10 Ways to Keep Your Marketing Leadership Job

Chief Marketing Officers and Marketing Vice Presidents are too often blamed for what is a more systemic problem in their organization.  Many will lose their jobs in less than three years.  We want to be the quarterback, but it’s often similar to playing cornerback on defense.   An intrepid soul who is expected to do great things with unpredictable support.  Like an NFL football game, everyone has an opinion but few people ever played it at the level they are watching.  What makes it even more daunting is the game seems to keep getting faster.  Here are some ideas on how to shore up your internal support.

Be a buyer champion, jab, and speak in numbers

1) Know thy buyers.  Do the analysis on markets, current customers, define best industries and buyer personas. Make sure you have hard data on your buyers. Help the rest of the revenue team stop wasting their valuable time focusing on low probability leads.

2) Brand buzz is not the same as helping the buyer progress.  Buzz is critical to celebrities, but chances are you are not in the entertainment business.  Getting attention is not the same as helping a business buyer research their needs.  You will want to help them research not just on your web site, but on relevant distribution points across the web.  By helping them execute on their research objective, they can begin the process toward further evaluation.

3) Nurturing is not quite the same thing as helping the buyer prioritize their needs.  Would buyers enjoy being told they were being nurtured? It sounds self-serving.  People nurture farm animals too, right up to the point they are going to eat them.  Providers should be helping the buyer frame priorities and inform with content that is worth sharing.  We want to give them something to try so they can accelerate their own decision-making. If the need is a priority and the provider delivers a strong mix of patience, responsiveness, and quality; the buyer will naturally move to a Ready-to-Purchase status.

4) Your offering is subservient to the buyer’s needs.   For too long, providers have been focused on what they have to sell.  Is the buyer ready to care?  Buyers need to know the provider understands their problems and needs.  Let’s start there.  But instead, marketers with bad habits keep hammering away at the buyer with what the provider has to sell.

5) Fall in love with existing customers.  Existing customers are a treasure chest of increased revenue, new relationships, and stories of proof.  Ask your account managers if you can join them on customer calls, learn to listen well (and stay quiet) and learn with humility.  

6) Turn fresh customer stories into content that enables new buyer traction.  New buyers see the stories of proof and start to imagine their own success stories with you.

7) Promote customer care to a marketing contributor.  Buyers cannot optimize their relationship with you unless customer care is outstanding.  Customer care has become more important to marketing because buyers talk and the Internet allows real-time sharing.  Let that sink in a bit.

8) Get in step with the digital buyer.  A bit of a self-serving point because I wrote a book on this.  Map this out to improve the probability the buyer chooses your company.

9) Run low-exposure pilot programs under the radar.  Few people will complain if you waste a few thousand dollars to see if something will work.  They will love you if you spend a few thousand dollars and you gain proof of concept.  If you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and it does not meet expectations, only the most magnanimous souls will absorb the decision.  Start small, learn, and then scale.  Be a scientist.

10) Jabs get there faster than roundhouses.  New to the job?  Make something good happen in 90 days. Not new to the job?  Make something good happen in 90 days.  Look, we know you have long-term brand vision, but marketing jabs show others on the revenue team that you are contributing to today’s revenue fight.  You want to be invited to the foxhole too.

11) Analyze and evangelize insight.  You know the old saying, “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”.  Word of warning; either track KPIs (key performance indicators) for marketing or get measured soon.  It’s right around the corner that technology will be able to measure nearly everything that is done in a company. You gain instant credibility by basing your actions and adjustments on metrics, not hearsay.

12) Learn financial speak.  If you want to set at the big person table, take two to three people from the financial group out to lunch.   If you are not sure, ask questions about the reports that are requested by the CEO or CFO.  Learn to define your team objectives and planning with those metrics in mind.  Revenue growth and profit is usually a good place to start.  Do not automatically ask for more budget money every year. First, ask your marketing team what you learned in the last year.  You may simply need the same amount of money, but you’ve lifted your knowledge and ability to execute.  Do this with rigor and even if you ask for more money, you will gain respect from the CFO.

The final point in keeping your marketing leadership job?  Notice how I wrote twelve points instead of the ten I promised?  You have to look for ways to over-deliver in every interaction.  Over-delivering way is a great place to place your creative focus.  Contact me if you need a hand.

How to Mitigate Business Risk - Lightning on the Water Lesson

A few years ago, our family went on a summer vacation in Ocean City, Maryland. Now, when you think of the state of Maryland, living in dangerous country doesn’t really come to mind unless you are worried about getting bad crab cakes.  In fact, before I went to Ocean City (which is very nice), for me, Maryland was a place that ensured that Baltimore existed.

The Perfect Setting

With a blue sky as our canopy, our family decided that going out on personal watercraft (e.g., WaveRunner, Sea-Doo etc.) would be an ideal excursion. We did not check the weather nor did we ask the people who rented us the equipment about the weather.  It was a beautiful day.  No need to question the next hour.

Wonderful Technology

You couldn’t wipe the smiles off of our adult and teenage faces as we jumped on our machines and raced into the open water.  We sat on so much power from these well-engineered water horses, our senses focused on the screaming engines and the wind rushing up to meet us.

We Had Experts

Joining a couple of other families, we were led out to water by three personal watercraft guides from the rental company.  Calling them experts may have been generous.  They were clearly not trained to deal with what was ahead of us.  Their expert status was limited to removing the ubiquitous seaweed from the personal watercraft.  To think that this service company had a firm understanding or what they needed to do in a storm or even understood the weather for the next hour was the next wrong assumption.

There’s a Storm Brewing

We rode straight out for 15 minutes or so before looking back.  At that moment, we noticed an ominous storm on the horizon behind us.  Not dark as in, “oh, that looks like a possible shower”.  Dark as in, “apocalypse anyone?” I grew up in Texas.  I know a good hurricane or storm. West Texas storms that are angry from the long travel and looking for trouble.  The worst part was you could see this Maryland storm rapidly approaching at a distance.  This was a runaway train in the sky.  Blue was being rapidly consumed by gray with ambitions to be black.

Controlled Chaos

Our water guides called in to inquire about the approaching storm. They then informed us that we were going back to the boathouse.  They should have just got us to the closest land and this is when things got dicey.  In what seemed a few minutes from when we noticed the storm, the clouds were on us. Without any other option, the guides led us straight into the storm to get back to the safety of the boathouse. 

Hope You Enjoy Electricity and Water

Imagine you are in a giant bathtub.  You must stay in the water, because you’re too far from shore. Iimagine that a shower curtain goes all around the tub.  Long, crisp lightning was our curtain that day.  It was everywhere and you had no shelter. And of course, you are sitting in water where it seemed the lighting was also striking. No need to tell anyone on a personal watercraft how concerned one should be in a lightning storm, we all understood. Humans get the concept of dangerous lightning very quickly. Would you like to forget the pounding rain in your face?  Try a lightning storm.  The crackling electric curtain that seemed to connect the heavens to the earth was in its full glory and my entire family was in the tub.

Rushing Back to Shelter

Yes, we all made it back alive.  Everyone on the trip went as fast as they could to get back to shore. Whatever trepidation some of the less experienced riders felt going out had been replaced with a more clear and present danger.

Business Lessons and Insightful Questions

1.    You may be in need of more complete information. 

The company that rented the personal watercraft ran an incredible risk that day.  Someone could have been killed or injured from sheer panic just because the company didn’t have a process to get a heads up. The incident taught me to always look for more real-time weather information.  As one of the leaders of my family unit, I should have retrieved information beyond what I could see especially since I was moving into a new environment.  Are you in your element and do you have the quality of information you need to mitigate risk?

2.    Know your technology’s limitations.  

We had expensive personal watercraft, but we also had to stop often to get seaweed out of the intake. The seaweed choked the machines, which meant the rider had to jump off and pull the seaweed out. This constant problem added to our risk of getting back with speed.  This well-known fact was not considered in the company’s need to get an accurate storm notice.   Are your technology expectations realistic?

3.    Do not assume your provider is on top of things.

Providers often just do what they have always done.  That may not be right for you and could place you in a lightning storm.  Also, don't assume their people have been properly trained or even briefed.  Are you asking your providers enough why, what, who and when questions prior to moving ahead?

4.    Leaders need more than one answer.  

The guides determined the only thing to do was to head into the storm to the boathouse.  Do you have contigency plans when things go wrong?

5.    You cannot control everything, so manage your response.  

The key here is to know where you are going and keep a cool head.  Seconds will feel like minutes, but meet your problems head on with focus, principles and action.  Thankfully, my family was quick to understand the threat, stay together and not panic.  Are you surrounded by the right kind of cool heads?

The remainder of the day was spent in our hotel.  We had a grateful lunch while we considered our good fortune.  We then decided on the best miniature golf facility to visit the next day.  Our collective risk basket was a bit full and Pirate's Cove was looking pretty good.

6 New Videos on B2B Buyer Centric Marketing - Buyer Steps

Today's Problem

Too many providers have not changed their approach to the B2B digital buyer.  The symptoms are often misdiagnosed as the problem.  The systemic problem is the misaligned approach.  Buyer Steps offers them an easy-to-understand approach to get better results.

Buyer Centric Marketing

Companies need a unified revenue approach that mitigates risk and creates an environment for growth. Aligning your revenue team with your buyers is the smartest marketing available. 

The Videos

The videos are all under 5 minutes.  The author, John Ryan instructs from the book "Buyer Steps".They are meant for the busy executive and are intended to create a healthy dialogue in the provider's company about their buyers.    There are 10 more videos to be released in early March 2012.

Buyer Steps Overview (3:18)

Buyer Step 1:  Buyer Research (4:46)

Buyer Step 2:  Buyer Tryoritize (3:18)

Buyer Step 3: Buyer Purchase (3:10) 

Buyer Step 4:  Buyer Optimize (3:34)

The Revenue Engine (3:01)

Feedback:

Please contact me if you have any feedback, questions, or would like my help.

Get the book:

You can purchase Buyer Steps as a book for $19.95.

You can purchase Buyer Steps for Kindle for $9.99 which you can also read on an iPad, iPhone or a personal computer.

B2B Marketers Topic: Is Your Marketing Aligned to Today’s Buyers?

This is the first of a series of articles written from my book Buyer Steps.  I am exposing my book one topic at a time through these articles.   I would welcome feedback since my goal is to improve the book and thus help the users of the book improve their revenue efforts.  The reason understanding the new buyer is important is so that we can start to get our senior management team’s minds right about the marketing and sales approach.  Our first challenge is that many providers have not adjusted to today’s B2B buyer and their process. 

 

21^st Century Marketing must address buyers who are

1)   …drowning in decisions that do not have to be made

They have excess opportunities to improve their business through the purchase of products and services.  Prioritizing the value, achievability, and timing of those choices is their challenge.  

2)   …can only see the world from their unique viewpoint 

It starts with a problem or opportunity specific to the buying organization, not the provider’s offering.  The buyer sees the world from where he or she sits.  Buyers identify with and ultimately select providers who can describe the world through their eyes. 

3)   …aggregate knowledge, opinions and use technology to improve decisions 

Rash purchasing by one person has been transformed into a more rigorous and inclusive approach within an austere economic environment.  A buyer who has become an advocate for a provider must be armed with arguments that convince other decision influencers within their organization. 

By acknowledging the shifted mindset of the 21^st century B2B buyer, providers can organize themselves to help the buyer go through their natural buyer steps or process.  It is through this constant effort that the provider improves their buyer fitness.  The buyer, who used to wait to be called on by the informative salesperson, has morphed into a buyer who is incredibly informed prior to the sales call.  To address these changes, providers must adapt their revenue generation efforts.

You can reach me directly at john@johnwryan.com 

Next topic:  Marketing Management Issues

Startups: Making a Dent

It's not that I don't like business...I can't stand boring businesses who have no intention of making a dent in the world...on improving it.  They are just "getting in the way of the money" with the hope of being chosen.  Usually, it's a dearth of creativity/courage, either one - it's boring because there is no adventure to be found.  Just holiday parties where they slap each other on the back like something really happened.  

Startups have a responsibility to be different.  Not just because they're a startup, but there is a necessity to stand out for the buyer.  Make a dent or come up with a new plan.