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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.
3 Ways CEOs are Maximizing Recovery Impact with Least Investment
Thu, May 14, 2020 — As my partner, Art Saxby, is fond of saying, “The best marketing takes no marketing dollars.” What he means is that the stuff that makes marketing work—and work most efficiently—is done before a dollar is spent. After working with nearly 1,000 mid-market CEOs to capture or recover growth, here’s what we’ve learned:
Quick Test: Will Your Business Strategy Work Post-COVID?
Wed, May 13, 2020 — After COVID-19: step back to see how the whole picture has changed Even in the best of times, your business plan relies on a sound strategy to gain – and keep – your competitive advantage. Success is generally a function of a winning combination of factors – good knowledge of the business environment, a keen understanding of your competitors, a laser focus on the size of the market and trends, technological development, and the overall state of the economy.
Marketing and Sales Organization Design For Now and For Later
Tue, May 12, 2020 — Part 4 of the series: A B2B CEO’s Guide to Navigating the COVID-19 Revenue Reality The “way it has always been” is gone for good. It’s time to consider the reality: The world is changed now, and likely will be different once we shake off the effects of the pandemic. But, as we discussed in our last blog, now is not the time to slash and burn headcount without a smart, and reasoned, approach to moving forward.
Short-Term Functional Cost Control Without Sacrificing the Future
Fri, May 8, 2020 — Part 3 of the series: A B2B CEO’s Guide to Navigating the COVID-19 Revenue Reality In an economy roiled by the pandemic, it can be tempting for CEOs to wield a cost-cutting knife—with unrelenting and deep-cutting fervor. Indeed, it’s understandable: For generations, the natural inclination of many B2B CEOs has been to cut marketing when things were tough. In our last blog, we hopefully impressed upon you the importance of viewing both sales and marketing functions as a cohesive team, working as a symbiotic unit to pull sales out of crisis mode.
The Sales and Marketing Accountability Paradigm Shift
Tue, May 5, 2020 — Part 2 of the series: A B2B CEO’s Guide to Navigating the COVID-19 Revenue Reality In a world that has struggled to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic, you, too, are likely working to better understand the roles that your team members will play in the recovery.
Part 4: How Does Employee Engagement Win the Growth Game?
Mon, May 4, 2020 — Culture Shift Now: Getting the Right Help for the Times Co-Authored by Marc Umscheid, CMO, Chief Outsiders and Kristin Anderson, Partner, LeadQuest Consulting Welcome to the fourth blog in our series on the importance of a more engaged culture in fostering growth at your company (if you'd like to read any of the previous posts, they can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). Clearly, a few things have happened in our world since our last blog – namely, the COVID-19 pandemic, and an economic slowdown that has left few businesses untouched, or unscathed. If you have been following our blog series, you may recall that we have been insisting that a carefully crafted culture goes hand and glove with a high effective growth strategy, – making the case for how your leadership shapes the engagement needed for growth. Though the world may have changed – the fundamental principles have not. How you lead your employees now will indelibly reflect upon your cultural and growth mindset. This is now more important than ever.
Finding the Sweet Spot in B2B Markets
Fri, May 1, 2020 — Narrowing Focus to Drive Demand In a prior blog post, I discussed how a lack of market focus can lead to poor marketing campaign conversion rates.
CEO Preparedness Guide for the Post-Pandemic Recovery: Avoiding the Ad-Budget Ax
Fri, Apr 24, 2020 — Blog 1: Avoiding the Ad-Budget Ax In these uncertain times amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, there are likely two distinct pathways for businesses to follow—adapt or perish. Because none of you reading this would ever consider just laying down your arms and not fighting for survival, I thought I’d share a couple of quotes from noteworthy types who chose the latter mindset, choosing to both adapt, and thrive, rather than just survive.
Communicating in Tough Times: A Strategic Approach
Thu, Apr 23, 2020 — As the saying goes, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going,” but unfortunately the saying doesn’t tell us how to get going. Thinking about the many types of crisis, from a data breach to a product recall, from a catastrophic weather event to a pandemic, it's clear they are all different with a unique set of challenges, and as such different ways of “getting going." However, they all have one thing in common and that is the need to quickly, clearly and effectively communicate information.