How to be a top SaaS CMO: Heidi Bullock on GTM Excellence

Heidi Bullock has been the CMO of Tealium for the last 5+ years (Engagio & Marketo before that). She's widely regarded as one of the top CMOs in SaaS. I wanted to learn how she got to be so good, and what GTM Excellence looks like in her playbook. She told me on episode 4 of our PeerSignal podcast. What you'll learn in our conversation: -- The three non-negotiable fundamentals of effective ABM. -- Why Tealium focuses on regulated industries despite initial success elsewhere. -- Why your ICP strategy is probably wrong (and how to fix it). -- How to get "story-audience fit" and why it matters more than most tactics. -- How AI is transforming her marketing operations. -- Her daily mantra for maintaining calm in high-pressure marketing roles. My take-aways from our talk: 1️⃣ Story-audience fit is more important than messaging. Even brilliant stories fail when they don't resonate with your specific audience. Heidi tests every narrative with actual buyers, not just colleagues who'll praise anything. This is why many B2B brands invest heavily in storytelling but still sound generic - they create stories they love rather than stories their customers connect with. 2️⃣ ABM requires the entire revenue team. The reason ABM is hard is the same reason it works - it requires true alignment across marketing, sales, and customer success. Everyone needs to understand what you're trying to do and their role in the game. Heidi shares some tactical resources & playbooks to help operationalize this. 3️⃣ Make your customer the hero. At Marketo, they realized marketers weren't seen as revenue drivers. Instead of being "just another marketing automation tool" they built a movement where they elevated the entire job. The best B2B brands don't just solve problems - they tap into emotion and identity. They make customers feel seen, understood, and empowered. They make them a hero. 4️⃣ Win credibility with ICP. Heidi shared how strategic she is about ICP. Looking deep at retention by segment and bringing that data forward into their ICP Modeling & Account Selection. This is foundational to her results, but also her success in the board room. Every modern CMO should be proving ICP with value & business metrics first, and marketing metrics second. Full Interview: https://lnkd.in/ge-98sfK p.s.  Notice how you didn't have to comment "POD" to get this episode, and I linked it right here in the post? LinkedIn might not like that. If you want more conversations like this, leave a comment or share. The more engagement this gets, the more CMOs I'll be able to convince to share their secrets 🙏