Nine months ago I became the Chief Marketing Officer of an organization that CEO Bill McDermott described as “the defining enterprise software company of the 21st century.”
Great CEOs don’t do it all themselves. They ask, “Who on my team can handle this?” So when the calls came, my mandate was clear: become a self-identifying enterprise software CMO for the 21st century.
The appointment comes amid a global pandemic, disruptions to global supply chains complicated by war and escalating climate disasters, and a looming pandemic macroeconomic hangover.
So how do I like it so far? It was the most demanding, mind-and-soul-expanding, enjoyable, inspiring, and exhilarating experience of my career.
Perhaps some of what I’ve learned after nine months can help my CMO colleagues, and those who follow us.
Lens Search: The Birth of B2P2
Since the pandemic put everyone’s evolution into hyperdrive, marketers have realized that the old categories of B2B, B2C, and B2B2C are obsolete. As of 2020, our profession has embraced the People Business (B2P) paradigm. Business, fundamentally, is relationships between people. Even in the largest businesses, the key decision makers are still people.
I soon realized that the concept of B2P is still not precise enough. The pandemic is a global event that, somewhat ironically, puts an intense spotlight on the personal. In a marketing context, this underlines the centrality of supporting customers purpose – personal and organizational – and the need to serve the customer by customers hierarchy of needs as those needs change over time.
I call this increased awareness B2P2and this is the lens through which I view the whole landscape of being a CMO.
The old B2B model: Marketing focused on lead generation and passed it off to Sales, then the two functions traded back and forth on the quality and quantity of leads generated by marketing.
In B2P2, we frame our entire marketing concept as a dynamic, immersive, continuous process centered around the needs of customers and their customers. We don’t shop at targets, we put ourselves in total service at experience of the customer and the customer’s customers.
B2P2 changing the basics of Marketing. Frankly, I think our profession could do a better job of implementing the necessary transitions. Everything around us has changed, and so has our thinking about messaging and positioning, brand strategy, content strategy, media mix/channel, enabling GTM, programs, campaigns, and measurement, among others more functions. (I will write more about each of these in future pieces.)
Practicing B2P2 Inside: The Leadership Challenge
The need to think and act differently internally is as strong as the external need to serve customers in new ways. As the ServiceNow brand promises to make the world work for our customers and their customers, as a leader I must serve each team member’s individual goals, needs, and hungers to unlock their full potential As a human. (To underscore the importance of purpose, a recent Gloat survey found that 86 percent of employees consider their work to be important as it aligns with their values and aspirations.)
Much of modern business is new, but some elements are timeless. I am reminded of Peter Drucker’s saying: “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everyone else needs leadership.
A great way to gain a team’s trust as a leader is to be open about vulnerability. When a leader is honest about imperfection, admitting that it is as difficult as their team to find balance amid tsunamis of uncertainty, the result is mutual empathy, the rocket fuel of team success.
Being a CMO requires a 360-degree B2P2 skill set because a Marketing team is unique. There are creative experts in colors and copywriting whose job it is to connect with customers on an emotional and aesthetic level. There are quant-genius data scientists who use powerful analytics to make ad-placement decisions in hundreds of seconds. There are product marketing people and customer marketing people, all with different methods and foci. And they’re all on the same team!
A CMO must exercise the muscles of IQ and EQ equally well, and master the power of “and.” A modern CMO needs empathy to align with creative storytellers and quantitative skills to understand the data scientist (and vice versa). Global and local activation. Direct sales and partner/ecosystem enablement.
The CMO also needs financial and P&L acumen, Sales knowledge, and deep product understanding.
Perhaps most difficult of all, the 21st century CMO must solve a myriad of problems…by inspiring the efforts of others. Like the best CEOs, resist the urge to do it themselves.
CMOs must always stick to the landing – leading a hugely disparate team, with the widest spectrum of skills, needs, emotions, and goals, in the precise, pinpoint mix of integrated, always-on activities that are successful and sustainable that keep the needs, goals, and experiences of customers and their customers at the center of everything we do.
Challenging? Hell yes. But for some reason I can’t wait to get up and start working every morning.