Hey - it's me Dave. Back with the weekly Exit Five newsletter. Can you follow our Instagram account? It'sExit Five Marketing (@Exit5Marketing). We'll post videos there to help you get smarter about B2B marketing while you're doom scrolling. If you want to grow your career as a marketing leader, you must master public speaking. - Dave's Law #33 OK I just made that up looking for a hook for this week's newsletter, but this is something that I have a strong belief in. You must be a top notch communicator if you want to be the CMO or marketing leader. And this is true for all formats. You need to be strong in-person, over Zoom, on video, and in writing. Marketing is one of the most misunderstood operations inside of a company and if you aren't able to control the narrative, show what you're working on, and articulate why it matters, you'll end up with the status quo today: "my company has no idea what marketing should be doing."Clear and confident and compelling communication internally is one of the reasons I was able to advance my career quickly. I didn't realize it at the time, but it matters a lot. More than me knowing CAC to LTV and MQL this and that. You can be the greatest operator behind the scenes but as the marketing leader it all means nothing if you can't communicate externally. This could also be a reason to *not* take a marketing leadership job by the way. Just like managing people and building a team, it's a completely different job than individual contributor and this is a big part of it. Or maybe you're reading this and it's uncomfortable but you want to take the next step and want to grow in this area. In either case it starts by understanding that it's important and then can build from there. Being a great communicator starts with the end in mind - it’s not about what you want to say. It’s about understanding how to guarantee the audience understands. If they didn’t understand that’s on you. If they are confused or bored that is on you.
Master internal communications. It's arguably the most underrated marketing channel. I prepped more for internal presentations and simple updates than most other things and it paid. Plus it helps you build reps for taking to customers. If they don’t believe you internally, customers never will.Here are some resources to help get you started:
- Get the book "Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs" by Carmine Gallo
- Get the book"Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives, and Other Introverts" by Joanna Penn
- Start with something simple: Even if you do not run a full team today is there an area of the business / marketing you can own and communicate about? Work on writing a weekly update to your manager every Friday - here's what we got done this week, here's what we're working on next week, here's what's working, here's what's not, here's where we're stuck. This be an email or a 2-3 slide presentation with a Loom video.
- Start with something simple: If you're the marketing leader and want to get better at proactively communicating what marketing is doing, start writing monthly recaps on the internal Wiki or sending out via Slack + Email. Take the same questions I mentioned above and also add a "What's on my mind about marketing" section and start sharing your biggest concerns outloud. It's amazing what that can do to help attract smart minds to help you get unstuck.
Hope you're having a productive week.
Dave
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