Meltdown, Meaning, Movement - Infinite Edge Q3 Newsletter

Most years I’m pretty excited for the current year to end and to begin a new cycle. But something about the end of 2022 was different. It wasn’t just that we were on the verge of a global recession signaling a huge shift in dynamics across industries and widespread climate meltdown. For marketers, it was also the real end of the world as we know it with technologies like ChatGPT going mainstream disrupting search and our own ideas of how to go-to-market now. Our budgets were decimated and many of our strategies became obsolete. We knew it was coming, but now there’s no time to wait around for a solution to appear.?

We spent the first half of the year navigating real change across our client businesses helping them become the drivers of growth they are now meant to be. Many of these required changes to every part of the GTM organization from marketing to account development, sales, and customer success. This is change-wrangling at its most intense. Add reorgs to the mix and much of H1 felt like trying to rebuild a sinking ship. I don’t know about you, but I felt more like a corporate therapist helping everyone at every level deal with profound and unsettling changes. I can’t say it was fun, but it sure felt meaningful. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”? Right?

I love the Tarot as a meditation device to help me navigate the world around me. As I was reflecting on the first of half of this year, I couldn’t help but think of the dreaded “Tower” card.?

It’s a frightening image as lightning strikes a medieval-looking tower, a seeming fortress. People are flying. A lonely crown explodes from the top signaling something that felt secure has been destroyed. While the tower looks strong, the foundation looks weak. It’s not unlike our economic and social structures built on outdated premises, that now feel so fragile.?

When this card comes up in a reading, you can count on sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, and awakening.

Ah, “awakening.” Now that sounds good. But…what we know from experience is that “awakening” often involves a good cosmic kick in the backside. Not fun. Feels like that’s been happening a lot lately. My backside could use a break.?

When the Tower card appears, expect the unexpected. Upheaval, chaos, massive change, and destruction. Hello 2023!?

If you look deeply at the Tower card, you’ll see a faint image of a caduceus at the bottom right. If you’re like me and you like Greek and Roman mythology, this is a meaningful symbol. The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and also by other heralds. It’s a symbol of a message being delivered. “Listen up” it says. Time to change.?

This reminds me of a quote by Martin Luther King Jr., “Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”?

This is where meltdown and meaning come together to spark movement.?

After a couple of decades of “moving fast and breaking things,” it’s time to “move fast and fix things.” Agility and adaptability are key to not just navigating the changing landscape but capitalizing on it. We have to go beyond adapting and find innovation through the chaos. Sure, most of us are closely monitoring market trends, consumer behavior, and emerging technologies to make quick adjustments to our strategies and respond to unforeseen challenges. Unfortunately, technology moves faster than humans can now adapt. We’ve got the tools we need to help us. It’s the human skills we need to fine tune. We need to attune to each other, find new ways of working together, and leverage technology to our advantage.

We’re seeing opportunities everywhere to help people develop new techniques, establish new strategies, and accelerate their co-creation approach using the best of the technology available to us and the strength of our relationships. What’s more, we’re seeing people willing and eager to come together to learn. We need each other more than ever now. Bringing people together to accelerate change is what we do best and this year has been a proving ground for that. Also, focusing on things we know we can impact helps us all feel more productive and able to impact outcomes.

While it doesn’t always feel like it, we’re so privileged to live in these times and be surrounded by purpose-driven, like-minded marketers willing to use their power to drive positive change across our industry. Together with our clients, we’ve launched new practice areas, built a network of over 500 Future Ready marketers and talent, and re-charted our course at the forefront of change. This is all part of our mission to help brands create sustainable, predictable value in the 21st century and beyond.?

Read on to learn more about our latest developments.?

Is B2B marketing performance really possible right now? I don’t have to tell you that traditional demand generation tactics are getting more expensive and less effective. Lately, I have personally been involved in cutting millions of dollars from a wide variety of demand generation budgets. And what has been surprising to note is that cutting budgets at this level has had minimal impact on current pipeline expectations. Yes, you heard that right. The same amount of pipeline anticipated from those exorbitant “spray and pray” budgets is coming from budgets half or even a quarter of the size.?

B2B brands continue to lag the industry in customer centricity, yet with shrinking budgets and more and more buyers in the mix, we know this is the only way to compete and win as B2B buyers increasingly go digital. More and more leaders are not only maturing their ABM practices but actually bringing ABM and demand generation together to form a new growth engine. They’re putting buyers at the center of a digital-first, end-to-end experience and bringing sales, marketing, and customer success together as a force for building high-value relationships that go the distance.

Learn more about how we’re helping B2B sales and marketing organizations pivot fast.?

Read more about why this matters now.?

We helped transform industry, build business for our clients, and experience for our team?

With a great roster of early adopter customers and a passionate core team, leadership at Folloze felt they should be further ahead. Yet, something was missing. A sense of urgency with enterprise and MM buyers who didn’t see the unique value of the Folloze solution.

Challenged with an unstructured, relatively new ABM-driven organization, limited messaging and communications strategy, and unfocused content engine, the Folloze team needed to transform to accelerate.

Within 16 months after joining the organization, we were able to achieve:

• 60% reduction in budget
• 30% increase in TOFU opps
• 22% opportunity-to-close
• 90% customer retention

Read more about the transformation within Folloze at the case study here.

Our Passion Project: Future Ready CMO

We live in dynamic times — not just in marketing, but in business, global politics, and technology. Consumer desires have fundamentally shifted, and CMOs face not only stalling growth, but a mandate to reinvent business at every level. Our role has never been more important.

In September of last year we set out to build a community of marketing leaders to develop our perspectives, skills, and capacity to be a force for change. In less than a year, over 500 marketer leaders have shown up to help us build a movement together. Our initial focus has been on creating virtual gatherings featuring industry thought leaders and transformers in people and culture, personal development, and cultural movements.

In the first half of this year we heard from Bonnie Wan, creator of the Life Brief, Matt Rivitz founder of “Sleeping Giants,” and Christine Heckart, CEO of Xapa. Together we learned to hone our personal vision, the techniques to create a movement and stand up to power, and new skills for helping Gen Y and Z thrive in the new world of work. Here are some highlights from each session and links to the full session.?

For more information, to join the community, or to volunteer for opportunities to lead workshops visit https://www.futurereadycmo.com/join-the-community?

See what we’ve been up to this year

2023 Research Report

Marketers and the Global Transformation Toward GOOD

Download the Report ? ?

Community Blogs

Unlock the secrets of purpose-driven marketing by Andrew Strickman

Read the Blog

Watch the recaps - https://www.futurereadycmo.com/events?

Our plans for the rest of the year.

As we roll out our new practices and build our community for change, we’re staying the course through H2. We have built the foundations and now it’s time to stay committed to the cause and move steadily forward “moving fast and fixing things.”?

If you’d like to learn more about us, how to become involved or have a suggestion for our business, Schedule some time to chat. We look forward to hearing from you.