by Carla A. Fleming | Feb 1, 2026 | Agentic, Agents, AI, Business Strategy, CMO, Growth, Sales Playbook, Software
The Painful Present: Your product roadmap is on track. Customer satisfaction scores are solid. Your existing clients love what you have built, and your sales team is doing everything right, but the close rate keeps dropping. But new deals have slowed down to a crawl,... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Jan 26, 2026 | Agentic, Agents, AI, CEO, Sales, Sales Playbook, Strategy
The Painful Present: Your top sales rep just lost to a competitor with an inferior product. The prospect’s feedback? “They were clearer about how they solve our problem.” You’ve invested in AI tools to scale your messaging, but... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Jan 4, 2026 | Business, Business Strategy, CEO, CMO, Growth, Leadership
Lou Gerstner. I’m sorry to hear of the December passing of IBM’s former CEO. I was lucky to join IBM as a graduate school co-op a couple of months after he did. What none of us knew was how the transformation he engineered still has people talking long after he... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Nov 9, 2025 | Alignment, CEO, CMO, Product Management, Sales, Software
You know the moment of misalignment. As the VP of Marketing, you’ve shared customer insights multiple times with the Chief Product Officer (CPO) as part of roadmap discussions. A curt “Thanks for the input, we’ll consider it.” The Painful Present Economic buyer... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Oct 26, 2025 | Alignment, Business Strategy, CEO, CMO, Leadership, Sales, Software
An 11 am meeting ends at 11:05 am. The CEO just torched your second-half launch plan. No warning. As the VP of Marketing, your ears are ringing with the words, “Just get it done.” The Painful Present • CEO wants to leapfrog the competition with the new AI product and...
