Why Your CRO Playbook Is Already Obsolete

Episode #268:

Dean Hickman-Smith, Chief Revenue Officer at Testlio, explains why traditional CRO planning models are becoming outdated in faster technology markets. He describes how revenue leaders must shorten planning cycles and strengthen feedback loops among sales, product, and marketing. Dean shows that modern revenue leadership requires constant learning, customer alignment, and faster decision-making to keep up with rapidly changing buyer expectations.

“We’re in a phase of constantly reinventing ourselves. Our customers build software faster, ship faster, and release features faster. That means we have to align our teams much closer to the customer.” - Dean Hickman-Smith

In this episode, Dean shares how modern revenue leaders can keep pace with accelerating buyer expectations by tightening customer feedback loops, improving internal alignment, and helping teams act faster with better context. He offers a practical view of how leadership, trust, and execution must evolve when markets move faster than quarterly plans can keep up.

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