Articles
I write articles about marketing, go to market strategy, and sales execution.
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The traditional executive model is starting to fracture. For decades, businesses built their leadership teams around permanence: full-time executives, fixed structures, long-term organisational hierarchy. But increasingly, companies are moving toward a more flexible model, accessing specialist expertise only when and where they need it – they’re harnessing so-called ‘fractional’ executives (note: it’s called ‘fractional’ because…
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The AI era is now here, and marketing teams are facing into the biggest wave of change our discipline has ever needed to ride. For the past two decades, scaling ‘marketing output’ almost certainly meant scaling marketing headcount, supporting more channels, more content, more events, more campaigns, more geographies. That model is now changing as…
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There’s no shortage of noise about AI in marketing. Every week brings a new tool, a new use case, a new promise. Teams generate content in seconds. Agencies showcase AI-produced campaigns. Vendors promise greater productivity, lower costs and leaner teams. For many organisations, the direction of travel feels obvious: adopt AI, improve productivity, reduce cost.…
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Note: This article was also published on The Engine Room’s blog, here. The Engine Room is a strategic brand and design agency mixing design thinking and business thinking to simplify complex propositions into world-class brands. And they’re awesome. Don’t just take my word for it – visit their site. Client-side marketing teams are under pressure.…
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For many businesses, the idea of a Fractional CMO is appealing. The logic is straightforward: senior marketing leadership, lower cost, faster impact, greater flexibility. I’ve outlined seven practical reasons businesses consider the model in a separate piece. But those benefits only really start to make sense when you understand the work itself. So, what type…
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For many businesses, the need for stronger marketing leadership arrives well before the appetite to hire a full-time CMO. Marketing activity increases. Expectations rise. Growth targets sharpen. But the structure behind it all – strategy, prioritisation, accountability – doesn’t always evolve at the same pace. At that point, hiring a permanent CMO (Chief Marketing Officer)…
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Like marketing, sales is full of terms that are often used loosely, inconsistently, or with different meanings across teams. This creates misunderstanding, but also friction, weak qualification, and unreliable decision‑making. I previously published a separate B2B marketing glossary that sets out the definitions I use with marketing teams. This glossary focuses on B2B sales terminology…
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Marketing is full of buzzwords and acronyms, usually not very well-defined. ‘Go-to-market’ (GTM) is certainly one of those terms – it seemed to creep into business language a few years ago, and many companies now use it, but few define it clearly. Ask five sales and marketing professionals what GTM means, and you’ll get five…
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“So, tell me about your marketing strategy?” Never has there been a more revealing question for a marketer – or a senior commercial leader, for that matter. It’s a question I now love to ask. It gives you a fast sense of where an organisation really is on its go‑to‑market journey. It helps assess the…
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Marketing is full of terms that sound familiar, but which lack agreed definitions. The great JP Castlin wrote about this a few years ago (well worth a read just for the Milton Jones reference): unlike in disciplines like law, where every word is codified and tested, or accountancy, with its Agreed Accounting Principles, marketing language…