Will we ever see more CRO's ( Chief Revenue Officers ) ?

B2B Marketing and Sales are blending out of necessity -- but will it ever happen at the C-level?

Some progressive B2B companies are starting to create the CRO ( Chief Revenue Officer ) position that oversees both marketing and sales. Others have experimented with it and reverted back to the traditional split of sales and marketing.

I believe it will still be at least another decade before this blended position becomes more commonplace just because it's rare that you find a marketer who can manage a large sales team or sales person who has the experience to optimize marketing ROI.

Has anyone worked with a CRO and or managed both sales and marketing at a company generating over 75 million in annual revenue? If so:

1. What were your observations on their effectiveness managing both teams ?

2. What do you believe is the key experience / attribute or other factor to success in this blended position ?

3. Do you believe we'll see more CRO's in the future or is it unrealistic for top sales producers to take a pay cut to gain the requisite marketing experience and also unrealistic to expect seasoned marketers to switch to a commissioned sales position to earn their sales chops.

Do you have any other observations on the potential CRO position and what it means for demand generation / marketing automation specialists?

Check out and/or contribute to the discussion on Linked In's Marketing Automation Specialists Group.

Comments

[Bill Stone]

1 in 10 CSO's and CMO's don't even know what Marketing Automation is let alone the concept of a CRO (thought I'd coined that term!). A CRO requires bottom up as well as top down expertise in direct marketing, a database marketing background, sales experience, deep program development (creating campaigns and the programs that define the campaign from scratch) and program management expertise. The CRO should be comfortable with analytics, creative development, messaging development, and management of agency oriented account teams as well as fostering organizational development and change at the executive, management and tactical levels to give the teams time to be educated and adopt the new modus, process and methodologies.

Yes...it could take a while for CSO's and CMO's to evolve from the ground up.