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Inspiration is a leader’s most powerful weapon

Inspiration is a leader’s most powerful weapon

As a customer-focused leader, you are in the inspiration business. The biggest part of your role is to mobilize people in your company to make a great customer experience happen. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just issuing orders to those around you. Your best bet is to inspire them. But how?

Trust and how to build it

Trust and how to build it

In a marketing team, trust is the foundation for everything. No matter how good your team’s marketing skills are, they won’t make a dent in the market unless people give their best and take some risks.

Inspiration is a leader’s most powerful weapon

Dear CFO: Trust your marketer!

Hand over heart: What do you think of marketers? Many CFOs think that marketers talk bollocks, don’t understand the company, and simply can’t be trusted. To be fair, they sometimes have a point. But most of their perceptions are wrong—there’s more common ground than they may think. In fact, marketing most likely determines the fortunes of your company.

Why marketing jargon is a career killer

Make your marketing team a revenue center

Marketing leaders must constantly show that marketing delivers financial returns. Why? If the organization knows your work delivers a return, the decision makers will give you the resources and support you need for your important marketing projects.

5 facts about marketing every CEO (and CMO) needs to know

Even decades after leadership thinker Peter Drucker said his famous sentence “the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation” there’s still a—surprisingly lively—debate as to whether marketing’s (and marketers’) role should be exalted. Here are five research-backed facts that prove all marketing skeptics wrong. Marketing and CMOs are crucial for company success! Full stop.

Why marketing jargon is a career killer

When leaders need a bulldozer

Leadership means sticking to decisions unless there’s a very good reason to change or stop. If you’re leading these meetings, stay calm, refer to the old plan, raise the issues, and suggest solutions. Successful CMOs are great consensus-builders. But at times, “renting a bulldozer” comes in handy.

Why marketing jargon is a career killer

Cannes 2016–Five takeaways for CMOs

There’s lots of encouraging news coming out of Cannes. While marketing still faces tactical challenges—social media, big data, ROI, to name just a few—the prevailing belief is that CMOs are back in the driver’s seat. They’re cutting through the clutter and refocusing their attention on what really matters: great work that drives the business.

To thrive as a marketing leader, step out of your role

How marketers can help the company change

Delighting customers is high on every CMO’s agenda. This often means building capabilities to serve customers faster, better, or in a more personalised manner. Technology isn’t the hardest part, however; what’s really tough is driving changes within a company. It’s...

To thrive as a marketing leader, step out of your role

Success comes from working with the best

People will forget the price, but they’ll never forget the quality, famous designer Jil Sander was once quoted. For marketers, her point couldn’t be more true (from my cmo.com column). Your ideal agency partners may be a six-hour flight away, and expensive. But...

The real reason for marketing’s diversity problem

Storytelling is a marketing leader’s most important skill

Marketing is only one piece of the customer experience puzzle. To create a truly remarkable experience, other departments must also be heavily involved. The challenge is that colleagues in these other departments don’t perhaps report directly to you. You must find ways to mobilize them, starting with sharing your vision through a powerful story.

Inspiration is a leader’s most powerful weapon

Why bosses don’t listen to marketers

Daniel* is a marketer–and Daniel has a problem: he isn’t getting his boss’s attention. A regional marketing head of a large consumer electronics company, he often finds himself last on his boss’s agenda. Daniel isn’t alone. Millions of marketers struggle to get attention. Perhaps their work isn’t seen as critical for the company.

Why marketing jargon is a career killer

Can’t be in charge? Start a movement

Let’s face it: you’re not in charge of it all. Almost nobody is really in charge of it all. Your boss can disagree with you. Your colleagues can push their own agendas. Even your team members can push their will over yours. We are in the 21st century. The old...

Why marketing jargon is a career killer

3 digital traps for marketers–and how to avoid them

“Who should lead our digital marketing transformation?” Many CEOs are looking for leaders to move the company’s marketing into the future. Too often, however, top marketers don’t make it onto the CEO shortlist because they’ve fallen into a digital CMO trap. It doesn’t have to be like this.

The real reason for marketing’s diversity problem

Great marketing teams love having a good fight

Consumers’ lives wouldn’t be the same without Diet Coke, the Swiffer, or Red Bull. CEOs would certainly miss telling the success stories behind how these brands were created and marketed. But the real key behind many successful products is innovation. And to truly innovate, marketing teams need constructive conflict.

To thrive as a marketing leader, step out of your role

The 4Ps of marketing leadership

Millions of marketers master the famous 4Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. But if you’re a marketing executive, you won’t get very far without also tackling the 4Ps of marketing leadership: productivity, purpose, pull and power.

Inspiration is a leader’s most powerful weapon

Are you a Jobs or a Wozniak?

There’s no doubt a company can survive the digital revolution intact without expertise–a la Steve Wozniak. At the same time, however, there is a need for marketing leaders to see the big picture and develop strong leadership skills–a la Steve Jobs. So how can marketing leaders gain more influence?