In this episode, Dave sits down with Michael Cole, SVP of Marketing at Everflow, a partner marketing platform that helps companies manage referral and affiliate programs. Michael discusses his journey from being Everflow’s first marketing hire to leading a marketing team of 16, and shares strategies for building a marketing function from the ground up.Dave and Michael cover:How Everflow turns happy customers into referral partnersWhat it’s like to be a first-time marketing leaderBuilding a marketing function from scratchTimestamps(00:00) - - Introduction to Michael (05:45) - - Michael’s journey to marketing leadership (10:32) - - Understanding company growth before developing your strategy (13:36) - - Turning happy customers into referrals (17:41) - - Scaling a successful team (24:13) - - Referrals vs. paid ads (28:30) - - Organic vs. paid strategies (30:57) - - Growing organically and spreading through word-of-mouth (32:43) - - Finding complementary business partnerships (38:56) - - Enhancing content creation (41:56) - - Delegation and accountability in a strong team (42:55) - - Strategizing for growth (46:05) - - Closing remarks Join 50,0000 people who get our Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Today's episode is brought to you by Knak.Email (in my humble opinion) is the still the greatest marketing channel of all-time.It’s the only way you can truly “own” your audience.But when it comes to building the emails - if you’ve ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever. That’s why we love Knak here at Exit Five. Knak a no-code email platform that makes it easy to create on-brand, high-performing emails - without the bottlenecks.Frustrated by clunky email builders? You need Knak.Tired of ‘hoping’ the email you sent looks good across all devices? Just test in Knak first.Big team making it hard to collaborate and get approvals? Definitely Knak.And the best part? Everything takes a fraction of the time.See Knak in action at knak.com/exit-five. Or just let them know you heard about Knak on Exit Five.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more