“The CMO needs to sell marketing to the CEO.” 👆 This is CRAZY talk right here. The idea that the marketing head should be *selling* the very idea of "marketing" to the CEO (+ the leadership team). As if it’s some *nice-to-have* or *extra* that you bolt on at the end. Truth is, marketing is the heart of the company. Your product, price, place, promotion. On and on we go. The marketing decisions you make here are the ones that create your offering to the market(s) you serve. These strategic choices HEAVILY influence any success or failure. If you need to *convince* the CEO about the importance of such decisions, they probably shouldn't be the CEO. This is NOT something you do at the end. It’s something you START with. The high-growth companies start with marketing strategy… – They obsess over their buyers. – They find products for their customers. – They focus on key drivers. Less is more. – They nail their research, positioning, and segmentation. And, most importantly… – They build a partnership between the marketing head & the CEO. In other words, they don’t believe in the LUCK strategy. (And neither do their investors). Today, the CEO must know the fundamentals. And the CMO must do everything she can to support the partnership between them. #saas #marketing PS. You never hear: “where are the leads?” in those companies. You only hear: “what do you need to go faster?”.
Heidi Howell-Green
10mo
I’ve worked for many CEOs who don’t understand marketing. The best are those who admit they don’t, trust me to do my job, and appreciates insights I share. The worst are those who *think* they know marketing and they are awful to work with. They really have no idea what resonates with customers. They also tend to want to be everything to everyone and they want to be everywhere. They have no strategic plan. Oh, they also believe any press is good press. 🙄
🤖 Yaniv Bernstein
10mo
What a bunch of whining. The CEO is the CEO, part of the job of every functional lead is to educate them.
Joe Weinlick
10mo
I'd still say you have to sell the CEO by making marketing relevant and demonstrating the impact it can have on the business. I took over a marketing team that ran a robust trade show calendar, and the CEO liked trade shows, but had no idea whether they really had a worthwhile ROI. Selling was ensuring that the tactics, discipline, and tracking were in place, so that the presentation introducing the annual trade show strategy included goals for how the show would increase sales, and the marketing dashboard tracked success in real time.
Jarie Bolander
10mo
What’s interesting is that most marketing teams to zero internal marketing or alignment activities. Kinda ironic given that the job is about building brand and providing quality leads to sales. You’d think that the untapped pool of employees, who work there already, would want to help out by telling people about the company. I see this as a huge missed opportunity all the time. Internal alignment should be a marketing task. So, I agree that the CMO needs to “sell” to the whole company.
James A. Gardner
10mo
Meanwhile, in the real world, the CEO has a finance or legal background with no formal marketing pedigree. Whether or not they "should" be leading the company, they are and will be for another 4-8 years. When she and the CFO ask you to defend your budget, you need to sell marketing and your impact on the business. Selling means showing how you are 100% aligned and contributing to the CEO's goals. They want real impact, not vanity metrics or marketing jargon/ Some may find this tiresome ... but, as veterans know, it's not as tiresome as being unemployed after 2-3 years.
Chad Jardine
10mo
You might be right. But marketers ultimately bear the pain of poor communication with the CEO. In a growing company the minutia of your marketing plan can quickly fall below the CEOs radar. Your main job is not to execute marketing strategies—that’s not a C-level responsibility. It’s to make your deep marketing understanding accessible to the CEO so she can synthesize it in her decision making.
John A. Marzano
10mo
You have to speak the language of the CFO first...money and revenue. Then show the science of how marketing can support that goal. Stop the pretty pictures mindset, and fiercely shift marketing's value as a brand and revenue growth leader.
Nothing worse than working for a CEO that doesn't value marketing
Tracey Lande
10mo
There shouldn’t be much of a sell. If our CMO is engaged and accountable in the planning + strategy shaping phases, tactics and implementation should flow with few to no breakdowns.
Copywriter & Elder Millennial
10moI want to plaster this on billboards everywhere! In my job interviews, I always ask about marketing's relationship with executive leadership.