In a move I didn’t see coming, my boss called me in February with a request: He needed help in marketing. After a few conversations, I found the challenge enticing, and I was appointed chief marketing officer for data centers and global services at the Fortune Global 500 company where I’ve worked for 18 years.
The funny thing is that my background has largely been on the product development side of the business, including three years as chief technology officer. In making this transition, I discovered that past experience is powerful, as everything I’ve worked on in my career helps in my new role.
The traditional CMO role has changed tremendously in only a few years. The line between marketing and technology is blurring. Technological change drives our industry, and we need to explain how we’re relevant in these transitions. We sell technical solutions to technical people. Products and specifications matter.
I’m working with my team to create a new vision for our marketing at a moment when data center technology is evolving at speeds we never imagined. This type of change can be disorienting. The analogy that comes to mind is from the classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life, when George Bailey got to experience what his hometown would be like if he’d never been born. The scenery and faces were familiar, but the world had completely changed.
For my role, I talked with many people and listened without knowing where I was headed. I didn’t have Clarence as a guardian angel, but I had experience in managing teams, had sold products we developed to customers and interacted with partners and respected industry leaders. I mined my product development background for insights. I studied our marketing data and KPIs and challenged long-held assumptions as I set out to identify priorities and create an overall strategy.
After seven months and hundreds of conversations, I’ve come to some conclusions on the marriage of tech and marketing. Here are the top five lessons I’ve learned as a modern CMO in the AI era.
1. Less activity, more strategy
It’s natural that we want to be in action. I’ve found that marketing personalities can be particularly active. Sometimes, however, the best thing you can do is stop doing things. Sometimes, listening is more important, and openness creates space where team members feel safe. They will open up and share experiences. Industry leaders will tell you about challenges. Partners will share stories.
By gathering their insight, your priorities and strategies will start to emerge. You will begin to uncover how being active isn’t the same as progress. Focusing on priorities and having a sense of urgency is what matters. I now try to start every conversation with one question: “What’s the most important thing we need to be doing?”
2. More time with customers
Putting customers first and understanding their needs is critical, but it’s sometimes overlooked in marketing. I’ve had conversations with my team where they believe they’re being customer-centric, but in reality, they were appeasing internal stakeholders.
I’ve learned to emphasize that our job is to deliver what current and future customers need. For these talks, start with a simple question: “Tell me about the last customer you spoke to about this topic. What did they say?”
3. Less complexity
I work in a complex company in a complex industry. The changes hitting the data center and IT infrastructure space have always been dynamic, but the AI buildout is unprecedented in its disruption. This disruption has caused confusion for many, especially those new to the industry. It can be difficult to navigate and know where to focus. As a consequence, teams may start to focus on everything, leading to lots of activity and limited progress. I now ask a simple litmus test: “Who is the customer, and what are they supposed to take away?”
4. Your theory failing is not you failing
You won’t succeed without trying new ideas. However, I don’t like to “fail fast.” I prefer to “learn quickly.” If you discover something isn’t working, stop doing it. If it’s working, put more behind it.
This is easier said than done. In past jobs, I’ve seen product development teams become overly vested in their product ideas. In general, engineers are rational thinkers and can be difficult to move once they’ve drawn their conclusions. Marketing professionals are generally creative and will work to spin almost any marketing program as successful.
I’ve always tried to avoid an emotional connection to an initiative and emphasize to my teams that we’re testing a theory, not testing them. If our theory was wrong, we’d move on. However, I’ve found that what makes marketing personalities fantastic is that they love to persuade, and they will persuade you that they’re doing the right thing. I’ve learned to ask: “How much time and money are we willing to spend to discover whether this theory is correct?”
5. The opportunity
Some people view marketing as only a sales support function that generates sales leads, connecting a company’s offerings with its intended market for short-term business success. I’ve always viewed the marketing function as a way to raise awareness and help drive the company’s strategy to influence customers with a compelling brand and story.
I believe this area of marketing can be underestimated in a product and engineering culture. We also underestimate the cost of opportunity lost—missing the wave of disruption. The question I ask the marketing team: “How is what you’re proposing tied to positioning the company with our strategy and industry trends?”
It’s a wonderful time
I believe AI will be one of the greatest innovations since electrification. I tell my teams every day that we’re facing a once-in-a-generation opportunity, but it’s not easy. At the end of stressful meetings, I try to paraphrase Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life: “We’ve been given a great gift because it doesn’t get better than this!”
This article was previously published in Forbes.
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