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Marketing Leadership
The three gaps marketers must bridge

Getting Inside the Revenue Camp

Influential leaders are associated with profitable revenue. Too many executives aren’t. They’re missing out. Time to get into the revenue camp. Profitable growth (the sustainable kind) is high on every CEO’s mind. In fact, next to strategy and organization,...

Smart Strategies for Handling ‘Get Me One Of Those’ (G.M.O.O.T.)

Marketers must stop being digitally naïve

The label ‘digital’ makes marketers throw all leadership rules overboard (from my Marketing Week column). I love technology. When new tech stuff comes out, I immediately fall victim to the ‘wannahave’ mentality. For some it’s shoes. For me it’s gadgets. But...

How to recruit the wrong marketers?

How to recruit the wrong marketers?

What’s the best tool for recruiting the wrong people? A long competency list. If you want too much, you may simply not spot the best marketing leaders. Cut to the chase and ask yourself a simple question: “What distinctive skills do we need?”

Smart Strategies for Handling ‘Get Me One Of Those’ (G.M.O.O.T.)

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.

Smart Strategies for Handling ‘Get Me One Of Those’ (G.M.O.O.T.)

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.

Storytelling is a marketing leader’s most important skill

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.

Storytelling is a marketing leader’s most important skill

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.

Storytelling is a marketing leader’s most important skill

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.

How to recruit the wrong marketers?

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...

How to recruit the wrong marketers?

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 three gaps marketers must bridge

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.

Smart Strategies for Handling ‘Get Me One Of Those’ (G.M.O.O.T.)

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.

Storytelling is a marketing leader’s most important skill

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...