hard. Do you have any good ideas for me? I would say, I mean, that's a challenge. We don't have the means to do big brand, external brand, to measure our brand and awareness in the market, and I think that's a common situation for any scale-up.

So, what we try to do instead to measure how our brand grows is with measurements like organic traffic, direct traffic, followers in our social media, engagement in our organic social media. We have a couple of measurements like that or KPIs like that that we look at to understand whether our brand awareness is growing or not. But I would say that's a constant discussion, like which KPIs should we look at here?

Franco Caporale:
And now I have slightly of a difficult question that I'd like to ask. What do you do when performers are not meant to someone in your team? How do you manage the situation? What is some advice you have in those cases, which are always difficult, obviously?

Frida Ahrenby:
I would say that it's... I mean, it's seldom a surprise if a goal or performance isn't met. So, you start to see that or that trend quite early, which is also why you can work with it from the start. So, instead of waiting or it turns out later and becomes a surprise, since we follow these KPIs so closely, weekly and daily even, it's easier to try to work with that person early on and understand what is happening here.

Why is this happening? How can we help? How can we support? Is it a competence gap? Is it a collaboration gap? Is it a leadership gap? But I'm not saying that it's easy, but that's how I try to approach it, to be very transparent and talk about it right away to understand what is the real issue here.

Franco Caporale:
And I want to move instead on the positive side of when performers are doing well. But obviously, people in your team wants to continue grow. They want to learn new things. Everyone wants to advance in their career or they're going to leave. What is your approach to mentoring and growing your team?

Frida Ahrenby:
Well, we have a good structure as a baseline in the company where we have success reviews every year. During those success reviews, we also discuss how do you want to develop, and is there any new role you want to develop into, and during what timeframe do you see yourself developing into that role, and what is needed to take you to that? And then that forms the plans for the next year to come for that person. And if we, for example, have identified this person is stepping into new role, needs these kinds of trainings, it's easier to make that happen.

And also during the role, I would say I have a tight dialogue with my team members on how they are performing, and if there's any... Are they supported the way they need to be to be able to do their job, or do they need some special training or coaching in any way? And then we also have an internal mentoring program as well, which is also, I would say, adding to people's possibilities to develop. So, there's different ways of doing it, I would say.

And then overall, we have a... I mean, now we haven't been able to meet face to face in such a long time. But when we do, we try to always have maybe three or four times during the year meetups, a good party. We usually have costume parties where we get the chance to really have fun, get to know each other, put down the working titles and just be together and get to know each other. And that's also a way to celebrate people's performance and success, I would say.

Franco Caporale:
Yeah, I think team-building is particularly important, especially companies like yours that are very distributed. And with the pandemic for everyone, it was really challenging to maintain the team in a cohesive way for people that maybe never met in person.

Frida Ahrenby:
I mean, I have several people in my team who has never met. They were hired during the pandemic, and they have never met in person, only through Zoom. So yeah, that's special.

Franco Caporale:
One more question on the career development. When do you think is time to promote people? When do you know that that's the right time to actually promote them to the next level?

Frida Ahrenby:
Oh, that's a very good question. I haven't thought about that in that way. I would say you always have to be in a role for at least a year, give and take, to actually be able to do that role then to get through all the seasons of a role before you are actually, I would say, before you have learned what you need to learn and be ready to move on. Not saying that it's always time after just one year, but it might be, actually.

So, I think it's very much up to that... it depends on the person. Like how fast is this person learning? What's the potential in this person? Do I want to promote this person already now, or do I think that this person would be better off if you added a couple of more months, because then the person would have the chance to also experience this in the role.

So, I don't think it's a straight answer to that. It's very much person dependent and also their role. But also, of course, the need that I have as a leader. I need this person to do this job first in this role, or the company for that matter. So, it's a combination, I would say.

Franco Caporale:
Yeah, the person might be ready, but maybe there is not that opening in the company. You can't really force it all the time.

Frida Ahrenby:
Yeah. Then I also think, I mean, it's kind of natural many times for people to feel that they are ready a bit sooner than later. And I've seen that many times. And, I mean, that can happen to me, too, that you get inpatient, and you feel like you've hit a plateau, and you want to move on. But usually what I've learned is that when you feel that way, it's always good to give it a bit more. Because then you sort of move into the next level of the role, and you usually learn quite a lot by doing that.

Franco Caporale:
Exactly. A hundred percent. I have one last question. What is the one advice that you can give to someone that maybe just joined a company as a new VP of marketing or new CMO, and this person wants to build a high performing marketing team? Like what is one advice that you think you've learned in your career that you want to share?

Frida Ahrenby:
I think the advice that I would give is to make sure, first and foremost, that you have alignment with your CEO, definitely. But also important to have alignment with the rest of the management team so that everybody knows and understand why and how we are to scale the marketing team. And I think that's also closely connected to going back in time when marketing was more regarded as a cost center, which it isn't anymore, but it's easy to fall into that again.

But if everybody is aligned and understands why are we now building or using these building blocks to build this marketing team, it's easier to get people to commit to that. So, I think the C-level alignment is definitely what I would start with, and make sure that you are building the marketing team based on the company strategy, first and foremost. How is the market? What's the reason for marketing to exist in this company? Make sure you know that first and foremost, and then build out of that.

Franco Caporale:
Great advice. Thank you so much, Frida. And this has been a great conversation, so thanks again for joining us. I really enjoyed it.

Frida Ahrenby:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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