I recently returned from a week of climbing in the mountains at 2500 ft. It was exhilarating! My experience got me thinking about leadership and a trend I’m seeing emerge in the business world. Increasingly more marketers are transitioning into mainstream management roles – it’s an exciting development and I applaud every one of you who has made the move. You see, I’m a marketer at heart and believe that the skills I acquired as a marketer paved the way for a move into general management. Marketing is about being creative and it’s also about having the ability not to get carried away with things that don’t offer great returns – creativity and discernment make for great qualities in general managers too. Let me say more about why I believe great leaders are made better, stronger and more informed by their marketing experiences.
For me, it’s all down to what successful marketers do day in and day out–they make and capture markets and they build brands. Think about these three areas from a general management perspective – making a market is like creating a company, capturing a market is about attracting and delighting customers, and building a brand is akin to retaining and growing your customer base. Let’s take a closer look:
Making Markets
A good marketer knows that how you define the space you want to occupy can make or break what you market. The same is true of creating a company – establishing the pain point you’re proposing to solve, the way you’re proposing to do it and what you stand for are imperative. For me, the fusion of experience and getting practical – with data – is essential to this.
Collaboration is also paramount – good marketers know about the value of relationships and surround themselves with people based around what they are trying to build. The same is true of general managers, who recognize the importance of building business partnerships and ecosystems. The right collaboration can unlock the gates into a new market for you to own, and can facilitate the change you want to see in the world.
And then there’s the competition. Like a good marketer, a successful general manager knows that competition is imminent and shows no fear. Competition means you’re doing something right – you’ve made your market and now there’s really something to play for.
Capturing Markets
Successful marketers don’t stop there – they hunger to capture that market too. And to me, capturing a market involves studying every part of the customer journey, including emotional engagement. And you can’t do that without data! As any great leader knows, your ability to make and capture markets is greatly intensified if you have the data set. But right now, only 20% of the world’s data is searchable. Where’s the other 80%? It’s unstructured and hiding in your businesses.
So, capturing a market is about finding the right tools to uncover data and help you understand it – by spend, advertising, return, each customer’s journey and more. Ask yourself ‘What’s the data of that?’ and apply your experience and expertise to the smart technology insights you get from the tools you use. See the data you have as an incredible opportunity, both to acquire knowledge and to create actionable insights.
Building Brands
I truly believe that building brands, like making and capturing markets, is all about being bold and brave. The importance of these two qualities will never change but staying true to each will get easier. With data, you can be bold and brave in every single engagement – you will be able to understand your customer’s journey, their preferences and habits in ways you cannot imagine! And so, you can inform your business and do something quite extraordinary – anticipate needs of customers and fulfill them to create brand devotees!
Brand ‘You’
Finally, but no less importantly, building your personal brand is just as critical when it comes to navigating a shift to the C-Suite. The first thing is to know who you are, what you stand for and what drives you forward. It’s not just about your skills – it’s about what is important to you and what makes you tick. Set out your stall and share your vision – and get out there and go for it! Round out your experience and dare to fail along the way. And if something is not quite going to plan, take a step back, remember your vision, weigh up where you are with where you want to be and re-calibrate. Be willing to change everything except who you are! The power of every individual is being brilliant and believing in yourself – let’s never under-estimate that!