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Does Your Contracting Pipeline Live in the Owner’s Head?
Relationships matter in construction, and most subcontractors have good ones. The owner or president carries the key customer relationships, and the project managers carry everything else. That arrangement can work well. It is also fragile. In our last post, we asked whether you know by name who owns each strategic account. This one looks at what happens when the answer is the owner.
The CEO Dashboard Should Show Direction, Not Just Activity
Thu, Oct 15, 2026 — If your dashboard only tells you what happened, it’s reporting history. A CEO needs direction. Steps Taken Aren’t the Same as Direction I've spent a fair amount of time backpacking, and one thing becomes obvious when you've been walking for several hours: knowing how far you've walked isn't the same thing as knowing whether you're headed in the right direction. Your watch can tell you that you've taken 22,000 steps.
Outsider Insights | You Can't Measure AI ROI If You Can't Measure Marketing ROI
Tue, Apr 28, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Most mid-market companies lack the measurement foundation to evaluate AI — or any marketing investment. Hours saved, speed to market, and revenue realized are the three key AI ROI markers — baseline required. AI amplifies what's working. If measurement is broken, AI won't fix it. Real results start with a defined problem and a way to measure it — not the tool. 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.
Beating Industry Benchmarks
Fri, Jul 18, 2025 — In my previous blog, I discussed a fast way to assess relative marketing performance, and covered proven approaches to improving six industry benchmark-based Key Performance Indicators (reach, share, engagement, loyalty, pipeline, and progression) that can boost overall marketing effectiveness. Today, I’m going to review some of the key findings from recent research around Marketing benchmarks. I’ll select key metrics from each of these three benchmarks and their implications for optimizing marketing performance.
Rapid Marketing Performance Improvement
Mon, Jun 23, 2025 — With tariffs, the Middle East and trade tensions increasing the odds of a near-term recession and persistent inflation, it's more important than ever for CEO’s to increase marketing’s overall performance and the ROI of every marketing dollar spent. I created the Marketing Performance Index and Assessment to help CEO’s and their organizations quickly assess relative marketing performance. The Marketing Performance Assessment is an objective way of quantifying the impact of Marketing.
A CEO’s Guide to Marketing Performance | Measuring Performance (and Underperformance)
Thu, Feb 6, 2025 — Part 3 of A CEO's Guide to Marketing Performance In the marketing world, performance is the difference maker - not experience, expertise, effort, or endurance, just results. This article is about how to address underperformance in the three major measurement components (Market Presence, Brand Strength, and Pipeline Health), and six key performance indicators (reach, share, engagement, loyalty, pipeline, and progression).
A CEO’s Guide to Marketing Performance | Metrics Matter
Thu, Jan 9, 2025 — Part 2 of A CEO's Guide to Marketing Performance Metrics matter now more than ever. As a six-time CMO over a 16-year career, I’ve tracked dozens (actually hundreds) of metrics and found that many measures are ultimately meaningless or only matter to marketers.
7 KPIs That Should be in Your Annual Growth Plan
Fri, Nov 3, 2023 — Executive Takeaways Track these 7 KPIs monthly and quarterly: Revenue/Profit/GM against trajectory, Customer Acquisition Rate, Customer Retention Rate, Monthly Customer Average Value, Cost of Lead Generation, Lead Conversion Rate, and ROAS by Channel. Assign a named owner to each KPI—not a department, a specific person accountable for the number. Break every metric down by segment and channel to identify where performance is actually strong or weak. Make all KPIs visible to your entire leadership team on the same cadence to eliminate selective reporting and enable faster problem-solving. Measure demand creation and demand capture separately—they serve different purposes and should be held to different standards. Accelerating Growth With Strategic Business Planning, Part 4 The 7 essential KPIs for an annual growth plan are: 1) Revenue, Profit, and Gross Margin Against Trajectory, 2) Customer Acquisition Rate, 3) Customer Retention Rate, 4) Monthly Customer Average Value, 5) Cost of Lead Generation, 6) Lead Conversion Rate, and 7) Return on Marketing Spend by Channel. Together, these metrics tell you what is being spent, whether it is being spent efficiently, whether it is producing the right kind of demand, and whether your sales organization is converting that demand into revenue.
Eliminate Marketing Info Overload with These 10 KPIs
Mon, May 1, 2023 — Not one of you reading this blog would disagree: We live in a world of information overload. At your company, data likely streams in by the petabyte – sales figures, consumer habits, competitive information, big picture, small picture, and so forth.