Category design is a team effort. Not only does it affect to pursue it. They also need to have a solid relationship nearly everyone in your company in one way or another, with the CEO and the leadership team. Category design but pulling it off successfully also requires the support will require their commitment, and this person needs of every department. to be in a position where they can make that ask. If this “Category design will affect your job, whether you’re isn’t you, consider finding an ally who’s more suited to Part IV: in customer success, sales development, product, the task. HR, and so on,” Darin told me. “Take accounting, for For me, I was all but mandated to explore category How to Talk example. Category design can impact billing, spend on design – looking at ideas like this is part of my job marketing, expenses, and so on. Your accounting team description. But I didn’t try to go it alone either. As With Your Team will naturally ask questions like why are we doing this? someone very new to my company (I had only been at What’s this for? How much are we going to spend on BombBomb a few months when we kicked this off), I About Category this? Well, if you understand the “why” behind category also worked with my CMO, our President, and our CEO design, those questions become easier to answer.” on discussing this with our leadership team. I also had Before you can get there, though your CEO, your dozens of conversations with people throughout the Design (and Get executive team, and your department heads should be company early on, so I could better assess the culture, on board. But how do you go about that? Well, I’ve gone the state of the business today, and what our leadership Them Excited) through this exact process at BombBomb, and in this desired for the future. section I’ll share how we did it. 2. Start the discussion with your CEO WHAT YOU’LL LEARN: Looking back on what we went through, I can break Before I walk through the process of getting buy-in from I wrote this section based on going through this exact down our process into seven steps: your team, remember this one thing first: your CEO process at BombBomb. 1. F ind the right person to spearhead the has to be a core part of your category design efforts. I’ll show you why getting your team on board in the conversation I learned this early on, when Chris Orlob, Director of early stages of category design is the most important 2. Start the discussion with your CEO Sales at Gong, told me, “If you do not have your CEO part of the process. I’ll walk you through a specific plan 3. Build buy-in across your leadership team directly involved in your category creation efforts, it’s you can use to introduce category design to your CEO 4. Make the call probably going to fail.” and executive team, make the decision together, and 5. Create a task force While category design involves a heck-of-a-lot of then get your entire company involved with and excited 6. Bring your team along on the journey marketing, it’s ultimately a business strategy. It’s your for the process. 7. Create a feedback loop CEO who leads the business (not your marketing Throughout this section you’ll also find several pointers As you read through this process, keep in mind that team), so you cannot begin the process without her full from our two co-founders: Conor McCluskey, our CEO, this is a process that worked for our company. Your support and involvement. Hear more on why the CEO and Darin Dawson, our President. situation and your culture might be different, so feel needs to be involved in this interview I held with Chris. free to adapt this accordingly. Conor McCluskey, our CEO at BombBomb, told me, “Category design is a pivotal part of your plans for the 1. Find the right person to spearhead future. It can’t be a side project. As CEO, you need to get the conversation into the details of this strategy and have an informed Like any initiative, you have to start by figuring opinion of where you’re headed. That’s your job as a out who’s going to spearhead the category design leader.” exploration process. Whoever it is should have more But how do you begin this conversation with your CEO? than just a knowledge of category design and the desire Well, think of it more like a conversation, and less of The Newcomer’s Guide to Category Design 29