Are Fractional CMOs Really Making Marketing’s Short-Term Thinking Worse?
Jon Miller, cofounder of Marketo and Engagio, recently argued that the rise of Fractional CMOs is exacerbating B2B marketing’s short-termism. His concern: if marketing’s most important work plays out over years, not quarters, how can part-time executives, when...How AI Is Reshaping Sales, Marketing, and Delivery in Professional Services
A Call for the Strategic Reinvention of Pro Services Sales, Marketing, and Delivery Several years ago, we had the sales and marketing leaders from SMART Technologies on the Rattle & Pedal podcast. They had just been featured in an HBR article titled “Traditional...You Don’t Need More Marketers. You Need These Six Roles—Reimagined for AI
The 6 Professional Services “Marketing” Roles that Matter Several years ago, I began describing six essential marketing roles that every growth-focused professional services firm needs. Not job titles. Not skillsets. But roles—archetypes that show up...7 Steps to Get the Most Out of Hiring a Fractional CMO
You’re hiring a Fractional CMO. Now what? Congratulations on your bold decision to add the insightful strategy and marketing leadership of a Fractional CMO to your team of trusted advisors! You know that the right CMO can help catapult your firm to the next...How to Evaluate Your Marketing Team
In my last post, How to Evaluate Your Marketing Leader, I laid out a rubric for managing partners to assess the performance of their marketing leaders. My approach delineated between my two schools of marketing thought in the professional services world–the...How to Evaluate Your Marketing Leader’s Performance
In the hope of helping you, your firm, and your marketing leader succeed, I have put together a cheat sheet called How to Evaluate Your Marketing Leader’s Performance.
You Have Odd Personality Strengths
This past week Gallup gave me an opportunity to download the details of the StrengthsFinder™ test I took several years ago. When I originally completed the test while reading Now, Discover Your Strengths, the test only offered insights into my Top 5 of 34 strengths. I...Does Your Team Have the Right Learning Mindset?
There is a lethal mindset at work in most American companies, schools, teams, and families. Left unaddressed, it allows bad bosses, teachers, and parents to kill more potential than the plague ever did. I call it the Training Mindset— a belief that someone else is...How to Get Strategic Marketing Done in a Professional Services Firm
I received an email from a talented, self-described Young Turk marketer named Cannon. He was frustrated, exhausted, and struggling to overcome several onerous Sales and Marketing impediments at his firm. He wanted to know how to get strategic Marketing done in a...12 Steps to Transform Professional Services Marketing
Professional services marketing is like no other.
Professionals services firms market complex, intangible solutions to what are big, public, and potentially embarrassing problems. The solutions are bought by the most sophisticated c-level buyers at top companies around the globe. And, professionals must operate from Byzantine, matrixed systems in one of the most political and contentious ownerships structures, a partnership.