INTERIM CMO
The average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer is 40 months, the lowest of all C-suite titles. Why is that? The short answer is that not all CMOs are alike, and as your company grows, you are going to need a different skill-set from your head of marketing. The mismatch between CEO expectations and CMO competencies creates heartburn. Since the average CEO is in place for 85 months, chances are you are going to need to replace your CMO at least once.
If you are planning on making a change to your marketing leadership, don’t rush to hire the wrong CMO. It may make sense to leverage the skills of an interim CMO to help you recalibrate what you and your marketing team need to grow your business.
The value of an Interim CMO
Mike Gospe serves as an Interim CMO for companies looking to grow from $50M ARR to $100M+ ARR (annual recurring revenue). In agile sprint fashion, his duties include building and executing a 90-day plan while coaching the executive team as they hire their next CMO. Mike does this in partnership with the executive team and their recruiting agency.
Doubling the size of your business requires embracing the next level of go-to-market best practices. Mike will assess the team to lay the proper foundation. While this is going on, your company has time to find to hire the “right” CMO.
Let us show you how our 90-day Interim CMO sprint works.
“Mike joined us as our interim CMO. He quickly acclimated to our business and engaged our 20-person marketing team. During his 90-day sprint, he aligned the team, broke down silos, led the team in a comprehensive planning & budgeting exercise, and designed a series of go-to-market blueprints. He helped us find our new CMO in less than 90 days. For any CEOs navigating a company transition from $50M – $100M, Mike is a competent interim CMO for your team!”
Interim CMO package:
- Partner with the CEO
- Marketing team assessment
- Build & begin executing a 90-day plan
- Break down silos
- Remove “marketing popcorn”
- Coach marketers
- Guide hiring of the new CMO
- Transition to the new CMO
CEOs: Hire the best CMO with this proven interview process
B2B ADVISORY BOARDS & FACILITATION
When it comes to executing your Advisory Board meetings, you can’t leave anything to chance. This is the one place and one time where you have your best customers, or your top tier partners, in the same room with your leadership team to discuss the future.
Future-proof your business
Since 2002 KickStart has been helping tech companies of all sizes design and facilitate strategy-focused CXO discussions. We ensure these meetings capture value, identify new opportunities, create synergies with your best customers, and produce meaningful guidance that will help drive your business forward. That’s why CEOs and their teams trust us.
Whether you are initiating your first Customer or Partner advisory meeting, or you want to refresh your program, we’ll guide you to maximize your ROI and deliver a world-class experience. Let us show you how.
“With Mike’s leadership, we’ve enjoyed a new type of strategic conversation with our best customers. We could not have achieved this without his expertise in the preparation and delivery of our global CAB meetings.”
How it works:
- You pick your customers
- We strategize with you on the interview guide
- We conduct the interviews
- We provide a detailed report from each interview
- We create a master summary complete with our key takeaways & recommendations
- Projects estimated to take 30 days
Discover the newest CAB & PAB trends
Learn about our new integrated model for harnessing the power of your global Advisory Board.
CAB “HEALTH CHECK” SERVICE
Designed for companies who are running their own CABs, this service provides a 360 degree assessment so you can take your CAB to the next level with confidence. If you’ve been running your CAB for a while, you know how easy it is to fall into a rut. Global conditions have required CAB programs to evolve from the once-a-year in-person meetings to a more global and flexible approach.
It’s time for an upgrade
Mike Gospe is a CAB evangelist, having helped some of today’s most innovative B2B companies design interactive CAB programs over the past 20 years. With experience drawn from having facilitated 250 CAB, PAB, and Executive Roundtable meetings, he’s an expert in tuning CAB programs to deliver real business value to the host company and their CAB members.
With our 360 degree assessment, we’ll compare your CAB with hundreds of others and let you know how yours stacks up. Most importantly, we’ll show you what you need to do to improve. Let Mike help you deliver a world-class experience that differentiates yours from your competitors’ CAB engagements.
“You will find no one better than Mike Gospe to help your team build a solid CAB strategy and then execute a fantastic program to the benefit of your company and ultimately your customers.”
Our CAB 360-degree assessment:
- Talk with your stakeholders
- Review your CAB charter
- Interview your CAB members
- Dig into your pre-CAB process and your post-CAB follow-up
- Analyze how you are harnessing the power of your CAB
- Provide a detailed report on where you are best-in-class and opportunities for improvement
PAB “HEALTH CHECK” SERVICE
This service is specifically designed for companies that rely heavily on the channel and have been managing their own Partner Advisory Board program internally. PAB programs should not be confused with operations, deal registration, or training. World-class PAB programs are strategic, providing an opportunity for broad market research and true collaboration that drives mutual success. How does yours stack up? We’ll conduct a 360 degree assessment to find the true answer.
Accelerate your pipeline
The dramatic events taking place today are reshaping your partners’ priorities, how they operate, and what they expect from you. It is critically important to form meaningful partnerships, at every level, for your mutual benefit. Our executives will interview your senior partners to understand their priorities and how the conversations they are having with their customers are changing. Answers to these questions will have a profound impact on your channel strategy.
We’ll show you where your program is strong. And, we’ll provide a prescription on where improvements are needed.
“Imperva is a ‘Channel First’ company, and with Mike’s help, we rewrote the book on Partner Advisory Boards.”
Our PAB-360 assessment:
- Talk with your stakeholders
- Review your PAB charter
- Interview your most important partners
- Dig into your pre-PAB process and your post-PAB communications
- Analyze how you are communicating with your PAB members
- Provide a detailed report on where you are best-in-class and opportunities for improvement
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
Understanding your customers is critical for ongoing financial and operational success, especially for businesses running as a service. In order to develop that knowledge, we interview your customers to uncover feedback, what makes them loyal, and if they are possibly at risk. Incorporating this and other measures of customer feedback into your business plan drives better decisions and actions.
In short, we gather customer insights and make them actionable for you.
“As our business grew, we needed to better understand where and why customers might be at risk of churning. KickStart uncovered those answers and provided us with actionable insights. They have become trusted members of my team.”
Interview programs we provide:
- Win/loss interviews & analysis
- Churn analysis
- Long-term happy customers
- New customers
- Lost customers
COACHING SERVICES FOR MARKETING LEADERS
Becoming a solid leader does not just happen. The best business leaders have coaches to help them on their journey. Why not you?
Unlock your full potential
We coach new and experienced leaders who want to be strategic, not tactical: remove roadblocks, build strong teams, improve profits, and manage by objective.
Our seasoned coaches have 30+ years of leadership in VP or marketing and CMO positions. We are experienced and trusted resources to help you navigate blind spots. Your boss has a coach. Shouldn’t you?
Even Tiger Woods has a coach!
A seasoned coach is an unbiased, trusted resource who can help you navigate blind spots.
We help you to:
- Learn how to be the best marketing leader you can be
- Assess your leadership style
- Improve “management by objective”
- Gain executive and cross-functional alignment
- Build personal and professional confidence