The Executive's Marketing Playbook

I recently wrote about a dangerous phrase "we've always done it that way," used when nobody has the will to change. Eric Shoars shared another dangerous phrase "We can't do that, it'll set a precedent." Here's what "we can't do that, it'll set a precedent" actually means when a leader says it. It's not about the one decision in front of them. It's the fear of what happens after. If we make this exception once, we'll have to make it again. For everyone. Every time. So instead

Every growth-stage company has one. The thing you did early that nobody else was doing. The reason customers picked you in the first place. At some point, that same thing starts to cost you. Not because it stopped working. Because it capped what you can charge, who you can reach, or how fast you can grow. Southwest ended 54 years of open seating this year. Not because it failed. Because it had become the ceiling on their revenue. Here's the hard part. There are two very diffe

A new CMO survey found something worth sitting with. 90% or organizations increased their AI marketing investment over the past two years. Only 12% can actually prove it worked. Most people will read that as a tools problem. It's not. It's a people problem wearing a tools disguise. Here's what I mean. AI can produce marketing output fast now. Copy, creative directions, audience segments, campaign ideas. All of it, in seconds. But output isn't the same as good output. Someone

Everyone in marketing is using AI now. Blog posts in minutes. Ad copy in seconds. Social content for the whole month drafted before lunch. The output has never been higher. So why doesn't growth feel different? Here's what I'm seeing. Companies that had a clear marketing strategy before AI came along are using it to move faster toward the growth goals. Companies that didn't have a clear strategy are now producing more content, more campaigns, more noise at a pace that makes i

A few years back, CPK sent a delivery order to a customer's house. Mac and cheese. Except they forgot the mac. Just cheese. Melted. In a container. The customer was an influencer. She posted it. It went viral, way beyond what a melted cheese mistake should ever warrant. Because people love a good disaster. They lean in. They wait to see what happens next. What CPK did next is why I'm writing this. Within 24 hours, they showed up at her door with a care package: a year of free

There's a version of marketing support that feels really good. Every recommendation gets a nod. Every campaign gets approved. Every concern gets smoothed over with "we'll figure it out." No friction. No hard conversations. Just forward motion. And then six months later, you're wondering why nothing changed. I've been in rooms where everyone around the table is agreeing with the CEO. Not because they agree, but because disagreeing feels risky. So the uncomfortable truth sits t

There's a pattern I see in a lot of growing companies. The sales team is putting in the hours. They're making calls, sending follow-ups, working their contacts. And yet the pipeline feels thin. Deals are slow. New opportunities aren't coming in fast enough. Leadership looks at sales. Sales looks at marketing. Marketing isn't sure what they're supposed to be doing. And nobody wants to say the quiet part out loud: the pipeline problem isn't a sales problem. It's a marketing pro

You're generating leads. Your marketing is running. Campaigns are going out. And somehow, growth is still stalling. I see this constantly in healthcare organizations, and the diagnosis is almost always the same: the marketing worked. The handoff didn't. Here's what it looks like in practice. Marketing sends a campaign. Interested prospects respond — they call, fill out a form, or request more information. And then the experience they get doesn't match the one they were promis

A CEO I work with recently told me his marketing wasn't working. He'd tried two agencies. Hired a marketing manager. Run paid ads. Built out a content calendar. Nothing was moving. When I asked him to walk me through his customer acquisition process from first touch to closed deal, he paused, "I'm not sure we actually track that." That's not a marketing problem. That's a foundation problem. And it's more common than most CEOs want to admit. Here's what I've learned after work

She didn't see it coming. The CEO I was working with had just wrapped up her strongest revenue quarter in three years. The team was celebrating. Pipeline looked healthy. Retention numbers were holding steady. Then Q2 hit. Three of her top five accounts didn't renew. Two had already signed with a competitor. One sent a two-sentence email: "We've decided to go in a different direction. Thank you for the partnership." No warning. No complaint. No chance to fix it. That's the thi

I've walked into companies spending $60,000 or more on a single initiative with zero way to tell you if it drove a single qualified lead. The team is exhausted. The calendar is packed. The budget is moving. And when you ask what's working, everyone goes quiet. That's not a marketing problem. That's an accountability problem. Here's what I see in almost every company I walk into: the marketing budget is funding activity, not results. There's spending on tactics - outreach, spo

I walked into a company sitting on a product that should have been pulled from the shelves a year earlier. It had been repackaged as a white label to try to move it. That didn't work either. And yet, resources kept being thrown at it - promotions, tactics, energy - all trying to solve a problem that had only one real solution. Delete it. But that decision took months longer than it should have. Why? Because sales and marketing were operating in silos. Each team was doing its