CFO Studio Magazine with Craig Steeneck, CFO, Pinnacle Foods

34 WWW.CFOSTUDIO.COM 3rd QUARTER 2015 Known as The Growth Strategist ® , Aldonna Ambler built and grew a suite of companies to help midsized B2B companies achieve accelerated growth with sustained profitability. A Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), Ambler has addressed over 2,000 audiences and hosted a syndicated online talk show about growth strategies for nine years. As a growth financing intermediary, Ambler raised over $1 billion for midsized companies. The winner of over two dozen prestigious national and statewide “entrepreneur of the year” awards, Ambler was inducted into the New Jersey Business Hall of Fame in April 2015. She is available to speak about “profitable resilient growth” and/or serve on the board of a growth-oriented B2B corporation (an NACD Board Leadership FELLOW). S ome of the most volatile disagreements I have witnessed inmy 40-plus years as a business growth strategist have involved chief marketing officers (CMOs) and chief financial officers. During one strategy-clarification assignment, I realized that the energy and anger were similar to when people of different religions argue. Maybe that’s the way to think about it. Marketing and Accounting are different religions. Being able to discern emotional triggers and then actually craft messages that not only spark attention, but prompt action, is better than any drug for enthusiastic marketing professionals. When that magic happens, marketers know they deserve their company’s sustained support. In this world of hundreds of thousands of daily marketing messages, getting attention and prompting action is fragile. Nothing is more frustrating to marketing people than achieving what feels like a miracle—and then their own company doesn’t support them by promptly offering to finance more or pick up the speed. When marketing people have experienced that intense surprise, disappointment, discouragement, and rejection, they can sound unreasonable, distrustful, resentful, entitled, ungrateful, unrealistic, and even selfish. And they can act angry. But cooperative interaction with a respectful CFO can prevent all of that from ever developing. Proactive CFOs recognize that at the core, CMOs and CFOs want the same things. You both want more market share, increased net profit, a more nimble organization, and more cash. Inadvertent and Destructive The perceived difference between CMOs and CFOs often lies within the areas of control (budgets) andmetrics (measurement). Too often, CEOs and CFOs inadvertently hold CMOs accountable for increased revenue when that is the purview of the chief sales officer. As a reminder, the sales department is the primary client of the marketing department. By sparking interest and prompting action (e.g. inquiries), marketing delivers warm leads and qualified prospects to sales, which then does its magic to turn qualified prospects into buyers. Over the past six or seven years, many corporations have made great progress because their CFOs and CMOs have regularly scheduled focused working sessions to establish or update the value of each warm lead and each qualified prospect. That effort is worth its weight in gold. As you know, that effort also requires patience and a willingness to translate marketing-ese and accountant-ese so you understand and appreciate one another. Today, there is a much shorter window of opportunity to step up marketing to produce more warm leads and qualified prospects and/ or keep themwarm—and less time for sales to turn those leads/prospects into buyers. A value must also be assigned to pacing. It is exciting when a corporation’s CFO and CMO can agree uponmetrics that will trigger immediate increased investment when or if the marketing department achieves magic and delivers enough warm leads and qualified prospects.The benefits go beyond increased net profit.The effort also pays off in increased job satisfaction and appreciation for one another as professional colleagues. C ALDONNA R. AMBLER CMC, CSP The Growth Strategist ® At Cross-Purposes Understanding the language of “marketing-ese”