How To Nail Your First Quarter in a New Marketing Role with Grant Duncan from HST Pathways

What It Covers

Grant Duncan, three-time VP Marketing at HST Pathways, shares his comprehensive checklist for succeeding in the first 90 days of a new marketing role, including metrics frameworks, team building strategies, and AI implementation tactics.

Key Questions Answered

• •First 30 Days Metrics Checklist: New marketing leaders should analyze paid search keyword performance, funnel conversion rates by source, pipeline cohort conversion, ACV by product, time between funnel stages, and self-reported attribution to identify quick wins and establish baseline performance understanding.
• •Initial Findings Presentation Framework: Create a two-slide deck at 30 days with four boxes per slide covering observations for highlights, observations for lowlights, recommendations for top strategies to prioritize, and where leadership can help. Share with both marketing team and revenue leadership for alignment validation.
• •AI Content Automation Approach: Using OpenAI API directly through simple Python programs outperforms most SaaS tools for complex use cases like batch transcribing podcasts, generating 4000-word blog posts from CSV prompts, and auto-publishing to WordPress, saving multiple hours weekly per team member.
• •Landing Page Navigation Strategy: For products with 10k plus ACV, include top-level menu navigation on landing pages rather than removing it. Buyers review 5 to 15 pages including customer stories and pricing before submitting demo forms, requiring exploration beyond single-page experiences.