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Outsider Insights | From Hustle to System: Why More CEOs Are Rebuilding Their Sales Function
Outsider Insights
Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this new 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.
Marketing Budget: How much should a CEO spend?
Wed, Jul 17, 2013 — How much sould a CEO spend on a marketing budget? Whether or not it is the first question asked, it is usually one of the first questions a CEO thinks about when discussing his or her marketing efforts: how much should I spend on a marketing budget? Well, the average company spent 10.4% of its revenue on marketing in 2012. And according to Gartner, that marketing budget is scheduled to go up by 6% in 2013. Now this includes salaries of the marketing people, but it doesn’t include things like software licenses or servers for the data. And this spend widely varies for the types of companies from IT at 3.5% to over 12% for media companies.
The Perfect Storm – Why Sales and Marketing Are Changing
Wed, Apr 10, 2013 —
D.A.R.E. to Grow
Wed, Feb 20, 2013 — Sometimes it is difficult for our organizations to take the steps necessary to grow – to change – to leave what is comfortable and strive for something more. We stop ourselves with questions like: How will my organization adapt to the changes? Can we handle the new challenges? Do we have the skills required to meet the new demands? Why should we upset what is already going well? It makes perfect sense for us to question. In fact, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs as leaders if we didn’t. At some point though, if we want to move forward, we must also move beyond the questions. We must take our own dare, if you will – and D.A.R.E. to grow. Here are some thoughts to get us started. D = Discover
Hold ‘em: Three M's of Success for CEOs
Sun, Feb 17, 2013 — If you are a start-up or a small business, you probably have more on your plate than a reasonable person can be expected to handle. Or at least handle in an effective way without going insane. So what should a small business leader focus on? How should you identify the really important ones from those that are merely, well, important?
![Market-Driven Strategy Doubles Annual Revenue for ISTN [CASE STUDY]](https://www.chiefoutsiders.com/hs-fs/file-14389357-jpg/images/business-strategy.jpg?width=320&name=business-strategy.jpg)
Market-Driven Strategy Doubles Annual Revenue for ISTN [CASE STUDY]
Tue, Dec 11, 2012 — In this case study, see how a market-driven strategy helped a business consolidate sales and marketing programs, increase revenue growth, and expand into new geographic markets. As a management buy-out company of a Westinghouse division, IST produced instrumentation and optics used in the nuclear power, defense, safety and spectrophotometer markets.
Your Brand and the Buyers Journey: Why CEOs Need to Pay Attention
Wed, Dec 5, 2012 —
5 “Wake Up” Marketing Insights from the CMO Breakfast Forum
Tue, Oct 23, 2012 — Marketing Executives from Comcast, BuzzManager and the Brownstein Group shared valuable “learnings” on how they deal with the challenges of building and protecting their brands at our recent CMO Breakfast held in Philadelphia. All of the panelist agreed with discussion moderator, Daniel Korschun Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Marketing at Drexel University, when asked if they thought the findings of a recent CMO survey conducted by Duke University were accurate. The Duke survey found that in the current marketing landscape there is: More intense rivalry for customers More competitor innovation Increase in number of domestic competitors More competitor price cutting
Positioning and Differentiation from the Ground Up
Sun, Oct 21, 2012 — I have heard many CEOs say, “I do not know how to explain what we do." Positioning your company in the marketplace and differentiating it from its competition are absolutely critical to survival. But what steps do you take to turn a murky corporate image into a firm message that communicates quickly and opens wallets?
Passing the Baton: Helping Family Businesses Prosper!
Thu, Aug 2, 2012 — What Makes a Family Business Work? This past week, I had lunch with Christopher Wolfslayer, a colleague fromSovereign Bank who is in charge of Business Development, and the subject of family businesses came up. Both of us have had a lot of experience working with families that work and live together and we shared some of our perspectives.