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The Chief Outsider
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Recent Posts
From Loyalty Programs to Leadership: What 20 Years in CRM Taught Me About Organizational Growth
Loyalty programs taught many of us how to turn casual buyers into raving fans. My 20 years in CRM and loyalty for brands like Marriott, Amazon, and American Express—and leading a $3B customer platform—taught me something bigger: The same system that keeps customers coming back also keeps your best people from leaving. When growth stalls, most CEOs reach for the usual levers: more demand gen, more recruiting, more channels.
What B2B E-commerce can Learn from Consumer Retail
Tue, Apr 25, 2017 — The world of consumer retail is in the midst of rapid transformation. Traffic in brick-and-mortar stores is decreasing. Consumers are moving away from shopping malls. Traditional advertising—whether via direct mail, TV ads or newspaper and magazine ads—is losing its relevance.
CEO Shares the Benefits of Participating in a Peer Advisory Group
Mon, Apr 24, 2017 — CEO Experiences Growth from Being a Member of Vistage Chief Outsiders Fractional CMO, Neil Anderson, has a conversation with Vistage Member and CEO of TalenTrust, Kathleen Quinn Votaw, about her experience with Vistage, an executive coaching organization that provides leadership training and business coaching to CEOs and Executives.
Managing the Uncertainty in New Markets
Mon, Apr 3, 2017 — In my last post I addressed the challenges companies face when considering entering new markets. I called these the “white spaces”. The challenge is assessing the value in entering those markets without consuming excessive resources. It’s about exploiting opportunities, but not over-spending and taking on too much risk at the start.
Business Strategy, Digital Strategy, and "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
Thu, Mar 16, 2017 — Many of you probably read Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” somewhere in your educational career. It’s a short poem of four stanzas and 20 lines total. For a poem so brief, it’s surprising that Frost’s famous work is so powerful yet often misinterpreted. If you can’t recall the poem, or want to read one commentary, you can do a refresh here.
How to Build Your Marketing Team for Growth
Tue, Mar 7, 2017 — A marketing organizational roadmap for B2B venture CEOs After slogging through the early startup phase and acquiring the first handful of customers through relationships, sheer selling tenacity and perseverance, many founding CEOs at B2B ventures ask me: “To scale my company, I know I need a marketing team. But I don’t know where to start and what path to follow. Can you help?”
Are You Really Ready for Mobile?
Thu, Mar 2, 2017 — Let’s start with one important question. Which of the following is critical to effectively using mobile technologies to build your business and accelerate your revenues? (a) The commercial readiness of the technologies employed (b) Aligning mobile strategies with your business strategy (c) Having a plan which understands and prioritizes mobile deployment across customers, partners, and employees (d) Your internal business readiness to deploy and support mobile technologies (e) Developing a plan with goals, milestones, investments and returns, and key success metrics (f) All of the above.
How to Build a Winning Healthcare Digital Marketing Team
Sun, Feb 26, 2017 — The Expanding Role of Digital Healthcare Marketing - The role of digital marketing as a key factor in achieving growth at community health plans continues to expand. However, having employed a traditional approach for decades, your health plan marketing organization may lag in the adoption of digital marketing methods and best practices. Your marketing ROI may even be slipping or is not accurately measured. A recent ACHP (Alliance of Community Health Plans) survey shows that most health plan organizations consider digital marketing mediums to be more effective than traditional print and broadcast communications. Increased competition and the shifting consumer-to-patient journey amplify the urgency of adopting digital methods. In addition, the need to more closely track the effectiveness of tactics and improve ROI amid pressures to reduce spending, mean that it’s time to enhance and refine your digital healthcare marketing efforts.
Monologues Vs. Dialogues: Four Ways that High-Growth Companies Connect With Their Customers
Fri, Feb 24, 2017 — I’d like to introduce you to the first great marketing philosopher. Way back before Coke was teaching the world to sing, and, about the same time that the guy selling the round wheel cornered the market on transportation, a guy named Zeno of Citium was positing on the very important marketing attribute of listening.
When is Return on Learning (ROL) More Important than ROI?
Thu, Feb 16, 2017 — If you completed a class on finance and accounting, you are likely familiar with Return on Investment (ROI). Are you ready to take the pop quiz on how to calculate it? No? That’s OK, it’s not my objective here or to question your degree. What I do want to do is to highlight when to use ROI, and when an even more powerful concept, Return on Learning, or ROL, can be even more appropriate.