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Winning the Fraud and Cybersecurity Race: A Go-to-Market Blueprint for Competitive Edge
Fraud and cybercrime have become a systemic, trillion-dollar drag on the global economy—but the fight to turn the curve is more than a market opportunity.
Over the past few years, I have worked alongside cybersecurity and fraud-management teams in government, banking, and payments, and nothing is more satisfying than seeing a new solution stop a romance scam or prevent a pensioner from losing their life savings.
Unifying Revenue Teams: How a Fractional CRO Drives Cross-Functional Success
Tue, Dec 17, 2024 — For mid-market CEOs navigating growth, aligning sales, marketing, and customer success can feel like herding cats. As these teams expand, they often develop siloed processes that hinder efficiency and impact the bottom line. A fractional chief revenue officer (CRO) offers a cost-effective solution to this challenge, bringing executive-level expertise to unite revenue functions without the full-time price tag.
Top 10 Ways CEOs Can Improve Sales & Marketing Alignment
Mon, Nov 25, 2024 — Close Collaboration Ensures Go-to-Market Success A survey conducted by Chief Outsiders among mid-market companies found that nearly one-third of C-suite executives noted a misalignment between their Sales and Marketing teams. Further, only one-third of that group reported that their Sales and Marketing teams were working toward a common set of goals.
Preparing for 2024: Is Your Marketing Funnel Integrated with Your Sales Funnel?
Wed, Dec 20, 2023 — Final article of the 7-part series: Accelerating Growth In 2024 with Strategic Business Planning By: Scott Wright and Jack Bowen In the relentless pursuit of growth, businesses often find themselves at a crossroads - a bustling marketing funnel generating a stream of leads, yet somehow, the path to conversion seems elusive. One study found that 71% of potential customers are not contacted, while only 13% of potential customers become opportunities.
A Best Marketing Practice: Cultivating “Lead” Customer Relationships for Breakthrough Products and Services
Thu, Aug 3, 2017 — It’s been many years since I learned what a “lead” customer is and how to build lead customer relationships to build confidence and reduce risks of new product or service launches. The concept of a lead customer, or lead user, is probably one of the most beneficial best practices I’ve used in marketing and product management roles. Want to design and launch a breakthrough product? The lead customer approach is absolutely a winner. The lead user methodology was originally developed by Dr. Eric von Hippel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and first described in the July 1986 issue of Management Science. You can read a revised version of the original article here.
Sales and Marketing Synergy: Why Cross-Functional Alignment is No Longer Just an Option
Thu, Jul 20, 2017 — As a CEO, you strive for harmony among your functional teams. It’s a comforting feeling during those weekly leadership meetings to hear that sales and marketing efforts appear to be coordinated – key personnel are collaborating on projects, keeping each other informed, using a common language, and possibly even delivering cross-functional reports from Salesforce and other analytical tools. But beneath this veneer of peaceful coexistence, are your sales and marketing teams truly integrating their efforts in a way that will add impact – and revenue – to your bottom line?
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?
If Marketing “Leads,” Sales Will Follow: Achieving Alignment For Revenue Success
Thu, Sep 29, 2016 — Travel with me, if you will, back to 2006. It was a time, in the corporate world, when the sales team had all of the power and most of the fun. Company credit card in hand, they would organize meetings at conferences, trade shows, meetings on the golf course, or at their favorite hospitality event. Pleasantries were exchanged, orders were placed – and business kept rolling forward.
2 Eye-Opening Reasons that Sales and Marketing Need to Work Together - and 3 Ways to Get Started Now
Thu, Oct 23, 2014 — Today, customers expect to be marketed to in the right place, at the right time, with the right message. If just one of those things is off, your content is at risk of getting deleted, or worse, being marked forever as “spam.“ A key to giving your audience the messaging they want to hear, when they want to hear it, is having marketing and sales teams that work together instead of independently. Sales and marketing alignment is now more important than ever because:
Sales and Marketing: Different or Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Tue, May 6, 2014 — Sales and Marketing: Why Can't We All Get Along? How many times have we all heard about the discord between the Sales and Marketing organizations? This discord intensifies based upon whether you work in a Sales or Marketing driven culture. A CEO recently asked me why these two organizations don’t work well together, and how he can improve their overall relationships, and more importantly their individual and collective effectiveness.