CMOs: Be Very Afraid... NOT!

June's Fast Company magazine just published another chapter in the "CMOs-are-doomed" horror-genre of stories. This one is called "The Most Dangerous Job in Business." Of course, according to Fast Company, citing a survey by respected executive search firm SpencerStuart, it's the Chief Marketing Officer.

The piece breathlessly stokes fear with comments like "the new reality is that CMO jobs are incredibly perilous," and "Maybe the CMO post should be acknowledged simply as the 'fall guy' job in the C-suite."
Frankly, I am not seeing this amount of turnover in the CMO position for professional and B2B service firms. Sure, there is movement in the role, and it does appear to have linkage with the advent of new firm leadership. But I simply don't see the point about this "be very afraid" tone. Many of my clients have served in their roles for more than five years.
The article did contain a nugget that rang true for me: "So what's it going to take to get the CMO off the endangered-species list? Perhaps a clearer definition of the position and what's expected..." To this I say a big "WELL, hELLLooooooo."
I heartily endorse better "expectation-setting" in the professional and B2B service arena. And that it's the responsibility of both the CMO-wannabe and his or her potential C-suite colleagues to improve on this.
But I reject the notion that CMOs are sitting ducks, stupidly subject to the cruelties of a capricious senior management, with simply no idea when the axe will fall. Or if there's an axe at all.
Please.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suzanne Lowe is founder of Expertise Marketing, LLC and author of The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos – Once and For All – in Professional Service Firms and Marketplace Masters: How Professional Services Firms Compete to Win. She blogs at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix and her own blog, the Expertise Marketplace.

Before founding Expertise Marketing in 1996, Ms. Lowe spent more than a decade leading the marketing programs for top-tier management consulting and business-to-business organizations. Before that, she spent more than a decade managing and implementing strategies for political candidates and organizations.

She spearheads the only widely disseminated research initiative on strategic marketing perceptions, practices and performance of professional service firms around the globe.

In addition, Suzanne Lowe has written or been quoted in nearly 100 articles on the topic of professional services marketing strategy. Her work has appeared in the a rel="nofollow" href="https://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/hbr/hbr_home.jhtml">Harvard
Business Review, BusinessWeek.com, CMO Magazine, Harvard
Management Update, and scores of profession-specific magazines and journals, including MarketTrends, Marketer, Marketing the Law Firm, Accounting Today, Engineering, Consultants News, Structure, Journal of Law Office Economics and Management, The Practicing CPA, Environmental Design and Construction, Massachusetts High Tech, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, and the Legal Marketing Association’s Strategy. She is a contributor to the second edition of the book Marketing
Professional Services, by Kotler, Hayes and Bloom. She has also been instrumental in the development, writing and publication of five books and nearly 50 articles and book chapters for her consulting clients.

Suzanne speaks regularly around the world to leading trade associations, industry groups and in-house firm audiences. Her work has also been presented internationally, most recently at the American Marketing Association's annual Frontiers in Services conference. She facilitates a Roundtable of Chief Marketing Officers from some of the world's largest and most prestigious professional service firms. She has guest-lectured at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and designs and delivers customized executive education programs in marketing for professional service executives.

She advises the leaders of professional service firms, from small start-up practices to large global organizations.

Ms. Lowe received a B.A. from Duke University.

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