Resetting with inspiration, reflection & storytelling
Navigating change is best framed through personal growth, with three key steps: resetting, reconnecting and relaunching. I introduced these steps in my last post. In this post I'm going to deep dive a bit further into my experience with the first step: resetting.
My reset has been essential to ensure I embrace change in a positive, constructive and purposeful manner. It's prompted me to think about my passions, curiosities, strengths and growth priorities. Much of my reset has been comprised of inspiration, reflection, and storytelling. In the second half of this post are the counter-intuitive learnings that I’ve found useful in shaping personal explorations and in networking conversations. Here are the highlights.
Inspiration. It’s the fuel to any good reset - it gets you “in the moment” and fully engaged. Beyond getting into a daily workout routine (thank you Peloton, CrossFit and Yoga), I also sought inspiration through various forms. Here are some recommendations and key highlights that really sparked inspiration and reflection for me as a marketer.
Podcasts - incredible for keeping your learning going, particularly during walks, jogs, driving, on the subway and other in-between moments.
CMO Conversations with Tricia Gellman. Great source of inspiration for folks in B2B and growth technology marketing. The host, Tricia is the CMO at Drift and she offers an interesting point of view that we are beyond the era of demand-gen and now in the era of revenue acceleration. Most of the guests are CMOs at growth technology companies and the discussions dig into their leadership journeys to maximize marketing's impact on business.
The Marchitect. Another excellent pod focused on creating a more proper industry discussion around how product marketers are "architects of growth" for organizations. Explores finding an "intelligent path to revenue" by digging into connected storytelling, data around revenue operations, getting to processes with scale and speed, and becoming the a "chief orchestrator" across product, sales and customer enablement teams.
Diving deeper into essential reading. The CMO and Marchitect discussions often referred back to three seminal books, which I read over the holiday and new year and found great value in: Positioning, Crossing the Chasm and Play Bigger. These three books are great builds on the essential topic of brand purpose and messaging, going from how the fundamentals were established in the 70's through to leading with innovative/disruptive niches, and ultimately creating and leading categories.
Reflection & Storytelling. From all of the inspiration, I started to think about some counter-intuitive learnings that were emerging as potential sparks for how I think about the marketing and business world today - and how I approach engaging with others in a value-adding way. Here are a few:
Brands with purpose are authentic, magnetic and therefore grow - taking this further, purpose-driven selling helps those across the organization to have conversations that are different and more memorable.
Categories are the new battlegrounds - powerful brands build their own categories as the ultimate purpose and positioning.
Brand is experience and experience is the brand - turning connections and customers into raving fans is the ultimate halo.
Pipeline is not enough - get to revenue acceleration - marketers must be the connective tissue across customers, product, sales, employees and all facets of the business.
Great content marketing establishes and scales relevance, relationships and revenue by delivering value through connection and landing on demand.
Speaking the same language matters in technology, finance, business, marketing and so many other spaces. Get the messaging right externally and internally.
Getting to these outside-in reflections have been essential in energizing myself to explore new possibilities and to reconnect with others in a value-adding way. In my next post, I’ll deep dive further into my process of reconnecting.
