Growth Insights for CEOs

Your Buyers Have Already Shortlisted You—Or They Haven't
Executive Takeaways
- 95% of B2B buyers purchase from the vendors on their initial shortlist, formed before any formal buying process begins.
- That shortlist is increasingly built inside AI platforms your analytics can't see.
- AI referral traffic is roughly 1% of total website traffic, yet 15% or more of conversions appear to originate from AI-influenced research, a gap standard attribution misses entirely.
- If you're not on the Day One list, spend alone won't fix it.
Part 3 of our four-part series on the evolving AI search landscape and what B2B leaders need to know to stay competitive.
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How to Build Your Marketing Team for Growth
Tue, Mar 7, 2017 — A marketing organizational roadmap for B2B venture CEOs After slogging through the early startup phase and acquiring the first handful of customers through relationships, sheer selling tenacity and perseverance, many founding CEOs at B2B ventures ask me: “To scale my company, I know I need a marketing team. But I don’t know where to start and what path to follow. Can you help?”

Grow From Within: Three Ways to Enlarge Your Slice of the Pie
Sat, Feb 25, 2017 — Psst. I have a secret. I’m talking to you, CEO. While your counterparts are handwringing about how to grow their business by earning more customers, or by stealing more customers from their competition, you and I are going to have a Zen moment.
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3…2…1… We Are “Go” for Product Launch
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5 Ways to Drive Business Growth from the Outside
Mon, Dec 12, 2016 — There are two critical elements to achieving your business growth goals: One, you must successfully run your business from the inside. Two, you must monitor the external environment. While most CEOs know the inner workings of their businesses, they are less in touch with the outside factors that affect it. Case in point: In a recent webinar I hosted, “External Factors that Stall Growth and How to Combat Them,” I asked participants, “Do you have a system to identify and monitor external factors that affect your business?” One-hundred percent of participants responded, “No, but I do want to create a system.” The presentation then focused on helping to identify the external factors businesses should be monitoring and how to monitor them.

The Three Levels of Listening: Deeper Insights for More Enduring and Effective Sales and Marketing Strategies
Wed, Oct 19, 2016 — No matter how many shiny new products and services emerge every year in an industry, there will always be a few established brand giants waiting at the top of the Mountain of Customer Loyalty, waiting to force the weaker ones into submission.

What Can Tesla Teach Us About Customer-Focus?
Thu, Oct 6, 2016 — I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a Tesla. Sleek, fast, future-forward – and electric to boot – the unique combination of “smart” and sustainability features on the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 make the car company’s offerings so irresistible to buyers, that Elon Musk and his team have struggled to keep up with demand.

New Challenger Brand Tees Off with Hilarious Video
Thu, Apr 7, 2016 — As they say, “Dumb as a fox.” Attitudinally provocative “Challenger” brands have long been around for decades using contrarian positioning (The UNCOLA!) to separate them from the more normative incumbent brands in a given category. But in recent years with disruption strategy almost becoming the expected method of launching every new product, we seem to see more brands becoming the champions for disaffected consumer segments by promising a substantially better product or deal and by attacking the category leader with advertising featuring a loud, irreverent or downright outrageous brand persona. More or less censorship free online media have also opened the door to the use of profanity and lowbrow bathroom humor by some Challenger brands to create even greater juxtaposition between the new upstarts and the brands they mean to steal share from.

How We’re Going To Make $1 Billion (for the US Economy)
Mon, Nov 11, 2013 — “You Can Be a Millionaire and Never Pay Taxes” – Steve Martin, circa 1974 Okay. So I’ve used this reference before, but it really fits this story. It’s one of my favorite Steve Martin gags, when he says, “YOU can be a MILLIONAIRE and NEVER pay taxes.” How? “First, get a million dollars.” In some small way, the sketch makes this point: it takes money to make money. So, what’s it going to take to make $1B? As it turns out, only $200,000. And we know where it’s going to come from.