Strategic Growth Planning: Where Next Year's Growth Will Come From
Size the gap to your target, fill it from the core outward, and check it against the people, pipeline and cash it needs.
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MARK ZIDES
MARK ZIDES
Blog
Explore Mark Zides' essays on fractional CRO leadership, go-to-market strategy, revenue operations, executive coaching, and exit readiness.
Size the gap to your target, fill it from the core outward, and check it against the people, pipeline and cash it needs.
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How many sellers a revenue target needs, when to hire them, and how the team has to change shape as it grows.
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What a business sells for by size, the eight steps of a sale, why a third of deals never close, and how sellers actually get paid.
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What a VP of sales does, the five signs a company is ready for one, what the seat really costs, and what to hire first when it is too early.
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What founder-led sales is, the six signs the founder has become the bottleneck, what it does to company value, and how to hand selling over in four stages.
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Thirty six questions for founders and boards hiring a CFO, grouped by what each one tests, with the answer to listen for and the red flag behind it.
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What a fractional COO owns, what it costs at one day a week against a full-time wage, how it differs from an interim COO, and when it is the wrong hire.
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What a chief information officer owns, how the role differs from a CTO, a CISO and an IT director, what it pays, and why it decides technology deals late.
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What a go-to-market engineer builds, how the role differs from revenue operations, what the market pays, and the test for whether the hire will help.
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What a fractional CMO owns, what the market actually charges, and the point at which the saving disappears and a full-time hire costs less.
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Lead generation captures demand that already exists. What a lead actually is, what an opportunity really costs, who should own it, and when more leads make things worse.
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A sales funnel counts how many buyers survive each step. What it shows, what it cannot see, the three ways it quietly flatters a business, and when a list would serve you better.
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Most companies have the dashboards and still cannot name a decision that went differently because of them. The test a decision has to pass, and the numbers worth arguing about.
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Growing means revenue and cost rise together. Scaling means the cost of the next customer falls. When you are ready, in what order, and what breaks first.
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The five phases, what a plan has to contain to survive contact with a quarter, who belongs in the room, and why most plans are never executed.
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What demand generation actually creates, how it differs from capturing demand that already exists, and why most buyers have a shortlist before they search.
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Sales and marketing alignment is four agreements rather than a workshop: shared definitions, a written handoff, one number both teams carry, and a review that uses it.
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The six sales funnel stages, what the buyer is doing in each, and how to find the stage where your deals are actually dying rather than the one that feels worst.
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Revenue operations is the function that owns process, data and systems across marketing, sales and customer success, so the revenue number means one thing.
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What a chief revenue officer actually owns, how the role differs from a VP of sales or a CMO, and the signals that say a company is ready for one.
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Lead generation captures demand that already exists. Demand generation creates it. Which one you need first depends on whether anyone is searching for you yet.
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Building rapport with customers is the difference between a conversation that moves somewhere and one that stalls.
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The seven stages every deal passes through, and the rule that decides when a deal is allowed to move.
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A channel partner sells to customers they already own. What separates a programme that produces revenue from one that produces a logo slide.
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Six decisions decide how a company reaches buyers. Most founders have made them without writing them down.
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How recruiters actually use TikTok and Instagram to hire, what belongs on each, and how to make a profile work for you rather than against you.
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Quiet quitting is doing the bare minimum on purpose. What sits behind it, why it spread so fast, and what it asks of the people managing it.
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Most people leave paid days off unused every year. Why that costs more than it saves, and how to take the time you have already earned.
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Your profile is the first thing anyone checks. What to put in each section, what to cut, and how to be found by the people doing the hiring.
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A practical reset plan for setting boundaries, addressing workplace stress, and deciding what to do next in your career.
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Changing industry makes an experienced professional feel new again. How to build credibility quickly, set boundaries early, and settle in.
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Leadership is not something you wait for experience to grant you. The habits worth building before anybody hands you the title.
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Women leaders are leaving companies faster than they are being promoted into them. The reasons behind it, and what the companies losing them lose.
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What the youngest generation at work is looking for, from autonomy to compensation, and what it takes to keep them once they arrive.
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What emotional intelligence is, why it separates the people who navigate work well from the people who do not, and how to develop it deliberately.
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Managing up is a skill rather than flattery. How to work with the person you report to so that both of you get what the job actually needs.
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Business travel looks like a perk until you do it often. Practical ways to make the trips cheaper, easier and less disruptive to everything else.
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Ten practical ways to protect your time and avoid burnout, written for people early enough in a career to still feel they have to prove themselves.
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Rejection in a job search is mostly arithmetic rather than judgement. How to keep perspective, and still leave an impression that lasts.
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Mentors rarely arrive by accident. How to find them, what to ask for, and how to keep the relationship worth the time on both sides.
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Leaders fail on relationships more often than on strategy. What emotional intelligence looks like at work, and how to build it in a team.
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Where artificial intelligence was expected to change things fastest, across business, robotics, healthcare, cities, security and education.
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The language that took over the workplace conversation in 2023, what each phrase actually meant, and which ones were worth taking seriously.
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Follow your passion is the most repeated career advice there is. Why it fails more people than it helps, and what tends to work better.
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Most adults spend more waking hours at work than anywhere else. Why a life outside it is not a luxury, and how to defend one.
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The shifts expected to shape working life: a new generation arriving, remote work settling in, AI adoption, flexibility and soft skills.
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The assumptions made about the youngest people at work, which of them survive contact with evidence, and how to challenge the rest.
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A resume states what you can do and a cover letter says why it matters here. How to write both so neither is the reason you get passed over.
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Twelve years of remote work, condensed: the honest advantages and costs, staying productive, and building a career when nobody watches you work.
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Networking still moves careers, and it is not the same as collecting contacts. How to do it in a room and behind a screen without dreading it.
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The first ninety days decide how the rest of a job goes. Where to put your attention, what to learn first, and what not to promise too early.
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What the person across the table is really assessing, how to prepare for it, and why fit is judged as closely as skill.
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Remote work makes relationships deliberate rather than accidental. How to build and keep them when nobody shares a corridor with you.
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Nobody good got there alone. What a mentor or career coach actually does for you, and how to find one worth the time.
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