Meet Alec
I Learned Marketing Leadership by Doing the Parts I Had Never Done Before
Early in my career, I moved into a VP of Marketing role. Later, I worked as a marketing director within a roughly $2 billion public company.
Through those roles, I gained a lot of knowledge about marketing, leadership, and large-organization operations. Before that, I had never been fully responsible for an entire marketing operation.
I did take ownership of the entire marketing function as a part of my role at a company that generated around $15 – $20 million in annual sales.
I liked leading the marketing role. However, like most things, I had to figure out parts of the job as I went along. As I figured it out, the company still depended on me to do it successfully.
The Challenge Wasn’t Just Learning More About Marketing
The primary challenge for me wasn’t just taking on more responsibility for understanding all facets of marketing, but also learning a completely new business model.
I had to establish working relationships with sales and other members of the leadership team. I had to develop decision-making skills across departments that I had no direct experience managing.
I had to find out how the company operates.
?
Where do real decisions get made?
?
Who has influence over what gets done?
?
Which teams need relationship building?
?
How do you communicate effectively with people who share the same goal but come at it from totally different viewpoints?
I learned through experience. Some things went well, but some lessons arrived the hard way.
Looking back, I often describe owning all functions of marketing for the first time as being thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool with limited swimming knowledge.
You can probably reach the bottom, and you can probably keep yourself afloat. But when you are trying to learn everything at once, it is easy to burn energy just staying calm.
A swimming coach cannot swim for you. They can only guide you, show you, and help you to stay calm. But you are still the one doing the work.
But it helps to have someone beside you who has been in that water before, someone who can say, “You’re okay. Keep moving. Let’s look at what is actually happening here.”
That’s exactly what I do as a marketing coach.
That gives you room to focus on the job instead of carrying every question, concern, and difficult decision by yourself.
That is a big part of why I coach.
Coaching Should Leave You Better Equipped for the Next Situation
I am not interested in giving people a rigid leadership system and sending them away with a binder.
My role is to listen carefully, help you make sense of what is happening, and give you a place to think through the decision before you are in the room making it.
Some conversations will be about marketing strategy. Others may be about a relationship with Sales, a question from the CFO, an executive dynamic, your team, or the internal politics that come with a bigger role.
The goal is for you to leave each conversation with more perspective, more confidence, and a clearer sense of what to do next.
Over time, that changes how you handle the role. You get better at reading the business, communicating with senior leaders, and trusting your own judgment when there is no obvious answer.
What You Can Expect From Me
I will be direct with you. I will ask questions that help you look at the situation from more than one angle. I will share my perspective when it is useful, but I will not pretend I know your company better than you do.
The coaching relationship is private. You can bring the concern you have not said out loud at work, the question you are still working through, or the situation that is making you second-guess yourself.
You are not coming to me because you are incapable of doing the job.
You are coming because senior leadership is demanding, and a good leader knows the value of having someone competent in their corner.
Who I Work With
I work with first-time marketing leaders, including new Directors of Marketing, Heads of Marketing, and VPs, at companies of any size.
Some clients are stepping up from a marketing specialty into a broader leadership role.
Others have joined a new company and are trying to learn the business, the people, and the expectations while they establish their own credibility.
They are smart, capable people. They simply have more questions to answer than they did in the role before this one.