Growth Insights for CEOs

Outsider Insights | You Can't Measure AI ROI If You Can't Measure Marketing ROI
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.
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20 AI-Powered Strategies to Supercharge Your SaaS Sales
Wed, Oct 2, 2024 — AI (artificial intelligence) is taking the entire technology sector by storm. And all SaaS vendors are adding AI functionality to their product offerings to stay competitive, as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) syndrome takes hold. The same is happening in the SaaS industry; smart tools can help your sales and marketing team make better and faster decisions, plan, and craft a better customer service approach. As a SaaS CEO, CSO, or CMO, these solutions will open a whole new set of opportunities for growth, oversight, and measurement that can help you be a more prepared and better-informed leader.

CEOs Seeking Growth: Is Marketing Working for You or Against You?
Tue, Aug 28, 2018 — 10 Questions to Determine if Your Marketing Strategy Needs an Overhaul Most growing and mid-sized companies have some type of marketing function. It could consist of one person, a handful, or in some cases, many people. Some of these marketing teams are high-performing with obvious impact on the business. For others, the business impact of marketing is unclear.

Profitable, Recurring Revenue Streams – Part 4
Tue, Aug 15, 2017 — Transitioning Your Business Model to Grow Your Business-as-a-Service More and more companies are realizing that transitioning their businesses to as-a-Service models is the answer to driving higher growth, more profitable, and stable revenue streams. Welcome to the fourth and final part of this series: In Part 1 of this series, you learned how to know if it's time to think about embracing an as-a-Service model In Part 2 we dove deeper into what an as-a-Service model is and discovered how ready your company is to transition to one In Part 3 we touched on how to define strategic goals, position, and create a go-to-market plan that is most relevant to an as-a-Service offering. If you haven’t read the previous parts, you might want to take a quick look before returning here. In this installment, we will discuss the key metrics to track and capabilities to nurture to ensure you execute this transition successfully – along with a few tips and tricks I have learned (often the hard way) over the years.
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Profitable, Recurring Revenue Streams - Part 2
Fri, Jul 7, 2017 — Transitioning Your Business Model to Grow Your Business-as-a-Service More and more companies are realizing that transitioning their business to an as-a-Service model is the answer to driving higher growth and more profitable and stable revenue streams. In Part 1 of this article series, you learned how to know if it's time to think about embracing an as-a-Service model.

The CMO is Dead
Wed, Jun 7, 2017 — Long Live the CMO (as a Service)! We all know that the Chief Marketing Office (CMO) role has been under increasing pressure. Average tenures are short (and getting shorter) as CEOs more quickly become impatient when their organizations are not able to achieve their visions for growth. In this era of digital marketing, CMOs are no longer ‘off the hook’ for producing real, measurable results.