The Leadership Mindset Most Marketers Get Wrong

Giving Growth Podcast – Francesco De Flaviis (full transcript)

<Intro>

Greg Sobiech

I’m almost hearing you say that I have to understand how my brand fits with the market, who my competitors are, how culture is changing, how consumers are changing. Are we saying that for a marketing leader to be successful, they both need to continue to get broader in terms of the topics they can have a conversation about and yet have some degree of expertise in all those topics?

Seems a little paradoxical. 

Francesco

That is the challenge.I refer to this type of trajectory as being a polyvalent type of expertise. Over the years, we have discounted the value of the generalist, to your point, where the drive should be, get experience-driven proficiency in some of the critical areas and go deep. And requires a different type of mindset, but also requires you to have the privilege and luck to learn and a curiosity to learn more about areas that might not be squarely fit in your lane.

<Episode begins>

Greg

I want to start with one question. What do marketers need to do more of today in order to be successful, in order to not just survive? Because I think sometimes when I think back to my role as head of marketing at Bath & Body Works, it felt like survival.

What do marketers have to do more of to thrive in their roles?

Francesco

I mean, that’s kind of a mother of all questions and I think it’s very relevant. I think first and foremost, it depends the level we are talking about. So I tend obviously to focus my personal attention right now more on the C-suite level, the chief marketing officer.

But obviously there’s many levels in which you can get started, get your C-legs in terms of marketing. But eventually, it’s about where is the role of marketing within organizations and companies evolving to be in service of the companies, which I think has changed tremendously. I mean, if you look at, first off, generationally speaking, I’m part of a generation that is old.

I’m not old, but professionally speaking, I’m old because specifically I’m straggling the most important transformational aspect that has happened to organizations in general, but specifically affecting the marketing role, which is big data. So I started my career when big data was not a thing. I remember, here’s the tell sign, if you remember your first internet connection, your modem, your dial-up, then you’re probably on the way out in this job.

I plan to stay as much as I can, but the realization that data and systems have revolutionized, destroyed and rebuilt the way marketers looked at their job. Over the past decade, almost 15 years, since I would say, if we want to attribute a date, would be 2005, that I look at when this big transformation really happened, big data. There’s been a lot of specialization, right?

New thing, very important, very exciting, proliferations of platforms and tech, MarTech really exploded, really centered around data. And so it is natural that folks that were looking into marketing as a career, were looking into how do I get proficient quick? This, in my mind, has created an over-specialization in the marketing area.

And it’s not to say that you do not need to be a specialist in data. Obviously you do. When it comes to return on advertising spend, when it comes to reaching your acquisition targets, when it comes to the mid evolution of our profession, which was the experience revolution, you obviously are dependent on data.

But there’s a difference between being proficient and a critical skillset and make it a single lane. And I see a lot of folks right now that have occupied the space of mostly referred to as digital marketing. And now they find themselves in a point of their career where they don’t have an outlet for that higher level C-suite.

Because the traditional aspects of a good marketer are still very important. Branding, content, user analytics, that are not necessarily only dependent on data. These are all very, very important aspects, skillsets that you need to have if you had to step into a CMO role.

We need collectively to spend more time in becoming more rounded as marketers. And it’s not like a substitution. It’s this and that.

Because the role of the CMO in itself very recently is also experiencing a shift. So it’s a double whammy if you want, Greg, because you have the question whether current marketers are prepared. And then the questions, are they prepared fast enough for the changes that are coming down the pike?

Greg

But I think the challenge is that if I’m a marketing leader or an aspirational marketing leader, I’m almost hearing you say that I have to become more broader and deeper. So I have to understand how my brand fits with the market, who my competitors are, how culture is changing, how consumers are changing, channels are changing. By the way, I remember big data, I have to admit, I forgot that term.

You remember when it was hot? Because it was hot and big. And now it’s just there.

It’s just data. Yeah. And there’s technology, by the way, measurement, offline, online.

I think online is obviously slowing as a curve. Both online and offline are important. So again, are we saying that for a marketing leader to be successful, they both need to continue to get broader in terms of the topics they can have a conversation about and yet have some degree of expertise in all those topics?

Francesco

Correct. Seems a little paradoxical. I don’t think it is if you try to do this intentionally.

And I do feel that you mentioned something that I forgot, and you just reminded me, when the obsession was not so much about big data, but it was about the online business. 100%. And I started my career, my marketing career, because I had other careers in retail, right?

Or in manufacturing, rather. And it was clear that when we were looking here in New York the struggles of the federated department stores, where the brick and mortar every year was like, is it dead yet? And the Amazon revolution, the convenience highway.

We were looking year over year 15, 20% increases in segments that themselves represented at the very least 15 to 20% of the business. I’m saying this because what I was saying before that we over the time have over-specialized is because we were as a professional class reacting to the hot opportunity. We have now today an opportunity to look a little bit ahead and say, how is the industry changing?

Not to be Kodak waking up at the last minute and understanding that 35 millimeters is no longer relevant.

Greg

Tell me if this makes sense to you, how I think about this is I personally grew up as a hardcore digital performance marketer. And it’s been a journey of over almost 25 years for me. It is absolutely true that I have gone really deep into data tech, ad tech, mark tech, driving performance.

But over time, I’ve absolutely realized that as my role is changing, I do have to become broader. And then maybe there are marketers who still deal with more aspirational aspects of marketing, brand marketing, and they desire to actually have more expertise in user experience, user journeys, digital experiences. Again, you talked about data being behind all of that.

If you were talking to the hardcore performance marketer versus someone who is more about brand, if I can just sort of differentiate between these two mindsets, how are they supposed to be both creative and analytical at the same time?

Francesco

Well, that is the challenge. And I think, you know, I refer to this type of trajectory, so to speak, as at the very least being a polyvalent, you know, type of expertise. Over the years, we have discounted the value of the generalist, mainly because we attach a negative connotation.

A hundred percent. That the generalist is not an expert at anything. Yep.

Which, to a degree, is absolutely correct. You know, you cannot be the absolute expert if your expertise has to span across… Master of none, right?

Exactly. On the other hand, though, I think there is a very distinct role for the person that has done those jobs. Perhaps, yes, he’s not the most important expert in the field, but he’s a person that has firsthand knowledge and expertise.

I do differentiate between experience and expertise. If I come out of a fantastic training program, I might have the expertise, but I lack the experience, right? I lack the failure.

And so I do feel that there is this mid-space, to your point, where the drive should be, this is my opinion, try to, like a game of pursuit, get proficiency. Not absolute expertise, but really experience-driven proficiency in some of the critical areas. And go deep.

And requires a different type of mindset, but also requires you to have the privilege and luck to be offered throughout your career, the expertise to dive into. Which usually comes with what we call ambition, right? Which isn’t really an appetite to learn and a curiosity to learn more about areas that might not be squarely fit in your lane.

Greg

But that’s sometimes scary. Again, if you use the term big data, and I have not coded before, maybe I can use Excel really well, but I don’t fundamentally, as a marketer, understand the systems and how this data is captured. I mean, especially now with cookies going away, first party data is going to be a huge focus.

How am I, as a marketer, to whom it’s a little foreign and a little scary, all of a sudden embrace this challenge and get outside of my comfort zone? What would you do?

Francesco

Well, I mean, that’s why I made the distinctions about what levels of marketers we’re talking to, right? I started my career, as I said, in product marketing, so manufacturing, and I was like a junior product manager. The biggest task I was given at that time was just go to a store and just write down the prices and the model numbers of the competitors.

That was the big marketing assignment. But I have grown out of that role and into other roles because of my own curiosity and because the organizations actually gave me opportunities, which I’m very grateful for. But I’ve also was colleague with people that were product managers and they were like 55 years old, and they were like the best product managers, my mentors, and they didn’t necessarily feel the need to grow into a different area, and that’s fine.

We’re always going to need specialists in any ensemble in an organization. You’re going to need somebody who really knows what they’re doing when you’re talking about performance marketing, right? Because it’s so fast changing.

You need somebody who is absolutely laser focused on that. I’m referring to those people that feel the need to occupy higher, more strategic spots in the value chain of an organization. And the uber specialization is not going to cut it anymore.

And so I think I’ve seen people faking it until they make it. And frankly, a lot of people didn’t make it because there was not enough time for them to fake it until they make it, right? And so that’s something, a distinction there.

It has to be intentional. You and I talked before in our chats about choices and intentionality. I do feel there is a mix of, again, having the luck of being offered opportunities, but also recognizing them, accepting them, taking the challenge, talking about scary leaps into uncomfortable zones.

It also talks about choosing your next company based on what they can teach you, which is not very often the driver of how we make career decisions, especially in the mid-career space.

Greg

So are we, for example, talking about going back to this easy example of data? If I am working for a brand that doesn’t maybe value data or just simply isn’t ready to embrace it to make better decisions, are you recommending that this marketer actively seeks an opportunity where their data skillset, user experience skillset, maybe it’s a branding skillset, can be completed?

Francesco

Every journey is different, right? It depends what your aspiration is, but I have been mentored and I try to perfectly return the favor with a lot of people that work, you know, or they grew up within the teams that I have the privilege of managing. And it comes often where my coaching comes to what do you want to do?

Because it’s also a myth that we have to maintain a linear progression. And so I think we need to spend more time considering where we want to be and where is our value best placed.

Greg

So would it be fair to say that in order to thrive, one has to, especially if you’re in a leadership marketing role, almost look at how rounded your skillset is. Maybe look at areas where there are some obvious huge gaps that are a liability and then look at whether where I’m at now or where I could be tomorrow in terms of roles and more consciously direct my career journey to become more well-rounded, be more specific, you know, be more maybe obsessed about creating value for myself by having that clarity around what I need to work on.

Francesco

I think so. And generally speaking, what we do not have on our side is time. So I understand this trajectory of polyvalent learning, it requires decades.

And that’s why the sooner we realize where is the path of ambition, what do I want to be? Do I want to be a product manager and be the best at it? Do I want to be the guru of performance marketing?

Understanding that tomorrow AI might replace you entirely, now what? Or do I want to be somebody who occupies, again, a different rung in the ladder of value? The choices I make today will illuminate future choices about where do I go to work?

You know, what is the right career path? It may not be the shiny Fortune 500 that offers you a slightly heavier stock business card that you can show off with your friends. It may be the smaller company.

Greg

It’s easy to say here’s the next opportunity, I’m going to take it because it offers maybe better perks, maybe offers a better title, maybe it’s the right location, which is different than actively deciding how to swim within the current and which path I want to take, which narrow lane I want to follow. And only then once I understand where I’m going and where I want to be in some way specialized in, what area I want to own, that there are gaps within that context to be completed. Is that what you’re thinking?

Francesco

Yeah, I mean, let’s go back to the issue of time, right? So obviously we talked about the fact that it takes many years for you to acquire this trivial pursuit, you know, little wheel. It also is about depth, right?

As to your point, it takes time. And I would say, is it one business cycle enough to be proficient within branding? Probably not.

So it takes time because you need to be exposed intentionally to different areas and spend enough business cycles to fail and to understand. That’s the difference between expertise and experience. And I work, we all work with very young, motivated people.

And, you know, uh, I think it is a greatest generation in terms of potential. They, they are not straddling the big techs and the big data as they understand this innately more than us all farts in that, in that space. But at the same time, they are overvaluing expertise over experience.

This is problematic or could be problematic because it, I see all the time. You see it too. When we look at resumes where you see the tenure in mid career to be too short.

My first question is what have you learned, right? In that, in that particular time. So having enough patience to sit in a job and to raise your hand, to acquire responsibilities that will make your life more uncomfortable, right?

But will expose you to areas that later on in your career will be essential. Is what have you done during your, your summers? You know, like if I can, you know, refer to the French poet, right?

You know, the cicada and the ant story where with the cicada was strumming all summer long and the ant was stashing away, right? Winter comes, the cicada is like freezing to death. The moral of the story is like where you put your time really, really matters, right?

For being how, how prepared you’re going to be in the future. And I think this is the message is like, realize now that the role of marketing is changing and you are now on a trajectory where you need to control where you’re going to go. So the assumption that it takes time, the assumption that you have to, you have to go deeper, the assumption that you have to raise your hand to acquire areas of expertise and experience that might not be initially thought as a good fit for you, the marketer, supply chain, logistics, data systems, platforms, data analytics, you know, but there’s a CDO for that, there’s a CTO for that, but that role is changing too. And so what are you doing to become a more rounded marketer, especially because as you noticed, we all noticed.

So 2005 was the big data revolution. Everybody was hyper-focused on data systems and tech. The opportunities seem endless, right?

And then all of a sudden, they realized that we have more data that we can possibly do whatever we want with. I call it mountains of data. Right.

And then what was lacking was really bringing the data together to create value for the consumer. So if you remember, the boom of the CXO came into place. It’s not about data only, it’s about the experience, right?

And that was another step towards customer centricity, which is great. And data is absolutely necessary for you to be competitive in the data centricity because only through granular data, you’re able to create a holistic experience with your brand or your product that creates returning value, LTV. But that’s, again, if everybody now starts shifting towards experience, what’s going to be the next evolution?

A lot of marketers branded themselves CXOs. Now there’s another shift, which companies are realizing that integration is missing, not outward integration, inside the organization integrations. There are silos that are hindering the potential growth.

Themes, data, systems. Yeah, there are all these. Methodologies.

In the C-suite itself, these people are not talking to each other. They have competing budgets. They have competing priorities.

They segregate their own teams. Sometimes in the most toxic environments, you’re prohibited to talk with another team, right? Companies are realizing this.

I was reading a survey a few weeks ago where 53% of CEOs really put their top priority on growth. And you would think like, only 53%? But the growth comes to integration.

And this is a realization that it’s coming more and more. At the center of that integration, who of all the C-suite’s leaders is best positioned to do that broad bird’s eye view? Do you think it’s the marketing leader?

I do think it’s the marketing leader. That was a bit of a leading question. Yes.

And I do feel that the next evolution is something that is of integration, but towards the eye of growth strategy. So the reason why the centrality of the customer is the critical ingredient for growth is because all of our interactions of all the teams revolve around the consumer. We’ve known this since the beginning of marketing as a science.

Customer centricity is not a new concept in marketing, but we’ve been distracted over and over. So right now, if I’m looking at making the jump from a well-rounded chief marketing officer into this chief strategy, CSO, or this new hip term, the CGO, the chief growth officer, what are the skills that I do need? And they’re becoming more soft skills than hard skills.

So we are de-emphasizing the technical expertise versus conflict resolution, culture change, change management.

Greg

This seems difficult because on one hand, it’s almost like we’re talking about the marketing leader looking at a bunch of Lego puzzle pieces, and these pieces are on the table. And there’s maybe data pieces, technology pieces, marketing, advertising, creative, product market fit, my team, who my customer is, where is my brand going? You need to put it all together.

I remember you told me a while back that the role of marketing is to create markets, which I really liked because it was so simple. So there is this integration piece. And at the same time, you’re sharing that growth is important.

It is always important. That drives the stock price, that drives profit, that drives sustainability. It drives many things.

You have to keep on growing. So you have this numerical way of judging my performance, which is growth. And there is this almost under the water line, a little invisible, need to integrate.

Was there a time in the past where this clicked for you? Is this something that has been slowly building up over the last 20 years of your career? Or was it the defining moment where you realize that this philosophy is absolutely existentially important to you?

Francesco

Yeah, I mean, first off, you mentioned something, the pressure on growth has been so far interpreted as deliver the best performance in the shortest amount of time. And this has put pressure on marketers.

Greg

I mean, I think it’s overwhelming pressure. It’s almost crushing sometimes.

Francesco

I do believe that it’s more and more so that CEOs are now realizing that it will take time to carve out an integrative growth strategies.

Greg

But there is no time, Francesco.

Francesco

There is time if you make it, again, going back to the choice, right? This is also has been a contributing factor. Elongating the timeframe of strategic growth is essential.

I don’t think it’s a question of whether we should be elongating the framework of growth. It’s whether we have the elements that allow us to do it. Let me give you an example.

I don’t think you can do any type of integrations, assuming that you are stepping into a role where there are silos and then you have to integrate them. From a change management perspective, auditing, discovery, transformation planning, roadmapping, investment takes five years, I think, on average, you know, to do transformation.

Greg

But if I may stop you, I shared with you, you know, we won’t talk about details. I was on a call with a marketing department the other day, and their chief growth officer, to your point, was let go after, I think, about a year. And here we are talking about five years.

That seems very luxurious.

Francesco

Yeah. And the problem is that, and this is a complete arbitrary estimation. It’s definitely more than a year.

It’s definitely more than a year. I would say at least two year cycles, right? At least two, right?

Two full cycles, yeah.

Greg

So truly transform?

Francesco

I mean, honestly, even two cycles is too short. You know, unless you are like a veteran and you know exactly what to do, which is not exactly what we are right now in terms of integrating. The first year, you learn.

The second year, you practice and fail. The third year, you refine, right? So you really start looking at real value of integration.

Greg

Year four.

Francesco

Year four. So the average tenure of a CMO, I don’t have data on the CGO, the CSO, but, you know, and there’s so many sources out there, but it goes anywhere between, I think, 18 months and four years. So you understand that, you know, we already have a problem, you know, in time.

But go back to my personal experience, because I also want to be careful not to universalize my experience with what’s out there. I started my career making a lot of 90 degree turns. Initially, this was very scary and anguishing for me.

It’s like rebooting, rebooting, rebooting. Where am I going? So reinventing yourself?

Yeah. Well, I started my career in Italy, actually, and I wanted to be a doctor. I come from a family of doctors.

So I went to med school. And before that, I studied the classics, you know, like so I spent a lot of time studying stuff that’s not completely useful. Let me just be kinder today.

When I was in med school, I started to get interested in some IT or, you know, data science, you know, so I came to the United States to do business school here. And marketing and computing information systems. And so then I had for a little bit of career in as a developer, as a software developer, as a coder, right?

And then we went into, I went into web architect and all the other things. Then, completely random, I changed to product marketing. That was my christening as a marketer.

Greg

Was that conscious or did you jump in an opportunity that revealed itself?

Francesco

Jumped in an opportunity. It’s an Italian company, manufacturing company. I spent almost a decade there.

I love the idea of being able to work, you know, in marketing, you know, and I fell in love with product marketing. That opportunity opened up something that I wasn’t expecting. So that company had a particular ethos of making sure that everybody in the company was really, really savvy about the products, which I think it’s a good idea, right?

So as I was onboarded, again, this 20-something-year-old, you know, knowing nothing about product marketing other than being a consumer, which is a little bit like what people want to go into social media, this is like, I consume social media. So I went there and they made me spend three, they flew me to Italy and they made me stay three weeks just looking at the factories. And I loved it.

I loved understanding deeply how a product that I would later on be in charge of selling and marketing, how does that work? That wasn’t a conscious choice, but I later realized that that was critical for my growth. Understanding the micro to infer the macro, anticipating where consumer value through benefits of a product might lie dormant.

And that’s critical in product design and product, you know. But I think if you stop and only focus on one thing, then you miss that type of connection. I later on was given opportunities to develop markets, open markets, or help develop markets in Latin America and other parts, you know, parts of the world.

I flew many times to China to give the big retailers tours of the factories. And I started and I needed to talk about, you know, social audits, you know, and legal issues and walk them through contracts or walk them through a factory audit and understand and let them understand how our product was superior. Is that really necessary for a product marketer?

I think it is. Is that really happening today? I’m not sure.

Greg

What I’m hearing is that because you either had the opportunity or you created, and I think it’s both, those opportunities for yourself, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, but because you were willing to get outside of your own personal comfort zone, I’ll say aspiring physician, then developer, then product marketer, now marketing leader. If I go back to where we started, you somehow naturally were willing to go broad and maybe you have built up confidence to also sometimes go deep. That depth is maybe an anchor that allows you to be successful in the different roles that you have taken on.

You were at UNICEF several years ago. Now you’re leading many transformative projects with Partner in Health, which Partners in Health have an amazing mission that they want to deliver. And maybe that really has shaped your point of view that in order to create transformational change, which as the cliche goes, requires transformational effort, but that does require a certain amount of obsession to create that amount of value around having that longer runway.

Unless I, as a marketing leader, have the right. Maybe I need to fight for it. Maybe I need to create it for myself.

But if I truly am put in a position where I have some big, hairy, audacious goals to meet, or I’m bringing in to completely change the team, or the product is going, that the brand is going through huge change, or the market is really changing around me, for the board, the CEO, the CFO to ask of me to create transformation within a year or 18 months is a little ridiculous. And maybe we should be honest about that.

Francesco

Yes, I agree. I mean, again, that was my journey, right? For almost four years, I was the head of marketing and strategic planning for Moleskine here in the US.

Moleskine is the notebook company, right? Total niche company, brand obsessed. We’re a company where brand conceptually determined, at least when I was there, determined product development with some pretty glaring failures in that effort from a practicality perspective, right?

Regardless, successful company, wonderful company, great story. I learned a lot in terms of branding and the power of obsessive branding from that company. And that is, again, for me, is another of those little trivial pursuit things.

Now, am I a branding expert? Of course not. But I have seen, and I’ve worked, and I’ve failed in challenges about branding, right?

Or name it, trade marketing, PR. I’ve either done that job or supervised closely people that were doing that job. The point is that we should be asking for that.

We should be seeking that intentionally. So if somebody asks me, what opportunity do I go after? And usually it’s like, do I go for the small company?

Do I go for the big company? Do I go for a lateral move? Because I cannot grow here.

How do I get there? And the question inevitably is, what do I need to be hired in this position?

Greg

So can you share a recent example where you were able to apply your developer, product marketer, brand expert, maybe product placement, data expertise, technology expertise, all of that to a situation that was a little tough?

Francesco

I mean, there’s many examples. I find myself very often reflecting, thank God I had this opportunity. And it’s gratitude.

Gratitude to the mentors and the leaders that afforded me that opportunity. But it happens more times than you can think of where you actually have to draw from past experiences and expertise, but also experience. I’ve done this.

When I speak to my team, my digital team, and I speak within the digital team to a web developer. Now, I have not coded in 20 years or 15 years. I have no idea what language they code into.

I stopped at ASPX and other fun languages that I don’t think exist anymore. But I know the language. I know the challenges of coding.

I know the timelines. I know the efficiency that can be gained. I know what the pitfalls are because they were my pitfalls.

And I faked it until I made it for a long time. I remember the anxiety of telling my boss at a development company, no problem, I got this module down. And having no idea on how to do an XML parent-child and learning as I go with the clock ticking because I had eight hours to develop a module that I had no idea how to do it.

And again, that happens, right? But to me, the point is, how are we drawing for these opportunities? I had lunch a few weeks ago with one of my initial mentors in the same Italian company.

And again, I was nobody, right? I was just like, OK, go and fetch the coffee, right? Well, a little bit more than that.

But OK, go and take the prices of the… But he sat with me after hours in his office to explain to me how a P&L worked and explain to me how do we come up with pricing, right? And getting mad at me because I would never get the right formula.

And correcting my Excel sheets when we’re doing pricing for positioning for our whole product line. Now, he was the EVP of sales and marketing. Why would he spend time to speak to a junior product manager to teach that person the complexities of price setting?

I don’t know why he did it. He was generous, I guess, as a mentor. But I’ve used that so many times.

Later on, I found myself in the positions of having to determine the right positioning, branding, product features, product launch, communication plan, pricing, tariffs. How much have I learned about tariffs? And why would a marketer need to know about tariffs?

Well, when I was in charge of creating a price list for the Brazilian market where your tariffs change every month, where your inflation changes your pricing, right, in reais, that came in handy. Is there something that you can take on to build that holistic view of growth? That’s where I’m getting at.

At this stage, I don’t need to be the expert because we hire smarter people to do that for us. But I need to provide a vision of integration. I need to tell people that have been in their cocoon how their work connects to others.

And that’s easier when you have been in those roles, have been exposed to those roles previously.

Greg

I mean, it almost sounds like you at least know what questions to ask. At the very least. Which I think in leadership is the thing that one should be focusing on, that this ability to ask the right questions, whether that’s about pricing or brand positioning or tech stack or integration, or what is even performance in paid media?

What does it even mean to deliver a specific return on investment? There are many different answers. Having those different experiences, being able to see all those puzzle pieces and seeing how to integrate them together, going back to what you said before, enables you in some ways to direct your team, your resources to create maximum value.

And again, it sounds hard and I think it is hard to do. Which is also why, by the way, personally, I think marketing is fascinating. That’s why I love marketing.

I used to code like yourself back in the 90s and fell into marketing by accident. And I loved it ever since only because it’s so multifaceted and complicated and there is no one answer. It’s not black and white.

There’s lots of shades of gray. And that’s what makes it interesting.

Francesco

And that curiosity helps us separate the good marketers from the… I mean, there’s a lot of people that are revolving doors. You know, they go in, they try to do something legacy building or however they define it.

Usually they commit the organization to spend a lot of money in something.

Greg

Yeah.

Francesco

It goes back to the organization, especially if the organization doesn’t have the appetite for the elongated transformational framework, then that’s why you get out of the door. You don’t have the time to evaluate, fail, reiterate, you know, iterate and refine.

Greg

So you don’t often know that this channel, this message, this campaign, this user experience will work. Curiosity almost seems to be built into the job description because experimentation is built into the job description. Experimentation is uncertain.

Of course. Is curiosity a way to just simply break through and have some clarity?

Francesco

I think it’s important, and this is especially true when we’re talking about transformational change. I personally gravitate towards transformational change. I don’t see the point philosophically of maintaining the status quo, right?

But in order to always be uncomfortable with the status quo, which, you know, when I use a physics, you know, analogy, like status quo is static. You know, if you want growth, you have to be dynamic, which means that you have to change constantly. And the status quo can feel mighty comfortable, especially when the status quo is achieving a positive growth, maybe single digit.

It may seem like this is a good place for me to be. The company’s happy with me. Let’s go for it.

That’s a mistake. Curiosity is a necessary ingredient to challenge constantly the status quo. And I’ve heard people say, why do we always have to challenge the status quo?

You know, what if you actually are living something good? But there’s always inherently opportunity to grow. And the moment we decide to stop challenging the status quo, that’s when we are signing our contract for failure.

I remember years ago, I was in a conversation with some executives at Google. And they said something that shocked me at that time. This person said, we are one blink of an eye away from oblivion.

And you say, like, Google, one blink of an eye. And he’s right. You know, it’s like, how do we keep maintaining the tension between doing more of what we’re doing well and the uncomfortable space of uncertainty for things that we have to experiment with, to your point, and fail.

And at Google, back then, I don’t know if they still have it. They had this thing called the moonshot. Yes.

And so the parameter for that moonshot was, or still is, I don’t know, let’s try to find a solution to a problem that affects, at the very least, a billion people. So definitely fits the characteristic of a moonshot. But what struck me more than having a moonshot is having what they called, I think informally, the kill team.

And the kill team is a team that is specifically mandated to try to poke holes into the plans to achieve the moonshot. Now, if that is not challenging the status quo constantly, I don’t know what that is.

Greg

So even the biggest brands that appear to be well-established and they should not have to reinvent themselves, maybe it’s about maintaining. Even they are trying to poke holes in what they do in order to remain relevant.

Francesco

If you’re not addressing change today, if you don’t have the long vision, that’s why I think the elongated framework is important, we are no longer in a time where you can thrive for 50 years without altering the way you market your products. That’s gone. So if you’re not doing that intentionally, aggressively, obsessively, if you’re not choosing your narrow lane and evolving constantly, you are going to die.

It’s not a question.

Greg

In order to create true transformational change and return for the shareholders and growth in revenue. So that’s what we see. The fundamentals have to be there.

Maybe there has to be a four-year runway. Maybe there has to be conviction that the marketing leader has about that’s how long it will take. Maybe it’s not for her or him to execute all of it.

But let’s say it takes four years. Can you restate for me what are those phases?

Francesco

Yeah. I mean, the four years is completely arbitrary. Maybe five, maybe six, you know, I don’t think it’s less than that, you know, because we all go through, most businesses go through, you know, life cycles, right?

You know, develop a product, you know, develop a cons plan, launch it, market it, adjust, you know. So you’re not going to see the full pie until you do the full merry-go-round. One merry-go-round doesn’t allow you enough time to fail.

And it’s a good thing to understand what you could have done better, what gap analysis you need to put in place and what resourcing plan to put in place. And so, yes, I think the very minimum is four years to affect this integrative change. But one step forward, how long does it take for you to have the acceptable knowledge, experience, and expertise…

Just to put a stick in the ground and say… To get your trivial pursuit little things. Yes.

It’s not a year, right? You know, can I say that I’ve learned something about branding in a year? Probably not, right?

And so, like, unless you have the very hard complex of learning multiple things at the same time, which is what I would recommend, but you have to have the discipline to go deep in each, to become obsessive of each, right? It’s going to take you at least, let’s say, 10 to 15 years…

Greg

Of experience versus expertise.

Francesco

To get into a position. So a lot of the CEOs, and I said, obviously, a lot of the CEOs right now understand that integration is the key to growth. And I’m sure you have learned, we have learned, like, the discipline that some CEOs have of only focusing their time on the 20%, the plus 20% of growth.

And it’s an obsession, right? And they might go out of that mode of how do I grow 20%, 20%, 20% if there is a contraction period, like the stock market goes down, or COVID, or whatever. Then they go into protective mode, right?

A study from Forrester, I think it’s a few years ago, shows that integration, right? And it’s not decades ago, it’s a few years, you know, integration on average produces an accelerations of growth of about 19%. That’s your 20%.

So the realization that integration is the key to growth will also bring along the realization that integration requires time. And also that the best person to bring that transformational change, not only will require time, but will also require a polyvalent experience and expertise. And again, you don’t have to be that person.

But if you want to be that person, pay attention, intentional, pay attention. And that’s something that I think companies have realized, we know this, the writing is on the wall. And so if you’re a mid-career now, my message to you is diversify.

Don’t shallow knowledge, go deep in knowledge. But also ask the question, to your point before, the first question you want to ask is like, what is your vision, CEO, for having me on board? How much, what is the timeframe that you want?

Are you going to be a champion and a sponsor of this type of philosophy? By the way, that’s a scary thing to do. You got to ask for your own good.

I think it’s easier not to ask. I know, but that’s when you’re going to be like, sorry, you had unrealistic expectation, the organization, and now I’m revolving door. Now my resume, I’ve not wasted, but I have spent two years without the opportunity to learn within the cycles.

That to me is a worse choice than going perhaps on a smaller company when there is championship, understanding of the time and the opportunity given to you to learn these different pieces. If you are a mid-career, if you’re on the top of your career and you have not done that, I don’t know how that’s going to go.

Greg

There is something here about having not just the expertise, but the experience in a bunch of different areas to feel probably confident that what I am talking about makes some sense. There’s something about taking a stand and recognizing that that will take several years to truly transform my organization. The word integration comes in.

I’m hearing that as both, not just technology integration, which is where my mind goes to, but team integration, multi-executive member integration.

Francesco

Interdisciplinary integration.

Greg

Maybe even integration of my objectives with the objectives of other leaders at the brand I’m working for. Absolutely necessary. But I think at the end of the day, what I’m hearing you say is that I need to be willing to take a stand beyond compromising maybe, maybe actually force the CEO, the CFO, the other players on the team to align, to be integrated in the direction of that vision and then get buy-in for what could be a multi-year plan.

We’re not talking about 15 years, maybe it’s three, four years to make sure there’s the patience.

Francesco

And it does not mean that you shy away from results. Right. Because this is what we as a market do very well, right?

Oh, it’s so tough to measure. And we like to, some of us like, or some, all of us probably enjoyed at one time, the ignorance is bliss. The limb of like, I don’t know which half of your advertising budget I’ve just listed.

Right? That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that you have to bring it.

You have to bring the results. But you have to be obsessed with the time running out and asking questions, completely discontent at all times with the status quo. But at the same time, you have to understand and to be a good yourself communicator of the timelines that are necessary.

If you want me to land a C-30 in a 15 meters runway, it’s not going to go well.

Greg

The runway has to be extended in order to land an airplane of a particular size.

Francesco

You can’t land it. You can land or take off, whatever you choose. Sure, or take off.

The runway has to be the same. Most of the CMOs today that are, I think, in the workforce today are not outsiders. They are insiders.

They are promoted from within the team, which poses two questions that we have discussed so far. Number one is, have they, how they’ve been company men or women, right? Have they been long enough to acquire the experience and expertise and fail enough in this different areas?

But also, the more important barrier for them to be transformational leaders is that they are brought up within the culture. They are probably being promoted because they are acquiescent to the same culture. How do you become a transformational destroyer of status quo?

While respecting the tradition. Some of this stuff, at one point, you need to cross-pollinate. You need to leave the comfort of that company and go somewhere else.

Not because it looks bad on your resume that you stick with. I actually reward that. But because where have you learned different approaches?

I’ve been in a company where the approach to strategy has been radically different, both valuable but radically different. But again, it’s that elongated plan for you as a marketer. Remember, this is a marketplace, right?

There’s people with skill sets and there’s companies that hire for those skill sets. You can’t blame a company if you have not done your job in enriching your marketability as a marketer, right? I think that is the intentionality we want to go after.

We want to make sure that people today know that it’s no longer enough to be a digital marketing expert or a product marketing expert or a salesperson if you have ambitions of occupying the highest rungs of the ladder in terms of value chain for the organization. This is the same for profit or for non-profit. It doesn’t matter, right?

But I think that is something. That is my message, right? By the way, I never do these things because I don’t think I have anything to offer.

I do feel that there is another alarming trend is the amount of time that we spend, and we have to thank social media for this, to self-promotion. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, right? There’s probably people listening.

When they’re listening, they will say like, well, you’re an idiot because you undermarket yourself. Perhaps they’re right. But I do feel that, to your point about obsessive, where we put the time, how much time are you putting into this versus solving the big problems that you have?

I feel there’s a lot of people that spend a lot of time promoting themselves. I would like to think that some of that material is actually useful. Some of them, most of them, it’s not.

So I think, again, where we choose to put our time and effort, and it’s nights and weekends. Because it has to be nights and weekends. And I don’t want to say, I mean, I’m very happy when people, I actually don’t care about people, when people in my teams obviously leave the workday, I don’t care.

It’s only focus works. But if I need to learn about something that is not impacting my day-to-day operation, that’s got to come out of my own time. So thank you for that.

Greg

So to switch gears for a moment, work-life balance. What’s your reaction to that phrase?

Francesco

I embrace the necessity to be in humans and a professional. I think, personally, I’m not going to discover any vaccine. I’m not going to be an astrophysicist that has some big invention or discovery.

And those tend to be martyrs of their own. They’re truly obsessed. And at the expense of their private lives.

This is, again, a choice I have never been willing to make. I have kids. You know, I want to see them.

And you and I were talking about this book, it’s called Shift. Yes. Talks about intentionality of choices.

I don’t want to hear, I don’t spend time with my kids because I’m too busy at work. That’s a choice you’re making. So own to that choice.

And that’s totally fine. There’s no judgment here. But I’m making the choice to actually create boundaries that are healthy for me.

They are healthy for my team. And it’s a decision that I make to do nights and weekends if I want to learn more about a particular discipline. If I want to read all of the books that are available for me to read about and that were written by the founder of my organization.

That’s my choice. Nobody’s forcing me to do. It’s different that telling yourselves that if you don’t work 70 hours a week, if you don’t ignore your children or whatever you have, because not everybody is human, obviously, then you’re being a better professional.

That’s a myth. Only the result speaks for that.

Greg

If you were to go back some of those classic questions 20 years ago when you started your marketing career, what do you wish you knew?

Francesco

It’s the same thing that I asked myself thinking back when I was in school. Learn, idiot. This is a chance for you to learn.

I often, when I’m coaching or mentoring people in my teams, which are 150% of the times are much smarter than I am, I always offer this advice. Think carefully. While you’re here in this company or this organization, think carefully about what are the three bullets that you want in your resume under this company section.

Three. What are those things that you’re going to have to learn or produce as results? Obsess about those three things because you may do a million things of insignificant or barely incremental value.

What is your transformation? And pay attention to merge what’s convenient, beneficial for the organization, what it’s needed, and what’s going to enrich you. So what’s a win-win between your needs?

That diagram of learning is critical. And it goes back to are you in an environment that allows, permits you to do that learning? And if they don’t, if they’re in an environment that doesn’t?

Leave. Get out. I was shocked.

That was years ago. I was in a conversation. It was a group of people.

We were actually in a presentations of product red. And Gary Vaynerchuk, the media mogul, was giving a presentation. And as you know, if you know him, everybody knows his style.

He’s pretty brash and can be a jerk, high energy. But I asked a question back then. I said, what’s your advice if you work in a company whose CFO doesn’t really believe or support the investments necessary, for example, for awareness generation?

And he said, leave. That’s what you do. Leave.

In other words, and he was talking about being very obsessive and intentional in how you spend your time. Yes. Don’t spend too much time trudging through mud.

Greg

So if I’m in an organization, maybe this is the way to close it off. The truly needs, because I have the expertise and the experience, the truly needs a three, four year runway to transform. And the team that’s around me there doesn’t believe that to be true.

Francesco

Don’t worry about the team because it’s also like, OK, let’s be fair. You don’t want to come in and everybody needs to believe you like you’re the messiah. We are always selling.

We have to sell and be good at selling the vision. And it requires discipline to put together the talking points, to get a CEO, deepen their commitment to whatever you want to do transformationally. But they have to be open to let you do that.

The teams are not to worry about, mainly because most of the times in my career, one of my objectives was build a team. And so, OK, that in itself requires years, right? So maybe this is my experience.

I rarely see success in coming in for a year and a half, proposing big expenditures, maybe being a jerk to your team and then leaving. It’s not so much that what’s useful for the organizations. As a professional, I wouldn’t spend my time on Earth doing that.

Not rewarding enough for me. But again… So what’s the better way?

The better way to me is to choose where you’re going to go. And not so much based on how much they pay you and how much, you know, what the title is. And I do think it’s very important, right?

If you look at people that are right now in the top 500 companies, they usually don’t come from unknown companies. So I’m not poo-pooing that at all. I’m saying, what have you learned?

What is the value? It is about the value, right? And what value can you bring to the organization?

And what are you required to do that? And I’m saying that I think the role is changing. And if we don’t realize now, we’re going to be outdated real quickly.

Greg

Well, Francesco, thank you so much for your time. I have learned a lot. Your insights about the need to be obsessed about breadth of experience, depth of experience, and this need to really integrate.

That was the thing that really stood out for me, which again, makes sense. And at the same time, it seems a little overwhelming and yet very important. So it is a tough thing to accomplish.

That’s the main thing that I walked away with. And it also feels like an exciting challenge. And I think it can be very exciting to be in an organization that wants to be bold and wants to be courageous and wants to kick ass and grow, but also recognizes that has to be done the right way.

It has to be done over time because integration just simply takes time, takes process, but it also takes conviction.

Francesco

Yeah, and obsession, you know, not to sway away. Don’t change your mind too often, right? Because you got to give yourself the time to prove a theory, fail.

But if every time we fail, we just pivot somewhere else, where’s the learning? And I think, you know, you kind of close with, I think, another great important advice for people in mid-career. I don’t want to say young people, but let’s say people in mid-career, don’t choose the easy path.

Go for the hard, you know, go for the challenging, go for the multifaceted. So make bigger bets. Yeah, I mean, it’s your life.

I mean, unless you are working cradle to grave in the same organization, which is laudable, not saying that it’s not, what is the value you’re going to bring to this community? And that is the reason why I moved from the for-profit to the non-profit, because the moment I realized those skill sets could be applied to do good instead of selling stuff, I’m sold. Pun intended.

Greg

I love it. Thank you so much for your time. I really love this.

Francesco

Thank you for having me.