CMOs must earn influence by mastering business fundamentals, not just the brand. Deep, data-backed understanding of competitive landscape, market opportunity, product road map, sales effectiveness, customer journey, and operational roadblocks is essential. Demonstrating revenue mechanics at the level of the CFO builds credibility. Insights must be translated into strategies that move business levers such as win rates, annual contract value, and retention rather than only marketing KPIs. Practical actions include bundling, predefined offers, sales plays, sales enablement, repositioning, and compensation adjustments. Research-driven interventions can substantially increase cross-selling and multi-solution sales, producing measurable revenue growth.
Here's the hard truth: Most CMOs want to lead transformation. Few earn the right. Influence isn't granted. It's earned through mastery of the business, not just the brand. Start with a deep, data-backed understanding of the competitive landscape, market opportunity and current state of the business-product road map, sales effectiveness, customer journey and operational roadblocks. This is the foundation for your vision and credibility.
I did the research, however, and found that the vast majority of the time, the salespeople were still only selling a single solution rather than the multiple solutions making up the new portfolio. That insight became a rallying cry. Within a year, we nearly doubled the amount of sales that included multiple solutions through methods such as predefined offers, sales plays, sales enablement and compensation plan adjustments.
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