What skills does a CMO need to grow your business?

Read time: 4 min, 23 secs

Hey there - it's Brian 👋

This weekend I met a business owner for a beer at a bar in Boston.

As we’re sitting at the bar he leans over and asks:

“What skills does my CMO need to have? I mean… How do I know if they’re any good?”

So in today's issue, you’ll hear:
• What are the skills a CMO needs to grow your business?
• What are the best books to learn (if you want growth skills too)?

Let’s make your business an outlier: 👇

Thanks to our sponsor: Shortform

I’m a huge booknerd.

Back when I had an apartment, any time someone visited I’d proudly show off my book shelf and give them book recommendations.

Nerdy. I know.

Anyway, this weekend I used the Shortform app to listen to the big ideas from the book “Principles” by Ray Dalio. Spoiler: It convinced me to buy the full book (and so far I love it).

Shortform is the app to help you find new books and quickly get the main ideas.

So I spoke with Shortform to get a deal for my readers. If you’re as nerdy as I am, you’ll love it.

Use this link to get a free trial and binge the books I’m suggesting in today’s issue (the link also gets you 20% off the annual membership):

http://Shortform.com/outliergrowth

The top skills your CMO needs to grow your business

“How do I know if a CMO is any good?”

The skills you need depends completely on the size of your business:

$0 - $3M: You need a tactician (run your Ads, SEO, socials etc).

$30M+: You need a strategist (& hire tacticians for each channel).

But between $3M and $30M there’s an awkward gap.

Tacticians don’t make good strategists:
Tacticians are phenomenal at short-term decisions, but don’t trust them for anything high stakes or long-term.

Strategists don’t make good tacticians:
Strategists don’t know how to build the systems that run digital marketing channels.

So if you hire a CMO from a big company, they’ll likely miss the tactical skill. Hire a CMO from an agency or startup and they’ll likely miss the strategy skill.

You need a hybrid.

But getting someone who’s good at both skillsets is hard to find…

So here’s the list of skills you need for both marketing strategy and tactics, along with books I love that help you learn the basic skills:

The 3 Critical CMO skills:

The easiest way to talk about these strategy + tactic skills are in 3 groups:

Skill #1 | Strategy (Positioning)
Skill #2 | Marketing Tactics (Channels)
Skill #3 | Build Marketing Systems

Skill #1 | Positioning:

Your marketing will not work without a solid positioning.

“Positioning” is just the answer to these 3 questions:
1) Which customers are you focused on?
2) What pain are you solving?
3) How do you solve that pain better than anyone?

Then, “marketing” is just messaging your positioning so it resonates with your customer (& builds trust) to ultimately get them to buy.

Without strong positioning, your marketing won’t resonate (and customers won’t buy).

Your CMO needs to understand traditional business strategy answer each question. Then bring them together to create your positioning.

The best books to learn traditional business strategy:
• Understanding Michael Porter
• Playing to Win
• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy

The best books to learn positioning:
• Obviously Awesome
• Positioning

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:
“Strategy” is the most overused word in business. To the point where it’s lost its meaning.

I don’t care what word you use to describe what you’re doing, but here’s a word of caution: most people use the word “strategy” to describe a “plan.” They are two very different things.

If you mix “strategy” and “plan” you’ll end up with a plan that does not have a clear way to win.

Vastly oversimplified:
1) Think of “strategy” as your theory on how you’ll win.
2) “Strategic thinking” as the ability to foresee problems.
3) A “plan” as the action steps you’ll take to get there.

CMOs need all 3. Most only have the last one.

Skill #2 | Marketing Tactics (actually getting you customers):

Great, now we get more tactical.

We’ll explore the 5 tactical growth skills your CMO needs through my favorite framework:

“The Pirate Model.”

🏴‍☠️ AARRR!

Aware. Aquire. Retain. Refer. Revenue.

Your CMO will need skill in each of the 5 Pirate categories:

1) Aware: How do people find out about you?
Which channels will you use? How do you use the channels to get sales?

Examples:
• Socials (LinkedIn, Twitter, IG etc)
• SEO
• Ads

2) Acquire: How do you convert these people to customers?
What do you do to build their trust and get the sale, after they’ve learned about you?

Examples:
• Nurturing (email campaigns)
• Funnels (what journey do people need to go on to get them to buy?)
• Sales pages (set up the page to sell)

3) Retain: How do you build an experience that makes customers want to stay?

Examples:
• Designing a customer experience/journey/lifecycle
• Onboarding customers (to get them to stay)

4) Refer: How do you get customers to share you with others?

Examples:
• Building referral incentives into your product/service

5) Revenue: How do you design your offer so it’s irresistible?

Examples:
• Pricing (price level, packaging, tiers)
• Packaging (what’s included in the sale? Add-ons? Bonuses? Guarantees?)

The best growth execution books:
• $100M Offers
• $100M Leads
• DotCom Secrets
• Traffic Secrets

Skill #3 | Build & manage marketing systems:

Marketers play the instruments. CMOs conduct the symphony.

We now design the systems that bring all 5 parts of the Pirate Model together (in way that scales).

Build systems:
Your CMO needs to design the system where all marketing channels feed into each other in a way that builds trust and leads to a sale.

The system needs to be done so customers are persuaded to buy long after they’ve come into contact with the business.

Example:
• Design upsells
• Cross-sells
• Customer experience

Manage systems:
Need to hire people that make these systems a reality. Manage those systems to KPIs.

The best books on marketing systems:
• Funnel Hacker’s Cookbook
• Dotcom Secrets (again)

Ha… Can you tell I love Russell Brunson?

CMOs are a rare breed.

Your best CMO needs the execution skills of a marketing agency and the marketing strategy skills of a corporate marketer.

That blend is rare. So if you have that, you’ve found a keeper!

If not, these books are a great place to start.

But no book will ever replace real experience.

So learn the basics and test what you learned with real customers.

There’s no better way to learn than running an ad campaign that doesn’t convert, or a funnel that doesn’t get sales.

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