design discussion who aren’t on the leadership team. a video to the entire company every Friday about what Part IV: Creating a task force gives you the flexibility to add the we’re working on,” said Darin. “Category design became How to Talk With right people to the mix. one of the pieces I started to communicate in those At BombBomb, we created a group of seven leaders updates. I try to be very upfront about the fact that Your Team About who work on product, sales, creative, marketing, and this is going to affect their job (in a good way) and it’s Category Design operations. Both our CEO and President are part of this something they need to pay attention to. group, and we have just one marketer (me). Remember, HubSpot is another great example of a company that (and Get Them you can (and should) bring up major updates and cares about “internal evangelism.” “If you’re going to Excited) decisions with your leadership team. But save the heavy create a category that’s going to last years and years, lifting and for your task force. you need a catalyzing event that allows everybody in your company to understand what the story is,” Kipp 6. Bring your team on the journey Bodnar, the current CMO and an early employee, told The decision to pursue category design should happen at me in this interview. the executive level, but once that’s done, you must involve “You need to have this source of truth that people can your team in the category design process. It’s a necessity. look to. For HubSpot, that was Brian and Dharmesh Consider all the activities I outlined above: executing publishing the Inbound Marketing book. Then it was I knew that category lightning strikes, creating content, reworking your the creation of partnerships with some other folks for design would be a whole messaging, and so on. Category design is too big for the Inbound event which we still host every fall here “ just a few people to pull off. Bring your team on board in Boston. Then, I think it’s the job of everybody in the company initiative – early on if you want to have their support later. company to say, ‘Hey, this is our mission.’” something that would “I knew that category design would be a whole company Keep in mind that you’ll probably get mixed feedback fundamentally change initiative – something that would fundamentally change from your team at first. “Some people have been excited. how everyone thought how everyone thought about the business,” Darin Some people have pushed back. Some have said that explained. “I also knew that if we were going to pull we’ve always been doing this already,” said Conor. “That about the business. this off, we had to get commitment across the board. just reiterates the importance of the CEO continuing to ” Your team might follow you initially, but if they’re not push the momentum. I have to remind our team that — Darin Dawson bought-in, they can be a drag on the whole program and this is what we are doing, we are saying yes to certain you won’t see the success you’re looking for.” things and no to other things, and I have to continually bring our team back into alignment. That’s just part of Getting your team on board is also your obligation as being a leader.” a leader. Category design represents a major company If you do encounter people on your team who are strategy, and any good leader will help show their team having a hard time getting behind category design, a vision for the future and a plan for getting there. If you’ll want to address that situation right away. Not presented in the right way, category design can help instill only will it be harder for your team to execute category confidence and excitement for where you are headed. design if someone isn’t on board, but it may also be At BombBomb, we started this process through the a sign that there’s a more fundamental issue that the “Friday Update” videos that Darin sends to the entire employee needs help with. company each week. “Once I have my teams bought in at “If someone remains skeptical or is just having a hard the leadership level, I expect them to carry that message time getting behind this, I would be more inquisitive to their teams and help them understand it. I also send The Newcomer’s Guide to Category Design 33