There has been a debate in professional services marketing that has raged for 25 plus years. It is, in short, that marketing is still not taken as seriously as we would like. That coveted 'partner status' is rare, as is equal voice on management boards.
All too often the CMO/BD Director/Head of Marketing reports into the board, rather than shapes the actions of that board.
The excellent Heidi Taylor explores this theme in her latest blog - below. It is well worth a read.
She argues that whilst marketing heads are often incredible tacticians they are rarely leaders. Heidi then goes on to explain how we can master marketing leadership skills.
I would add one thing. Sometimes, a firm is simple not ready to accept that role from its marketing head. In those situations either accept that you will be the doer of marketing stuff, or leave.
Our technical marketing skills will only get us so far. For many of us, that’s fine; we’ll certainly never get bored and if we keep on learning the new skills that new technology will invariably require, those skills will always be in demand. But if that’s all we want, then we have got to stop complaining about marketing not having a seat on the board or that our business doesn’t value us as much as we think it should. And if we want more – and different – then we need to ask ourselves some tough questions: - Do we think as well as do? - Do we create the new or maintain the status quo? - Are we doing marketing, managing the doing of marketing, or are we leading marketing within our companies? want and need from us?
http://www.heidi-taylor.com/b2b-marketing-2/what-makes-a-b2b-marketing-leader/
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