Today, I’m wrapping up a 5-part series that ran all week and talked about why marketing fails.

The primary reason is that it fails at the top which was well stated by Dave Gerhardt when he said, “Life’s too short to work for a CEO who doesn’t get marketing.”

Yesterday, I mentioned why many CEOs often lack the patience to let marketing lay that golden egg.

The last, (but not least) of the reasons marketing fails is understandably, peer pressure.

You wouldn’t believe the number of CEOs who have asked me if they should sign up for Hubspot!

99% of them had no reason to; they were either not ready, not aware of its cost, or didn’t yet have a team to leverage it.

Upon asking them why they wanted to use Hubspot, I was met with the response that some other CEOs in their networks were using it.

Many CEOs I know have decided to buy expensive SaaS tools and kill a fly with a chainsaw just because of peer pressure. 

If your CEO is the type that gives into peer pressure, I’ve found 3 helpful exercises that almost always work:

1. Gather more details about the organizations that use similar SaaS tools to show how much further along in your marketing journey you need to be to fully leverage such tools. 
2. Do a detailed cost/benefit analysis including effort, unused potential of the tool, and maintenance expenses. 
3. Leverage the voice of experts, consultants, and third-party voices to make this advice sound neutral and not come across as an anti-CEO narrative.