Typical marketing meetings devolve into a list of completed tasks and vanity metrics. A "Momentum Meeting" is fundamentally different: it’s structured around scorecards and goals. The focus shifts from "what did we do?" to "did we move the needle, and if not, why?" This fosters accountability and strategic problem-solving.
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The feeling of being over-scheduled is a symptom of running ineffective meetings with no clear purpose. These bad meetings create new problems that then spawn more meetings to fix them, creating a vicious cycle of wasted time. The solution is better meetings, not fewer.
Goldcast's CMO structures her week to serve her team: a strategic leadership sync, 1-on-1s framed as "how can I help remove blockers?", and no-agenda skip-level meetings to gather unfiltered feedback. This leadership model prioritizes enabling the team over top-down status updates.
Before attending a meeting, ask two questions: 1) "What specific decision or alignment will this create?" and 2) "What happens if we don't have this meeting?" If you can't provide clear, impactful answers, the meeting is a waste of time and should be canceled or handled asynchronously.
To drive data discipline, a RevOps leader should consistently review a core set of metrics with the executive team. This forces their own team to come prepared with answers. This scrutiny trickles down, as sales leaders learn which metrics matter and begin proactively reviewing them with their own business partners.
Sales leadership has established weekly, monthly, and quarterly cadences for pipeline reviews and forecasting. Marketing often lacks this structured, repeatable process for tracking its own leading and lagging indicators. Adopting a similar operational rhythm would significantly boost marketing's credibility with the C-suite and board.
An effective meeting has three parts: 1) "Navy SEAL" for strict accountability against goals, 2) "Suspense Thriller" for debating a strategic topic with an unknown outcome (using a pre-read memo), and 3) "Pep Rally" for authentically celebrating wins to boost morale.
Instead of presenting information that can be read in an email, a successful founder sent updates beforehand. This freed up meeting time for strategic discussions on product, capital, and hiring, which accelerated the company's growth.
Adopt the private equity board meeting model: circulate a detailed brief a week in advance. This forces attendees to consume updates asynchronously. The meeting itself can then be dedicated entirely to debating critical, forward-looking decisions instead of wasting time on status reports.
Framing a meeting around "alignment" invites defensiveness and departmental finger-pointing. Calling it a "Go-to-Market Meeting" re-centers the conversation on shared business problems like pipeline and retention, fostering collaborative problem-solving instead of blame.
A marketing system is not a "set it and forget it" solution. To ensure it runs effectively, implement a structured, recurring "momentum meeting." This monthly check-in drives accountability, facilitates alignment, and allows for continuous tuning and optimization of the system.