Think Like a CMO (Even If You’re Not One Yet)
- Brian Talbot
- Jun 2
- 8 min read

As a mid-level marketer, it’s common to get stuck on a rung in your journey up the career ladder. And it’s even more common that you’re not sure why. After all, you’ve mastered the tools, the timelines, the tactics. But here’s the truth: execution alone won’t earn you a seat at the strategy table.
Most marketers spend years becoming exceptional executors. You know how to ship campaigns, hit deadlines, and report on metrics. That’s valuable. But if you want to earn a seat at the table, the leap from tactician to trusted advisor starts in your mind.
You have to think like a CMO long before you have the title.
CMOs play at a strategic level. They steer the business. They connect marketing to growth. They align people and teams at all levels across the organization. They influence decisions that move the business.
Here are three ways to start thinking like a CMO today.
Zoom Out to See How Marketing Affects the Business
You’re juggling three campaigns, fielding last-minute feedback from sales, and knee-deep in performance dashboards. You’re executing like a pro, but the big picture feels blurry.
Sound familiar?
That’s because most mid-level marketers are trained to operate in the weeds. But CMOs operate with a different view. They obsess on how marketing id driving revenue growth, brand equity, and customer loyalty. They see connections you don’t. (Yet.)
To think like a CMO, you need to see the forrest from the trees and start asking a different set of questions. Instead of focusing solely on campaign performance, look at how marketing influences the full customer lifecycle. Learn to speak in business terms, quantifying and qualifying everything. Think about how your activities align with the bigger organizational goals.
Let’s walk through three of the most important questions to help you zoom out.
Are We Attracting the Right Customers?
Early in your career, more leads probably felt like the goal. But now you’re realizing that not all leads are good leads.
CMOs obsess over fit. Why? Because the wrong customer drains resources, churns fast, and muddies your metrics. The right one converts faster, stay longer, and drive referrals. My friends and I have talked for years about how a bad client can be worse than not having that client.
I once worked with a startup founder who was so obsessed with leads that he had completely unreachable goals and refused to acknowledge that “everybody” was not his market. We delivered record-breaking MQL numbers, but it didn’t move the revenue needle. A slim understanding of the pipeline funnel resulted in a ton of leads at the top, and virtually no conversions at the bottom. What looked like a win was actually a waste.
The mindset shift: It’s not always about reach. It’s about targeted resonance.
Start tracking lead quality, not just quantity.
Ask sales which deals feel “easy.”
Analyze what channels bring in customers who stick.
By digging into LTV by segment, you’ll learn fast. Better targeting means smarter growth.
Are We Shortening the Sales Cycle?
Here’s a CMO-level insight: every day a deal drags is a hit to your margin.
Great marketers help prospects make faster, more confident decisions. That means anticipating objections, serving up the right content at the right time, and aligning tightly with sales. And, it’s about connecting with them emotionally as well as logically.
I helped a team cut their average sales cycle by 20% not by changing the product, but by building a sales sheet that answered the top 10 buyer objections. Simple. Strategic. Wildly effective.
The mindset shift: Marketing isn’t just generating demand. It’s accelerating momentum.
But, how do you start?
Sit in on sales calls.
Hear the friction points firsthand.
Build marketing assets that answer the tough questions early
The goal is to keep the deal moving forward.
Speed wins. And CMOs know it.
Are We Increasing Lifetime Value?
Most marketers stop at the handoff to sales. CMOs never do. They know the real magic happens after the deal closes, when customers start using, loving, and advocating for the product.
This is where strategic marketers shine. They turn post-sale moments into growth opportunities. They build onboarding journeys, nurture loyalty, and fuel community.
I worked with a professional services company that doubled retention by weaving customer satisfaction surveys, online reviews, and featured client segments into their account management process. They turned new customers into raving advocates, and kept more of what they already had.
The mindset shift: Your job isn’t to close the deal. It’s to grow the relationship.
Connect with customer success.
Study and understand churn.
Look for signals that predict loyalty.
Wise CMOs use marketing to deepen engagement, not just drive awareness. And you should, too.
The mindset shift: Your job isn’t to close the deal. It’s to grow the relationship.
When you think like a CMO, you shift your mindset from the details to the big picture. You stop thinking about campaigns and start thinking about systems. You stop asking, “Did it go live?” and start asking, “What changed because of it?” CMOs aren’t just running marketing. They’re steering it toward the future of the business.
And that’s when people stop seeing you as a doer, and start seeing you as a leader.
Speak Strategy: Communicate in Executive Language
Early in your marketing career, you’re praised for activity. You launch. You deliver. You report. But as you rise, something shifts. The real currency becomes clarity.
CMOs aren’t in meetings explaining click-through rates. They’re explaining risk, opportunity, and trade-offs. They don’t just show what happened. They shape what happens next.
Want to be seen as a strategic voice? Start by changing how you speak.
Move Beyond Metrics to Frame the Meaning
Let’s say you’re recapping a campaign:
“It had a 4.5% CTR and drove 1,200 clicks.” Great execution. But what’s the takeaway?
How could you reframe it? Try something like this:
“This campaign drove 1,200 product trials, with 60% from our highest-value segment. It shaved 10 days off our average time-to-conversion.”
See the difference? One is a report. The other is a result.
The mindset shift: Executives don’t want data. They want decisions.
Start every update with the business impact, not the tactical rundown.
Use language that maps to what leadership actually cares about—margin, growth, efficiency, risk.
Focus on outcomes over outputs.
When you speak in those terms, you get heard at higher levels.
Anticipate the Questions Leadership Is Asking
I coached a marketer prepping for their first C-suite presentation. They had beautiful charts and a bulletproof deck. It went great until the CFO asked, “What happens if this doesn’t work?” They froze. Because they were ready to report, not advise.
CMOs don’t just share what’s happening. They frame why it’s happening, what it means, and what happens next.
Want to sound like a strategist? Ask yourself:
What’s the upside if this works?
What’s the cost or risk if we wait?
How does this compare to other priorities?
The mindset shift: Don’t just inform. Advise.
You earn trust when you show you’ve thought further than anyone else in the room.
Use Frameworks to Focus the Conversation
Strategic communication isn’t just about what you say. It’s how you structure it. That’s where frameworks come in.
Simple tools like:
“So What? Now What?” (Insight → Implication → Action)
“Problem > Insight > Recommendation” (Here’s what’s happening, why it matters, and what we should do)
“Goal > Gap > Gain”(What we’re aiming for, what’s missing, and what we could achieve)
These are how CMOs synthesize complexity into clarity.
One marketing leader I know uses a simple rhythm in every stakeholder meeting: “Here’s what we saw. Here’s what it means. Here’s what we’re doing about it.” No jargon. No fluff. Just momentum.
The mindset shift: You’re not sharing updates. You’re shaping action.
And the clearer your structure, the more confidently people follow your lead.
The mindset shift: Don’t just inform. Advise.
If you want to be seen as more than a doer, you need to speak like a decision-maker. Even internally, in cross-functional meetings or team stand-ups, practice elevating the conversation.
The bottom line? Speaking like a strategist isn’t about using fancier words. It’s about being a calm, clear thinker in the room. Be the one who sees what matters and says it simply.
That’s when people start asking for your opinion, not just your slides.
Lead the Narrative: Become a Trusted Voice Across Teams
Here’s the untold truth about strategic leadership:
It’s not about having all the answers. It’s about asking better questions and connecting the dots no one else is seeing.
CMOs aren’t lone geniuses. They’re integrators. They align teams, clarify priorities, and turn chaos into cohesion. They don’t work in silos. So neither should you.
And the best part? You don’t need the title to start doing that.
Be the Dot-Connector, Not the Department
Most marketing teams operate in their own swim lane. They launch a campaign, but sales hasn’t seen the messaging. They run a product update, but support isn’t prepped for the questions. They chase leads, but no one asks who closes.
CMOs live for this friction. They see it as an opportunity to lead the narrative across functions.
I suggested to a marketing manager that she should sit in on sales pipeline reviews. It helped her to hear and understand what deals were stuck and where. Within a month, she was building enablement content that unlocked stalled conversations.
She didn’t get a title bump. She got something better: influence.
The mindset shift: You don’t need authority to lead. You need context and consistency.
Know the Story Behind the Numbers
Anyone can send a dashboard. Strategic marketers synthesize a storyline.
CMOs know that numbers only matter when they’re part of a bigger narrative: What changed? Why? What’s next?
Imagine reporting a 30% drop in demo requests. You could panic. Or you could lead. It all depends on the story you tell. What if uou dig in and learn that product launched a free trial. That shifted buyer behavior, but also improved lead quality. Now sales is closing more deals with less effort.
That’s not just a data point. That’s a strategic narrative.
The mindset shift: Stop being a dashboard. Start being a decision driver.
Help your team and your leadership understand what’s really happening.
Align Around a Shared Mission
Strategic leaders don’t just share information. They shape meaning. They help teams see how their efforts fit into the broader goal. They remind people what they’re building and who they’re building it for.
I saw a mid-level marketer become the glue for a go-to-market product launch simply by creating a weekly “customer voice digest.” Sales. Product. CX. Everyone started reading it. Not because they were told to, but because she made it valuable, clear, and human.
That’s what leading the narrative looks like.
The mindset shift: People don’t just follow plans. They follow purpose.
When you’re the one who brings that purpose into the room, people start looking to you—not above you—for leadership.
The mindset shift: People don’t just follow plans. They follow purpose.
The bottom line?
You don’t need more authority to lead the narrative. You need more curiosity, more clarity, and consistency. Provide insights and a direction for improving outcomes to position yourself as a strategic leader.
When you do, you stop being just the marketing person and start being the one who makes the whole thing make sense.
Call to Action: Start Thinking Upstream
You don’t become strategic overnight. But you do start by changing how you show up.
Start connecting your day-to-day work to business outcomes.
Start framing conversations around insights, not just activity.
Start asking the kinds of questions your future self would ask.
That’s how you become the marketing leader you want to be.
Because the truth is, strategic thinking isn’t a job description. It’s a choice. One you make every time you decide to think upstream, see the bigger picture, and lead the conversation forward.
So what’s your next step?
Pick one campaign, initiative, or meeting this week and approach it through the eyes of a CMO. Then, rinse > lather > repeat. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, until it becomes who you are.
Your career will thank you.
MyMarketingMap.com is a professional development platform designed to help marketers grow from tactical executors to strategic leaders. Led by veteran marketing coach Brian Talbot, the online platform offers self-paced courses and weekly live Office Hours that equip professionals with the frameworks, mentorship, and mindset to drive real business impact. With a focus on the market, the message, and the map, MyMarketingMap helps marketers build strategic value for their company and their career. Learn more at MyMarketingMap.com.
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