Chief Outsiders

Bots passed humans on the web this year. Agent traffic grew 8,000% in a single year, and 60% of searches now end without anyone clicking through to a website.

This means your buyer is already researching inside AI models before your website gets a vote. The "build vs. buy" logic that held for 30 years just broke. And the competitors who will eat your lunch are starting fresh, with no legacy stack to defend.

Doug Bell breaks it down in. the latest AI Growth Pulse👇

The Growth Gears book turns 10 this year. The methodology behind it is older, and the reason it still holds is that the problem it solves hasn't changed.

Pete Hayes and Art Saxby built this framework around research from UT's McCombs Business School: the best-run companies often have the hardest time growing because they're internally focused.

Insight, Strategy, and Ex*****on have to work in sync, not in sequence.

Watch Pete walk through it.

The best-run companies and the fastest-growing companies are often not the same companies. Pete Hayes explains why, and what it takes to be both.

Operational excellence drives efficiency. Market orientation drives growth. Getting them to work together is where most mid-market CEOs get stuck. Pete breaks it down from the Growth Gears 10 webinar.

Over 80% of AI initiatives fail, usually because the strategy behind them is flawed.

Most companies know AI should be part of how they grow. The gap is knowing where it actually creates impact versus where it creates noise. That's an operator problem.

Chief Outsiders' fractional CMOs and CSOs work with you to define the business problem first, then identify where AI moves the needle on efficiency, differentiation, and measurable growth. Human-led decisions, AI-supported ex*****on.

Portfolio companies that struggle usually don't have a strategy problem. They have an ex*****on problem, and not enough time to fix it through traditional hiring.

Misaligned go-to-market, leadership gaps, teams that can't scale within the investment window. By the time a full-time hire is onboarded, the window has moved.

Chief Outsiders embeds fractional CMOs, CSOs, and ex*****on teams directly into portfolio companies. Operators who build revenue organizations, not consultants who hand off a deck.

From due diligence to exit, this is how we support value creation across the full lifecycle.

https://bit.ly/41klb4Z

Many companies that struggle to grow aren't operationally broken. They're internally focused, and that's a different problem entirely.

Ten years ago, Pete Hayes and the Chief Outsiders team built the Growth Gears framework around exactly that distinction. The research, done in partnership with UT's McCombs Business School, identified three gears: Insight, Strategy, and Ex*****on that have to work in alignment to drive real growth.

Not sequentially. Together.

The methodology is still what we bring into client engagements today. Watch Pete walk through it.