Hot Button Issues
It’s “OLC season” once again where Outsell Leadership Community members convene to discuss their hot button issues and the CEO topics keeping them up at night. Last week was all about improv as our role continues to change daily — with a stroke of a pen — or many, many, pens as the case may be. CEOs are not getting a break and that’s been the case since COVID-19 and the insanity since.
The winter meetings were fortuitous as it gave members an opportunity to problem-solve with fellow leaders in an off-the-record P2P F2F setting for conversation, networking, and the chance to hear how others are dealing with fast-changing geopolitical, economic, as well as market and customer dynamics. Outsell Practice Leaders who support our members, experienced operators themselves, brought their functional expertise to the discussion too.
So, what are the key themes emerging?
- Handling a dramatic first month of the year and the resulting whiplash. Whether dismantling DEI programs and staying true to its values to client funding coming and going in flashes — government clients going radio silent, lower government worker counts imminent, threats of subscription cancellations used by government workers — there is simply a lot to deal with.
- Talent issues have waned with lower salary increases projected, lower voluntary turnover — people staying put (more or less.)
- Sales, sales, retention, retention — longer sales cycles, more people involved, renewal rate pressure and pressure on, down-sales, churn, and discounting. We cover this each quarter in the sales benchmark. Clients in SaaS living with the patterns set by big tech SaaS and the horrible practices they have (month/quarter/year-end craziness, expectations for discounts etc.,) are feeling it too. We’ve conditioned the market this way which I have come to call Software as a Disservice.
- AI and use for internal efficiencies and what that means to our ‘user and customer models’ and big shifts in the customer base or its diminishment (back to gov as an example) or when jobs get automated continues to rear. What happens in an agent-to-agent world?
- Data strategies — new ways it’s being delivered, expected, and big tech’s role. In fact, big tech in general and the impact these players have directly or indirectly on our businesses and markets is a hot button issue.
Engagement models are changing (just look at search results and how they are evolving with GenAI or how GenAI is replacing it for knowledge-based queries). Members who have created the flywheel of ‘free range content’ to drive the funnel and engagement are now finding too much of their content is now the ecosystem gobbled up by GenAI. That offers good-enough responses where their full analysis may be less appealing or certainly perceived as worth less. There’s that downward pressure again.
And to top it off there’s risk. Cyber security risk especially is top of mind. Keeping our houses clean of viruses, ransomware attacks, phishing nightmares and the bad guys who are on a ceaseless hunt for digital break-ins. It’s a constant and expensive game of whack-a-mole.
How apropos that just before attending meetings our colleague got a fortune cookie with the words Don’t Panic on it. If that doesn’t sum up the first six weeks of 2025, I don’t know what does. It’s Valentines’ Day so share the love and enjoy some chocolate. It’s a great antidote to end another crazy week.