Warning: contagious idea factory. Prolonged exposure has been known to lead to elevated heart rates, provocative insights, a profound sense of possibility, and remarkable achievement.
I heard Brene Brown speak recently and she proposed that courage and comfort couldn’t co-exist. If you are comfortable, you are not acting very courageous. Where are you on that spectrum? What are you willing to give up to get what?
When my company reorganized several years ago, we went from a business unit structure to a functional organization, and I was considered for a position that would run marketing as a member of the executive team.
As part of those discussions, I negotiated to have the role include both traditional marketing functions, such as advertising, PR, events, and sales tool development, but also product strategy in the form of product management and road map planning. Why? I had three reasons:
1. MarCom Is A Pink Ghetto
As a female executive, I was sensitive--sensitive to my observations and the reputation that marketing (and human resources, by the way) had of being places where women got stuck in their careers. Careers focused in these areas resulted in professionals who were often pigeon-holed and excluded from real participation in the business strategy.
I am not sure who coined the phrase, but I had heard it applies here: the pink ghetto. It's a place where women are seen as a support function for other more “important” roles, such as sales, finance, or R&D--roles typically held by men, at least in the technology industry. I didn’t want to get stuck and had worked throughout my career to gain broad experience that made me a better business person, not just a better marketer.
In my role, which combines both go-to-market and market requirements, I have broad impact on the company, and my team is able to impact the direction of the business overall.
2. Marketing Is The Center Of The Hub
Being responsible for products, I am at the center of creative ideas and cleverness. I get to work closely with R&D to determine what can be done and the relevant and high-value applications of technology. I get to work closely with the sales team to determine how to aim them and equip them to capture the market potential of new offerings. My team and I get to be in the center of the hub and are tasked with combining what can be done with what should be done to create new possibilities for the company.
3. Customer Empathy Runs Deep
True innovations are grounded in customer empathy. Understanding the customer problems is the foundation of “solutions,” which companies are so anxious to talk about but execute so poorly. And that customer understanding not only affects the products we bring to market, but how we market them.
This may involve creating sales tools that require a deep understanding of the product in order to simplify the customer experience and accelerate the buying process. Without responsibility for both the product road map and marketing communications, this connection would be more difficult to make and would cause “marketing” to be less strategic and more reactive, instead of leading the charge of innovation in the marketplace.
This article was posted on CMO.com.
"We all want to be treated like insiders." - Chris Brogan
“Without a purposeful toolbox of culture, behaviors, and management training, you get drift and inconsistency.” – Andrew Quinn
It’s like an axle out of alignment.
Marketing ROI has never been sexier… or more possible.
With today’s data analytics, digital marketing spend, and marketing automation systems, the opportunities are ripe for changing the ways that we approach marketing and its management.
Direct marketing professionals are ahead of the trends here, having focused on response rates, revenue generation, and list management long before these things rose to their current level of popularity.
See Also
- How to be a champion of data-driven decision-making
- Business Analytics: How small businesses can use 'big data' (Part 1)
- Why big data analytics is no longer just for big companies
There are new positions showing up in marketing organizations to address this need, ranging from marketing operations managers to marketing data scientists. CEOs across industries are now learning a whole new set of acronyms (like SEO and SQL) as the CMO and CIO are working more closely together.
This change has very real implications for the marketing organization overall. People who were attracted to marketing and have performed exceptionally well in their previous roles might make a smooth transition to the new world of data accountability.
Here are three ways to help:
Demystify Data
Wanting to make data-driven decisions is all well and good, but if the data that would drive those decisions are not easily accessible, then the effort is for naught. Make sure that the metrics you want to see are available to your team.
This requires the insight to be in data form (that is, systems and report structures in place) and for the team who needs the data to have permissions to access it. I have heard of organizations where the marketing organization wanted to measure lead-to-opportunity conversions, but didn’t have access to the CRM system from which this data might be pulled.
This article was published in the Puget Sound Business Journal, Denver Business Journal, Los Angeles Business Journal, as well as other American City Business Journals.
“Success is making those who believed in you look brilliant.” – Dharmesh Shah
This is the first year ever that my family is going to be out of our home country during the holiday season. Although not everyone will travel to exotic (and warm!) locales during this traditional vacation-laden time of the year, but there are three reasons why everyone should consider taking a proper break during the holidays.
It sounds strange for me to defend the value of a vacation, but the statistics are pretty alarming: US workers simply don’t utilize their time off. I assume it is similar worldwide. Vacation hours, even the “use it or lose it variety,” go unused. And in the modern era of always-connected, device-toting knowledge workers, even days of PTO can be consumed with email, texts, and keeping tabs on projects.
1. Vacations are a release valve.
We recently say the hosts of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters in a live show at a local theater. While explaining how they caused a household water heater to explode magnificently, Adam Savage made a poignant observation. “Water,” he explained, “boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Unless it’s under pressure. Then it gets stupid and forgets to boil.” It is this expansion effect that can lead to magnificent explosions as the air trapped inside the water heater compresses and then releases.
I think we humans are the same. Under pressure, we can get stupid. We can get harried and stressed. We can do our own form of expansion as the negative parts of our personality, like our impatience or intolerance, are amplified. We forget what we were designed and gifted to do. What otherwise we’d do without thinking about (like treating strangers or co-workers with a degree of kindness), we forget.
Vacations can be a bit of a release valve. After all, pressure only builds in a closed system (like that of a sealed water heater). If some air can escape, then the water can return to it’s normal operating state. That is the hope of a vacation. To make people less stupid.
2. Vacations provide perspective.
Sometimes getting away from something can provide you a whole new perspective and a new set of solutions to draw from. Marcel Proust has been quoted that “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Many professionals in creative fields, find it useful to step away from their problems or work, to take a walk, work on something else, or even goof off a little, only to return to the work refreshed and ready to see the solution that might have been in front of them the whole time.
Although there is a temptation to get things “wrapped up” before leaving the office for the holiday, it might be wise to leave some tricky problems waiting for your return in January. You’ll return with new eyes and have a better chance of coming up with a better resolution than you might have under the pressure of deadlines in December.
3. Vacations allow us to appreciate normal
Despite the fun of the vacation and the excitement of news sights and sounds, there is always something nice about coming home again. Sleeping in your own bed. Being able to wash clothes and eat at home. The space to spread out after being cooped up in a hotel room or a car (a “little too much togetherness” at times). Sometimes getting away allows you to better appreciate “home,” even if you don’t travel far. The familiar routines take on new comforts. The places and people that you took for granted now seen through new eyes of gratitude.
So, whether you are fleeing the country for this season or staying close to home, I wish you a very merry and warm holiday! I will be seeing you and the world with new eyes this coming new year and I wish the same for you.
This article was published on LinkedIn.
The truth is a gift. Accept it. Cherish it. Re-gift it.
Modern buyers are allergic to the old ways of marketing. The unsolicited emails, direct mail, the interruption-based advertising. If not allergic, then they are immune. In any case, the old ways don’t work anymore. And we must find a new way.
Many companies devalue marketing, considering it the department that makes pretty pictures or the administrative support for the sales team. Others strongly value the strategic involvement of marketing in product strategy, branding, strategic planning, and industry leadership. I am blessed to work for an organization that models the latter, but I certainly am familiar with the former.
This topic is a big one (worthy of more than one post). To get the conversation started, here are four key questions that you can ask yourself to help you answer the question of how to market marketing in your organization.
1. Can you express your motivation for wanting to market marketing in terms of overall business results?
Do you think that investing in a marketing automation system and nurturing campaigns will generate 20 percent more revenue next year? Do you believe that improving the brand consistency across the organization will lead to higher customer perception of quality and improve gross margins by 2 percent for the next product launch? Do you believe that developing a new interactive platform for sharing product benefits with your sales channel will reduce the sales cycle by two months resulting in a 13 percent increase in revenue with the same effort? These are the types of questions you should be asking, when you are thinking of advocating for anything in a business environment.
If you don’t know how to answer these questions, it could be an indication that you are not yet ready to advocate for a larger and more impactful role for marketing in your company … and that you should get ready. That in itself should be a call to action to learn more about your business, your drivers of value in the market, your customer problems, your solutions, and overall business strategy … and how score is kept financially.
2. What is the perception of your brand and that of “marketing” in your organization? What should it be? What is the gap?
Before you would embark on a brand-building campaign, you would always begin with data to identify the “as is” state and to quantify the “to be” state. And to identify the gap between these states. Often this is accomplished with surveys, voice of the customer, share of voice analysis, or other tools. Why not do the same thing within your organization to gauge how far away the organization is from what you envision as the ideal?
It is also important to know whether your brand is strong enough in the organization to lead that charge. What are you known for in the organization? Why do people come to you? Does that align with what you need it to be to advocate the change you are advocating? What can you do to change the perception and reputation?
3. What “marketing” does your customer really need?
This should probably be the first question, as anything (besides that which is required for regulatory, legal, or financial compliance) that isn’t seen and appreciated by customers, probably isn’t worth doing. It is the definition of waste and the hallmark of bureaucracy. But coming back to my point, what value does the customer perceive in the marketing you do?
Are they able to make better and faster decisions because of their access to technical information? Are your resellers able to sell more because of the sales tools you provide? Are they able to reduce their costs with more accurate quoting resources? Are they able to achieve business results because of the value proposition of the products you provide?
Some service firms have found that dedicated sales and marketing staff is not nearly as effective as sending their consultants right out to their clients to share expertise directly and wet their appetite for more (a topic covered extensively in Patrick Lencioni’s book Getting Naked). Some technical engineering firms, website developers, or agencies find that their engineering teams are best equipped to sell and market to their technical buyers and that all that is needed from marketing is some communication tools to help facilitate these conversations. Each business will be different.
4. What is the winning formula that is worth repeating?
Like any system, it is important to look at inputs and outputs. If you want to answer questions 1-3, a good place to start is your wins. What are some situations that have gone well that you think are worthy of replication? Go back and analyze a big order, a design win, or project award and ask everyone involved how it came to be, the touch points with the organization, what sales tools or marketing resources were used, and what made the difference. There is no sense automating or “improving the efficiency” of things that are not effective.
Photo Credit: DRivers@WorldLaw via Compfight cc
This article was published on the TalentCulture blog.
“By definition, remarkable things get remarked on.” – Seth Godin
The Portland Business Journal has selected Planar among the state’s ten most admired technology companies. They were honored at an awards event today (December 10th, 2015) alongside Act-On Software, Elemental Technologies (recently sold to Amazon), FEI Co, Flir Systems, Intel, Jama Software, Jive Software, Mentor Graphics, and Puppet Labs.
The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are open to all organizations worldwide, and recognize the achievements of women executives, entrepreneurs, and the organizations they run. Judges include many of the world's most respected executives, entrepreneurs, innovators, and business educators. Each of the awards programs harnesses the insights and talents of more than 200 judges every year. At the awards banquet on November 13th, Jennifer was recognized with a Silver Stevie.
As someone prone to verbosity, this phrase is a reminder that our communications should be as short as they can be, and as long as necessary.
AMA Marketing Insights featured Jennifer's career highlights.
“Delivering consistently is the key to trustworthiness.” – Matt Luzon
Have you ever thought that each day you regularly do more than is humanly possible? You can do a load of laundry, bring in water, cook dinner, commute, and talk all at the same time, thanks to modern convenient appliances, innovations, infrastructure, and automated processes. You measure modern engines by how many equivalent horses they could replace. I wonder how many humans our modern lives could replicate on a day to day basis. No wonder the world seems to be speeding up. We are all living multiple lives in parallel.
Most things we do have a defined beginning and end. We keep appointments. We meet deadlines. We work on projects. We deem these activities worthy for a time. Like a sprint. From firing gun to finish line. But what things are worth doing for a longer duration? What things are your marathon?
Each of us will have our own list. It could include mundane things like flossing each day to maintain your dental health. It could include specific eating or exercise habits. It could include commitments to stay close to family and friends. It includes marriages, decisions to become a parent, or involvement in causes.
I got involved with a non-profit called Marathon Scholars earlier this year and they take a long-term approach to solving the access to higher education gap among low income students in the Portland area. High potential students are selected in 4th grade and given their first college scholarship. The organization then walks with them with mentoring and educational programming until they earn their college diploma. Most will be the first people in their families to graduate from college (many are the first to graduate from high school). The program has been around long enough to see graduates exiting the program at 7x the average rate, speaking to the power of the long-term approach. A marathon, for sure.
There are opportunities for individuals to get involved in short and long-term mentoring and sponsorships. One of the most popular programs is scholarship sponsors committing to give $100 a month for 12 years to fund a scholarship. Giving in parallel to the student’s academic progress, this approach illustrates the partnership between the students that do the work necessary to generate results and the organization and the organization and the sponsors that make the mission possible. Although this kind of commitment is not required, it is a beautiful metaphor to how problems are solved for good – they take time. For more information and to see how you can get involved, see www.marathonscholars.org.
Considering an Executive MBA or graduate school? These tips, that I recently published on LinkedIn Pulse, will help you make the most of the experience.
Recently I have found myself consulting with professionals looking for career advancement, professional credentials, and the insight that comes from an executive MBA program. I went through the same decision making processes myself and have been happy to share advice on how to make the most of these programs.
1. The class is the professor. Choose wisely.
Executive education programs appeal to working professionals who have years of experience to bring to the class discussions. As a result, you are likely to learn as much from your classmates as you are from the reading and the lectures in class. As a result, the constitution of the cohort is critically important to the value of the program. So, when you are deciding on a program, ask about who else will be in the class, what businesses or industries they recruit from, and what kind of alumni programs they have for graduates.
And don’t forget the value of the post-graduation alumni network you are building. I decided, for a variety of logistics and timing reasons, to choose to travel out of state to attend Pepperdine University’s executive MBA program, who operated a satellite campus in Santa Clara, California. I’d fly every three weeks down to class. Because of the location of the program in the heart of Silicon Valley, the program had a lot of technology companies represented. This was great for me, as I had begun a career in high tech and had intended to stay in electronics. However, I did miss out on networking opportunities with my classmates during our program and after graduation, because I lived and worked in Portland, Oregon, instead of Mountain View or San Jose. I have kept in touch with many of my classmates, but not as closely as I would have if I had attended a program in the Pacific Northwest instead. Some programs have well-developed alumni networks, that host events, share a job board, and offer opportunities to network and collaborate.
2. Don’t wait to network. Use the alumni association before you are an alumni.
One of the reasons that you are likely considering an MBA is to build a professional network outside your current employer. It could be to broaden your business acumen to make a larger contribution where you are or possibly to make a career change. In any case, the network of your classmates and program alumni is critical to that effort, but you don’t have to wait until graduation.
Ask the recruiter for the school for alumni references for the program. If you are considering a career change, ask to speak to an alumni who used the degree or certificate program as a springboard to a new career. If you are wanting to change fields (from marketing to finance, from engineering to marketing, etc), ask to speak to an alumni who found the program useful with their own career moves. Not only will you start building your professional network now, but it will demonstrate to the recruiter your sincerity and resourcefulness and you are likely to learn valuable insights into program. Be sure to ask everyone you meet with for their advice on how to get the most out of the degree program. You are paying the tuition, so get the full education!
3. Use your capstone project to further your career
Most executive MBA programs include some sort of capstone project. Sometimes a team is asked to start a business. Some programs have individuals or groups do a full strategic analysis of a business, along with their recommendations. Some have projects that are presented to a panel representing industry partners, for feedback. In any case, I would encourage you to think about your assignment as a platform for your career development.
For instance, if you are looking to make a career change to a new industry, pitch a well-respected business in that industry the opportunity to work with you on your capstone project. They get free business consulting and you build your network and knowledge in this field of interest.
If you are looking to gain more responsibility at your current employer, use the capstone as an opportunity to get to know different executives and leaders at the company. For instance, if you are looking to make a move to finance, reach out to meet with the CFO and ask their advice about what finance projects might be worth your time and energy and offer to share the results with them and their staff. You gain instant visibility, you position yourself as a go-getter, and you get valuable resume-building experience that will serve you in your next role.
When considering my capstone, I met with several from the management team at my company to get advice about where I should focus. Looking back, I could have done more. I could have gone higher in the organization. I could have reached more broadly across different functions. I could have used the project, or any class assignment or the fact that I was in the program overall, as an excuse (and a good one) to connect across the organization. At the time I was enrolled in my MBA program I worked at Intel, who had 80,000 employees worldwide, and having a strong internal network helped you get things done and find your next opportunity. I see now, how I could have used the program to position myself as an emerging leader in the organization, even more than I did. My advice is don’t leave opportunities like that on the table.
Students are afforded great latitude in the business community, so if you take the risk to ask for advice or for opportunities, I have found that people are generous and will join you in your efforts to better yourself and better their business. Remember, you are helping them, while they are helping you!
An executive education is a valuable tool in your career. The purpose of education, especially the traditional case method format that is popular in business schools, is to benefit from the experience that others gained the hard way: through trial and error. You have a great opportunity to gain poise, confidence, to build your business vocabulary and skills, and build your network along the way. You will be able to measure significant personal and professional growth as you progress through your program. Identifying your professional goals is critical. Picking the right school is the start. The rest is up to you!