Jun 14, 2023

Today’s guest is an experienced senior marketing leader that also has a toolbox full of amazing marketing tactics. Chris Allen is the SVP of Marketing at Heartland and the Host of The Entrepreneur’s Studio. Chris shares his framework for assessing the ability of your marketing team along with tips on how to communicate marketing outcomes effectively with other C-Suite executives. 

Takeaways:

• As a marketing leader, one of the most important skills to know is how to step into a new team and instill the right cultural elements in order to increase that team’s performance. When inheriting a team, your superiors will be looking at how quickly you deliver growth.

• There are two parts to this hiring and management framework. The first is to assess what contributions an individual could make to the team’s output. The second is to evaluate an individual’s people skills and ability to pick up the team’s technical language.

• A new CMO’s 90-day plan should include a listening tour. This means meeting with as many members of the team as possible to understand the people and the culture within the marketing organization. 

• There are four roles an individual can play on a team and leaders need to ensure all four roles are represented. Leaders need to assess where each member fits within the team. The four roles are Producer, Entrepreneur, Integrator, and Administrator.

• To assess the skills your team excels with, break up their responsibilities into three key areas and ask them to assign a total of ten points across the three skills based on their abilities. Cross-reference their self-assessments with their managers

• Once a CMO has done their listening tour and assessed key competencies specific to each role, they need to take that data and use it to identify where their team's strengths and weaknesses are. Test how the team works together by having them take on a new project and examining their performance.

• Use the insights from your team assessment when meeting with the CEO and other C-suite members. The data-driven approach helps you outline your forecast and tangibly justify requests for additional resources for the marketing team.

Quote of the Show:

• “Part of my 90-day plan is to come in and say, okay, we’ll get to forecasting really quick, but let's understand who we have.” - Chris Allen

Connect with Chris:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscallen/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisallentv/ 

• Heartland website: https://www.heartland.us/  

• The Entrepreneurs Studio Podcast: https://www.heartland.us/resources/entrepreneurs-studio 

Shout Outs:

• Peter Drucker

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo 

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560 

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17 

• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz 

• iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/ 

• Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/ 

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/syUWifcJ0Ko 

The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/ 

Performance Marketing is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/