I’ve been an executive financial advisor since 2001 and have been full-time since 2003. I’ve encountered a pair of truisms after working for some 130 business owners. All have been poor at hiring accountants and marketers (in-house and externally).
Regarding marketers, I wish you could sit in on some of my meetings with owners who have marketing departments. All bemoan the wrong work being done or work that’s not being completed fast enough. Or, they have teams full of ideas but cannot execute very well.
One way I address this marketing deficiency is to view the marketing department through one of three lenses. The first lens I use is what I call The Four Roles in Marketing. These four unique roles are critical in any organization with a marketing team. I use it because one of these distinctive roles is typically missing. Accordingly, this mental model serves as a prescriptive tool for improving the marketing team.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
Sun Tzu
The Four Roles
Let’s start with the people who get the work done. The first role is the A-Player. They are the people who do the day-to-day work. They are feet-on-the-ground people who may be responsible for content, PPC campaigns, NPS surveys, and more. However, it’s not up to them to determine what work to do. Instead, they are following a recipe. That doesn’t mean they are not creative people. They are just not captains of the ship from a marketing perspective.
At the other end of the spectrum is the Architect. The architect says, “We’re going in this direction.”
My favorite architects are the ones in the following discussion:
Marketer: What are your sales?
Owner: About $50 million.
Marketer: What do you want your sales to be?
Owner: $75 milllion.
Marketer: I can get you there.
Hire that person. That’s your architect. While I’m a big believer in the three parts of the marketing mind (skills, drive, and instincts), the architect knows exactly what’s required in terms of people, technology, and systems and processes to achieve more sales. They are the mapmaker that reveals what needs to be done, how the work will be done, and why. And they are really good at it.
Before I list the other two roles, it’s the Architect that’s typically the missing link in most marketing teams. Incidentally, the architect is not a title. It’s part skill and part talent. You either are, or you are not. Also, just because someone is an architect doesn’t mean they are better than the other three roles. That’s like the heart saying to the lungs, “I’m better than you and don’t need you.”
Along another axis, I have two roles that ensure the quality of the work getting done. One is the administrator (or manager), and the other is the analyst.
The manager follows the recipe and ensures the work is done on time and within budget or plan. If the marketing spend in any given year is supposed to be 5% of revenue, you can bet they will hit that number. However, when asking them what the four most critical objectives are in the department, don’t expect a quick response (though you’ll get one quickly from the architect).
All managers once started out as A-Players, but they were designed to be managers because they have the gift of administration. Whereas architects ‘make it up’, the administrators ‘make it real and recurring’. They need each other, and both are gifted in thier respective roles.
The last role is the analyst. You know an analyst when you meet one. They can be abrasive in their speech, lacking finesse at times, but spot on when it comes to slicing and dicing data. They ask tons of questions and ones you probably never considered. Once you have an analyst on the team, you wonder how you ever did without them.
Never let an analyst be the manager, or they will get bored. They sometimes have to play the A-Player within their own domain. Just don’t make them do routine non-analytical work, or they’ll bolt for a new position.
In smaller organizations, analysts are a luxury and typically the last person hired on a marketing team.
Next Steps
In nearly 100% of the conversations I have with owners frustrated with their marketing teams, the missing link is the absent architect. Sometimes we can get lucky and hire the architect in the form of either a consultant, coach, or mentor for both the owner and the manager.
While the existing team may be good at inputs and outputs, the architect will be responsible for the outcomes: more sales and/or higher-quality sales.
However, maybe you already have the architect, and you are missing the manager. Or if you work in consumer products and are unsure how to interpret your data, an analyst may be required.
In short, The Four Roles of Marketing is a simple starting point and one of three lenses to gauge the quality of one of the most vital functions in the organization.
