Chapter 5 – Delivering The Impossible

Your job is to sell

Marketers will get the CEO’s attention if they’re helping Sales close deals and having a positive impact on the P&L. Get closer to your counterparts in the Sales organization, understand their pipeline and what the barriers are to conversion, so you can help them focus on the high-probability opportunities.

Leverage your access to research, data, and what you know about the customer’s wants and needs, and bring those proactively to the Sales team to help them do their job.

Requirements rule

Being able to articulate what you need, why, what you want to be able to do with the information or technology they provide, and the potential value to the organization will go a long way towards getting you what you need. Not every marketer is comfortable in the role of Business Analyst, so you may need some help with this, but essential if you’re going to help your IT team to help you. They will give you exactly what you ask for, so you need ensure that what you ask for is clear.

Do the math

Marketers need to be fluent in CFO-speak. If we agree that marketing is about selling, then selling is about revenue, and revenue is about margin and costs. The CFO is your conduit to being recognized as a valuable contributor to performance, so they should be on your scheduled weekly visits or check-ins so you can build a relationship with Finance. They will be happy to help you and will appreciate your desire to make sure they have what they need from you every month to understand the numbers and what’s behind them.