Why Am I In Marketing?

As I traveled the course of my career, often times in unexpected directions, I have found myself asking the question of why I do what I do. Since most of us have found ourselves in a position or a company that is not exactly on the path we imagined when we were younger, it makes sense to ponder what exactly has delivered us to the place we stand.

So here I will describe why I am in Marketing. To introduce myself. And also explain my view on the role of the B2B Marketer.For me I have always known a few things with great confidence:

• I have a very curious mind
• I feel the basic need to contribute as much as I can to a common goal
• I believe that meeting a customer need is the only true founding principle of an enterprise
• There is a strong amount of effort and some basic levels of intelligence required to follow the evolution of customer needs and thus stay relevant

And so the answer to the question of why I am doing what I am doing is likely that I have followed opportunities to best exploit the above personality traits, skills and needs.

Having started my career and spent 9 years in a B2B company serving some of the world’s top brands in the consumer space, I have often rejected the B2B label because too often, B2B marketers forget to focus on consumers. We think our product is way too cool, our sales force is way too sharp, or our brochures so compelling that what prospect wouldn’t just lay down for us. And the truth is far from it.

Yes, in B2B, the decision process is far longer, the decision-maker is typically more than one person and all of them feel much greater risk (jobs, reputation, etc) than when buying a pack of gum. But these are still people. I am not suggesting it is harder: trying to appeal to the emotions of a teenager to buy the latest line of fashions is hard. But B2B Marketing is complex with a need to appeal to both emotion and intellect.

I am a B2B marketer because I think our job can be made simpler if we simply focus on the customer. As a B2B Marketer, I feel strongly that we (simply) help companies do 2 things:

• Get Customers
• Keep Customers

Sometimes we do this in a more creative way and sometimes we do this in a very scientific way. But that is all we do! And the only way to do it is through listening first.

I plan to share these inside tips and more with you here on B2BMarketingInsider.com. So now that you know why I am here and why I am writing this blog, here are the B2B Marketing Insider tips for my 1^st blog entry:

1. Stop worrying about your boss
2. Stop trying to create the “coolest” campaign to impress your peers
3. Never forget that happy employees are the only ones who create happy customers
4. Be curious: use every tool you have to listen to customer wants, needs, trends
5. Present those insights to every function of your business

In upcoming posts, I will explore these tips and more and will aspire to deliver insights learned from my challenges and experience in B2B Marketing. I’ll focus on topics like Social Media, Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty, Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing, Sales Alignment, Online Demand Generation and more of the coming evolutions in business and marketing. I hope you’ll join me.