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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 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.
CEOs seek Digital CMOs to Lead Growth
Thu, Apr 20, 2017 — Don’t have a digital savvy CMO? You’re likely losing the digital game. A CMO’s job description is no longer just about brand awareness and big positioning, but more about driving revenue, now and in the long term. In fact, 70% of CEOs expect CMOs to lead revenue growth. CMOs are expected to do more because of the digital tools that allow them to do more. New digital marketing tools better connect companies with their customers in ways they couldn’t before. It’s a constantly evolving process, and the key to growth is to get into this game sooner versus later, so you can win.
Five Steps to Ensuring Strategic Planning Success
Mon, Apr 10, 2017 — Strategic planning – two words that need not strike fear in the hearts of corporate executives. After all, if you think about it, we’ve all been strategic planners since childhood – setting our objectives, then figuring out the best way to make them happen. Like the time you figured out that if you wanted Santa Claus to come, you HAD better go to bed first. And when you were older and setting your sites on a special college. You did your research to understand what they were looking for, you took the right classes and participated in the best extra-curricular activities--all in an effort to present yourself as the type of student they would consider. Of course, now that you are a CEO, the stakes around strategic planning are maybe just a tad bigger. In the bid to get our highest-quality products or services to the market, it will be the strategic planning process – scaled appropriately, of course – that will get us there. Understanding which combination of markets, pricing, offerings for each market segment, distribution channels, communication channels and the like is integral to cracking the ROI code. And with so many options to power today’s strategic plan, it’s hard to fully understand which to do first, and which to leave by the wayside.
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.
Is Instant Messaging the New B2B?
Wed, Mar 15, 2017 — Do you talk to your customers every day? As frequently as you instant-message your friends? I was talking with a CEO recently, and I asked him how good his company’s communication is with his customers. He said it was great, and always had been great. The customer places an order, they ship the order, and then they send an invoice. Job completed. Everything works. Reliable, and on time.
Optimizing the Marketing Organization
Tue, Mar 14, 2017 — Hiring, outsourcing and leadership considerations In my previous post, we explored the question, “What should my marketing organizational roadmap look like?” In this installment, I’d like to discuss three additional questions that often surface as CEOs build their marketing organizations.
3 KPIs to get your Content Marketing Under Control
Sun, Mar 12, 2017 — Is your Marketing Team able to provide you a good view of how your Content Marketing efforts are performing? Are they able to explain to you what the ROI is of the blog articles they are writing? Can they show you the impact of the interviews with you and other members of the Executive team to develop Thought Leadership content? Unfortunately, these questions are not often answered in the affirmative. Looking at your Marketing Dashboards, “Random Acts of Marketing” are often visible as "Random Acts of Content". Although the abundance of data available to your marketing team is unprecedented, it’s also a sad fact that most content marketing is still of the “spray and pray” variety.