First 100 days

The 100 days research points out that you need to 'start the job before you start the job'.. ie start figuring out your plan well in advance. Arguably this starts from the moment you start investigating the company.

But consider the first interview. This might be the first time you have the chance to really find out about where your potential new role fits into the organisation, what the challenges are, why they're hiring, and who you might have to deal with.. The nuggets you pick up in this first hour can be so important - not just to persuade / dissuade you about the job, but to help you start figuring out your likely gameplan, not to mention helping you say the right things in interviews 2,3,4.....

So some serious do's for first interviews:

1. Get some frank opinion about the nature of the job - are you being brought in to keep a sinking ship afloat? fix problems ? or create the next step change?
2. Get the interviewer's opinion on the history of the business, and their hopes / aspirations for the future
3. Find out the names of the key players - knowing who's doing what will help you with your plan, and ensure you appear in the know in further interviews...

And, on a lighter note, here are some not so serious don'ts...

Posted by shuvo at 12:00 PM | Permalink

The 'Women in Marketing' review prompted me to reflect how much has changed in one marketing lifetime.

It was the early 70s when, fresh from university, I applied to 4 companies [2 car, 2 food and confectionery] to join their marketing training programmes.

Both car companies turned me down flat, stating without a moment's remorse that 'we don't take women into marketing'. .. . .oh! those free and easy days before equal opportunities.

One food company turned me down on the grounds that all marketing trainees had to do a stint in the sales force and a woman wouldn't be able to work in an all male force of 800.

But one employer was far sighted enough to take me on- but warned that as their first ever female graduate recruit into marketing I was something of a risk.

I did my stint in their sales force of 700- all men bar me! I then joined marketing. Many colleagues find it unbelievable now, but I was required to stay in the womens' hostel- no visitors, 10.30 curfew.

30 years on and we have proved to be no risk at all. The survey confirms all my observations that we are dedicated, optimistic, forward thinking and great people managers.

I'm almost tempted to forward a copy to those 3 companies that lacked the benefit of foresight 35 years ago...

Posted by gina at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The First 100 Days research report commissioned by Oxford Strategic Marketing and Hunter-Miller. is now available for download - HERE.

The research distills the insights of the UK’s leading marketers and provides the do’s and don’ts of how to be successful in the first 100 days of a new job based on 8 critical success factors.

Our research reaffirms the challenge laid down by Marketing Society Chairman, Hugh Birkitt to develop a marketing profession that is 'fit for CEO purpose', as well as fit for customer-purpose.

We hope this report, the model that it precipitates, and the debate that ensues here will be a really useful resource for marketers.

Posted by jonathan at 2:32 PM | Permalink

One of the most valuable elements of the First 100 Days report is the honest testimony of senior marketers.
Please do share your best and worst First 100 Day experiences with other marketers by commenting below. Just click 'comments'

Posted by Editor at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The First 100 Days (F100D) research identified eight critical success factors for a successful first 100 days.

We summarise them as follows:

1. Hit the ground running

62 per cent of respondents agreed the realities of a new job can be different from the initial job description....

“Be consistent from day one. Don’t take a honeymoon period.� said Andrew Mullins from News International.

F100D actions: Develop a pre-plan. Do your own mystery shopping. Assimilate historic research. Meet colleagues. Learn everything possible about the brand and its customers.

2. Suppress the marketing psyche

70 per cent believe marketers with an FMCG background find it hard outside of an FMCG environment and fail to adapt quickly...but this doesn't stop their flamboyant apporoach.

“Don’t try and be too clever, ramming marketing theory down other people’s throats.� Chris Harris, Nokia, Vertu.

F100D actions: Recognise that marketers may be psychologically different from other board directors. Establish your personal fit for the role before you start.

3. Resist the ‘Quick Wins Itch’

Our senior marketers were clear that it is a characteristic of successful marketers that they hold their nerve and resists the pressure for a rapid wrong solution. 60 percent of respondents said that too many marketers pursue immediate change, rather than listening and learning. Humility and common sense are required.

“Three months of your activism is not going to save the company� said Ian Ryder, Unisys.

F100D action: Recognise the need to build a sustainable vision as well as fix problems. Consciously plan the balance of your efforts.

4. Build the role of the whole marketing function

78 per cent of marketing directors agreed that marketers could communicate customer objectives in a way the business could understand. For many, this was deemed to be their primary function.

“It should not be ‘marketing’ director it should be ‘competition’ director.� Nick Fell, Cadbury Schweppes.

F100D actions: Assess the health and role of the marketing function as an early priority. Your goal is to build a marketing function that’s fit for customer purpose.

5. Recruit internal allies

74 per cent agreed that a collaborative approach with the sales director was the single most important relationship.

“Take control of how internal people understand what you are doing.� Chris Thomas, Impaq Group.

F100D actions: Talk the language of commercial success that is understood by your new company.

6. Adapt your personal experience to the corporate culture

“You can’t carry a model around. You must focus on what the problem is.� Tim Seager, Scottish Courage.

F100D actions: Conduct rigorous business analysis to determine marketing requirement. Don’t make assumptions.

7. Build your front bench rapidly

70 per cent of respondents agreed getting the team right was the first priority for a new marketing director.
Building the capability must be done in parallel, or indeed ahead of the strategy and tactics.

48 per cent of respondents also said that focusing on the immediate team and team members was more important than organisational structure per se, suggesting that it is individual talent that matters above 'process'.

"Find your front bench quickly and then build the support on your backbenches. The quickest route to failure is not having the right resource." Andrew Blazye, Shell.

F100D action: Assess your own capabilities as a leader and teacher in plugging the skills gaps you have identified.

8. Treat your advisors as partners

While it makes absolute sense to review your external resource, this should be done with an aspiration to fully exploit their capabilities and link them to your objectives. It is a mistake to judge on past experience alone.

“Don’t itch to change the ad agency. It’s rare that the only source of the fault is there.� Anon. !

F100D action: Make sure you lead and ‘own’ the strategy development. But be man/woman-enough whatever help you need to get the job done.

Posted by Editor at 1:46 PM | Permalink

Whatever your opinion of the 'nation-rocking' David Cameron, Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal shows just how critical the first 100 days can be in a genuinely transformational situation.

While much of the New Deal would subseqently unravel, FDR was able to secure the mandate for radical structural change in his First 100 Days.

'Spinning' the mood of the nation with his introduction of 'Bank Holidays' as a desperate mechanism to prevent a run on the banks, he famously declared 'we have nothing to fear but fear itself'. With cross-party support form congress FDR was able to cut the budget by 10% at a sweep.

Instead of spending his way out of recession, he chose resource reallocation, targeting resources to the areas where they would have greatest impact on future producitivity, and greatest impact on collective confidence.

While his political legacy is tarnished by subsequent economic events, and the necessities of war-time preparation, FDR was able to supply sufficient impetus to kick-start the economic recovery process and give confidence back to a downtrodden nation.

Posted by Editor at 12:37 PM | Permalink

Many Individuals and corporations alike look forward to Christmas as a chance to catch their collective breath after another busy year, reflect and resolve their approaches to the next 12 months.

With recharged batteries and renewed vigour, we optimistically bound into January to March each year like it's our first hundred days. Of course, it never is. Two weeks in and the holidays will be all but a distant memory, barring the extra few pounds that remind you overindulgence was only too recent. We slip all too easily into familiar patterns and behaviours.

2006 could be different: This holiday, I finished one book and read another. "Who Moved my Blackberry" (Lukes/Kellaway) and "Hello Laziness" (Maier) have both forced a fresh - if somewhat irreverant - perspective of the industry in which we work and, with a bit of luck, I might make it into February before life returns to normal.

Sitting in a client meeting yesterday, receiving a brief to develop a strategic, customer-driven growth framework for a fast-developing category of technologically enabled, rich, multi-media content (you can see where this is going) I was prompted to reflect on how valuable the first hundred days are for seeing the world in a way that you never will again.

As I marvelled in the meeting at the acronyms and the sheer inaccessibility of the language and concepts, I thought to myself how in a few weeks this will all feel familiar and how the perspective I can take on the problem today is fleeting.

We've learned from our research of the importance of using the F100D to stop, listen and learn. Your trusted, time-proven models of marketing may not work here. But how long does this precious state of ignorance last? How long before we are tainted by insider knowledge, before we assimilate the company's history, language and cultural norms?

What is the shelf life of a fresh pair of eyes?

Posted by carl at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

How to gain companywide recognition that you are making a significant difference in a staff role.

1. Plan your approach.

This will differ based on individual circumstances, but the principles involved are:
a. Making decisions on where you will aim to get airtime to merchandise your unique contribution.
b. Prioritizing what you work on to maximize your visibility and importance in delivering the overall business imperatives.
c. Working out how the team / individuals skill sets can blended with the top business needs and your functional responsibility.
d. Being aware of those in the organization who rate / do not rate the team / individuals and why, and how important their voice is in the organization.
e. Identifying those individuals / teams/ agencies who can help the team / individuals deliver.

Suggested approach:
• Take the top priorities for the total business. Work through what are the top contributions the team will make in the next year. Consider where the individuals own personal skills are best displayed/ deployed.
• Create a matrix of business priorities vs. your team's contributions. Gap fill your planned contribution based on the skill sets. Ask yourself where are the strengths best leveraged? Consider how best to market the unique contribution, skills and perspective.
• Consider the skills and abilities of the individuals / agencies / teams you are able to create and how best to leverage their capabilities.
• Create a plan that only you and your team can truly deliver. Merchandize its benefits to stakeholders in terms most meaningful to them.

2. Be aware of stakeholder agendas vs. your role.

Work out what the original vision foryour role. Review whether this agenda is still appropriate both for organization and for the individuals. What is the current agenda for your role?

Consider line manager's perspectives vs. your role. Many will find issue with any staff roles because they perceive they have :
a. More limited accountability- not Profit and Volume responsible
b. Shorter reporting lines through to senior management than they do.

Other staff roles may have been established longer and have developed own ways of working with stakeholders / senior management etc. It may be worth understanding what works for them and adapt this for your role.

Suggested approach:
• Understand each stakeholder's issues relevant to the team / individual and their contribution, work out how to
a. Resolve their issues
b. Express your role / contribution in ways meaningful to them.

• Benchmark existing practices and adapt vs. your own skill set.

• Have regular feedback sessions with key stakeholders- this forces them to recognize you are trying to address their agenda, provides a regular forum for relationship building and face to face time.

3. Build relationships, diagnose issues and help solve them with line management.

Suggested approach:
• Aim to dispell the myth that you are an out of touch HQ overhead! Avoid spending days in the office badgering teams for data to populate fancy charts. Target 1-2 days out of the office each week with line management. Get out and meet the teams. Find ways of helping them. Build a groundswell of support and appreciation that you are a valuable resource for them.

• For each key line management /other stakeholder decide what desired response will be and devise a plan to deliver. e.g., 'I really appreciate Ms. X's sorting out the XYZ issue for me. I appreciate we would not have done what we have done without her.'

4. Contribute to business discussion in the following areas where your staff role objectivity can be a
major benefit:

• Consumer / Customer Champion. E.g. acting as customer independent watchdog, feed back comments from opinion formers; articles; TV and radio etc.

• Competitor Intelligence. Use your staff role to assess competitors objectively; feed back on competitor intelligence.

• Innovation. Present innovatory new ideas; show better ways to do things; develop new service ideas.

• Culture & Values Championing. Contribute overtly to the culture of the business. Find new services for employees in line with values.

• Watchdog. Use the fact that you are staff and not line to be independent and challenging.

Posted by chris at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the first 100 days, a new Marketing Director needs to review the marketing function as described by their company, and work out if it is fit for purpose, and consistent with the customer's view of the organisation - often it isn't.

The first Task is sometimes just to work out who is in the Marketing Function - and who should be!

The traditional marketing function as developed by the FMCG marketers, and dominated by Product Management, is increasingly rare, and even in organisations such as P&G has long since been replaced by streamlined and globally appropriate models.

In service businesses Marketing's principal business responsibility can often be limited outbound Customer Communications (excluding one to one CRM of course!).

Most organisations will also give Marketing a leadership role, though this is often nominal, with limited power and ill-defined responsibility, and yet this area is often where marketers will instinctively know most value can be added in the long term.

To be credible however, the specialist marketing functions have to be operating seamlessly and efficiently before a Marketing Director, can start to build an extended team of customer facing functions, over which they have limited influence and even less control!

Establish Functional excellence and be recognised for it!
Get good leaders in place
Cut out obvious waste
Sub-contract non-essential services
Empower the agency to its full potential
Set internal efficiency targets and beat them
Use a common language

Then, and only then, will be ready to start leading the rest of the organisation, and broadening the Marketing Function.

Posted by jonathan at 8:49 AM | Permalink

Seth Godin succinctly raises the hoary chestnut of the role of marketing. According the him, senior marketers must be architects:

"What does an architect do? She reinvents the very nature of what's delivered and how it is delivered. She reimagines the inputs and outputs of the organization, as well as its story, to create an engine of revenue that grows while benefitting all sides. The reason we hear about google and apple and jetblue and starbucks all the time is that these are poster children for re-architecting existing business models into something very different. The marketing is not slapped on. Starbucks is not Dunkin Donuts with a clever sign. If Dunkin Donuts goes out to hire a "senior marketer" and gives that person traditional senior marketer duties, not much is going to change...."

I think it's a great analogy...for bad marketing.

Yes, architects design environments for internal and external stakeholders - for the world to see, and for employees to live in.

Yes, architects seek to influence through a combination of functional design and emotional persuasion.

Yes, architects imagine dramatic solutions to pressing problems

But how much architecture is really Built to Last

How many genuinely consult with future users?

How many think in terms of centuries, rather than decades?

How many truly add to the value of the resources they consume?

Too many brands have been undermined by would-be architects, when scaffolders and structural engineers were all that was required.

As Prince Charles, might have put it: overambitious marketing can be "a monstrous carbuncle, on the face of a much loved, and elegant friend."

Posted by Editor at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)