How the Visionary CMO Can be the New C-Suite Hero

How the Visionary CMO Can be the New
C-Suite Hero

Today’s CMO faces a growing number of high-pressure challenges.

Many companies are battling not just for market share but to survive and create a sustainable future. They need their brand to be visible, a solid flow of higher quality leads and an ability to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape.

Faced with these significant challenges, an increasing number of C-suite leaders are turning to Revenue Operations, also known as RevOps or RO. 

It’s a way to pull people, platforms and processes together to achieve clear
revenue objectives.

Some have described it as a means to ‘build the tracks and keep the trains running on time’.

So, how does that help the CMO be seen as a hero of the C-suite?

Strategy and Tactical Implementation

Today’s CMO may be used to doing things a certain way or following a standard approach to marketing.

The new landscape requires a different kind of vision. 

Genuine collaboration, focus, and mutual support between departments will become the norm. Leaders can choose to either stick their head in the sand or be part of the evolution - or even lead that change.

Marketing and Sales can often be seen working in silos. And there lies a problem - and the elephant in the room.

Marketing needs Sales but may not want to admit it. Sales needs Marketing yet may have a superiority complex. Neither, in some cases, gives Customer Service
a thought.

An Inbound RevOps approach addresses the elephant in the room - and offers a different way forward.

Have Better C-Suite Conversations

It’s human nature to want to be liked, respected and feel good.

Some days for the CMO, it may feel more like he or she is having to justify their existence. Or that ‘the whole world and his dog’ are against them. That can often be the case where Marketing and Sales have a history of clashing.

The smart, visionary CMO can see the benefit of being able to have better boardroom conversations.

RevOps is a solution designed for those who want considerably more than average or ‘standard’ performance, those who have growth ambitions well beyond the ‘conservative’ norm.

Imagine, for example, if the CMO proposed an end to silo thinking. What if they were the leader who presented the advantages of aligning Marketing and Sales (together with Customer service) with shared revenue targets?...

... What sort of numbers could that achieve?

According to a 2019 study by SiriusDecisions, companies using an aligned approach to revenue growth were 19 per cent faster and 15 per cent more profitable.

Those appear to be strong numbers.

With that kind of performance, the nature of the CMO’s peer-level conversations with the Sales Director would probably change for the better. 

They would become a willing ally rather than a constant thorn in the CMO’s side. And, as sales performance improves, they will recognise the CMO as the architect of that outcome.

With a Service Level Agreement (SLA) in place with Sales, the conversations will be different.

Here’s How a Conversation Might Go

Sales might say, for example, they need 10 Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) per month. Each MQL is worth €50,00 so the monthly revenue target for Marketing is set at half a million Euros. 

In return, Marketing says it needs Sales to close 40 per cent of those leads. That gives Sales a €200,000 revenue target to aim at. Both departments or teams have revenue targets in mind - linked to the overall strategic revenue objectives.

A Conversation that Gets the CMO Noticed

The Sales boss will not be the only one to notice the creativity, team play and problem-solving prowess of the CMO, of course. 

The CEO will have witnessed this demonstration of leadership and vision. 

The CMO is more likely to have access to the CEO’s ear. As the Marketing team performs well and smashes its targets, the CMO will be able to deflect the pressure away to other departments. 

The approach is collaborative yet strategic. It’s just created a new hero in the C-suite.

The CMO could probably dine out for quite some time on how they made it
all happen.

These are the kind of conversations 6teen30 Digital helps clients to have within an Inbound RevOps approach to smarter growth.