Marketing 911
Marketing 911, is the podcast where we tackle the toughest marketing challenges at the executive level.
Whether you're navigating complex strategies, trying to reach your target audience, or facing shifting market dynamics, we're here to provide you with actionable solutions.
From digital transformation to customer retention, if it's a marketing crisis, we're here to help you solve it—before it turns into a full-blown emergency.
Marketing 911
Part 1 Mastering A New Marketing Leadership Role: Crafting a 30, 60, 90-Day Transition Plan
Unlock the secret to seamless transitions in your marketing leadership role with insights from Brian Bakstran on Marketing 911. Discover how crafting a 30, 60, 90-day plan can set the stage for success. Our conversation starts with the critical first 30 days, where embarking on a "listening tour" becomes your golden ticket to understanding your new environment. Brian shares his wisdom on engaging with colleagues, gathering honest feedback, and building trust, drawing intriguing parallels to personal experiences in the dating world. With his guidance, you’ll learn how to engage with sales executives, directors, and product management to truly understand the internal landscape of your organization.
As we move into the next phase, we explore the often-complicated dynamics between sales and marketing teams. Brian reveals how to navigate potential pitfalls by leveraging insights from a variety of stakeholders, from product management to industry analysts. We emphasize the importance of presenting your findings and recommendations by Day 60 to ensure alignment with the organization’s strategy. This discussion is vital for laying the groundwork for effective execution. Join hosts Richard Bliss and Brian Bakstran as we prepare you to transition from planning to action, sharing our anticipation for what lies ahead in future episodes.
Welcome to the show. You're listening to Marketing 911. I'm your co-host, Richard Bliss, joined by the other co-host.
Speaker 2:Brian Backstrand. Good to be back with you, Richard.
Speaker 1:Brian, this is always great for us to have these conversations and we cover so much great content. What are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So everybody listening has interviewed for jobs. Sometimes it's a long process. If you're lucky it's not that long. You gather information but you certainly don't know everything about the company. And now you're hired. You have to first impressions are critical and you don't want to kind of trip up and make some decisions that come back and haunt you too quickly. So you know, I'm a big believer in a 30, 60, 90 day plan and I'm sure, richard, you've been a CMO, you've been in a lot of different executive positions. I'm sure you created them as well. Let's start with that.
Speaker 1:Tell me about the plans you've created. Okay, I'm just going to say right up front I've never actually done that. I know it's supposed to be done and I know in my role, but I have to admit, hopefully nobody's paying attention. I don't think I've ever done that, and so I'll be interested to see what you recommend so that the next time I can be a little bit better at this, because I actually haven't had the chance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem. I mean I think I was guilty of it earlier in my career and then I certainly saw the value of it and do it every time I go into a new role. So we'll actually we'll break it into kind of three parts. Let's start with the first 30 days. Okay, okay, and so the way I look at it is even though you may have learned quite a bit I mean, I've been through interview processes with nine to 12 people and have to give a presentation on what you learn, et cetera but that's, you know, maybe nine hours of information you've gathered and they've asked you a lot of questions. So it's probably less than that.
Speaker 2:So the first thing you really need to do is go in with the mindset of in the first 30 days I'm not going to make any big decisions, I'm going to listen, listen and learn. So I call it the listening tour, and it starts with, certainly, your new boss, your peers. But in the case of marketing critical, you talk to sales and sales leadership, and not just the leaders, but directors and individual salespeople, and that's critical to really understand what's going on in the sales organization, what's going on from a marketing perspective, what's their viewpoint on marketing. Certainly don't have to respond to any of their viewpoints, but just get unfiltered, honest feedback from sales, from your peers and from other stakeholders that I'll talk about in a minute.
Speaker 1:I'll stop there. I take something away from that and that is a couple of things. On a personal note, you and I were friends when I went through a divorce. It was not fun and I don't want to bring that up. The reason I bring it up is because I learned something when I went into the dating world again at a very senior age and somebody told me they said look, if you listen really carefully, a person that you are going out with for the very first time will tell you exactly who they are. It'll actually be really for if you listen carefully.
Speaker 1:And I suddenly took that and adopted it and was shocked by what I had not been hearing. They say things about and then you're like, oh, that person is like nuts. I do not want to ever see that person again. But my point here is is that what you've just identified, I think, is an elemental principle? You come in for those first 30 days and I'm thinking about my experience they're going to tell you honestly because you just said it, they don't know you. This is their one chance to get that message out. And you're going to hear things that you might not ever hear again in that opening tour because, just like that dating advice I learned they're going to tell you exactly what they're thinking. I got to believe that's the case here. Is that what happens?
Speaker 2:A hundred percent and you know, I'd even go back to during the interview process. I'd highly recommend you take copious notes because in those interviews people are really upfront and honest. But again, when you do start a job, people will give you their honest opinion. Now there's another piece of this which is part of your job in the first 30 days is to build trust right, and so the things that people are telling you probably they don't want those shared now or in the future. They don't want it coming back to them that they said something open and honest. So, keeping in mind and I would even bring it up at the beginning hey look, you'll earn my trust over time, but you can trust that I'm not going to say anything. I'm just trying to understand so that I can help you the sales organization in this case do better. So you could just be open and honest and feel comfortable. I won't share it and people will be very open and honest.
Speaker 2:I really strongly suggest an expanded group of salespeople, because what you hear from the executives is going to probably be different than what you hear from directors and individual salespeople out in the field. So, particularly individual salespeople they're out there fighting every day. They know what marketing can bring to the table and if they're not receiving what they believe they should be, they'll make it very, very clear. So talk to your stakeholders sales, your peers, product management, depending on what the role is who's ever running product marketing? If there's a inside sales or a SDR function, getting inputs from them is really important, as they're on the phone with prospects every single day and can really articulate what's needed to be successful. So a real internal so what do you?
Speaker 1:what kind of? I mean? How do you approach this? What kind of questions are you asking them to go about doing this? Is it just just? Is it a beef session? Hey, just dump on me whatever you know? Or are you looking for ideas they have for improvement? How do you go about doing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I'm talking to the sales organization, it's very open-ended hey, tell me about your go-to-market. How do you go to market today, when you meet with a customer, tell me what that's like. What are the roadblocks you run into? And it's not so much tell me what marketing's doing well, tell me what they're not. It's more around understanding their go-to-market and listening to what they say. When they say hey, when I go into an account, here's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:It would be helpful if I had this. Here are the objections. I would ask hey, when you lose a deal, why, typically, are you losing it? Is it the product? If you win a deal, why is it that you win? And so it's not direct questions about what's working well in marketing, what's not, because then you get to you know you can back the dump truck up and you may hear a bunch of stuff that's not relevant. It's understand. Your real job is understanding the sales go to market where they're running into roadblocks, how success comes about and then from there, understanding how marketing can fill the gaps. You don't want them telling you what they think they need. It's your job to understand their business so you can fill the gaps for them.
Speaker 1:Oh, I really like that. It's not, yeah, because they're going to tell you a whole bunch of stuff. Marketing should be doing this Marketing, and some of it's not based on reality. It's just simply based on their perception. I always have a saying for sales Success is because they did something right. Failure is because marketing did something wrong. That's how most salespeople view their role. Oh yeah, I had success because this is what I did. Oh, a failure because that's what they didn't do, and I know that's not the truth, but oftentimes that's what you're saying. You're going to hear that kind of feedback when you're looking for a slightly different angle, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just as a disclaimer.
Speaker 1:I don't necessarily agree with that. Okay, there we go. I'm telling you all the sales teams I've worked with that sometimes they're like, oh, I was really successful, because it's a local effort and failure oftentimes is an external result.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's why it's important to really just it's your job to understand how they're going to market and how they sell, and from that conversation you know we'll get into this in a second and we can actually jump to it. The other insights, you know I talked about sales and your peers and product management, sales and your peers and product management all of that internally. The other areas that you need to listen and talk to are customers customers who are happy with the solution that they purchased from the company. Customers who maybe are going through a difficult time or maybe are not as happy. Maybe are going through a difficult time or maybe you're not as happy. Partners partners that are reselling your product. If you want to know what partners think, they have all of your competitors' products on a plate and when they come in in the morning they're going to sell the product. That is the easiest they can make the most money at. Obviously, that fills the need of the end user, but sitting down with partners, you're going to probably get a very different viewpoint versus people who work inside the company, and that could be both positive and maybe not so positive.
Speaker 2:Why is that important? Why is that important? Because partners will tell you how they're positioning your product versus your competitors. Because you can ask questions like when do you sell our solution versus such and such a competitor? Where do you have trouble selling it? What would help you sell more, etc. So, speaking to partners, speaking to customers, critical. So I set up phone calls with those folks and get on the phone and open-ended questions. And then, finally, analysts. You can certainly read analyst reports and that's important, but I'd get on the phone with the analysts from Gartner or IDC and say, hey, tell me about your experience, what are your thoughts on our product, our solution? Just be open. I just started. I'm running such and such a marketing team, but just love your input. Analysts love to hear that you're asking their input and you're going to take it to heart. So those are three other big buckets that I suggest in the first 30 days of your listening tour.
Speaker 1:So, on that listening tour concept, I stepped into a role once and this is how it went. I'm sitting at my desk, a fellow employee walks by, leans over my cubicle and whispers you shouldn't be here. I was like what you need to get out? And I was like it's like some horror movie. And they just kept walking and they just whispered literally and they weren't joking.
Speaker 1:And so I talked to a Gartner analyst because I had been in the industry. They knew me and they said this is so when you talk about the listening tour, no-transcript, and I don't know if I can prove you right or wrong. So I don't know if you're going to be lying to me as we have this conversation. So I'll find out more. And I'm thinking, wait, I've talked to Gartner analysts my whole career and all of a sudden, this one's telling me that he doesn't know if I'm lying which I can understand fabricating and expanding.
Speaker 1:But it was such a weird thing. And then the very next thing was our CEO was supposed to do a presentation in front of a workshop in San Francisco and he sent me instead and I hadn't even been there 30 days. And so when you talk about that listening tour, I suddenly discovered this company the CEO would hire for during an analyst review and then fire everybody as soon as the analysts were done reviewing and the paper came out and those people were trying to warn me that you're being set up for failure. So sorry, you're triggering a little bit of PTSD here, because I lasted like 30 days, because my listening tour showed me, oh my gosh, there are so many things All of a sudden. What have I stepped into? Not that that's where you were going, but I'm just thinking about all of those little signals that you can pick up on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in your case they were warnings, but in most cases it's signals of what people are telling you, because it's the first time they're talking, they're pretty open and how you connect the dots.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of the sales organization, your counterparts within the company. So very internal focused, external focused companies selling your solution, companies who have bought your solution and analysts, companies who have bought your solution and analysts. And then after that information is gathered, obviously a real deep dive has to happen within your organization itself. So if you're the CMO, it's all of marketing. If you're taking on a growth marketing organization, it's that team product marketing, it's that team product marketing, it's that team, etc. And this is where it's really important obviously to take a look at okay, what's the organizational model? Understand what does the team believe their role is where?
Speaker 1:do they see? You're now talking about the mark, you're talking about the marketing team.
Speaker 2:Now, right, right the actual marketing team that you're talking about, the marketing team now, right, right, the actual marketing team that you're going to lead, right? So, if, if I was you know, if I was overseeing product marketing, then this is where, uh, particularly after I spoke with sales and some partners and customers, then I do a deep dive with the product marketing people. So, if there's 30 people within the organization and it's understanding, I like to have them present to me say, hey, just something simple, on one slide. Just, you know, I'd love to talk to you about what it is you do and you know what are your responsibilities and what are the processes you go through. Again, very open-ended, if you know, take a look at the campaigns. Hey, just bring one or two campaigns to the meeting and just want to hear more about what it is you're doing and what are the successes, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you're going to have a ton of meetings with your team and that's going to be ongoing, but what you're trying to garner is okay is the messaging and positioning and how the strategy around their campaigns. Is it aligning with what the overall executives view as the messaging and positioning? Is it aligning with what customers are saying about why they choose the solution. Is it aligning with what the partners said around why they sell you? So just kind of looking for that alignment look what's working, what may not be working as well, and really understand the process. What's the process by which work gets done within the team and that will lead to? Do you have to make any shifts down the road, et cetera? Do you have to make any shifts down?
Speaker 1:the road, et cetera, you know, because this is your one opportunity to have a first impression right, and a fresh perspective, because after 30 days now you're kind of in the system, right.
Speaker 2:You're kind of that. It's a very short honeymoon when you start a new job, so you're 100% correct.
Speaker 1:This is your one chance, and so don't rush in too quickly to start executing. Instead, this is your one chance to gain perspective outside the organization, because after 30 days, you're now inside. Right, that's right.
Speaker 2:And yeah, so you're talking to your team inside team, but you also have some information in the back of your mind from customers, partners, analysts, sales, et cetera and, what's critical, building trust with your team. Again, same thing Not passing judgment, not questioning why do you do that? I remember entering one role. I remember entering one role and I had the CEO say to me hey, brian, when you go around and you talk to people, you're going to hear some things. And with our background, he was saying we're going to look in and say why on earth are they doing X, y and Z? He said don't question it, just that's the way things are being done now.
Speaker 2:But just understand why they're doing what they're doing, because there's usually a good reason for it. So, again, this is just 30 days of non-judgment. You're building trust with the team, right? You're getting to know them, telling them stuff about yourself, telling them stuff about yourself. You need to be open and honest and really just get a lay of the land in terms of what are some big things that maybe you should take a look at changing and a bunch of stuff that's working well that you don't want to touch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, once that happens, then you step into that next phase, and that's I think that's what we're going to cover in our next episode, isn't it? It's basically that next phase. All right, now. I've had that 30 days.
Speaker 2:Now we start to execute right, yeah, and I would say to sum up this section of the first 30 days, I think there's three key things you want to make sure you do. You want to emerge yourself into the team right, that's both the extended marketing and sales team, but, most importantly, the team that you're leading. You want to start establishing yourself and I've talked about this as a trusted leader and a partner right, Partner to sales, partner to your peers and an employee. What's best for the company? And, finally, understanding what might need adjusting and opportunities for improvement. So you haven't done anything, you haven't changed anything, you haven't passed judgment yet, because a critical part of day 31 to 60 is presenting your findings and your recommendations to whoever your boss is or the extended leadership team, to get their input, to make sure you're hearing the right things and, if you are recommending changes, that they're going in the right direction.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to our next episode, because this is where the rubber starts to hit the road, to actually start executing on and taking back that. So this has been great, excellent. We've been talking about your first 30 days on the job as an executive, particularly in marketing, because you've been listening to Marketing 911 with myself, richard Bliss and Brian Backstrand.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining. Take care.
