Your Marketing Director's Desk Is A Prison

Call #1: If you're a CEO, President or Managing Partner, call your Director of Marketing's office line three times in the next week.

If she or he picks up the phone, ask the following: What are you doing right now?

Truth is, it makes no difference. If they are at their desk all three times (or even two out of three times), ask yourself why you have a Director of Marketing.  Is it to be your "on call" marketing doer?  If so, then you either need to rethink the person you have in that role or what you expect of that role.  Or both.

As Marketing gets more and more technical, I've seen the role of marketer become more and more of a "desk jockey" position – creating blog posts, finessing SEO, scrubbing webinar lists, and etc.  Important work, no doubt, but is this what you want from a Marketing Director? Let me answer the question for you: No.  Sometimes, yes, but not all the time.

There is much debate about the moment when marketing becomes business development and business development becomes sales.  As well as where the hand-off needs to be for efforts and campaigns.  And there should be that debate.  It's important. So important that I suggest you have a 90 minute strategy meeting on this single point alone.

> On the soccer field, I've seen many coaches tell their defense never to cross the center line.  And for the attackers not to cross it the other way.  In both cases, this seems foolishly limiting to the flow of the game and, often, means there is a gap in both defense and attack.  

However, marketing needs to at least hand off the baton in motion (think relay race) and this requires getting away from their desk and working with both internal and (gasp!) external customers and groups.

Call #2: If you're the CEO, President or Managing Partner, call your Director of Marketing's office line, and ask another question: Which trade groups or associations do you belong to?  (Or use good grammar if you prefer.)

If the answer is "None" or all the groups have the word "Advertising," "Marketing" or "Social Media" in it, then you either need to rethink the person you have in that role or what you expect of that role.  Or both.

If your Marketing lead is a Manager and not a Director, simply search & replace those words in this post.

If your Marketing lead is a Coordinator or Specialist, then you are off the hook.  As far as this post goes, anyway.  You are either just starting up or have bigger issues.

Change "have" to "choose"

Sorry for being AWOL for a bit.  I've been juggling the youth soccer league, the Blackman Kallick Merger with Plante Moran, and our annual fundraiser for The Holiday Heroes Foundation.

Now that those are either over or in full swing, I can come back here and finish some blogs. And I will... soon.

In the meantime... Read this post from Harvard Business Review: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will.  

The second piece of advice, i.e. changing "have to" to "choose to" is amazingly liberating.  Try it and let me know how it goes ... or if you start choosing not to.

The third piece of advice requires that you have quickly and clearly articulated values. (I call mine "philosophies" to avoid any religious discussions and because they guide my working relationships, not my life decisions.) Many people who work with me know my two philosophies*.  And I advise leaders to let their staff and clients know theirs.

Do your clients and staff know yours?

But that's off the point of this post.

The reason I wrote it was because the "choose to" advice is damn good and it forced me to come here and post it to my meager reader base.


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*What are they? 1) Don't pee in the pool.  2) A rising tide rises all boats.  

Quick Networking Tip: Teeing Up "Business Talk" Over Lunch

It was never hard for me to mix business and lunch. In fact, I don't quite understand why it is for other people - especially since most of our weekday lunches are with other business folks, even if they have also become friends over the years.

Perhaps I had lunches with good networkers who weren't shy about mixing the two, so I learned from them. (In at least one case, I know this is true.)

Anyway... I'm often asked for tips and figured I'd put a couple of them here.

Have a mental agenda. (Required.)

Bring a relevant article to share.

Tee up the conversation with phrases like:

"During the business part of our lunch, I'd like to..."

"After we order and before the food comes, let's talk shop."

Set up the lunch with a business topic.

"Let's go to lunch, since I am not 100% sure who might be a good prospect for you."

"Hey, why don't you look at my LinkedIn profile beforehand and let me know of anyone you might want to meet."

"I see you now offer _______ service. Let's grab a bite; I'd like to learn more."

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Happy networking.