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Recent Posts
When the Founder Is the Rainmaker: How to Scale Without Losing the Spark
In many founder-led businesses, the founder isn’t just the leader—they’re also the best (and often only) rainmaker. They land the big deals. They have the trusted relationships. They know the pitch inside and out because they are the pitch.
It works—until it doesn’t.
As the business grows, this model creates a bottleneck. Every new opportunity depends on one and only person. And it’s the same person every time. But there’s a downside. When that person is also responsible for running the business, mentoring the team, and shaping the vision, something eventually gives.
CEOs, Are You Confident in Your Marketing Team’s Ability to Drive Growth?
Mon, Sep 17, 2018 — While most mid-sized companies have invested in dedicated, in-house marketing teams, many executives are not pleased with the return on investment. A survey conducted by The Fournaise Marketing Group revealed that 73 percent of CEOs believe their marketing team is not capable of generating enough growth. An astonishing 80 percent of the CEOs polled don’t trust their marketing teams. There is widespread concern that the marketing function is unable to deliver a positive ROI for the department’s spending. CEOs also doubt marketing’s ability to use data to make informed decisions. You may have some of the same concerns for your marketing organization. Much has changed in marketing over the last several years, but its core purpose has stayed the same. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the “activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Despite the challenges of an ambiguous and rapidly evolving business landscape, marketers must drive growth and prove their value to their company. This can be accomplished by focusing on marketing’s core responsibility: delivering value to customers and stakeholders.
“Wake Up Airplane!” – The Customer Journey Driving Delta
Fri, Sep 14, 2018 — At a major U.S. airport on a recent dark early morning, two major airline mechanics reported for work. Their job: To “wake up” the airplanes at the gate, in the dark, to get them ready for the day’s service. This requires activating and checking various systems on each airplane so that a “dark” airplane “awakes” from its overnight sleeping. Lights turn on, systems are activated, and everything is checked for the first flights of the day. One recent morning, however, this routine changed. The two mechanics indeed performed their required duties. Except this morning, they decided to scour the gate area for families with young children -- sleepy and crabby in the early morning dark -- and asked their parents if the kids could help “wake” the airplanes. The kids jumped at the chance. One mechanic in the terminal handed his radio to the kids, and had them say “wake up airplane” to the other mechanic, waiting on the plane. Lo and behold, like magic, the airplane came alive – lights glistening in the pre-dawn darkness, now “awake” for the day’s service. The kids, of course, were thrilled: They got a chance to talk to the mechanics, and a taste of the airplane business (which might motivate some of them to join the industry someday). Incidentally, this is now a ritual that these mechanics engage in on a daily basis.
Need Higher Revenue Growth and Profitability? Start with your Company’s Image
Thu, Sep 13, 2018 — There are tens of millions of small businesses and corporations in the United States today. A deluge of brands, all with their own marketing campaigns, makes it more overwhelming than ever for potential customers to choose the right products or services for their needs. No matter how many advertisements or social media posts your target customers see, their willingness to select your company depends on how well they conceptualize, understand, and trust your brand, its offerings, and employees. It probably seems obvious that your organization’s image and perception is critical. Too often, however, companies fail to understand the distinct impact that weak brand perception can have on their bottom line. As a result, they may under-invest in developing and managing their brand, even as the consumer decision journey has changed so profoundly.
CEOs Seeking Growth: Is Marketing Working for You or Against You?
Tue, Aug 28, 2018 — 10 Questions to Determine if Your Marketing Strategy Needs an Overhaul Most growing and mid-sized companies have some type of marketing function. It could consist of one person, a handful, or in some cases, many people. Some of these marketing teams are high-performing with obvious impact on the business. For others, the business impact of marketing is unclear.
Turning an Unknown Company into a Smoking Hot Startup
Wed, Aug 22, 2018 — How Chief Outsiders helped a technology company grow its quarterly bookings from $2K to $2M in its first year. Topline As a CEO or CMO of a young company with a shoestring budget you have plenty of choices, but not much room for error. This case study will explain how Leadcrunch found their way through strategic tradeoffs and increased their revenue by 1000% in less than a year. The key? Building a sustainable path to growth by balancing speed, quality, and the ability to scale.
Growth Engine Roadmap, Metrics, and Financial Benefits
Fri, Jul 27, 2018 — If you have been following this series of articles on sustainable business growth, you know that we have arrived at our fifth and final topic. If you missed the previous articles in the series, you can read Article 1 (The Difference Between a Growth Plan and a Growth Engine), Article 2 (Best Practices in Processes) and Article 3 (People and Organizational Best Practices), and Article 4 (Platforms: Playbooks and Tools).
Leveraging Market Change to Drive Growth: Four Steps to Becoming an Agile Organization
Tue, Jul 24, 2018 — In a 2017 letter to his shareholders, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos cautioned, “Day 2 is stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death. And that’s why it is always Day 1 (at Amazon). The outside world can push you into Day 2 if you won’t or can’t embrace powerful trends quickly. If you fight them, you’re probably fighting the future. Embrace them, and you have a tailwind.” Your business environment is rapidly changing and more uncertain than ever. If you follow the lead of companies like Amazon that are committed to achieving high levels of organizational agility, you can leverage market changes to create a competitive advantage – and fuel growth. Put simply, a company’s organizational agility is its ability to renew itself, adapt quickly, and succeed in a rapidly changing, ambiguous, and turbulent environment.
A New Model of Leadership for the 21st Century
Fri, Jul 13, 2018 — The role science is playing in transforming leadership skills is profound. Recent neuroscience research is becoming key in transforming much of what we thought we knew about leadership. Insights gained are dramatically changing the way companies deal with the accelerated pace of change, changing nature of work, generational differences, demands for organizational performance and how we deal with performance issues and performance management systems.
Disrupting Your Marketplace: Are You Ready for What the Future Delivers?
Tue, Jul 10, 2018 — In 1907 – at a time when we as a nation weren’t that far removed from receiving mail via “Pony Express”– a visionary young fellow named James “Jim” Casey borrowed the princely sum of $100 and founded a small company called American Messenger Service in his hometown of Seattle, WA. More than a few years – and millions of package movements later – Casey’s company grew into the hugely successful United Parcel Service – forever changing the way packages were delivered with frequency, and setting a new standard by which Ben Franklin’s venerable U.S. Postal Service would struggle to meet.