Growth Insights for CEOs
The Chief Outsider
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?
Recent Posts

Profitable, Recurring Revenue Streams - Part 2
Fri, Jul 7, 2017 — Transitioning Your Business Model to Grow Your Business-as-a-Service More and more companies are realizing that transitioning their business to an as-a-Service model is the answer to driving higher growth and more profitable and stable revenue streams. In Part 1 of this article series, you learned how to know if it's time to think about embracing an as-a-Service model.

Fractional CMO can be Key Step in Building a Management Team
Thu, Jul 6, 2017 — This is a guest post from Mark Rosenman of Newport Board Group. There is a wide range of circumstances that lead companies to bring in a fractional CMO. The immediate need to strengthen marketing might be a response to an important development in the business: a growth spurt or a downturn, new capital or a change in management team or strategy. Some companies bring in a fractional CMO as part of an “asset light” business model that leans against bringing on permanent C-level executives at least for the foreseeable future.

CEO Shares How He Transformed His Business and Became a Better Leader
Wed, Jun 21, 2017 — Peer Advisory Group Helps CEO Focus on His Business Versus Working in His Business A Chief Outsiders Fractional CMO has a conversation with Vistage Member and CEO of Seattle Fish Company, James Iacino, about his experience with Vistage, an executive coaching organization that provides leadership training and business coaching to CEOs and Executives.
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Profitable, Recurring Revenue Streams
Thu, Jun 15, 2017 — Transitioning Your Business Model to Grow Your Business-as-a-Service If you are the CEO of a company selling products or services to other businesses, you are probably constantly looking for new sources of growth. It’s frustrating when your company is not able to realize its growth potential. Sometimes the issue involves understanding customers or markets better. In other cases it’s about changes to a marketing strategy or execution plan. But sometimes the solution involves changing the core business model of your product or service (or completing a change that you already began).

An Audience of One: Neuromarketing the New Reality
Wed, Jun 14, 2017 — If you buy into the old corollary that the “future is now,” be prepared to be blown away by what tomorrow’s future holds. If you thought that today’s wave of marketing analytics tools represented a bold new frontier in how enterprises can track and nurture consumers through the buying cycle, well, in the words of Bachmann Turner Overdrive – “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” And, if you believed that the kind of brain-reading technology that served up personalized advertisements to Tom Cruise in the movie “Minority Report” was the stuff of fiction, it may be closer to reality than you ever thought.

Driving Toward the Long Game: Is your Business Geared for Lasting Success?
Fri, Jun 9, 2017 — In business, the road to financial success, it can be agreed, isn’t always paved in gold. Whether pocked with potholes, laden with land mines, or strewn with stones, the goal isn’t just to keep all four tires on the highway – instead, it’s to ensure you arrive at the destination. One question that you must continually ask yourself along the way – is your business built to go the distance? Understanding whether you’re playing the long game, or the short game, in business can be the key to weathering the road hazards beneath you, or the storms above.

The CMO is Dead
Wed, Jun 7, 2017 — Long Live the CMO (as a Service)! We all know that the Chief Marketing Office (CMO) role has been under increasing pressure. Average tenures are short (and getting shorter) as CEOs more quickly become impatient when their organizations are not able to achieve their visions for growth. In this era of digital marketing, CMOs are no longer ‘off the hook’ for producing real, measurable results.

Road Map the Customer Experience to Align Sales and Operations
Wed, May 31, 2017 — So often these days, blogs, posts and articles are written about aligning Sales and Marketing. I agree that doing so is critical. But there is another alignment need that is often overlooked and equally critical to company growth and customer satisfaction. The question is are we selling what we are delivering in terms of the customer experience?

What do Dynamic Value Hierarchies and Power Windows Have in Common?
Thu, May 18, 2017 — Do you ever wonder how power windows on cars and trucks came about? Try to buy a vehicle with hand crank windows today. Good luck with that. The story of power windows is also a story about value hierarchies. Value hierarchies are graphic depictions of your value proposition. Value hierarchies are usually organized as pyramids with three tiers of value: