Tips for Marketing Professionals at Review Time

It’s review time and time to showcase your accomplishments. Saying “I spent so much time submitting our website to directories” won’t do you much good while asking for a raise. What bosses (managers, CMOs, CEOs) need to see are results. And if you’ve been doing things right, this should be easy.

Here are some ways you talk about the results you’ve achieved.

Business Results

If you can showcase business results you’ve helped achieve, that’s the best business case you can make for rewards (read: raise or bonus and/or promotion). What kind of business results?

We WILL Try

No. Saying “I will try” is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign that you aren’t full of arrogance. It’s a sign that you don’t completely lack self-awareness. It’s a sign that some tasks are difficult. It’s a sign that you’re aware that some circumstances are out of your control. It’s a sign that you’re human.

Not that I’d advise you to say “I’ll try, boss” when she tells you to get into office on time. But if she gives you a task that you haven’t done before, it’s okay to say “I’ll try.”

If you’ve never created a case study on your own before, it’s okay to say, “I’ll try.” It’s also okay to say “I’ll try to get this done tomorrow” when you need answers from Abhijeet the Account Manager and he’s been too busy to talk to you.

Wondering If A Marketing Career Is For You?

Often, I hear from acquaintances or friends who are bored in their current jobs, consider themselves creative, and wonder if they should try to build a career in marketing. Here is what I wrote in reply to one such email.
——

I don’t quite know where to start. I understand your problem: it’s difficult to know whether you’ll like something different until you try it out. But the best way to find out is to try it out. And I’m glad you’re willing to take the risk.

I’d advise you to do these three things.

Why Be A Marketer?

It was when I was in b-school that I realized that marketing is the most important function in a business. Finance and human resources are important, but come later, once you have a business and people. Product development and operations seem more fundamental, but think about it: until you think of the customer, of who you’re making the product (or providing the service) for, you haven’t got much of a business. And that, that thinking of the person who’s going to pay you for doing what you do, and thinking of how you are going to get them to buy what you have to sell, how you make the product better so they want to buy it: that’s marketing.

And when you put it that way, it’s what you start doing before you set up a business and hire people; before you start working on that marvelous new software idea you have. It starts when you say, “Oh, this will be a great concept, and this product is going to help people do that.”