Growth Insights for CEOs

The Gap Between AI Output and Real Marketing Leadership
Executive Takeaways
- AI can inform marketing strategy. It cannot own it, defend it, or answer for it when it fails.
- AI sounding right without the context to actually be right is the real risk.
- Trade-offs, risk calls, and accountability are executive work. AI can't take any of the three off your plate.
- Leadership owns the outcome, not the AI.
A lot of CEOs are starting to ask the same question, even if they don't always say it this directly: if AI can build a strategy deck, suggest a campaign, analyze competitors, and hand back polished recommendations in seconds, why keep paying for a CMO?
Recent Posts

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.
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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.

Overcoming Team Building Resistance
Tue, Aug 21, 2012 — I am a big believer in teams in a business environment. I don't just meant people working together well, but actively taking steps to know each other as people, form bonds and work with a common purpose. I've always tried to foster a strong team dynamic in the groups I've led, and have taken active steps to create an environment in which those bonds could grow.