How Marketing and Finance Think Differently

This is a fictitious story about the wide gap and personality differences between the function of the chief marketing officer (CMO) and that of the chief financial officer (CFO). I made up the two characters in this story. But how different might they be from a real pair of a CMO and CFO that you may know (or who works for your employer)?

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Actively Managing the Post-Acquisition Process in a Private Equity Transaction - Part III

Actively managing a business disposition: Preparing for a sale

This is the third article in a three-part series on what CEOs, CFOs and other business leaders must consider in the various stages of a business transition. The first article looked at pre-acquisition considerations, and the second article delved into the realities of post-acquisition and the adjustments required under new ownership.

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Grow your business with investments in sales or marketing?

You want to grow your business? That means it’s time to add more salespeople, right? It makes perfect sense. The more salespeople you have, the more sales you will have. Maybe not. One of the most common mistakes small and mid-sized companies make is adding sales capacity before they’re ready. Why doesn’t it work more often?

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Are CFOs from Mars, and CMOs from Venus? Part III - Developing Marketing Budget and Metrics

Let’s now shift to sizing the marketing budget and developing the metrics to gauge ROI. The first step is to determine as an executive team, CFO and CMO included, what the company should be spending on marketing relative to top line growth. Often, there is a reasonable sense, given industry and peer comparisons of competitive spending ratios. These can be adjusted based on events such as a major product announcement.

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