Do you ever wonder what your CMO is thinking about? What issues and trends are keeping your marketing leader up at night? We know CMOs play a big, powerful role, leading the company’s efforts to win market share, boost revenues and gain profits. The job sounds exciting but the top marketing job in the business is a minefield with the highest turnover in the C-suite.
Talented executives crash and burn unless they look at the CMO role in a bigger picture. CMOs need to have strong beliefs, be an exceptional expert in matters that are important and a visionary obsessed with pragmatic outcomes. Apart from the obvious areas of focus including marketing budgets, ROI, rising responsibilities, the dearth of talent, ever-increasing capability needs and the shift to digital, there are other areas to understand that are critical to success for the CMO. I think these stand out:
- The importance of establishing a passion early
- Dealing with competing in an “always” on era
- Directing the story of the brand
- How to learn from traveling the world
- Enjoying family as a place for creativity at work
- How to determine where people fit on a team
- How to get your people to buy into a larger vision
- How to inspire Millennials
- How do you get your game face on when a marketing campaign tanks.
The customer is changing, which in turn is driving changes to marketing itself, and to the role of the CMO who needs to be remarkable, measurable and distinguished with unique value. Hell has no fury than the second rate. Hold on.
PUNCH & KISS 