Latest / Integrity at Scale™ / The Owner's Room: Marketing Has an Owner, but the Decisions Still Come to Me
Transcript
- All righty, my friends. You are listening to the Culture Focused Practice podcast. I'm Dr. Tara Vossen Kemper, and we're gonna talk marketing today, marketing and ownership. So let's say you have a marketing person, but you are still getting a bunch of decisions that you have to make. Decisions for marketing are still coming to you. This episode is part of a quarterly focus on reading the system and designing conditions, and ultimately choosing coherence when there are sometimes very real trade-offs. Here's what I will say before I dive into this episode. I have a marketing strategist who is freaking incredible, and I have to preface this entire episode by saying This, what I'm talking about, is about me. This has nothing to do with him. It almost feels like it has very, very little, if anything, like next to nothing to do with him, if not nothing at all, you know? So I'm, like, a little worried about even recording this because I... Oh my gosh I just don't want it ever to come across like it's him, when as we get through the episode, you'll understand what I mean when I say it's me. That's what this is really about. So for anybody who has been listening for more than an episode or two, this is an Owner's Room episode, so that means I ask myself a series of questions and then I answer. And you are going to find out quickly that I have no fucking idea where that answer goes. It just comes up. We'll see where it ends up. So I typically do a scenario, but for this Owner's Room episode, I don't have a scenario. I don't wanna do one. We're just gonna do a series of six questions and then wrap it up. It's gonna be short and sweet, hopefully helpful. That's actually more important than being short and sweet. Okay. So- Question number one: What am I actually noticing about the decisions that keep returning to me? So again, we're focusing on marketing in particular. Here's what I notice For some of these decisions, I have not given explicit permission, if you will, or explicit direction that I don't want anything to do with whatever is being done So that's one thing And what I'll say about that is I don't typically like to be done with something until it's pretty fleshed out. So If, for example, my marketing strategist started and within two weeks he's telling me that he wants to take over final approval of the copy for the website or for social media stuff, my answer would be just hell no. Hell no, bro. Like, nope. No, no, no, no. Absolutely not And that's because, he would have just started. I'm not gonna pass over voice for the entire business to somebody who is very, very new with us. However, if we had been working together for a few months, and the copy that he's been developing I just continue to approve with very little to no edit, and I'm like, "Yeah, no, that's spot on. Hey, that's great. Love this. Uh, that one's okay. Like, I don't vibe as much, but I'm also good with it being posted." Even like that I think sometimes you just ... It's hard to find the exact right words to say things. I think that, that's a different situation. That's a situation where if I'm repeatedly saying approved, approved, approved, approved," why am I still reviewing stuff that's coming through? You know, at that point it could turn into a spot check or, like, an audit every quarter, where you just audit some of the recent things that have gone out to continue to assess if they're accurate. So anyway, my point here is that I'm noticing that Some of the decisions that keep returning to me are things that I haven't said, "Hey, I don't wanna see this anymore. Like, you're good. Just take it. It's you." So that's one thing. A second thing that I'm noticing about decisions that keep returning to me are There's like missing information. So That can either be about the actual content of something that needs to be developed or approval on an ad budget or specific language that we use with credentialing or marketing for somebody who has a supervisor, for example. There are, like, some things that are really nuanced that you know because you've been in the field for a long time or because you've been the one doing it that aren't necessarily assumed or obvious for people who are not privy to the field with, you know, as much nuance as people who are working in it. So For me the biggest thing about, like, what I'm noticing about decisions that keep returning to me, the easiest thing is just being more explicit about stuff that I don't want anything to do with. That's something that I'm actually thinking right now, like, okay, I need to go through and, like, list out, like, ah, I don't want this anymore. Nope, this needs to go to our director of finance and admin for approval if it's budget related or, you know, like, I wanna be out of the mix. But I think there are other things where I'm just realizing, like, there are some, information gaps. Which kind of ties in with the overall trajectory and, like, growth of our group for the past year. So even, like, the idea of having a budget or confirming a budget for ad spend or something, the director of finance and admin seat is new. It's as new if not even more new than the marketing strategist seat. So even our DFA starting to approve budgets, well, A, create a budget, 'cause I haven't had one, and then, B, approve a budget, is new. So our marketing person is not gonna go over there because that hasn't been established. So some is, like, growing pains, I guess, too, and, like, information gaps, like I said. What would feel different about this is if I kept saying to take ownership of something, I kept giving the same feedback or coaching or helping teach how to do something, and then it kept returning to me, that would start to feel like not a me thing. Like, If I'm assessing the conditions around why does this keep happening, and I'm, like, trying to solve all of the contextual problems, and it continues to happen, that starts to get into a this might be a person thing," which is not the case at all, for the record. All right, let's move on. Question number two, when I say marketing has an owner, what do I imagine should be different? Okay. So I'm imagining us by the end of next year, so at the growth goals that we are seeking to hit, a little more built out than what we currently are I think I'm imagining that whatever ideas we have on our VTO, our vision/traction organizer, and whatever my integrator says yay or nay on for, movement for the year, i'm imagining that the marketing owner, much like any other department head on the accountability chart and on our leadership team, will Take full responsibility and almost like decision-making authority for when to do something and why we should do it then So for example, if our goal is to start a podcast for the group practice, then my marketing person says, "Cool, if these are our goals, it needs to be launched by this point." That means for either this year or this quarter, you know, you need to be doing X, Y, Z or we need to have this, this, and this done. That's what I'm imagining. What's really awesome from my perspective is that's basically happening. I mean, it's like so fucking relieving. Oh my gosh, it's so relieving. But that is happening. It's happening on a, I say smaller scale, because again, we have growth goals. But it's happening right now in the group where leaders are taking ownership of their seats. And actually, I think that the decisions that I keep intervening on or that I haven't explicitly passed over are the things that are ultimately slowing down the marketing strategist. Like, he's not going to move if I haven't said yes. So I'm basically just blocking him from doing his job which, I just love being a bottleneck, I think. I just love when that happens. . Other than that, I don't think that there's anything significantly different that would change, or I don't, like, imagine much being different here. I just imagine That we're frying bigger fish, so to speak. That's really it, which is cool. Question three: What part of me still feels responsible for making the whole thing make sense? Oh, God. I mean, I think there's always a part of me that feels responsible for the coherence of the entire system I just can't turn it off in my head. Like, I can't look at something and see it in isolation. It's really, really difficult for me to see something and not all of the context that it exists within So I think I just made that question broader than it was intended, but on every level, like when I think about the practice, it's really hard for me to not make the whole thing make sense. That's the whole integrity at scale model. It's like all of it is Connected to all of it. the whole thing is this connected system. It's this living organism. Like, It's coherence. It's intended to be about coherence, and balance, and movement, and flow, and flexibility, and adaption, and all of that. One of the ways in which I've been able to Feel, I don't know about less responsibility, but I feel safer stepping away from marketing stuff is because of how incredible my marketing strategist is. And so I think honestly the first few months that he was on the team, of course, initially it's like him just diving in and trying to make sense of all of the content we have and how it lives together and sort of like he's making sense of our world. And then I would say relatively soon from the point that he started, and probably for a couple of months, if not like three months, we had weekly meetings between him and me and my integrator. And the weekly meetings, I swear what ended up happening is , of course, we were like, "They're L10 style," so you know, we're troubleshooting issues and all of that. But some of what they turned into anyway was me just like catapulting him with ideas, like this and this and this and this, and if we did this, we could do this, and if this, this, you know. Like, all of these things for years that had been interconnected and like building in my mind and growing in resonance, and like they're taking up all of the space, so it's like this, this energy that's been building, and it hadn't been able to go anywhere. The only person who could have captured the energy was me, but I wasn't able to make it happen because of course I'm in, other seats at the practice. Like, I can't be fully in a marketing seat. Plus, it takes a lot of consistency to do it, and y'all know I don't do that shit well. All the stuff just kept building, you know, in my brain. And so when he came on and I was just like, I'm really like pelting him with snowballs he never flinched. He never faded. He never seemed overwhelmed. He didn't report feeling overwhelmed when I would like check in, 'cause of course I know I can be overwhelming, so I'm like checking in with him. And he almost always his response was, "No, this is great. I see what you're doing. I like this. It makes sense over here." I think being able to trust him and, and feeling relief about him being in the position. And also I guess we could say like feeling less responsible for marketing for me is a direct result of him accurately capturing everything that was on the table, everything. So I know that it's held. It's held. I don't have to worry about this. Okay, whoop, I can step back and, like, focus elsewhere. And it's also more invigorating that way. Like, I'm not the one now that has to like, "Oh, fuck, wait, hang on. What about the timing for this?" And figure out all these details, and how do we plan for this, and all of it. I don't have to worry about it. So maybe the short answer to this question is I do still feel responsible to an extent for marketing and also the entire system, but I feel way less responsible than I think I ever used to based on having the right person in that seat. I'm gonna keep going. Question four: Where might my marketing strategist and I be holding different pictures of what marketing is for right now? Oh, that's interesting. I don't think we are holding different pictures. I think that my leadership team is very consistently in alignment and on the same page. Like, there's a lot of intention and time and conversation and debate and, discussion around our roles and our seats and what we're doing and the timing and the VTO and all of this stuff. And so I don't think that there's anything actually. I don't think that we're holding different pictures of what marketing is for right now. I think we're also on the same page about me stopping being the bottleneck. It's funny, we just had our annual two-day, which was really needed, and really, really great. And we set a bomb-ass 10-year target, and redid our three-year vision, and now we have a new one-year plan, and all of these things that felt incredible. And during the annual two-day, one of the things that we do is an exercise that they talk about in Traction, but it's called the one thing. And so for every person you say, you know, what's one of their most admirable traits or qualities, something you just really admire about that person. And then also what's one of the traits or qualities that they have that is the potential to be a hindrance to the company or that maybe is a hindrance to the company? And honestly, the thing that I remember with my marketing strategist was I think the hindrance to the company is actually me being in your way. Like it's me not removing myself or telling you, like, "I don't wanna be involved in this," so that you can actually pick it up and go with it And this is what I mean by us being on the same page, is that his feedback to me was basically similar. Like not in this language at all, but in essence, I could do more if you got out of my way. So that's, to me, that's same page-ness. Great, same page-ness. Tara's in the way yet again. My point is I don't think we have different pictures of what marketing is for right now, which is really nice. Okay, question five. I'm gonna keep going. What do I want to remain close to, even if I'm not the person making every decision? voice for the company, and visuals, actually aesthetics. I'm real ... Oh man, this is where it gets kinda hard. I'm very particular about the aesthetics of things, like how something looks on a website or an infographic or whatever, you know? I'm very particular about copy, like what is being said, not the content. Of course, I would never want content that was inaccurate or harmful or misleading or anything like that, so I feel like that's a given. But in terms of copy, I am particular about voice. We have a very I don't wanna say distinct, but we have a, a voice and a tone that is ours. It's us, you know, that's the group. And so I don't want things written in overly formal or polished ways. I don't want things written where they're overly simplified. No, treat people like they're people. They can read and think and understand and feel deeply and, you know, like, let's be real with them. Let's use contractions. Why are we not using contractions? Do you not say won't whenever you're talking to somebody? Like, write like you talk. So my point is I'm particular about copy, I'm particular about visuals, and those are things that I want to remain close to, even if I'm not approving every single thing that gets published or goes out. That's where, again, I might do something like a spot check, like a quarterly audit where I'm just looking over, okay, what are the recent things that have been published, or let me see the two most recent web pages that went live, or let me see these images that went live on social media or, you know, what the hell ever. So yeah, that's my answer to question five. And my last question, my sixth and final question: If I do not rush to fix this pattern of decisions coming to me related to marketing stuff, what might it be showing me about the business, the role, or myself? It feels like it's a me thing. Like it's, um, Let me think about this. I say me thing, so some of the decisions happen because, this is gonna sound ridiculous, I just, I can't even believe I'm saying this out loud, because it feels like too much effort to say, "I don't wanna do this," so you just decide. God, I don't even know. That's so crazy to say, but really it's true. Like, if I'm getting an email from my marketing strategist, for example they're usually, like, good emails with good questions, and in some cases, like here's content or whatever. Like, "Here's something for you to review. I need decisions on X, Y, or Z." Very well thought out I almost feel guilty if I don't think about a response before I send one, or if I just say, "No, don't care, like, you go ahead and do it." That sort of response feels like more effort, and I think because there's something, like, potentially emotional about- not emotional caretaking, 'cause it doesn't quite feel like that. He's like a very consistent, thorough, steady type person, you know? But there's something, like I don't wanna be dismissive. If there's like all this thought that goes into something, I don't wanna just say like, "Yeah, thanks. Go, you just decide," and so it feels like, okay, I need to respond to this thoughtfully, and then I need to add this item to the issues list, or I need to just set a to-do to send this other email to be like, "Hey, bro, like you can just make those decisions about this in the future." It just, all of that ends up feeling like too much. I cannot... I'm just like shocked at myself right now. Like, really, Tara? Just that feels like too much? I think maybe also there are times where I'll get an email and some portion of it I don't give a fuck about, like I don't care, just decide, and another portion is like, ugh, gosh, I don't know. I don't know the answer to this, or we need to clean up the system around that, or, eh, yeah, that's not clear. What is the answer? You know, it's like there is more thought that's required, and then I just end up doing the whole thing altogether. So ultimately, it feels just reflective of me. Like, whether, that me is I don't know how to let go of this, or it's really hard just to say, "Make these decisions, but not these yet." And sometimes my reservation or my resistance to like responding or something is about like the recognition that there's five other little things that need to be tweaked, or an answer that I don't have off the top of my head, so then I have to dig to try to find it. And oh, yeah, I'm acting like this happens all the time. Like, this is not a daily or even weekly occurrence, really. Just to throw that out there. Okay. Here's what else I will add though. If this continued and the problems kept coming to me, and I continued to be the bottleneck, and I knew it was happening, and I still didn't do anything differently, I feel like it would say to me that I'm a martyr. Like that's what I feel like it would eventually say. Like, yeah, you martyr. Like, you're taking this on. It's my weight to carry, or it's my cross to bear, but it's not. There's a whole seat that actually is supposed to carry that weight or bear that burden, you know? You don't need to be the one doing it. And so that would be a martyr at that point. I'm not there. This is like recent recognition about, you know, even realizing, oh, fuck, I don't wanna do that anymore. You can just approve it. And now I just need to like parse out, okay, what, what can just be moved on without me, and like where do I actually need to step in and do more approvals? So I'm just working through this in real time, you know? Okay, so that is actually it. I don't have anything more to add here. I have a lot more I could add, but, you know, I think I've said enough. It's been enough. It's been real, folks. It's been fun. If you want related episodes, go to the descriptions below and make sure you check them out. That aside, you have a fantastic rest of your day, and I'll see you on the next episode. Okay, bye.