A current put up at LinkedIn described a state of affairs that happens way more that it ought to. The put up creator wrote that he had been contacted by a CEO who was planning to interchange his CMO as a result of “advertising and marketing is not working.” The CEO requested if the put up creator might suggest somebody for the job.
By asking a number of questions, the put up creator recognized a number of circumstances that had been contributing to the CMO’s perceived underperformance. Whereas all these circumstances had been vital, one was significantly important. The put up creator wrote:
“She [the current CMO] had made good funds calls six months in the past, killed low-performing channels, and shifted spend. However pipeline from these selections will not land for 2 extra quarters. And she or he’s being judged on the lagging output of a method she already changed.”
After his dialog with the put up creator, the CEO determined to deal with the problematic circumstances and persist with the present CMO, however this is not the standard consequence. Extra typically, CEOs determine to “repair” their “advertising and marketing” drawback by changing their senior advertising and marketing chief, which often leaves the true issues unresolved.
A Revolving Door of Senior Advertising and marketing Leaders
The quick tenure of chief advertising and marketing officers has been nicely documented. In line with the latest analysis by Spencer Stuart, the common tenure of CMOs at S&P 500 corporations in 2025 was 4.1 years, down from 4.3 years in 2024. CMO tenure is even shorter if we embody a wider vary of corporations.
Advertising and marketing lecturers have attributed the excessive degree of churn amongst senior advertising and marketing leaders to quite a lot of elements, however many of the “involuntary” churn in the end outcomes from mismatched expectations.
When the CEO and the senior advertising and marketing chief have mismatched expectations relating to the position or efficiency of selling, the chances of creating a protracted, mutually-satisfactory relationship aren’t good.
Dealing With Mismatched Expectations
The story recounted at first of this put up illustrates what can occur when a CEO and a senior advertising and marketing chief have totally different expectations relating to when advertising and marketing packages will produce desired outcomes.
Making these mismatched expectations seen earlier than accepting a advertising and marketing management place with a brand new firm may also help a marketer keep away from starting a relationship that has little probability of long-term success.
So, if you happen to’re a candidate for a senior advertising and marketing management position, there are 4 questions that you must reply earlier than you settle for a job supply.
- What are crucial outcomes your potential CEO expects to see from advertising and marketing throughout the first 12 months that you just’re within the job?
- When does your potential CEO anticipate to start seeing these outcomes?
- Are your potential CEO’s expectations for starting to see these outcomes reasonable given the financial and aggressive circumstances out there(s) the corporate serves and the assets (funds, individuals, know-how, and so forth.) you’ll have accessible to conduct advertising and marketing packages?
- When you decide that these expectations aren’t reasonable, are you able to persuade your potential CEO to switch his or her expectations to make them extra reasonable?
The solutions to a few of these questions could be obtained in the course of the interview course of, whereas others would require you to carry out some analysis. The quantity of analysis wanted will not all the time be trivial, however neither is it out-of-line with the significance of the profession determination you make.
When you’re a candidate for a senior advertising and marketing management position, you most likely have a number of years of selling expertise. Subsequently, it is best to be capable of use your expertise, mixed with a average quantity of analysis, to provide you with an inexpensive approximation of how lengthy it should take sound advertising and marketing packages to ship varied sorts of outcomes.
For instance, suppose that your potential CEO says that pipeline contribution is the advertising and marketing outcome he deems most vital and that he would anticipate will increase in pipeline contribution to start inside 3 or 4 months after you begin work.
When you’re assured that you could ship will increase in pipeline contribution inside 4 or 5 months, this may not be an enormous mismatch of expectations. Then again, if you happen to choose that it’ll take 6 to eight months to your advertising and marketing packages to start having a significant affect on the pipeline, this may be a big mismatch of expectations that ought to be addressed in the course of the interview course of.
There are a number of different points the place mismatched expectations can undermine the connection between a CEO and a senior advertising and marketing chief. I will cowl a few of these points in a future put up.
High picture courtesy of Heather Paul by way of Flickr (CC).
