Growth Insights for CEOs

From Loyalty Programs to Leadership: What 20 Years in CRM Taught Me About Organizational Growth
Executive Takeaways
- The principles that build customer loyalty work just as well on your best employees and partners.
- Salary and bonus are table stakes. What keeps top performers are the moments that make them feel like insiders.
- Internal friction is as damaging as friction in a customer journey — and just as fixable.
- Generic recognition retains no one. Tailored moves do.
Loyalty programs taught many of us how to turn casual buyers into raving fans. My 20 years in CRM and loyalty for brands like Marriott, Amazon, and American Express—and leading a $3B customer platform—taught me something bigger: The same system that keeps customers coming back also keeps your best people from leaving. When growth stalls, most CEOs reach for the usual levers: more demand gen, more recruiting, more channels.
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How will the restaurant industry be permanently changed by the coronavirus pandemic?
Wed, Jun 17, 2020 — The top-10 changes I see in the future for restaurants

Successful Digital Marketing Implementation - Tactics in Search of a Strategy
Thu, Jun 11, 2020 — Part One: How to Prevent Digital Marketing Tactics from Killing Strategic Objectives Are you experiencing the following issues with digital marketing tactics? Are you frustrated with digital marketing initiatives and have a hard time seeing adequate ROI? Is the company's marketing strategy getting lost in translation when it comes to digital tactics? Do you feel stuck between your marketing strategy and your digital marketing agency? Is it hard to understand why digital marketing tasks aren’t getting done correctly or in a timely manner? Are you struggling to get your website to both look attractive to your target market and drive results? Does your website need work, but things move at a snail’s pace? Does your digital agency promise the world and then struggle with the most basic tasks? Is there a lack of reporting and regular meetings to review progress and results? If you have run into these or similar issues, join the club. Digital marketing initiatives sound great in early team meetings and brainstorming, but can often become a nightmare during the implementation of tactics.

The 7 Rs of Resiliency Programs
Thu, Jun 11, 2020 — The world's best epidemiologists only have models to predict the full depth and breadth of the COVID-19 pandemic, but companies are already feeling the economic fallout. They're scrambling to find the best way to respond, and in many cases, survive, all the while being rightly concerned for the health of their families and communities. It's not easy, and this is no time to pretend otherwise.
Stay up-to-date with the latest from Chief Outsiders

CEO Preparedness Guide for the Post-Pandemic Recovery: Planning for the Rebound
Wed, Jun 10, 2020 — Like the eye of a hurricane, businesses raked by the leading edge of the COVID-19 pandemic are now taking a cautious look outside. Though the winds have subsided, and it’s tempting to think that the worst is over, the eye simply gives us a chance to prepare for what’s left to come. If you have withstood the worst of the impacts of the pandemic so far, you likely have accepted that the storm was coming, and had battened down your hatches (or at least applied for PPP funding to keep vestiges of your business afloat). Now, though, as we can start to imagine a future in which a return to a “new normal” is evident, it’s critical to have your plan in place when the rebound hits.

Buying Local: How Multi-Unit CEOs Can Win at Marketing in Anytown, U.S.A.
Wed, Jun 10, 2020 — There was a time, generations ago, when buyers didn’t venture too far from their home to satisfy their basic needs. Today, most consumers don’t think twice about using a few keystrokes to get the necessities shipped from some distant warehouse to their front door. Despite this phase shift, “buying local” remains a relevant concept, and even source of pride for communities that rally around the bricks-and-mortar businesses that still dot the landscape.

Sales Enablement and Support
Tue, Jun 9, 2020 — Part 6 of the series: A B2B CEO’s Guide to Navigating the COVID-19 Revenue Reality Your sales executive likely has a keen sense of what types of sales support materials traditionally have been helpful, and therefore has an opinion about sales support needs from marketing. But times have changed, and the playbook has been torn up. Given the times, the sales team simply can’t say with conviction that they truly understand exactly what sales support tools will help convince buyers to move forward. In our last blog, we talked about partnering between sales and marketing for lead generation and lead management optimization. Let’s explore how sales and marketing can partner to close more sales from those leads.

Lead Generation and Lead Management Across Sales and Marketing
Wed, May 27, 2020 — Part 5 of the series: A B2B CEO’s Guide to Navigating the COVID-19 Revenue Reality Have you ever heard sales blame marketing for bad leads and marketing blame sales for not acting on the leads they give? Those are common complaints from both functions. And there are usually aspects of both sides of the coin that are accurate. In our last blog, you hopefully learned from the examples of two businesses that realigned certain responsibilities in a way that created greater cross-functional accountability for sales.

The Sales and Marketing Accountability Paradigm Shift
Tue, May 5, 2020 — Part 2 of the series: A B2B CEO’s Guide to Navigating the COVID-19 Revenue Reality In a world that has struggled to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic, you, too, are likely working to better understand the roles that your team members will play in the recovery.

Part 4: How Does Employee Engagement Win the Growth Game?
Mon, May 4, 2020 — Culture Shift Now: Getting the Right Help for the Times Co-Authored by Marc Umscheid, CMO, Chief Outsiders and Kristin Anderson, Partner, LeadQuest Consulting Welcome to the fourth blog in our series on the importance of a more engaged culture in fostering growth at your company (if you'd like to read any of the previous posts, they can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). Clearly, a few things have happened in our world since our last blog – namely, the COVID-19 pandemic, and an economic slowdown that has left few businesses untouched, or unscathed. If you have been following our blog series, you may recall that we have been insisting that a carefully crafted culture goes hand and glove with a high effective growth strategy, – making the case for how your leadership shapes the engagement needed for growth. Though the world may have changed – the fundamental principles have not. How you lead your employees now will indelibly reflect upon your cultural and growth mindset. This is now more important than ever.