You would think that, by the time someone achieves the ranks of Vice President, they would no longer be stuck doing routine marketing tasks. Yet this is something I see all the time. Clients hire me because their VP is literally holding down the fort. They handle the sales, manage the team, and do all the marketing. Needless to say, it is not ideal for anybody when the VP is also the marketer.
Focus shifts away from strategy.
The biggest problem with having a VP handle your marketing is that it forces them to spend their days dealing with details. Like writing blog posts. And researching white papers. And tweaking automations.
Yet none of that is what you want your VP doing. Your VP is meant to focus on the big picture. They are there to develop strategies that will help your business grow. How is that possible when they are caught in the weeds maintaining your Twitter profile?
Not enough time.
Of course, your VP is going to try their damnedest to handle the marketing details while also staying on top of the strategy. Which is pretty much a recipe for burnout. If handling the marketing is a full-time job and so is creating the strategy, there’s no way the VP is going to be able to stay on top of both.
Invariably, both parts of the work suffer. The VP can keep the marketing going but has no time to get creative with it. In fact, creativity is the first thing out the window, which has an even worse impact on strategy. After all, if you don’t have room to think, you can’t be creative – and that does not bode well for your growth strategy.
Wrong skill set.
Even if all things are getting done, VPs rarely have the skill set to know what’s missing. They can learn the automation software and stay on top of an email campaign. But they might not know that their white paper’s graphic design is working against them by muting their call-to-action. Or that they are using an outdated platform that will hamper their future campaigns.
It’s not worth going it alone.
I cannot count the times clients have told me they never would have known to do something if I hadn’t pointed it out to them. Or that it would have taken them all day to do what I did for them (assuming they got to it at all). If you are a VP handling all your marketing, get some help – it will be the best thing for you and your company.
Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash.