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Drew Neisser is the founder of CMO Huddles and a globally recognized authority on B2B marketing. He’s an AdAge columnist, LinkedIn TopVoice, leading CMO coach, podcast host & friend of penguins everywhere.
“Our PE firm just mandated a 30% efficiency improvement,” shared a CMO from a $135 million SaaS company. When asked if the target came from evidence, the answer was simple: No. AI can enable efficiency, but arbitrary cuts rarely create growth. CMOs need to ask what question the number is answering.
“Our PE firm just mandated a 30% efficiency improvement,” shared a CMO from a $135 million SaaS company.
When I asked if this was based on any real-world success story, the answer was quick: “Nope. It’s just PE being PE.”
I should not have been shocked, but aghast feels about right. Then it got worse. Three other CMOs at the table said they had been handed essentially the same mandate.
Thirty percent. Because apparently that is the number of the season.
Here is the question CMOs should ask out loud: If 30% is the answer, what exactly was the question?
AI is not a strategy. At best, it is an enabler of one. At worst, it is a convenient distraction that gives the illusion of progress while starving the very things that drive revenue.
An efficiency target can be useful when it emerges from a business model, a customer need, or a proven operating insight. It becomes dangerous when it starts as spreadsheet cosplay and then gets handed to teams as destiny.
Cutting 30% without a clear growth thesis can make the organization look fitter while quietly weakening muscle.
To be clear, efficiency is not the villain.
Southwest Airlines built one of the most profitable airline models in history through an obsession with operational efficiency. The company shaved minutes from turnaround time, simplified operations, and aligned the whole system around a clear business model.
That is the important part: Efficiency served the model. It was not a random number floating down from the financial heavens.
Marketing leaders should embrace efficiency when it reduces friction, improves customer experience, accelerates learning, or removes waste. They should challenge efficiency when it simply cuts fuel from the growth engine and calls the smoke “discipline.”
Imagine if those same PE firms said: Take all that AI energy and aim it at the customer from start to finish.
Where does the buying journey create confusion? Where do handoffs slow down? Where does content fail to answer the obvious question? Where does sales spend too much time recreating what marketing should have already made clear? Where does customer experience create avoidable churn?
Start there.
When you start with the customer, efficiency often follows. You remove broken steps, clarify messages, automate useful handoffs, and reduce wasted motion. But when you start with efficiency, you often lose sight of the customer, and eventually, growth.
CMOs do not need to reject efficiency. They need to improve the question.
Ask what business problem the target is meant to solve, what evidence supports it, and what outcomes must be protected.
Yes, when tied to workflow improvement, customer experience, and decision speed. No, when used as cover for indiscriminate cuts.
Customer insight, brand trust, sales enablement, conversion quality, and the systems that create future demand.
Improve customer journey efficiency, reduce waste in go-to-market workflows, and measure whether the changes improve growth outcomes.