Business Growth Strategies For CEOs: Top CMOs On Marketing Strategy Implementations

Outsider Insights | The Comp Plan Is Quietly Telling Your Sales Team Not to Hunt

Fri, Jul 24, 2026 | Posted by Dawn Werry

Executive Takeaways

Sales reps focus on what they're paid and measured on, even if that strays from business strategy and goals.
Many compensation plans and account structures quietly reward protecting revenue, not creating it.
Adding a quota target without changing the underlying structure just adds pressure, not pipeline.
Fixing this starts with the comp plan and account map, not a pep talk about hustle.

Outsider Insights

Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business.

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The AI Search Gap Between Buyers and Brands Just Got Wider

Fri, Jul 24, 2026 — Executive Takeaways B2B buyer AI adoption hit 94%, and company readiness didn't keep pace. The #1 organic ranking now captures under 2% of AI Overview searches. Google Gemini's chatbot share jumped 48% in a single month. The gap isn't awareness anymore. It's execution, and it's getting more expensive to ignore. Buyers have moved to AI search. Most companies haven't caught up.

What Is Marketing, Really? Why Founders and CEOs Must Lead the Most Misunderstood Function in the Business

Thu, Jul 9, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Marketing is a core enterprise capability, not a support function, and deserves the same CEO-level engagement as Finance and Operations. Without a unifying system, individually reasonable decisions accumulate into random acts of marketing. Modern tools make execution faster, but they don't create strategic clarity, so the gap between activity and alignment keeps widening. CEOs can't delegate marketing entirely. Leading it means ensuring insight, strategy, and execution stay connected. This blog is part of Chief Outsiders’ Marketing Leadership for CEOs series, an ongoing examination of the critical dimensions of Marketing (the capital “M” is intentional, as you’ll see) that every CEO needs to understand.

When the Numbers Still Look Fine, Look Harder

Mon, Jul 6, 2026 — Revenue Can Be Late to Tell the Truth Without a compass, course correction isn't really an adjustment. Too often, a company can drift while the scorecard still looks respectable. But underneath the dashboard, buying behavior may already be changing. Customers take longer to decide. Procurement gets more involved. Good prospects ask harder questions. Deals that used to move cleanly now need another approval, discount, or proof point. Early warning signs rarely show up with a siren attached.

Where Is Growth Coming From? A Playbook for Mid-Market CEOs

Thu, Jul 2, 2026 — The headlines say one thing. The data says something more nuanced. Here's what mid-market CEOs should actually be paying attention to right now. This two-part series from Chief Outsiders Founder & CEO Art Saxby explores what the data actually shows about CEO confidence, why this moment is different from past disruptions, and where mid-market companies are finding real growth opportunities right now.

Uncertainty Is Real. Opportunity Is Too.

Mon, Jun 15, 2026 — The headlines say one thing. The data says something more nuanced. Here's what mid-market CEOs should actually be paying attention to right now. This two-part series from Chief Outsiders Founder & CEO Art Saxby explores what the data actually shows about CEO confidence, why this moment is different from past disruptions, and where mid-market companies are finding real growth opportunities right now.

Outsider Insights | Google Just Declared the Search Box Dead: What CEOs Need to Know

Mon, Jun 15, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Google just redesigned Search for the first time in 25 years. 94% of B2B buyers use AI to research vendors before your sales team knows they exist. The companies earning AI citations share one thing: content written to inform, not to sell. Outsider Insights Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business.

Building a Cohesive C-Suite: How to Align Your Executive Team for Success

Fri, Jun 12, 2026 — Executive Takeaways A high-performing C-suite that doesn't function as a team is a hidden growth tax. If your executives describe the strategy differently, that gap shows up in your results. Alignment comes from operating rhythm, not offsites. Better-aligned executives. Same team. Very different results. When CEOs talk about growth, they usually focus on markets, products, and funding. What derails them more often is something closer to home: a strong group of executives that never quite functions as a true team. You feel it in slow decisions, mixed messages to the organization, and initiatives that lose momentum once they leave the last executive meeting.

AI Is Already Improving B2B Sales Performance. Here’s the Framework to Make It Work for You

Wed, Jun 10, 2026 — Executive Takeaways AI is already delivering measurable results in B2B sales — this is not hype. Mapping AI capabilities to your prioritized sales performance challenges is the right place to start. Achieving significant ROI requires a diagnosis of your current sales environment, a pilot with defined success metrics, and a plan for deployment and scale. The window to establish a competitive advantage in sales by using AI is open — but not indefinitely.

Vistage Chairs: There's One Buyer Conversation Your CEOs Aren't Having

Wed, Jun 10, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Most CEOs misdiagnose why they lose deals — and it's costing them. Buyers won't tell your salespeople the real reason. They'll tell a neutral third party. The most common loss reasons are fixable — if you know what they actually are. Insight without action is just a good conversation. Win/loss analysis turns it into revenue.

Growth Insights for CEOs