I came into this role with a plan in place and I think that’s essential for CMO-level marketers. You have to do the homework. When Unisys approached me, I fell in love with the business, and from that point on I obsessed over it – I looked at every touchpoint and worked out what I could do with it. You walk in with a 30, 60 and 90-day plan, and you share who you are with your team over Skype and face-to-face. Be human, have and share a vision, and explain why it is you’ve fallen in love with the job. Marketing’s so fast-paced these days: you need a plan, you need KPIs and you need to get things done.
You also need to find out from the other senior stakeholders what they’re struggling with and what they need from marketing: that’s vital. During the interview process I met the head of sales, head of technology, head of operations, head of HR and heads of services (and of course my boss); I took notes and worked out how the marketing team could help them.
Personally, I don’t think about personal brand: I think about being authentic and trying to teach. People ask for my secret sometimes, but really it’s just the obvious stuff. If you’re not nervous, you’re not growing. Surround yourself with people who know more than you. And finally, it’s not about a PR exercise: authenticity always shines through.
I joined Hymans Robertson in 2005 as a marketing coordinator when there were only three people in marketing. Today, we have 800 employees and a marketing team of 14, so the business and the team have gone through a big transformation.
Working hard, always wanting to get involved in new things and taking on more responsibility all pay dividends for career progression. Building relationships is also crucial. My most recent promotion – in August last year – came as a result of our current head of marketing moving on to pastures new. My colleague, who was head of PR, and I quickly decided that we wanted to put ourselves forward to co-head the team. We both had young families, already worked part-time and brought complementary skills to the table. She and I like and respect each other hugely and we support each other 100%. I’m happy she makes decisions without my input and vice versa. That’s why it works. We’re also good at different things, with very different styles and approaches, but we share the same values. I feel very fortunate to work for a business that’s so supportive of flexible working.
Being able to progress your career within one organisation is brilliant but isn’t without its challenges – as you progress you need to shake off the perception that people used to have of you, which only gets tougher as you move into leadership roles. An example: I used to be ‘chief heather pinner’ (unofficial title) at our annual Burns Supper client events. I used to wonder whether the senior partners still saw me as the girl pinning heather on Burns Night. I don’t think so anymore, but there is a challenge around shifting perceptions and proving your worth at every step.
The worst advice I ever received from one boss (and I stress it’s the only questionable advice she ever gave me) was to ‘…act more male’ to make an impact. I’m glad to say I ignored it. Being authentic and getting recognised on merit is how it should be: not based on your gender or which mask you happen to wear in the workplace!
Building your personal brand is critical if you want to move up the career ladder. I started by speaking at conferences – it’s amazing how differently I’m treated after someone has seen me speak on stage in front of 1000 people. Doing that brought corporate and academic speaking opportunities. Writing’s another big thing you can do to build your brand. I was a contributing writer to The Next Web, which helped build my name in tech. Blogging on your own blog and cross posting on LinkedIn, engaging in conversations with known thought leaders on Twitter and guest posting can all help you build your name.
If people don’t know you exist – you don’t. You need to be seen and heard to become known. Becoming known helps build your thought leadership and makes it easier for people to trust you. You’ve already put what you think out there, and you will be headhunted thanks to that. Trust me, I once went to what I thought was coffee with an old friend and ended up being a two-hour meeting with him asking me to join the company as their head of marketing. Building your personal brand pays – you’ll be hunted for work instead of having to hunt for it.
There’s no denying that I’ve taken an unconventional route to the director or marketing role – so much so that even when the role was staring me in the face, I still couldn’t see it. I worked for GDM, which was acquired by Ve Interactive (Ve) in 2014. In April last year, the CMO announced that she was planning to move on. My COO took me for a coffee and told me that the chief strategy officer had recommended me for the role and that our CEO had endorsed it.
I nearly spat my flat white all over his white shirt, but after letting it sink in, it made a great deal of sense. I’d got to know the marketing team, who were really strong, and could see I could provide them with that much-needed commercial angle. I’d worked in the commercial teams they supported, understood the products and technology, and was already integrated with the management team.
How do you secure a promotion? Be results-oriented and align your objectives directly alongside revenue targets – this will help you to get buy-in from the business and the budget you need to support their efforts. Put aside a small amount of your budget each month for experimentation – research methods like growth hacking and see what gets the best results for the least spend. Obviously, you also need to think about the full customer experience from first engagement through to brand advocacy – happy clients will do much of your job for you from there. And finally: get out to events with other senior marketers and challenge yourself by going out of your comfort zone by presenting to an audience if you haven’t before.
Making the leap from independent consulting to a new corporate world at Unify – which is what I did – did not come without its challenges. It’s like transitioning from Android to Apple – it’s a phasing period, but it’s important to keep an open mind and keep learning cool features with each new day.
For those looking to make the leap, it’s all about applying yourself in this very diverse environment. The joy of consulting is being able to focus very intently on one functional area such as channel development, or skimming the surface of several disciplines in building and executing a joined-up strategy. That changes when you become a CMO. It’s about being able to consistently drive that day-to-day activity in a global enterprise, while keeping an eye on the future. It’s hard to do, but essential, and ultimately very rewarding.
