McKinsey: Importance of CEO-CMO Relationship for Outsize Growth

This started as a post but I was so loquacious due to my enthusiasm that I ran over the character count. So here we are with an article.

My thirst for knowledge when it comes to business and operations is endless, so nary a day goes by that I am not doing some sort of research on a topic that has struck my fancy. I don't know why I only found this 麦肯锡 article today, but I sure am glad that I did. I only wish I had found it sooner.

However, it serendipitously aligns with the keynote I gave at #CyberMarketingCon in December, during which I talked about the importance of the systems-thinking, operational role of the CMO, and how the skill set of a strong marketing leader is that of a growth leader. (Big thank you again to Gianna Whitver and Maria Velasquez for grokking my vision and giving me the stage.) However, there is a BIG onus on the CEO to see this and harness it for it to result in gains for a company. And, even more so, how mistakes can often get made when the CRO runs the play between the CEO and CMO for business strategy.

My favorite quotes are the truest parts: "Underestimating?the power of marketing during uncertain times?could be a costly mistake." It later goes on..."CEOs who place marketing at the core of their growth strategy are twice as likely to have greater than 5 percent annual growth compared with their peers."

If you underestimate marketing, you may not understand marketing. The time of casting off marketing into its "fluffy marketing box" is over and everyone in the C-suite or on a board needs to understand how it operates now. In point, the article reports that it found in a study that many CEOs do not have a marketing background so they need to be in learning mode. I have found this to be true at most of the companies where I have led marketing and operations functions.

I don't want to rewrite the whole article because every marketing, sales, C-level leader, and board representative should read it. I'll simply touch on a few points, and add some comments, but the article has deeper guidance (and charts!):

"Murkiness in C-Level Growth Responsibilities"

As I said in my talk, marketing has to have a seat at the business strategy table or it will create risk for the company. In the companies that the article analyzed, more than 40 percent don't have either a CMO at the growth strategy table or a focused growth or operations role to oversee all growth, and, "that means marketing or marketing-adjacent leaders can struggle to deliver when they are not part of the strategic conversation and may not have the opportunity to influence important decisions."

Include your marketing leaders in the business strategy. Simple. If you're the more forward-thinking and progressive leader, go ahead and put them into a growth leader or more central operational role. Or, if your CMO is not operational or you're a CEO who does not have time to be that growth leader themself, hire someone to fill that growth or operational gap to ensure consistent alignment across your go-to-market and revenue-generating functions.

"Underestimated Potential for Marketing to Drive Growth"

I said this also at my talk: great CMOs are operational systems thinkers — and so are the best marketers in general.?They also need to be technical to some degree, especially in cyber, to have customer empathy. "Marketing has rapidly evolved into a multi-dimensional, technical discipline, and?modern marketing has become increasingly complex.?Consumer journeys?have more touchpoints. Data is at the core of every marketing activity. And technical skills are now a?must-have for marketing organizations."

The article goes on to talk about how, because often only the marketing leaders and their teams themselves understand how the role has changed, many others in the C-suite often underestimate the potential of marketing and leave a lot of capabilities untapped that could fuel growth. There's that underestimation again.

In this case, much of the responsibility is on the marketing leader to advocate for the new way marketing works and the more modern ways that marketers have to think. You can't expect someone who doesn't live and breathe what you do to comprehend it without some education, and strong leaders trust their experts and are open to that kind of education. Have a collaborative sit-down with your CEO and explain how the role has changed, what you're doing that is standard, what you're doing that is different, and what you and your team can do to boost company growth. It costs them nothing to listen, and a 30-minute investment in time to learn something new will pay off in spades for them.

"Misalignment of Marketing Measurement and Relevance to Business Impact"

The article doesn't touch on the "do not measure marketing by pipeline generation" principle but we all know that is true. I won't belabor it. It's painful. It gives me "PTSD" (Pipeline Traumatic Stress Disorder). The order does touch on the importance of metrics alignment and making sure the marketer, the CEO, and even the board understand and agree to the measurements. I remember once in a board meeting, someone said "I have never seen someone provide so much data." At first, I was flattered, but then I realized I might've done a poor job explaining what the data meant, or falsely assumed they knew what the data meant. The onus is on the CMO to provide data and its meaning, the onus is on the board and CEO to ask questions to make sure they understand the data and together they need to hone in on the data that matters to the business. Too often the CEO leaves that exchange to the CRO and the CMO, but that is challenging without the right CRO, because they are often focused on what is fueling sales, may not have the full view of the business, and the reach of modern marketing is greater than sales. And, I'd go ahead and venture to guess that 98.24734917% of CROs have never run marketing hands-on.

In my #CyberMarketingCon talk, I subtitled it, "We can no longer be bound." If I were to give the talk now, I would say we can no longer be bound and we should not be underestimated. We are CXOs. We are growth leaders. Again, read the full article, but I'll end with one more powerful snippet for CMOs: “View your role as a business leader who happens to care for the function of marketing.”?Business first, marketing second, always, and that's a win.