#23: B2B CMOs Should Lead, Not Just Support, Sales

B2B CMOs have a better opportunity today than ever before to shape their company's growth trajectory by leading, not just supporting sales.

1. Pay back your narrative debt

   1. Taking the time to do the hardwork defining the essence of your company, how that translates to your top 1-3 personas and the market more broadly is about as high impact of a growth initiative as any.

   2. But here's the thing, your narrative needs to be at the bedrock level of your culture.

   3. How you work, live, communicate, engage etc so that your customers, prospects and the market can feel it.

   4. While it might seem soft or intangible to some, the growth it will unlock will convert every critic and non-believer quickly.

   5. Especially as the results compound. Shoutout to Kevin Kwok.

2. Enable high-performance team culture + unlock the growth mindset

   1. Lean into the mental models, communities, iconic individuals, long-form content that motivate your rockstars.

   2. Leverage modern tools to enable learning, knowledge graph development and collaboration led by these rockstars across sales, marketing and customer success.

   3. Enable asynchronous learning to minimize "the ask" of the organization and maximize people's ability to learn on their terms.

   4. Focus on unlocking the growth mindset of individuals, teams and the company more broadly. Remember the Mike Tyson rule.

3. Cultivate customer community by leading with the right intent

   1. Enable your customers and potential customers to feel the essence of what your company is all about.

   2. Build genuine relationships with them at the human to human level.

   3. Recognize that just because you can't measure it, it doesn't mean it isn't important.

   4. Play the long game.

4. Raise the floor of your Demand Generation efforts via Owned Content

   1. It's not easy but it's also not complicated.

   2. Writing about your business online is arguably the highest impact:cost ratio effort a CMO can invest in.

   3. An individual, executive team etc can generate a growth flywheel by consistently publishing solid content on Linkedin, Twitter and eventually other platforms / mediums.

   4. Don't believe me, believe Seth Godin, one of marketing’s GOATs by reading his new book, "The Practice: Shipping Creative Work" or one of the most prolific CMOs in the space, Matt Kobach —> "Having a founder who's active on Twitter is a competitive advantage"

March 1, 2021 (Tweet Link)