It’s tough out there right now. Achieving commercial success in today’s market is tougher than ever – and a lot of pressure is on go-to-market leadership to perform.
That was the subject of an SBI webinar I recently anchored, featuring Mike Hoffman of SBI and Eric Walczykowski of Bespoke Partners.
For Mike and Eric, the core question is, what steps can the CEO take to align the go-to-market executive team with the value creation strategy?
In recent research conducted by our friends at Bespoke Partners, it was found that the highest turnover in 2022 was among go-to-market leaders. Confidence in their ability to drive commercial success in today’s uncertain market environment is moderate – 45% for CROs, 35% for CMOs, and 38% for CCOs (Chief Customer Officers).
The corollary of this is that there’s a tight market for those go-to-market leaders with proven success during difficult times.
So how do you evaluate whether go-to-market talent is able to drive business growth? According to Eric, it’s worth looking at how they performed in the last downturns – 2007-2008, or even 2000-2001. “The most successful executives are always laying the foundation for the next comeback,” he said.
But it’s not just about talent and experience. It’s also about how the leadership team is composed. Very often, that means consolidating the go-to-market leadership – sales, marketing, and customer success – under one individual to help ensure there’s a unified approach. How well are they aligning across the organization? How well are they partnering with others in the C-suite? How well are they partnering, for example, with Finance to meet ROI or EBIDTA goals? How well are they able to hold pricing in this market?
From SBI’s Q1 2023 CEO Survey, we found that when there’s high executive alignment, the more growth momentum the company will experience. Communicating regularly about initiatives, and operating all of them jointly, makes an exponentially significant difference.
Executive alignment is particularly critical in today’s market environment. “In war times, the margin of error is much less,” said Eric, “and that really comes down to understanding what your value creation plan is, so there are no mincing words over which way you’re going, and you’ve lined up which way everyone is going. For me, that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be constructive conflict around the C-suite – I want that all day, every day. But when you’re done with that conflict, it’s what’s in the best interests of the company and the value creation plan.”
It's important to note that momentum doesn’t necessarily mean making the number. “When we look at clients that are making progress and are moving forward in their value creation plan, they’re setting the stage for when things are going to recover. That is momentum,” said Mike.
The webinar now streaming, but only for a limited time. You can view and share the video recording here.
