Marketing Coaching
The reaction to my Marketing Coaching approach has been extremely positive. Hence I wanted to expand the topic with a post.
Throughout my career I have observed 3 common traits in successful marketers:
- A display empathy for the customer;
- An insatiable curious always honing up their marketing skills;
- And an ability to influence.
Customer Empathy
Obviously understanding the customers will help you identify their needs. But only by empathising with the customer will you truly isolate some key customer insights that drive them. Getting the marketers up the empathy path is often an evolution. It involves moving mindset from an intellectual understanding to live interactions with the customers where a true emotional connection is established.
Insatiable Curiosity
Because we, too often, focus on the marketing skills and knowledge of our marketers. In most cases though these are entirely transferable (thankfully seeing how fast this is evolving). However what is less transferable is the intrinsic behavior and willingness to continuously develop and grow oneself.
So how do you recognize insatiable curiosity? These are the people that enjoy dissecting commercials, participate in online and real life networks, constantly reading up and trying out new approaches.
I have lost track the number of people I have stumped with a very simply interview question: “What is the latest marketing or business book you have read and what did you learn and apply?” And no, Kotler’s Principles of Marketing did not impress me as an answer.
Ability to Influence
This is a skill that all marketers can relate to. No doubt that influence in marketing is paramount. This is true for the junior marketer who needs to enroll a salesforce into a marketing campaign or the senior executive interacting at the C Suite. In both cases, the ability to influence is a cornerstone of success.
What is interesting though is how this ability progresses and evolves throughout the career. In the earlier stages, the ability to convince salespeople, manage group interactions and communication with senior management are key. Later these skills will evolve into true leadership skills around people management and vision enrollment.
The Role of Marketing Coaching
Designed to help facilitate professional and personal development, coaching provides individual growth leading to improved performance and contentment.
Therefore effective coaching is tailored designed with an in-depth assessment of the current development and future expectations. The second phase is to put in place down to earth action to address the development needs. As with any behavior change program the secret is practice, practice and practice again!
As a result I have put together 2 programs.
The PROFESSIONAL MARKETING COACH is aimed a junior and mid-level management and focuses on developing the fundamentals marketing skills: Branding, Planning, Customer Experience, Message Management, Agency Management, Event Management…
The EXECUTIVE MARKETING COACH is for senior and executive marketing level. This program focuses more on core marketing leadership skills: Vision & strategy, Team building & leading, Communication, Personal branding, Working across cultures, Virtual teams, Driving accountability…
Obviously both can be customised as required. You can head over here to learn more about it: Santa-Marketing.com or just reach out to me on +32 499 997677 or christian@santa-marketing.com