I recall that when I started out in marketing, we had these huge brand plans. Which was to be expected, as we worked on a huge brand. Big brand, big plan. Made sense. Involved thematic advertising, sponsorship advertising, seasonal advertising and product focused advertising. As you can imagine, our ad agency was extremely happy with us. So, we created these campaigns, made big ideas come alive, activated the brand in real life. Leveraged brand equity (still have no clue what that meant, but it sounds amazing). Thing was, especially on sales, we didn’t seem to make the desired impact. Must be those salespeople. With all we do, they cannot seem to make a dent. And not very receptive to our ideas as well. What is wrong with these people? This went on for a while, till we sat down with those people, from sales. Talking to each other, we found that we had a different set of KPI’s than they did. Obviously, this was not very surprising, as brand awareness is not one you will usually find within sales. We didn’t share the key ones though. A great recipe for misalignment. After, we agreed on certain shared kpi’s and all of a sudden, impact started happening. Doors were opening, people smiling. Walking on sunshine.

You may read this and think, we got all of that covered. Not an issue, not with us. That is great. I would say, close your laptop and enjoy the weekend. One less thing to worry about. I would bet though, that in a lot of places, this is not taken care of. Could have all kinds of reasons, one for instance is “the island syndrome”. Great to remain on yours, as it also protects you from all kinds of involvement. Nothing sticks, nice teflon armor. But that is exactly where you need to be as a marketer: the spider in the web. You need to hop in your marketing speedboat and cross over to sales island and the operations insula, head over to the motu of finance (for more on motu’s, google motu Rangiroa near Tahiti Bora Bora). Be interested, ask questions, ask how you can enhance each other’s efforts.

Being successful as a marketer does not come from that intellectual PowerPoint or strategic thinking, it is about making an impact. Impact often is defined as an external measure, but it all starts internally, that is where the magic needs to happen. The Rio Olympics gold medal winner of the 10KM open water once told me the secret behind winning a race: “You win the race on the training grounds.”

That is the secret: align, align and align, and win those salespeople’s hearts and minds. That’s how you make an impact. That is what makes you successful. If you want to discuss how to go about, give me a ring, let’s do coffee.