Maria Burpee, director, EMEA healthcare marketing & strategy at Dell, is proof female professionals can climb the career ladder and start a family. With International Women’s Day approaching Jessica McGreal caught up with the marketer to discover how she broke the mould
“I’m pregnant, not ill,” replies Maria Burpee to the photographer’s suggestion it might be unsafe to conduct the photoshoot on the B2B Marketing HQ roof. Flying over from Portugal for the profile, with two young children at home and the third on the way, Maria is unflustered and ready to take on anything. This unique marketer is proof that starting a family doesn’t necessarily have to mean ‘bye, bye career’. However, it is the widening gender pay gap in marketing that really gets under Burpee’s skin.
The gap
The tech marketer brought up the issue that seems to continually plague the industry. Salary secrecy can perpetuate the problem of gender inequality, and the issue can be quite complicated. Burpee hopes to see progress on this at all levels, within companies as well as at government level. She explains: “Until we start breaking down barriers, discussing the data openly and honestly, and doing something about it we are going to keep hearing the same statistic for the next 20 years. Let’s tackle the issue head-on and we’ll be better for it.”
Authenticity
Salary transparency will go some way to bridging the gender pay gap, but female professionals also need to take responsibility. Burpee urges female marketers to truly know themselves, be authentic and highlight their achievements rather than assuming people will notice. In order to be rewarded properly female marketers have to shout about their accomplishments, however unnatural it may feel. Burpee says: “An example of this, although a generalisation, comes from Mira Brezinski’s book Knowing Your Value when she says: ‘It’s about knowing your value. A woman sees a filthy floor and says ‘where’s the broom, let me clean up we are a team and we collaborate’. And when someone says ‘good job’, she replies ‘it was all of us’. When a man sees a filthy floor they assume someone else is going to clean it up. They are focused on them and where they are going. When someone congratulates them they say ‘thank you’ and ‘oh by the way did you see this other great thing I did.’”
However, she agrees it is often difficult for strong business women to exert power without coming across bossy or even bitchy: “You have to be true to yourself and have to decide how to play that game or not and you have to fight for it. But, it’s a super delicate thing. The minute you come out as aggressive or rude people turn off and they see a change in your personality – it’s a very tricky thing to navigate.”
Burpee’s top tips
Here are three tips to ensure B2B marketers start to “slow down, step back and make authentic connections instead of just sending e-shots.”
1. Take the tricks out of marketing: If you can make things useful by making information free and accessible, then in the longer term, prospects will trust you and become evangelists or even customers.
2. Stop shouting: There are millions of other brands out there saying the same thing. With the over saturation of content, marketers need to take a step back and rethink their strategy with a focus on making authentic connections.
3. Be comfortable about doing things differently: Step off the curb and have the guts to say ‘I’m not doing the same things anymore.’ Programmes should be a mix of proven best practices and risk-taking to try new activities or innovative tweaks to exisiting projects.
Remote working
Becoming a B2B leader is still a pipe dream for the majority of female marketers. Recent EMR research revealed that more than twice the number of men (18 per cent) reach director level compared to women (seven per cent). Burpee admits: “I think for me without having a supportive spouse and family close all while working from home; I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.”
To climb the career ladder and work from home is rare. She explains: “I’m super lucky because Dell is one of the best – I think it was just named number three employer for flexi-working – So that right there gives you an incredible amount of freedom and balance – it changes everything.” This might be a unique case in the industry at the moment, but businesses across the globe are beginning to accept flexi-working with more and more ‘work from home’ job advertisements popping up.
Yet, remote working does have its disadvantages. Individuals need to know if they can be productive at home while setting themselves limits and turning off. Burpee is an “organisational freak” and her daily routine ensures she is productive: “I am not one of those people that can wake up and the first thing I do is check email. I try and start my day calm and organised. The first thing I do at the beginning of the day is make a list, and at the end of the day cross off what I did so I know what I’m doing the next day. I have weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly priorities. Everything has time allocated to it, literally every ‘to do’ is in my calendar.”
‘Youtility’
Recently Burpee has been inspired by the concept of ‘Youtility’, coined by Jay Baer in his recently published book Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is about Help not Hype. This idea argues that as a brand you will be more successful if you become useful to people rather than if you just sell to them.
As a result, her most recent project has included setting up an advisory board consisting of hospital CIOs and healthcare industry people, from the EU Commission on E-Health to people from NHS England. The board will consist of a yearly face-to-face meeting and quarterly conference calls. She believes it is almost taking a step back from thought leadership because: “There is no pitching, no selling, no thought leadership being the slick way to show we are really credible and smart and you can buy from us. It’s more of an open dialogue, a roundtable where they can share their pain points, visions, challenges and goals and then Dell can bounce its strategy off them and find out what they think.”
Burpee has a point. With the abundance of content avaliable it has become increasingly important for marketers to take a step back and revaluate their strategy. She says: “Would you rather have a lead in that moment in time or have a customer for life? If you annoy them or irritate them or break their trust it’s hard to ever get them back and you have lost them forever. If you can make things useful – basically giving away information – the theory is in the longer term they trust you and come to you over and over again. And the next time you do ask them to do something for you they will because they are loyal.”
