Hailing from Blackpool and now live in the south east - heading back home for a short trip to see family tomorrow until Friday. What’s the weather like? What are you wearing? I was in Margate on Sunday and it was like being in Spain but my mum has said it’s been freezing and rainy.
That said, my mum is 85 and likes to err on the dramatic side…
For context - 46 and breadwinner, UK. Have been in senior marketing roles at start ups for the last ten years. I don’t know if I am just burnt out or what but I just feel so ambivalent about it all.
Specific details: looking for a new role because my current place has become very political and dysfunctional (non political/ no BS is why I moved from corporate to start ups to begin with!). Marketing in start ups is such a slog anyway but this place is particularly bad for “proving the value of marketing”. It’s something I hear repeatedly despite turning the function around and demonstrating how marketing sourced 48% of pipeline this current FY (we run June - May).
I specialise in B2B tech. I’ve interviewed at a couple of places, got to the final 2 and lost out twice. Just interviewed somewhere yesterday - very similar to what I do and very similar to the 2 roles I lost out on. As I’m very senior, I don’t feel bad about this - at this level, they’re very picky and rightfully so.
I don’t know if am burnt out or what. I am usually very driven. I grew up very poor and had a very bad upbringing. I have a massive chip on my shoulder internally - I can never earn enough, never feel safe enough. I am usually coming at things from a survival perspective, internally, when I think about my kids and my husband. So I have that relentless drive but right now I also just feel so ambivalent about work. Work / my career was my path to accomplishing the safety I crave but now I just feel so…meh about it all.
Sometimes I think about going back into corporate and just coasting for a while - compared to start ups, it would definitely feel like that. I don’t know if it’s the slog of start ups that’s got me feeling this way. I don’t know what I’m asking. Just feeling a bit lost.
Vp of marketing, 20 years into my career. I was in corporate for a really long time and then moved into tech start ups about 8 years ago. I absolutely love it and have been in several professional services tech - fintech, legal, insurance etc.
By and large it’s been ok from the perspective of my title. I’ve found it easier to have conversations about marketing with people who’ve also come from senior corporate than being at a start up founded by an expert who was an IC. Those conversations are harder - they seem more to have the perspective that marketing constantly needs to prove its value.
I’ve been at my current role for 3 years. Initially the function had a very poor perception internally. They were measured on MQLs but with no guardrails or reporting on the outcome of those. I came into the role with the opinion that if the progression outcomes of those mqls were never measured, I could easily buy them each month and “hit” my target.
I completely changed the function, insisted on a pipeline goal, switched up attribution, analysed channels to show what was working and why we needed to change channels. We now report regularly on our pipeline target, often smashing it. Last year marketing contributed 49% of sourced pipeline.
This week I’ve sat in two meetings with the exec team - CCO, CCO and CPO - where the conversation was about the “primary goal” of the function and how they couldn’t articulate it to the board.
I mean, is it not obvious? Source and influence pipeline leading to closed won? Is that not my goal? I have made that abundantly clear - I submit weekly and monthly dashboards on marketing’s performance and anything close to vanity metrics, including GA, are always last. Meaning - I focus clearly on demonstrating how our activities materially contribute to and impact pipeline and to an extent, revenue.
I just can’t do it anymore. I’m sick of having these conversations where I hear “we really need to demonstrate marketing’s value”. If we were still just dilly-dallying around with metrics that had a less direct correlation, fine but short of actually closing deals myself, I don’t know how much closer to revenue I can get.
Sorry, this is so long. I’m just so done. Is it tech start ups? Is it inexperienced founders and C-suite? Why does no other function have to constantly prove itself? I want to say - you know what, as an experiment, we’ll down tools for a month and see what impact it has.
I’ve tried watching it a few times now. From the title and guests, I thought it would be fans and stars of various shows watching back clips and stuff whilst gossiping. But it’s not? It’s just really boring chat with very little connection to any show, bar a few relevant minutes here and there.
What am I missing - what is it supposed to be?
Did anyone notice this on the aftermath episode? When Amanda went to talk to Lindsay, and Lindsay is doing the big sister tough love thing…saying West is this and that…Amanda pulls that face that she always would when people pointed out how awful Kyle was. That smug closed mouth smile in agreement. We’ve seen it a hundred times with her. It was obvious why she did it with Kyle - she wanted people to say the bad things about Kyle so she didn’t have to. What’s her motivation with West? Surely she wants people to say positive things??