Imagine you are a CMO and one day the president of your company calls you into his or her office and says, “Next year I need your help to increase sales by 20%.”

Where would you focus your efforts? Would you ask for a 20% increase in the marketing budget so you could buy more media and increase awareness? Would you insist upon approval to create huge promotions that provide price incentives? Would you scramble to come up with new products or services that might help you appeal to new customer segments or marketplaces? While these tactics may seem tempting, they are just that, tactics, and often do not manage to deeply affect the organization or its efforts.

In my experience, most CMO’s fail to capitalize on two of the most powerful tools in their marketing toolboxes – their people and their culture. Research has proven time and time again that good employees can be more valuable to a business than good customers. One good employee can serve as a brand ambassador that helps attract, retain and grow numerous good customers. Unfortunately, too many CMOs defer issues relating to finding, retaining and inspiring employees to Operations or Human Resources. That’s a shame seeing as internal marketing can be more fun, less expensive, and more impactful to the bottom line than most of the mass advertising CMOs often spend excessive amounts of time and money on.

That’s a shame seeing as internal marketing can be more fun, less expensive, and has more impact to the bottom line than most of the mass advertising CMOs often spend excessive amounts of time and money on.

“Companies that nurture high-trust work environments consistently outperform their peers on stock market returns.”

“Great Place to Work”, a global research and consulting firm committed, like Cult is, to helping companies’ transform their cultures, recently published some research about the best places to work in Canada. It is interesting to see the correlation between the best places to work and exceptional stock performance. Their research illustrates that happy, informed, motivated employees have a contagious enthusiasm for your business that improves operations, customer relationships and financial performance.

I have huge respect for CMOs and understand that they have a lot on their plate. I just wish they would sift through the clutter to spend more time focusing on truly impactful initiatives and less time focusing on the things most people see.