247: The 5 Reasons a CMO Gets Fired Episode

It’s a shorter show this week, as it’s just Jeff and Ian, as Robert was on a plane and not in the bar. Jeff picks a hot topic as he drops the mic on his contributions to the podcast this year before he goes off on his holiday break: 5 reasons why CMOs get fired. 

Jeff crosses the aisle from Forrester to Gartner as he is inspired by a LinkedIn post by Chris Ross, Vice President and Analyst at Gartner for CMOs / Marketing, who shares some recent Gartner research of C suite executives into “Which scenarios would most likely lead to the removal of your CMO from their role”. 

Jeff and Ian discuss:

1. CMO failed to deliver promised results from marketing strategy 
2. CMO failed to adapt to vital, significant changes in the business or marketplace 
3. CMO did not earn the respect of senior executive leadership team 
4. CMO did poor job communicating a strategic function for marketing function 
5. CMO failed to communicate how marketing metrics relate to business priorities

And they share their tips on how to avoid these pitfalls.

Enjoy!

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The Links:

The people on LinkedIn:

• Ian Truscott
• Jeff Clark

Mentioned in this week’s episode:

• Post on LinkedIn by Chris Ross, Vice President, Analyst at Gartner for CMOs / Marketing
• Grant Johnson – CMO Mentor
• What’s Your Business in the Year of Transformation? – Jeff Clark
• Picking the Right Transition Strategy – STARS model by Michael D. Watkins
• 5 Principles for Setting Marketing Goals – Jeff Clark
• 5 F’in’ Fundamentals: Marketing OKRs – Jeff Clark

Rockstar CMO:

• The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday
• Rockstar CMO on the web, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

• Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license
• We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube
• I fought the law, and the law won by The Clash – on YouTube 

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Author

Ian Truscott

Not a rock star, but Ian is a 3 x CMO, a trusted advisor and Chief Bottle Washer at Rockstar CMO, who applies his experience to create ART (Awareness, Revenue and Trust) for B2B companies. Ian brings over two decades of marketing leadership experience to Rockstar CMO, he also a former techie, product marketer, CTO, agency guy and industry analyst.

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