Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

You are in a very tough situation and I hate to say it, but 9 times out of 10, getting slotted as part of sales and reporting to the VP of sales makes it very difficult to get promoted to VP yourself.

However, there is that 1 time out of 10 when you might be able to manage it. Some thoughts:

- Does your company believe in “skip-level” meetings? They are pretty common in larger orgs but not so common in smaller ones. They have multiple benefits, one of which is to keep talented people from being buried under managers that don’t let them shine. You want to be able to talk to the CEO, but you don’t want to be seen as going around your boss.
- I’d have a talk with the VP of Sales about your career path. Insist (politely) on formal reviews every six months if that isn’t already part of established process. If you’ve been there for a year and haven’t had a pay increase despite the additional responsibilities, at the very least you need to understand the comp review processes of the organization better.
- You might consider shooting for a Director level title. It’s a pretty big jump from Manager to VP and has some drawbacks. If you decide to look for a new role and you have VP on your resume, you’ll be limiting your options. There are a lot of great opportunities that pay very well at the Director level. The further you go up the ladder, the fewer opportunities you find.
- To answer your actual question - normally, a VP would be in charge of all of marketing as you are. They would also normally be part of the strategic planning process of the company. And, generally, their management scope involves multiple teams and multiple layers. Although, of course, that varies by organization.
- Whenever you have these discussions with the VP of Sales or the CEO make absolutely sure you can quantify your value. If you can’t show how you have had an impact on the bottom-line you need to start adding value.
- You should also be thinking in terms of bigger projects that impact the success of the organization. Since you are part of sales (technically) a natural area for improvement might be the lead management and the hand-off between sales and marketing. Do you have a universal lead definition? Do you have a nurturing program in place so that sales isn’t wasting time following up on leads that aren’t ready to engage? Are you interacting regularly with sales to improve communications and alignment…

Good luck. If you do these things and even if you don’t manage to get yourself promoted within your current company, you will be much better prepared for a new opportunity within a new company if it should come to that.

All the best!

Melissa

A VP spends considerable time on strategy and simply monitors and manages execution. VPs in mid and large size firms likely spend 70-80% of their time on strategy and budget, with the remainder going to politicking and HR issues – and legal issues depending on the industry. It’s not necessarily all that different from what you are already doing.

Are you involved in the management of the firm’s product or service offerings? If not, figure out how to get that under your umbrella. Many Marketing VPs oversee product/service management, mar-comm, advertising, PR, and media.

Melissa’s comments above are spot-on. Leverage your seat at the table when it comes to your time with the CEO in particular. Get yourself invited to the management meetings, make sure you’re involved with the corporate strategic planning, and if you’re so inclined put together a strategic marketing plan on your own. Tell them how marketing can further benefit the firm and bring some new ideas or thinking to the table. As we all know perception is reality; create a perception that will benefit you.

I have twice been in similar situations: one person marketing department, total responsibility, multi-level reporting structure, etc. It can be challenging and frustrating. You truly are the Director of Marketing push for that title first and then go for VP later.

Dear lathans,

Oh dear.

Your question of "What is the VP of Marketing responsible for vs. the Marketing Manager duties?" is a tough one that depends on many factors, some of which are:

Company politics
Business niché
Who's who in the office pecking order
Perceptions of "My dick's bigger than your dick"
Salaries
Education
Who knows who
Who's got what dirt on whom
And whether the CEO really gives a crap about his or her direct reports.

Without appearing to be a back stabber, whenever you get the chance, one on one, with the CEO, be bold, be brave and blow your own horn.

Be seen with the right people. Talk to them about the things that are important to them, and get to know them. Put together reports that make you shine as the brilliant light you are. When you are offered the chance to chip in your two cents' worth, do so.

Margaret and Melissa are both correct and to their comments I'd add that much of what goes on in terms of who does what depends very much on how much BS someone can get away with when they're interviewed.

I've come across several people over the years who could not blind people with brilliance, so instead they resorted to befuddling people with bullshit. Sadly, it works all too often.

Why?

Because we are bamboozled into the belief that authority is always right, when often, it is not. Recently, I learned a valuable lesson from Bill Gates via Christine Comaford and it's this: "Supreme self confidence is a choice."

IN life, but particularly in business there are often elements that we don't agree with or over which we have no control.

Credit being taken for work done by someone else is a common thing in business, and it's also a sign of supreme weakness on the part of the person taking the credit. This kind of person will also be VERY SWIFT to point fingers when things go wrong.

True leaders announce that this has happened or that that result has come about—and then they apportion credit to the people that have actually done the work.

Similarly, true leaders stand up and accept responsibility
when things go wrong, they do not point fingers at anyone but themselves because they have integrity, a spine, and balls. People like this earn the respect of the people that work for them. People in the former group do not.

You don't say what other experience you have. You've been there for a year? Well, in that case, give it another six months and if, after then, things don't improve, it might well be time to being sprucing up your résumé.

But what you must NOT do is become bitter and twisted. It's difficult NOT to I know (been there, done that, got the scars to prove it), but if you intend to stay put, if you can wait the situation out, you may be given an ideal opportunity to find out first hand just what exactly a VP does.

If nothing else, remember this: titles don't mean a damn thing and nor, to a certain extent, does the amount of money one is paid. What DOES matter is one's integrity and one's ability to look one's self in the mirror and to know and to be able to say ton one's self:
"I do a great job and I kick ass!"

In the long run, THAT'S the attitude that will get you promoted and get you remembered—and both for all the right reasons.

Many years ago I heard about a young copywriter who walked into the office of a creative director where our young writer friend had an interview.

The CD had his feet up on the desk and was reading a newspaper at arm's length so that the newspaper obscured the whole of his body above the waist.

Silence.

The young copywriter cleared his throat.

The newspaper twitched in irritation. The interviewee said "Excuse me ..." to which the CD replied: "You've got five seconds to get my attention. If you can't get my attention in five seconds, get out and don't come back!"

The young writer thought on this feet, pulled out his cigarette lighter, and set fire to the creative director's newspaper!

He got the job.

In business it's this kind of initiative, forthrightness, and attitude that matters—that gets one remembered. Not who does what, who gets what credit, or how much money they take home every month.

I know I may not have answered your question in quite the way you might have anticipated, but I hope this opinion helps.

Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Asking for the difference between a Marketing VP and a marketing Manager presumes that there is some dictionary definition of the terms.

There isn’t, the definition which applies is the one which the CEO who after all employed both you and the VP of Sales and either set or neglected to set in your terms of reference.

Maybe he sees you as a “Process” manager who, given a budget and tools will demonstrate certain outcomes which constitute a return on investment, growth in business, brand awareness and so on. Maybe he sees the Sales VP as a person manager who, like a field sales manager can manage by remote control or by site visits – someone who works mainly from instinctive judgments based on experienced aligned to hard numbers which come from sales versus targets and forecasts.


It’s up to the CEO to define his measures if he owns the business, not up to us to second guess them. If there is a turf war underway, it is in your CEO’s interest to become aware of it and to resolve is ASAP. You have the advantage of being local and also being the one who feeds the sales department. The Sales VP has the advantage in that he nominally has more responsibility than you and was presumably appointed over you rather than appointing you to that position.

So you have a stark choice – leave things be and excel in the hope that your effort will be credited to you or ask to clarify the situation with the CEO for the sake of operational efficiency.

The problem with the latter strategy is that, depending on what the CEO is currently thinking, it could resolve a staffing decision in your favor or in the favor of the Sales VP. Testing the water with an informal discussion would be a way round this, but if the CEO is a wily old dog, he’s probably on to lookout as to how you respond to the situation – concretely with proposals or whining about lack of recognition!

Tread carefully and seek clarification but be prepared to outline your own ideas. Don’t depend on our experiences because they certainly don’t pertain to you – all we can offer is our own war stories and examples of similar experiences we have come across.

Steve Alker
Xspirt