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The Chief Outsider
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Recent Posts
AI Search is Here – And it’s Reshaping the Buyer Journey
Part 1 of our four-part series exploring how AI search is transforming visibility, SEO, and digital strategy - and what CEOs need to do now to stay competitive.
| Executive Takeaways |
| Declining web traffic isn’t random - it’s a symptom of changing search behavior. AI search is already impacting over 25% of user journeys - and growing fast If you’re not being cited, you’re missing opportunities-period. |
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.
Diversity Drives Innovation, Growth and the Bottom Line
Tue, Oct 22, 2019 — By Yvonne Brown and Tom McCrary Diversity is increasingly on our minds. Indeed, US census data indicates that our population is becoming more diverse, estimating that by 2042, whites will no longer be a majority of the population. An important business corollary—and a significant opportunity—is that diversity in an organization drives innovation, growth and bottom-line improvement.
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.
Why a “Failure to Communicate” is a First Step to Going Out of Business
Wed, Sep 25, 2019 — What Business Execs Can Learn About the Power of Authentic Conversations Mark Coronna, Area Managing Partner & CMO, Chief Outsiders with Matt McKnight, President, McKnight Advisors If you’ve ever seen the Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke, you might remember the hard-boiled egg eating contest, but that’s another subject. The iconic line we all remember, after several failed attempts to bring Luke in line, is when the prison warden remarks, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Knowledge, open communications, as well as procrastination are highly linked to business performance. Having hands-on and personal real-time knowledge of what’s going on in your business is a challenge and having the confidence and willingness to do something about what you’ve learned is another.
How to Retain Customers and Develop Brand Advocates - Part 2
Fri, Sep 13, 2019 — Part 2 of 3: Developing a Retention Marketing Program As we learned in my previous post, retention marketing encompasses the activities associated with retaining customers or increasing customer value through re-purchasing and up-selling products and services. It’s anywhere from five to 25 times less expensive than acquisition marketing—and done well can reduce the expense pressure of acquisition marketing to grow your business. Retention marketing should be a part of any business growth strategy. Retention marketing involves communicating with your customers in a way that helps you nurture and keep them. This should be an ongoing priority for the business with buy-in from the top throughout the entire organization. After all, you’ve all worked hard and spent a lot of money to acquire those customers.