{"id":958707,"date":"2020-03-23T15:09:41","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T22:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heinzmarketing.com\/?p=21307"},"modified":"2020-03-23T15:11:58","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T22:11:58","slug":"curves-straightaways-six-real-time-challenges-facing-b2b-cmos-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/curves-straightaways-six-real-time-challenges-facing-b2b-cmos-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Curves & Straightaways: Six real-time challenges facing B2B CMOs this week"},"content":{"rendered":"
Between numerous 1:1 calls, two virtual CMO breakfasts and our new Friday morning CMO Coffee Talk series, I heard countless B2B marketing leaders share and work through, in real time, their late Q1 challenges and pivots heading into the headwinds of this spring\u2019s business and selling environment.<\/p>\n
What I did NOT hear was panic. Concern, sure, but also a quiet confidence that we\u2019ll get through this, that we\u2019ll be able to work together to find the right path and strategy to the other side.<\/p>\n
A good friend shared with me early in the week his letter to clients. I think we\u2019ve all received way too many \u201cwhat we\u2019re doing about coronavirus\u201d emails lately, but his stood out for its practical message.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m paraphrasing, but here\u2019s what he said:<\/p>\n
Over the past few years we\u2019ve been like a race car on a straightaway \u2013 accelerating and speeding forward as fast as possible. Not we\u2019ve hit a curve in the track \u2013 a big one. We must slow down, control our steering and speed, but continue moving forward so that we don\u2019t crash.<\/em><\/p>\n At some point, that curve will turn into a straightaway again. So our job right now is two-fold: One, we must thoughtfully and strategically get through the curve. But as every world-class race car driver knows, you also must accelerate through the end of the curve to maximize position, speed and success into the next straightaway.<\/em><\/p>\n I have no idea how long this curve will be. But the specific challenges, thought process and general mindset of B2B CMOs I talked to this week tells me that they\u2019re thinking about both the curve and, eventually, that next straightaway.<\/p>\n A few other things B2B marketing leaders were talking about this week:<\/p>\n The variables around us are changing rapidly, and I expect this list will look different even just seven short days from now.<\/p>\n Finally, if you\u2019re a marketing leader in your organization I\u2019d like to invite you to our CMO Coffee Talk series. We\u2019ve opened up a new drop-in interactive Zoom meeting Fridays at 8:00 am Eastern and another at 8:00 am Pacific.<\/p>\n Think of it as coffee with CMOs \u2013 you can participate actively or simply watch and read what others are thinking. Even though we pulled it together in less than 48 hours, we had more than 25 participants in the first Coffee Talks this past Friday morning.<\/p>\n The theme will generally be around how everyone is adapting to the new (hopefully temporary) reality \u2013 adjusting marketing plans, managing teams, communicating to customers, etc. We\u2019ll keep it going weekly at least through April.<\/span> Email me<\/a> if you want an invite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Between numerous 1:1 calls, two virtual CMO breakfasts and our new Friday morning CMO Coffee Talk series, I heard countless B2B marketing leaders share and work through, in real time, their late Q1 challenges and pivots heading into the headwinds of th…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7320,"featured_media":897985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,36,83,85],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":958801,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958707\/revisions\/958801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n