Classic – Five Reasons Every CEO Needs Their Own CRO

Every CEO, president or owner needs their own CRO for a lot of reasons.  Below are five of the most important reasons.  When you look at the results of these five reasons, they boil down to one word, “survival.”

Research tells us only one thing assures a business will survive. That one thing, is to continually produce more sales with profitable revenue.  It was once believed that survival was the right product, the needed capital and some good people, that resulted in that survival.

The truth was “temporary survival” until someone showed up that the buyer liked better, was a mile closer, had a nicer store, a cheaper product or one of a thousand other reasons for a buyer to change vendors.

Today whatever matters to buyers, will be different soon.  Buyers will search the world to replace you, and Amazon “Prime” or a new vendor with a drone, will deliver the order asap, at no cost.

Today the CIO thinks everything digital, data, security and cloud.  The CFO knows everything about compliance, bank covenants, accounting standards, accounting software and how to avoid embezzlement.  The CRO must have the same focus on everything “Revenue Science™” – everything that delivers predictable growth in sales and profitable revenue.  The CRO’s world includes:

1. Someone who has the time and focus to completely and continually learn the details and deployment of the science for the real world.

Everyone knows if the CIO stops learning, vetting, reviewing, and considering the economics of technology change, the firm is in trouble.  Technology may be part of the value to the buyer, part of the brand and it may have an impact on attracting the best staff or partners.  Often the CIO and their team is making sure vendors get paid, they don’t get hacked and payroll checks are on time.  The CIO’s focus is recognized as critical.

Organizations who were lucky enough to grow for a while (sometimes years), just because they were in the right place at the right time, knew the right people or enjoyed weak competition, wake up one day and ask themselves, “Why did we stop growing?”  CROs are committed to a complete study of “Revenue Science™” and how to get the most from deployment in the short-term to assure long-term growth and success.  CROs know the change in the growth vector is coming and start changes to scale or avoid damage long in advance.  Someone in every firm needs to be the walking body of “Revenue Science™” knowledge, to scale or avoid sales and revenue failures.

2. Always starts with science and isn’t fixated on measuring activities.

Too often organizations get in ruts.  They have been successful (often due to a great economy or weak competition) doing business in a certain way.  When things get tough the same three things always happen: 1) blame anyone not you; 2) declare the customer demands more, so we need to up the investment in what we are doing so we can do more of it; and 3) invest money in more tradeshows, a new CRM or consultants to make us more efficient.  We just need to do more of the same activities and do those activities better – we know they always worked in the past.

A CRO knows the only value in an activity is if it creates the correct outcome in the correct volume required.  Activities by themselves aren’t important, only the outcomes.  In the paragraph above it is clear something has changed in the market.  Doing more of the same activity just gets more undesirable outcomes.

People who do the activities don’t want them changed because they fear whatever the new activity is may not require them or they won’t be able to do it.

Leadership needs the CRO to share the reality based on the “Revenue Science™” so positive leverage decisions can be made.

3. Someone who doesn’t care who the heroes are or even if there are any.

CROs only care about activities to the extent they do or do not create the right outcomes. You may bring that same approach to heroes.  Often there are people in marketing, sales, and delivery who like to be the hero.  They want to be recognized for being better than anyone else in marketing.  They sold the BIG deal and make the quarter, or they worked all night to get the order out.

CROs know that if the system was good and well run, there is no need for a hero. The CRO also knows that if the organization is going to scale, it needs to happen with a team of good people. That team of good people is supported by the organization and then everyone succeeds as a team. This whole process is teachable, trainable and will scale.

Often heroes like being heroes so much they create the situation where heroes are required (CROs try to avoid that).

4. Someone responsible for survival today and thriving tomorrow.

This is a combination of CRO deployment.  Often leadership sets bonus numbers for certain levels of activity achieved (leads generated, proposals started, demos given, etc.).  The result is everyone is trying to optimize this month, this quarter or this year when the focus should be on a short-term success that is on the path to a predictable long-term success.

We know salespeople have on occasion worked their comp plan for their own reasons and even suggest to leadership compensation and marketing investments for personal vs. organizational reasons.

5. Someone willing to tell everyone NO and love it.

CROs have the combination of the “Revenue Science™” knowledge to predict the growth of sales and profitable revenue based on the strategy being deployed.  The CRO is responsible for the greatest possible leverage for the Revenue Resources invested in any specific investment.  The CRO always owns the reduction of the “Cost of Chaos.”  The benefits from “Cost of Chaos” reduction fall directly and immediately to EBITDA.  Historically, too many investments have been made without the “Revenue Science™” knowledge to predict or metrics to continuously improve.

The CRO has that knowledge and the responsibility to say NO to low leverage investment and to anything that contributes to the “Cost of Chaos”.

Saying NO will immediately drop cash to the bottom line and since “Cost of Chaos” only purchases an anchor to inhibit growth, the top line will shoot up.

These are just 5 reasons every CEO needs a CRO.  CRO Thinking can be attained by hiring a CRO Thinking certified leader, contracting with a fractional certified CRO, or getting members of your team certified in “Revenue Science™” CRO Thinking.