Growth Insights for CEOs

From Concept to Execution: A Step-by-Step CEO Playbook for Go-to-Market Success, Part One
Every CEO knows this nightmare scenario: Your team spent months crafting the "perfect" go-to-market strategy, only to watch it crumble during execution. Resources hemorrhage, timelines slip, and while you're still troubleshooting internal alignment issues, competitors are capturing the market opportunity you identified first.
Recent Posts

Part 3: How Does Employee Engagement Win the Growth Game?
Thu, Feb 20, 2020 — Assessing the Health of Your Culture Co-Authored by Marc Umscheid, CMO, Chief Outsiders and Kristin Anderson, Partner, LeadQuest Consulting In our first two blogs (Part one and Part two) on the subject of corporate culture, we have been making the case for the importance of a serious, top-down effort to ensure your company is united around a single vision -- and that your corporate culture is working for you, not against you. We’ve seen how such a CEO-led commitment can lead to riches beyond your wildest dreams (or, at least, measurably better performance), and we’ve heard directly from one CEO who grappled with the effects of a toxic culture before his personal involvement – and a committed effort -- restored balance across his organization.

Part 2: How Does Employee Engagement Win the Growth Game?
Wed, Dec 11, 2019 — Shaping a High Performing Culture is a Top-Down Commitment Co-Authored by Marc Umscheid, CMO, Chief Outsiders and Kristin Anderson, Partner, LeadQuest Consulting In our previous blog, we established the importance of corporate culture in the paradigm of business success. Commit to it, and reap myriad rewards, including better hires, more efficient business practices – and more revenue. But, allow your culture to become toxic, and you place more at risk than just caustic commentary at the water cooler. Like any living, breathing organism, toxicity can infect the corporate ecosystem as well – and the responsibility to ensure a healthy, positive environment starts at the top!

How Does Employee Engagement Win the Growth Game? Look to Your Company’s Culture
Tue, Oct 29, 2019 — This is the first in a series of four blogs on the role of company culture as a function of your overall business strategy. Co-Authored by Marc Umscheid, CMO, Chief Outsiders and Kristin Anderson, Partner, LeadQuest Consulting What do you know about your company’s culture? And, more importantly, how it can impact the success—or failure—of your growth initiatives? Companies that do a great job of instilling culture as a way of engaging teams are 21 percent more profitable than their counterparts, according to a 2016 study by Deloitte Consulting. A thriving culture is key to growth because of its tie to profitability and recruiting top employees. With that in mind, it is surprising that only one in four C-suite executives understand their company’s culture – and appreciate its link to performance.
Stay up-to-date with the latest from Chief Outsiders

How to Retain Customers and Develop Brand Advocates - Part 3
Thu, Oct 10, 2019 — Part 3 of 3: Winning Retention Marketing Strategies Retention marketing isn’t meant to replace acquisition marketing, but to work alongside it as part of your growth strategy. The activities associated with retaining customers and/or increasing customer value through re-purchasing or up-selling products and services, is less expensive than acquisition marketing. While you need both acquisition and retention marketing, you will get a better return from your investment in retention marketing and create customers for life. In the previous blog post, we discussed how to develop a retention marketing program that specifically addresses the needs of your business. But are there proven retention marketing strategies or tactics that should be considered regardless?

How to Retain Customers and Develop Brand Advocates - Part 2
Fri, Sep 13, 2019 — Part 2 of 3: Developing a Retention Marketing Program As we learned in my previous post, retention marketing encompasses the activities associated with retaining customers or increasing customer value through re-purchasing and up-selling products and services. It’s anywhere from five to 25 times less expensive than acquisition marketing—and done well can reduce the expense pressure of acquisition marketing to grow your business. Retention marketing should be a part of any business growth strategy. Retention marketing involves communicating with your customers in a way that helps you nurture and keep them. This should be an ongoing priority for the business with buy-in from the top throughout the entire organization. After all, you’ve all worked hard and spent a lot of money to acquire those customers.

How to Retain Customers and Develop Brand Advocates - Part 1
Fri, Sep 6, 2019 — Part 1 of 3: Why retention marketing should be part of your growth strategy If you are losing customers at almost any rate, you are jeopardizing your business growth strategy. Every lost customer creates a hole that you must fill before you can claim any new customer growth. The more customers you churn, the deeper the gap before you can realize any revenue or profit growth.

How to Generate Winning Results with PAC
Wed, Jun 19, 2019 — Most of us have heard of the Five P’s of Marketing (Product, Price, Promotion, Place and People) and how getting those right is essential for success. Certainly, all of these have a role and are important, but for small to mid-sized companies, experience shows that PAC is the biggest driver of success. These are: Product Audience Communications Executing well on PAC provides your business with focus and a market-informed approach. The PAC mindset creates a differentiated product and an activating message that reaches those most likely to buy. Consistent revenue and profit growth naturally follow.

An Audience of One: Neuromarketing the New Reality
Wed, Jun 14, 2017 — If you buy into the old corollary that the “future is now,” be prepared to be blown away by what tomorrow’s future holds. If you thought that today’s wave of marketing analytics tools represented a bold new frontier in how enterprises can track and nurture consumers through the buying cycle, well, in the words of Bachmann Turner Overdrive – “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” And, if you believed that the kind of brain-reading technology that served up personalized advertisements to Tom Cruise in the movie “Minority Report” was the stuff of fiction, it may be closer to reality than you ever thought.

3…2…1… We Are “Go” for Product Launch
Wed, Feb 8, 2017 — Part 1 – Gathering Strategic Insights B2B product companies have to move quickly to innovate and release new offerings to remain viable and sustain growth. All too often, B2B companies rely too heavily on their sales channels to launch their products. Because we are always connected to the Internet, your sales prospects have access to a wealth of information making the traditional sales journey less relevant. Your marketing team now has a greater responsibility than ever in driving success of a new product launch.