Carnival games are designed for you to lose. The system is rigged. You can’t win.
Many Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) feel the same way about their job.
After onboarding, they’re handed a mallet and pointed toward an old Whack-a-Mole machine labeled "Go-To-Market Execution."
But the system is rigged.
They don’t get a manual. They don’t get a warm-up round.
Just a relentless cycle of problems popping up faster than they can smash them.
- Sales and marketing misalignment? POP.
- Tech stack bloat? POP.
- Bad data leading to bad forecasts? POP.
- Lead handoffs so messy they tank conversion rates? POP.
Every time they think they’ve handled one issue, others surface. The game never slows down. There’s no finish line.
Until roughly 18 months later, the average tenure for a CRO.
What if you didn’t have to play this game at all? What if there was a way to beat the odds?
The CRO Survival Guide unpacks why CROs have the shortest tenure in the C-suite and what the best in the business do to outlast the 18-month clock. Get the guide and rewrite your CRO playbook.
The Moles: The GTM Problems CROs Can’t Escape
Every time they fix one issue, another pops up, and it’s usually because of the "fix" they just made. These aren’t isolated problems. They’re interconnected GTM alignment failures.
Let’s take a look:
1. The ‘Siloed Team’ Mole
You finally get sales and marketing in the same room. Everyone agrees on goals. It’s high fives and “we got this, bro” all around.
Then two weeks later….
- Sales is still running its own playbook, chasing pipeline in a vacuum.
- Marketing is still optimizing for MQLs as if they’re the only measure of lead generation.
- Customer success is still left out, wondering why no one seems to care about them.
Why This Mole Won’t Stay Down
Because departmental silos prevent revenue teams from playing as one. Different goals, different incentives, different definitions of success.
How to Smash It for Good
- Build GTM pods where sales, marketing, and customer success actually work together on revenue.
- Get rid of isolated KPIs and align around a shared north star—driving revenue growth.
- Make teamwork non-negotiable by aligning all teams toward a common goal with shared pipeline reviews, tools, and accountability.
2. The ‘Unreliable Data’ Mole
You clean up the CRM. You standardize reporting. You build dashboards that offer valuable insight into pipeline health. You are a HERO.
But then….
- Sales reports show one number.
- Marketing attribution shows another.
- Customer success has no data at all.
Why This Mole Won’t Stay Down
Because every team tracks data in its own way.
Without a single source of truth, team members make decisions based on incomplete, conflicting, or just plain wrong information.
Instead of guessing which problem to fix next, top CROs use a systematic approach to revenue growth. Enter The BowTie Model—a proven framework to identify the exact lever you need to pull to hit your revenue goals. Stop playing Whack-a-Mole. Start pulling the right levers. Download The BowTie Model guide here.
How to Smash It for Good
- Establish a single, standardized data model—one set of definitions, one undeniable source of truth. No more conflicting reports, no more guesswork. But what exactly is a data model? Glad you asked. Meet The BowTie Model.
- Use RevOps processes to keep data clean, enforce rules, and stop teams from making their own versions of reality.
- Build real-time dashboards that connect pipeline, attribution, and retention in one place.
3. The ‘Tech Stack From Hell’ Mole
Your tools are supposed to make life easier.
But instead….
- The CRM is just a bloated contact database no one trusts.
- Half the sales team ignores it entirely.
- Marketing and sales can’t even agree on what’s generating pipeline.
- You pour thousands into lead-gen software, but when it’s time to connect the dots to revenue, all you hear are crickets.
Why This Mole Won’t Stay Down
Because more tools don’t solve process issues, they make them worse.
And you're paying for all of them.
How to Smash It for Good
- Ditch any tool that doesn’t contribute to revenue growth or efficiency.
- Make CRM adoption a non-negotiable for sales. No deals logged = no commission.
- Automate to cut busywork, not just stack up reports.
4. The ‘Short-Term Revenue Fix’ Mole
Leadership wants results now.
So, you increase ad spend, push deals through faster, and rely on short-term market strategies rather than sustainable revenue planning.
It works—for a quarter.
But then….
- Demand goes down.
- Churn goes up.
Why This Mole Won’t Stay Down
When CROs focus only on quick pipeline wins, they drain resources and miss out on retention and expansion.
How to Smash It for Good
- Make NRR and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) north star metrics.
- Invest in onboarding and expansion to grow lifetime revenue, not just pipeline.
- Quit paying sales just for new deals. Reward retention and expansion by ensuring customers see ongoing value in your product or service.
5. The ‘Pipeline Handoff Disaster’ Mole
Marketing efforts generate leads. Sales closes deals. Customer success owns retention. Sounds like a winning plan!
Except that….
- Marketing dumps unqualified leads on sales.
- Sales leaves customer success in the dark.
- Customer success has no clue what the customer actually needs.
Why This Mole Won’t Stay Down
Because every GTM handoff is a risk.
Without end-to-end ownership, pipeline handoffs get messy, inconsistent, and full of gaps.
How to Smash It for Good
- No context = no handoff. Every deal moves with full visibility.
- Automate quality. No bad leads, missing data, or messy onboarding.
- Make revenue a team sport. Sales stays involved beyond the close, ensuring a smooth handoff, while Customer Success steps in early to drive retention from day one.
A Winning CRO Strategy: Stop Playing the Game
Right now, the CRO game isn’t designed to be won.
So don't play it.
The best CROs aren’t the ones who get better at whacking problems.
They’re the ones who step back and fix the machine.
That means:
- Ensuring sales, marketing, and customer success communicate like they actually work at the same company, not as separate department silos.
- Having one source of truth, not five competing dashboards and “vibes only” decision-making.
- Getting rid of tools no one uses, they’re just an expensive button at that point.
- Shifting the focus. Quick wins are great, but so is not panicking every quarter.
- Making sure no one ever says, “I thought you had it.”
Successful CROs aren’t playing Whack-a-Mole. They’re building GTM machines that hum….no mallet required.
