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Scott Davis, a partner at Profit, and author of The Shift, says that for senior marketers to become visionary leaders, a P&L mindset is a requisite. The P&L – be it for a public or private company – is where marketing strategies and tactics will ultimately be measured for their effect on the bottom line.

As Scott points out in this Advertising Age article, CMOs and other senior marketing people rarely own direct P&L responsibilities, but he adds that can be an advantage by putting marketing in a more favorable position to enhance the P&L by turning data into insights, and insights into actionable and measurable contributions to the company’s revenues and profits. The CMOs first responsibility should be learning what makes the customer tick. Sound strategies to affect customers and prospects come first – then implementation. The efficacy of those strategies needs to be quantified at every level, and if this is done correctly, the contributions to the P&L will be obvious.

He also offers some suggestions on how to enhance a P&L mindset:

• Don’t talk in terms of marketing budgets (expense); talk instead in terms of performance and growth (revenue).
• Understand the business from top to bottom. You can’t change what you don’t see or comprehend.
• Be willing to invest in initiatives where success can be clearly documented.
• Sales, finance and IT are not the enemy. They are allies that will help you succeed.

Ultimately, information is the CMOs strategic kingpin for producing and demonstrating success. As Paul Barsch pointed out in this MarketingProfs article, the CMO needs a strategic alliance with the company’s CIO to ensure that information systems, marketing performance measures, and CRM data are flowing efficiently into the marketing decision process. The results on the P&L are a culmination of many different factors. Certainly marketing’s contribution to success should be a major factor in company performance. Consequently, the results produced by the marketing function need to be made as unequivocal as possible so there is continued strong future support at every level.