Breakfast Roundtable
Business is Photosynthesis – Building Revenue, Deal Size & Sales Velocity with PR
Marketing and communications professionals have long wondered why they don’t get more “respect” from the C-Suite. According to Mark Stouse, BMC Software’s global communications leader, it’s because of a fundamental failure to understand a key fact: Business is financial photosynthesis.
What does that mean? If you can't predictably help your organization convert financial C02 (expenses) to O2 (revenue), you and your programs are vulnerable to reallocation or elimination in favor of those who can.
To win this competition for resources, marketing and communications programs must be so tied to revenue creation that a proposal to cut PR and marketing budgets is synonymous with revenue deceleration. The most vital metric is neither number of articles placed, nor people you reached - it's about the money you help the business generate from their investment in your people and programs.
In this session, Mark will offer tips and methods to demonstrate real business value by applying many of the principles that other business functions use to show their effectiveness. He will discuss a number of guiding principles:
- Measurement is about context. Publishing coverage data - however detailed - means nothing to the business because it isn't tied to anything that the business cares about. You must correlate to other data that resides outside PR and marketing.
- Get credit by taking informed risks. The normal PR metrics don’t prove anything by themselves. But studying them will enable you to predict the future, which means you’ll get a lot more credit for your contribution when it comes true.
- Understand how your business makes its money. If you don't "get" the pain points in your company's sales cycle, you'll miss important correlation points that will help prove your value. Cut back your time with the people who spend money and get to know those who make or count it.
- See the tradeoffs as your CEO does. Communications and marketing compete with every other department in a company for investment, especially when money is tight. Programs that promise the best financial ROI win.
Today, Mark is one of the most inspiring and respected B2B communications leaders in our profession. In addition to deep communications experience with companies like Exxon, Compaq, HP and BMC, Mark has significant sales and marketing experience, including multi-year roles as a line executive with P&L responsibility, both on the company and agency side. Over time, he translated his hard-won business experience into a dynamic new approach to leading communications teams and conveying their contribution to business objectives. Mark is both very knowledgeable and passionate about this enduring topic, so be ready for a provocative conversation.
ABOUT MARK STOUSE:
Mark D. Stouse, Global Communications Leader, BMC Software
Mark D. Stouse, Global Communications Leader, BMC Software
“I am a business person that happens to specialize in marketing and communications.”
Mark is widely known for helping organizations make very successful connections between the way they communicate and their business objectives, particularly top-line growth. Recognized globally as a thoughtful yet very pragmatic business person and leader, Mark combines a hands-on style with a finely drawn sense of what it takes to make a real contribution to the business of BMC Software, one of the largest software companies in the world.
Before coming to BMC in early 2006, Mark was a senior executive at Hewlett-Packard, serving various business units ranging from $15 billion to $40 billion in annual sales. A Compaq executive, he joined HP as a result of the merger of the two companies in 2002. Earlier, Mark worked in various leadership positions on the agency and corporate side.
Mark holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Baylor University. He is a sought-after speaker and lecturer, both inside the United States and in many other countries. Mark is or has been a member of the World Economic Forum, National Investor Relations Institute, The Navy League of the United States, The CMO Council, Communications Executive Council, and Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). He serves as a board member of Living Water International, the largest charitable NGO focused on global water issues.
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