After reading "No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls" by #LataneConant, I am further convinced how detrimental obsolete organizational designs are impacting the sales pipeline and ultimately revenue.
As the #CMO of 6Sense, she writes about the current bad trends with the "incredible shrinking CMOs", including lack of perceived value for the role by a growing number of #CEOs. Afterall, its easy to point to marketing and cast blame for spending too much and not creating enough pipeline, right?
So, what's the answer? Should CEOs just erase the CMO function from the org chart and simply combine sales & marketing so they figure it out on their own, or..................... is it time for CEOs to rethink the function.
CEOs need to step back and acknowledge the disruption that modern, digital first #B2Bbuyers have caused their existing stovepipe org design. What's driving the disruption? The Modern B2B buyer doesn't need your stale prospecting and nurturing tactics. They need expert perspectives on solving business challenges. They have assembled larger buying teams of nearly TWENTY team members to contribute to the research and analysis of different options to solve their business problem. As a result, today's B2B buyers completing nearly 3/4 of the buying journey BEFORE engaging with a seller. Bottom line - B2B buyers don't need (or want) your marketing and sales team like they used to.
Enter the Chief Market Officer. Latone's perspective is CEOs need to have a C-level leader who is the market subject matter expert and understands the entire customer lifecycle. From this perspective emerges a new seamless function that delivers market leading experiences for customers.
As a CEO, if you still hear your sales and marketing leaders battling over "we need more qualified leads" or "sales doesn't do anything with the leads we provide them", this is evidence that your GTM playbook has expired. Gone are the days of waiting for "Contact us" forms to be filled out, gone are the days of marketing throwing marketing qualified leads (MQLs) over the wall to the sales team, and gone are the days of sales operations and marketing operations being separate functions, reporting to different leaders (head of sales vs head of marketing)
Need additional proof? #Gartner recently published a perspective on the updated revenue generating functional design. #RevenueEnablement is now the umbrella function over sales, marketing, and channel with #enablementoperations now driving the machine for SMEs and #DigitalEngagement. Provocative? Certainly. But if the goal of functional organizational design strategy is to align to how buyers are buying, this model quickly comes into focus.
To play offense in today's market, the #CEOmindset needs to change and the GTM organization retooled. Transformation is required to deliver on the firm's strategy, by defining goals and organize a principled way to execute them. Its the drive to evolve.
Remember Jim Collin's "Good to Great"? Organizations must have the right people, in the right seats on the bus to succeed. But first, it's the CEO's responsibility to ensure the right bus is being used.
This does not, and can not change overnight for any firm. We recommend starting by reading Latone's book. Next, contact us.
Lucrum Partners are experts on analyzing the gaps in the GTM plan and existing playbooks. We can help.
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