Coaching for first-time marketing leaders
Your First Marketing Leadership Role Changes the Questions You Have to Answer
Most people get their first Director, Head of Marketing, or VP role because they were good at a specific part of marketing.
Maybe you built demand generation. Maybe you came up through product marketing, content, brand, RevOps, or growth.
As a result of your past performance, as well as the skills and experiences that you have obtained in your career to date, you have successfully moved into a marketing leadership position.
In addition to performing well in your current role, you will now be responsible for leading employees, coordinating with sales, communicating effectively with the CEO about what marketing is and does, building a productive relationship with the CFO, and making trade-offs across organizational functions.
You may be learning how decision-making actually occurs inside the company. Perhaps you are attempting to understand the personalities, alliances, and corporate political dynamics that shape those decisions.
And if you were newly hired into the company for this role, you are potentially doing all of that while learning a new business, a new leadership team, and a new set of expectations.
Some problems and issues you face will have a clear answer. Others will require judgment, patience, and a better read on the people and situations involved.
A lot of new marketing leaders can handle that aspect of the job. But sometimes they just spend too much time figuring it out on their own.
They are hesitant to admit where they feel shaky. They do not want their CEO, peers, or team to wonder whether they are ready for the role. So they think it through privately, make the best call they can, and hope it doesn’t turn into something bigger.
That is where I can help.
A Thought Partner for First-Time Marketing Leaders
I coach first-time marketing leaders who want a private, practical, seasoned sounding board as they grow into their larger marketing leadership role.
As your executive marketing coach, we will talk through what is happening inside the business, where you are getting stuck, how other people on your team, C-suite, board, or other organizational members may be seeing the situation, and what a strong next move looks like.
What we work through together depends on your role, the company, and what is creating pressure for you right now.
Sometimes that means working through a difficult relationship with Sales. Sometimes it means preparing for an executive meeting, deciding how to lead a team issue, or getting clear on a part of marketing you have not owned before.
For someone else, the pressing issue may be earning credibility with a new CEO, sorting out priorities for an overstretched team, figuring out how to challenge a peer without creating a bigger problem, or getting on the same page with a CFO who sees the business through a very different lens.
There is no preset curriculum to work through. We start with your situation: what you are responsible for, where you feel solid, what feels unfamiliar, and what is taking up too much space in your head. From there, the coaching follows the work in front of you.
The point is not to give you somebody else’s answer. It is to help you see the situation more clearly, trust your judgment, and handle the role with less unnecessary stress.
You do not have to work through every hard question alone, or wait until a concern becomes a problem before talking about it. You will have someone experienced you can confide in: a private place to bring the questions, uncertainty, and situations you may not feel comfortable raising inside the company.
You are still the leader making the call. You just do not have to make every call without a trusted person helping you think it through.
Why I Do This Work
I have been in that position.
My career included marketing leadership roles within a roughly $2 billion public company. Later, I led the full marketing function at a company in the $15–20 million revenue range.
The scope changed quickly. Some areas I knew well; others I had to learn in real time. I learned through the work, through mistakes, and through conversations I could have handled differently with more perspective.
Looking back, I can see how valuable it would have been to have someone outside the company who understood marketing leadership and could help me think through the situations as they came up.
Someone to ask the questions I hadn’t considered.
Someone who could help me see the other side of a difficult relationship.
Someone I could talk to before an issue became harder to solve.
That is the kind of support I offer now.
Alec Cheung
What You Can Expect From Coaching
Over six months, we will meet for one hour each week.
1
We will start by getting clear on your background, the role you have stepped into, the people around you, and the areas where you want more confidence or support.
2
From there, each conversation is shaped by what is happening in your work.
You may be preparing for an important meeting. You may be trying to earn trust with the leadership team. You may have a team challenge, a difficult peer relationship, or a decision that keeps getting pushed to the next week because the stakes feel unclear.
3
By the end of our work together, you should have a clearer sense of how to lead at this level, stronger relationships across the business, and more confidence in your ability to handle the job in front of you.
You can also reach out by email between sessions when something comes up and you need to talk it through.
You Earned the Opportunity
You do not need to know every answer on day one.
You do need room to learn, think clearly, and grow into the role without carrying every concern by yourself.
If you are in your first major marketing leadership role and want a trusted person in your corner, let’s talk.