How do you maximize performance? As a 5x CMO, I am always trying to improve, increase marketing’s contribution to company success and build a team that aspires to greatness. But you can’t do it alone, so I’ve found a number of avenues to augment your performance. Let’s examine them one by one.
💡Coaching – Excel during the first 90 days, and thereafter
✨Peer groups – connect, collaborate, network, share and support
📅Conferences – accelerate industry understanding, assess competition
📚Self-learning – leverage a variety of approaches to say on the cutting edge
🎯 Alignment – orchestrate GTM alignment to improve execution
📊Continuous Improvement – iterating and always aiming to get better
💡Coaching
This first one is essential to speed your growth path. Whether during the critical first 90 days, the next 90 days, or on an ongoing basis, coaching is a surefire way to boost your overall performance. We all know that it’s lonely at the top, and most CMO’s don’t have someone on the executive team that fully understands the complexities of marketing or the challenge of driving multiple, competing, diverse initiatives simultaneously. And I’ve found coaching not only helps you learn and grow, it’s advantageous to have more ideas to consider, have someone to bounce ideas off, challenge assumptions and to increase your operation capacity and overall bandwidth.
✨Peer groups
Participating in peer groups is one of the best ways to increase knowledge, get honest feedback on your ideas, build your network and get input on optimizing outcomes and improving performance. I’ve been involved in peer groups since I became a CMO, and they’ve proven to be invaluable. Groups can be private gatherings with peers who help you pressure test key growth initiatives and strategies around customer acquisition, product line extension, channel development, geographic expansion, customer retention and cross-sell avenues There are also several virtual and in-person peer groups. I participate in CMO Coffee Talk, and I’m a member of CMO Collaborative and CMO Huddles. The key to getting the most out of these groups is regular, active participation, knowledge sharing and offering to help others in need of quick input or more in-depth advice to leverage the experience you’ve gained in the trenches.
📅Conferences
Industry conferences are another key avenue to improve overall performance. Trade shows allow you to take in dozens, if not hundreds of companies “brands in action.” From booth presence, to message and value prop, to how each company or competitor articulates their “why” and value prop, they are a great way to get a lot of insights in a condensed, convenient manner.
The CMO Huddles is holding its first annual Super Huddle in Palo Alto on November 8th. It will be a gathering of 101 B2B marketing leaders ready to challenge convention and seek new paths to success in 2025. There will be hands-on learning roundtables, keynotes and networking, all invaluable to gain additional insights and explore ideas to improve performance.
📚Self-learning
One of the reasons I choose marketing as a career is that it’s a very dynamic field, always changing, always challenging. It’s thus essential to have a learning mindset, to constantly be on the lookout for news tools, tactics and techniques. Everyone has a unique approach to how they keep up or stay on the cutting edge. For me, I look to peers, best practices, methodologies and consulting organizations like Forrester, Gartner, IDC, Pragmatic Marketing, and so many more. Many of the top consulting firms, like Accenture, or publishers, like Forbes, ]cultivate and curate content to inform their audiences of new findings, research and more in-depth publications. And of course the ubiquitous search engines, YouTube videos, Podcasts, and GenAI as a relatively new learning avenue offer unlimited possibilities to continually hone your craft, increase your knowledge and fine tune every outcome.
🎯 Alignment
In some respects, alignment is both an obvious choice and a not-so-simple one to get right. As a 5x CMO, I learned early on in my leadership journey that GTM alignment (LINK) (including Sales, BDRs, Marketing, Product, Customer Success) is a critical success factor. Nevertheless, I have found that several of my peers, and some of the marketing leaders I’ve mentored, have not experienced this same level of alignment, of operating as “one team.” In my view, there’s no alternative than to lock arms, join forces and achieve consensus. And it’s never one, and done. I’ve found that it’s easy to get out of alignment due to market shifts, priority changes, executive turnover, and the like. So it’s clear that you have to work at it, ensure that your teams, across the various functions, geographies and organizational structures, strive for, and maintain, alignment. The annual planning process, or quarterly business review, are both good and regular checkpoints to ensure that optimal alignment occurs, and fosters a unified approach to maximizing success and optimizing performance.
📊Continuous Improvement
One of the foundational ideas behind the Marketing Performance Index that I published earlier this year is “continuous improvement.” I’m a big believer in setting ambitious goals, tracking results, establishing progress markers along the way, and setting new ones once the original targets have been achieved or surpassed. You must have targets and accurate ways to measure results and effectiveness
I’m not only always striving to raise not only my marketing game, but also my tennis game. I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited to compete in the USTA national championships for recreational players for four consecutive years. I’m always trying to improve some aspect of my game, when my return of serve, court positioning, backhand, footwork, and so forth- and I think marketing is similar to tennis in that you have to improve so many aspects at once, from digital and Web marketing to product marketing, market positioning, demand gen, brand and channel marketing, communications, social media, community, Sales enablement, Martech, operations, GenAI adoption, etc., to lift your overall game. If you might have a need for a mentor to help raise your marketing game, please don’t hesitate to contact me (LINK).
Happy improving! #B2B #CMO #Marketing Performance Coach #PlayToWin
CMO Mentor 