The heading of this post was said to me over dinner by the founder of a Marketing consulting firm who has spent the last 10 years of his life transforming scores of Marketing teams into growth machines and training CMOs on what makes for successful board and investor meetings.
Here are the top 2 problems he’s seen over and over again:
- The CMO won’t let go of chasing leads even though the only thing the rest of the leadership team cares about is building more pipeline.
- The CMO has no understanding of customer acquisition cost, or CAC, leading to an utter inability in knowing where to spend to get the maximum return.
“Leads don’t f****** matter and half their campaigns are a waste of time. But one, nobody has ever stepped them through this and two, the data is all over the place and hard to make sense of, so they just keep chasing leads and throwing money away on things that don’t work. Meanwhile, everyone else is asking ‘where the hell is the pipeline?!'”
“Sometimes we get in early enough to save the first CMO, but a lot of times we’re helping their successor.”
What are you doing to equip your CMO with what they need to not only survive but thrive?
Sean M Masters 