It’s been seven years since a study by Fournaise found 80% of CEOs didn’t trust their CMOs. When these stats came to light, papers and publications began surmising the reasons behind this distrust. The overarching conclusion was a lack of alignment between what the CMO was delivering and what the CEO expected.
This misalignment also raised its ugly head when it came to authority. When CMOs signed up to the role, they’d been sold the idea of being on the front line of growth strategy, but the CEO was expecting them to carry out more menial tasks. This led to a great deal of job dissatisfaction on the part of the CMO, in turn branding the CMO as a ‘high turnover’ role and potentially severing the trust between the two further.
So has this changed in 2019? It may have improved slightly, but the majority of CEOs still hold a streak of distrust for their marketing chiefs. Just a few months ago, Accenture released a new study which found two in three CEOs don’t believe that their current marketing leaders have the leadership skills or business acumen required for the role.
We spoke to David Chamberlin (CMO at SonicWall), Paige O’Neill (CMO at Sitecore), and Tamara McCleary (CMO turned CEO at Thulium), to seek their advice on how you can be in the third of CMOs that have gained your CEO’s upmost trust.
The CEO mindset versus the CMO mindset
First, let’s identify how the CEO is different to the CMO. Like you, the CEO has targets to meet. And like you, they’ll need to know what their team (the rest of the c-suite) are each doing to help them achieve this. But they’re juggling a number of departments. “The CEO wears a number of hats,” confirms David. The CEO doesn’t have time to look at finite details of marketing activity, such as how much awareness you raised in your last campaign push. Instead, the CEO will want to know how that is connected to the business aims and what revenue it’s helping to generate.
David says this is often where marketers fall down, as they tend to have a more focused mindset. “One thing that marketers and even others in the c-suite forget is that they need to be business people first and experts in their field second,” he says. This is easier said than done, and David admits it’s hard not to get caught up in the moment with your marketing. “I’ve seen CMOs get so engrossed in their area of expertise that they forget that there is a business to run that ultimately comes down to revenues, profits, and losses.”
In summary: The CEO has a broader focus on things. The CMO tends to be extremely focused on their department, and that’s when the overall business aims go adrift.
The CEO says…The CEO and CMO thought process today should be the same: poised for growth through a customer-centric approach. The CEO’s role is to set the overarching vision to drive business growth. The CEO and CMO both need to understand who their customers are and what the value proposition to their target market is. This shift in focus to drive growth isn’t just upon the shoulders of the CEO and CMO, even the CIO in today’s organisation is tasked with business bottom-line goals. To take a power seat at today’s leadership table requires a growth mindset.
The trials and tribulations of a CEO
The two goals every CEO has are driving growth and advancing revenue. Paige says this means they’ll be thinking about a number of things: “How they can deliver a better product and service, what the customer is thinking about, and what they need to do within the company to drive success from a broad perspective.”
Paige says it’s critical to understand what these priorities are and where the CEO is spending the most of their time to have a successful relationship.
Sitecore’s CEO, Mark Frost (a two-time CEO with a background as a general manager, chief operating officer and VP engineering) writes what he’s prioritising and measuring on a board in his office. “Every time I go into his office, it’s a reminder,” says Paige. “I think a lot of CMOs make the mistake that if they look at the board and don’t see anything specific to marketing, it’s not a priority. That’s not true. There’s something there for you, you just need to understand what it is, and be able to talk about it in a language that’s going to be impactful to what he’s trying to drive.”
Many forget CEOs also have the pressure of meeting their targets and face challenges CMOs don’t. Paige says the CMO should be front line with customer experience and growth and can help the CEO with this.
Difficulty with growth? Understand the target perspective, understand why growth isn’t working and develop campaigns around that.
Difficulty with product? Bring back competitor information to help decide the direction of products to help innovation and new features.
In summary:
- The CEO’s priorities are company growth and revenue.
- Ask your CEO to write their current priorities down.
- If your CEO is facing a specific challenge, tailor your marketing activities to help resolve this.
The CEO says…Today, CEOs face many challenges:Building and supporting a strong company culture.Recruiting and retaining talent.Staying competitive and relevant.Innovating and future-proofing the organisation while keeping the core/legacy business vibrant.Building a strong management and leadership team.Digital transformation.The increasing pressure to build compelling professional thought leadership on social media.
Aligning with your CEO
If you don’t have alignment with your CEO, or in some cases the whole c-suite, you need to find it fast, otherwise you won’t be successful. If you find yourself in this situation, Paige says there are actions you can take. “The first thing you should do is ask yourself, ‘am I sure I understand the business objectives as articulated by the CEO and the board?’” she says.
If the answer to this question is no, then you need to have a conversation with the CEO about what the top level business strategies are, and find out how your role can be mapped to this. People avoid doing this because they don’t want to appear stupid or out of their depth to their boss, but not saying anything will ultimately put you at a worst disadvantage. “A lot of the time people are afraid to put it on the table and say ‘hey we’re not aligned’, ‘it feels like you don’t see the value’, or ‘what do you think the focus is?’.”
Remember: Just because you know and are aligned with your CEO’s priorities now, it may not mean you will be in six months’ time. Paige checks in with Mark every couple of months to catch up on priorities and alignment.
In some cases it may be that the root cause of misalignment is that your fellow members of the c-suite and the CEO don’t understand what you do that benefits the company. If that’s the case, you will need to rectify it in order to really align.
In summary:
- Ask yourself, do you really understand the business objectives and how your role is mapped to them?
- Be honest and upfront; don’t be afraid to ask the ‘stupid’ questions.
- Catch up with your CEO every couple of months to make sure you’re still on the same page.
The CEO says…Marketing is perfectly positioned to steer the organisation based on solid customer data and analytics. How can marketing align to the business’ bigger picture? Get out of the marketing bubble and experience the business’ bigger picture by stepping into true leadership, and understanding IT, sales, finance, strategy, operations, and yes, even HR.
Proving the value of a CMO
Now let’s not forget that two in three CEOs currently don’t trust their CMO’s ability. So you need to prove them wrong and keep it that way. According to Paige, the top way of proving marketing’s worth is to be extremely data driven. This makes sense. CEOs more often than not rise up the ranks from the position of CFO – a number-obsessed role. Even so, regardless of background, the CEO will still be under pressure to deliver those numbers to the board.
“Today there’s an expectation that marketing has to come to the table with data that proves the value of investments being driven in marketing. We’re one of the top discretionary spends at companies, so as CMOs we have to articulate what the company is getting from this investment,” explains Paige.
But being data driven doesn’t mean data dumping everything you have onto the desk of the CEO. “I’m in the process of reviewing my fiscal year right now, and my marketing operations person has sent me a spreadsheet which means I need to go and get glasses because there’s so much data in there! I can’t present that to the board,” she says.
Instead, Paige says you need to pull the most impactful metrics to show and weave them into a story. She says she presents her data the same way as she presents her marketing campaigns and messaging. “What’s the story you want to tell the CEO and board to show the impact of your investments over the last year?” she asks.
In summary: Try to indicate your successes through data that relates to growth, pipeline and revenue. Present this data in a way that creates a story and is engaging – like you would a marketing campaign.
The CEO says…Make certain you have digital competency, understand marketing technology, and your martech stack. Everything that is critical for customer experience, you must become skilled with it. This includes AI, marketing automation, vocal interfaces, mobile, AR/VR and mixed reality settings. How are you looking future-forward to stay relevant not only as a marketing leader today, but tomorrow? How are you positioning your organisation for future innovation and success?Set targets and reach them. Sales has the advantage of showing clearly their worth at the table as the organisation’s asset. How many times have you seen a portion of marketing’s budget reallocated to sales? Marketing would do well to prove worth with setting and hitting targets, and owning a line of business with P&L responsibilities. Speak in terms of financial implications and strategies. Be involved in the conversations happening in the c-suite around the business value of marketing’s operations. Step-up and lead a data-driven marketing organisation across all customer touch points.
Catching the attention of the CEO (and what to do if you fail)
It’s become clear that the overarching factor to a successful relationship with your CEO is communication. This is particularly important as your marketing plan should be based around your company’s priorities, and the CEO should be consulted during the plan writing process – something both David and Paige do.
Speaking to your CEO regularly is easy in practice, but in reality it can be very difficult to carve out time with them. After all, a CEO is juggling multiple priorities.
Paige says you have to be forward with grabbing time with your CEO and use it wisely. “You’ve got to be consistent and push that one-to-one time to get that relationship out of the gate,” she says. “When you get the time, make it something important. Have an agenda, so there’s not the feeling on the CEO’s view that it’s time that would have been spent elsewhere.”
Failing this, try to form relationships with other members of the c-suite and understand their relationship with your CEO. There will likely be someone at the table who has a listening ear with the CEO and will be able to pinpoint their priorities and challenges. They may even be able to bring you into a conversation with the CEO.
Paige agrees in forming a relationship with other members of the c-suite. “It doesn’t always have to stem from the CEO,” she says. “I think having alignment with everyone in the c-suite and understanding everyone’s individual perspective is helpful. That’s going to help you understand everything in the CEO’s purview that they’re dealing with.”
This means even if you aren’t able to get time with the CEO, you’ll still be able to come to the table with suggestions of what marketing can do to drive the business’ priorities.
In summary…
- If your CEO isn’t giving you time, ask for it.
- When you get time with your CEO, make the most of it and bring an agenda.
- If you really can’t get time with the CEO, talk to their allies in the c-suite.
The CEO says…Get to know your CFO: Learn what drives business value, and get outside of your marketing silo to find out what the other parts of the business are doing to drive growth.Get to know your COO: Operations is critical knowledge and will only serve you well during meetings at the executive table and with your board.Have a good relationship with the CIO: It will help and support you, as you and your team rely on marketing technology and digital transformation going on within your organisation.Absolutely get to know the chief sales officer: Your leadership will be empowered by a good working relationship between sales and marketing.
Getting to know the board
The CEO is usually answerable to the board. So if you’re able to gain insight into how they work and what their priorities are, it can be a great asset in knowing what the CEO will also want from you. David Chamberlin gained insight doing exactly this. He’s served on the board of three organisations: Dallas Regional Chamber, PNC Foundation, and Senator John Heinz History Centre.
“It’s very helpful to understand how the board works; what they’re looking for, what they’re asking, and the type of information they’re looking for,” says David.
Although these aren’t B2B companies, it has helped him mould his presentations to the board and c-suite accordingly. “All board meetings contain a section on marketing and so I understand you can’t deluge a board with a tonne of data,” says David. “It’s also meant I can give better direction to my team.”
