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Recent Posts
From Economic Insight to Growth Strategy: What CEOs Should Do Now
At our most recent CEO Growth Talks, I spoke with Taylor St. Germaine, Senior Economist at ITR Economics. The timing couldn’t have been better — the latest GDP numbers had just been released, and Taylor broke down what they mean for CEOs planning growth.
As always, ITR brought a clear and fact-based perspective. The economy is growing. Consumer spending is strong. And while some industries are facing headwinds, opportunities abound for leaders who are ready to act.
But the real question for CEOs isn’t just what the economy looks like. It’s: how do you prepare your business to grow in this environment — and the one coming next?
What can Industrial and Manufacturing CEOs do Right Now?
Thu, Mar 19, 2020 — Industry Specific Advice in a Time of Crisis from the Chief Outsiders CMOs These are challenging times. The actions you take now and in the coming weeks will have a huge impact on what happens to your company, your customers and your employees. Some of the challenges we will face during this crisis will apply to all sectors, but some will be industry specific. To help you decide where your focus should be, we assembled panels of Chief Marketing Officers from our Tribe at Chief Outsiders who have spent their careers working in your industry with companies like yours, to discuss what CEOs need to think about doing, right now. The following summary encapsulates the highlights of our panel discussion for the Industrial Manufacturing industry, hosted by Art Saxby and featuring CMOs Dawn Werry, and Dennis Bailen. For the full benefit, view the discussion video in its entirety (19 minutes). Short of time? See the discussion highlights (6 minutes).
Five Major Indicators that Suggest a Need for Focus
Tue, Mar 3, 2020 — A Common Challenge for B2B technology, SaaS and Professional Services Businesses If market demand was a fixed commodity, attracting new business would require only that you create awareness and build interest around well-known needs. Companies who see their marketplace in this way often subscribe to a “lather, rinse, repeat,” approach to pipeline management – focusing marketing dollars on prospects already well-along their purchasing journey, identifying qualified opportunities, but paying little attention to the world of prospects who do not yet see their needs as urgent.
Think Different and GROW: Delight Your Way to Accelerated Success
Wed, Feb 12, 2020 — One of the most influential Apple commercials ever made continues to resonate with me, nearly a quarter century after it was first released. Adorned with the tagline, “Think Different,” the Richard Dreyfus-narrated spot celebrated how non-conformist inventors pushed, annoyed and irritated the established order to change the world. The commercial underscored the convention-breaking culture at Apple – and, as they say, the rest is history. While many saw the Apple commercial as a call to a particular type of idealism, in today’s society, the message “Think Different” has a very practical purpose that can be applicable to the most routine of businesses today. Creating growth in your business in today’s marketplace means doing something different enough to put the business on a faster trajectory. So how can you, and your team, think different as a means of accelerating success?
What Yoda Can Teach Us About Revenue Growth
Tue, Dec 10, 2019 — A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a franchise was born. Since the release of a little space movie called “Star Wars” in 1977, legions of multigenerational fans have carried the franchise on their backs – and in their hearts – to a reputation as one of the world’s most recognizable brands. As a brand dependent upon fan zealotry, ANY corporate move (whether on the screen or behind the scenes) is bound to get extreme scrutiny on social media, message boards and elsewhere. That’s why I read with interest a recent Wall Street Journal article that examined the difficulty of the transition of the Star Wars franchise from its original ownership under its creator George Lucas, to a “tentpole” franchise now owned by Disney.
The Retail Resistance: Is Amazon Suddenly Vulnerable?
Mon, Nov 18, 2019 — From its humble beginnings as a quaint online bookseller, Amazon has become a global colossus. By selling everything from Salad Shooters to servers, and from tiny doll houses to REAL tiny houses, today’s Amazon accounts for about half of online transactions conducted in the U.S. Clearly, Jeff Bezos has unlocked the secret to how things should be sold online. For any retail business, how can you lose by joining up? But, crawling from the shadows cast by the Amazon monolith is the beginning of a resistance movement – being led by a surprise rebel.
Food for Thought: 5 Ways to Dial Up your Sales Approach
Mon, Oct 28, 2019 — There was a time when the most effective business-to-business sales tools were the fork and knife. It almost seems quaint to recall those days when the power of the relationship – and a juicy steak – were all that was needed to land or renew an even juicier piece of business. Today, the relationship has been relegated to appetizer status – giving way to a buffet of product details and benefits that can make the difference between sales satisfaction, or heartburn. I was thinking about this lately during a chat with a mid-cap CEO, whose company enjoyed dependable, steady growth over the years. His “secret weapon” was a long-time sales leader who “knew everybody.” But then the sales leader retired and guess what? Business flattened. What happened? Their company depended too long on relationship selling alone.
Finding ‘Grand Slam’ Clients Using an Ideal Client Profile to Build Your Business
Mon, Oct 14, 2019 — A Practical Implementation Guide for Small- and Mid-Sized Business Executives Mark Coronna, Area Managing Partner & CMO, Chief Outsiders with Todd Eberhardt, CEO, Dynasty Leadership Consulting Somewhere in the historical development of Marketing language the concept of an Ideal Customer Profile emerged. You can find frequent discussion of this concept if you are reading marketing blogs today—it is definitely a “buzz” term, and legitimately so, if you understand the power of the concept and apply it to your customer acquisition programs. We’d like to discuss how to practically implement the concept of an Ideal Customer Profile and talk about why it’s important, as well as how it can dramatically impact your business, when applied to your Marketing and Sales programs.
How to Retain Customers and Develop Brand Advocates - Part 3
Thu, Oct 10, 2019 — Part 3 of 3: Winning Retention Marketing Strategies Retention marketing isn’t meant to replace acquisition marketing, but to work alongside it as part of your growth strategy. The activities associated with retaining customers and/or increasing customer value through re-purchasing or up-selling products and services, is less expensive than acquisition marketing. While you need both acquisition and retention marketing, you will get a better return from your investment in retention marketing and create customers for life. In the previous blog post, we discussed how to develop a retention marketing program that specifically addresses the needs of your business. But are there proven retention marketing strategies or tactics that should be considered regardless?
Go-to-Market Security Issues Every SMB CEO or Sales/Marketing Exec Needs to Prevent
Tue, Oct 8, 2019 — Five Key Areas You Must Proactively Manage Mark Coronna, Area Managing Partner & CMO, Chief Outsiders with Mark Sheehan, Principal & CIO/CISO, Stowell Solutions Group This article is a practical guide to being proactive in preventing security issues in your go-to-market (Sales and Marketing) programs and operations. There are many services to use once you have an issue, but in this article, we are offering a checklist of things to do to help reduce your risk of significant incidents that could damage your brand, reputation, revenue, and business valuation. We think it’s better to be proactive than have to react to security events.