5 Sins of Marketing
I don’t remember seeing other cars or traffic lights as I drove to work that day. I was completely consumed by thoughts of needing to tell my boss NO. How was I going to do it? Would I just walk into his office, say it and walk out? Would I wait until he came around to ask about progress on the project? Would I hide all day, avoiding him as much as possible, waiting until the last minute of the day, and say something as I left for home?
I had absolutely no idea. All I knew is that I was going to do what he asked he me to do, and that meant there was high probably of being fired on the spot. Best case scenario it meant I was no longer a “team player”, instead of being inside the “inner” circle, I would be outside, looking in.
I had enjoyed working for the company — and working for him. He had started the company a few years prior and had grown from nothing to almost a hundred million dollars, seemingly overnight. He was dynamic, charismatic and extremely focused. Just want a enthusiastic 20-something marketing guy wanted.
But he played it fast and loose. And I just couldn’t do what he wanted me to do. I had the ability, I had the knowledge, I even understood why he wanted to do it — I was going to refuse to do because it was completely dishonest (and bumping up against the fine line between legal and illegal).
Dishonesty
Although I would suspect that most people would describe themselves as being an honest person, all too often we discover that this is not always the case. If you discover that members of your team or company are dishonest and struggle to tell the truth, then can you really afford to have them on your team? You won’t be able to trust them to accurately communicate with either you or anyone else. Their dishonesty can end up imposing a false reality on both their life and the people they end up working with.
Boredom
Bored employees will not be productive employees. Your most successful employees will be the ones who are constantly exploring something new. Employees who are not seeking out new experiences and knowledge are the ones who will be unable to change as the company grows and changes. Bored employees will not be willing to lead projects, investigate problems, or help customers. These are not people that you want to have on your team.
Mediocrity
If the people around you (at work or in your life) are not striving to improve both themselves and who they are, then their results will start to show it. If they are willing to live with “good enough” then your team will quickly gain a reputation for being slow to respond to customer needs and for delivering products which are late and don’t perform to customer expectations. The overall value of the product marketing will go down in the eyes of your company, along with their willingness to fund the next big product marketing idea.
Negativity
The one thing that you don’t want to hear in your department as the person in the CMO position are phrases like “that won’t work here” or “that’s not how we do things”. Negativity is very much like a heavy weight that can easily spread from one employee to another. Negativity causes innovation to slowly start to die and will result in employees not being willing to take on additional work. Complaining takes away from the work that needs to be done and does not help to find solutions to the problems and challenges product marketing professional faces.
Toxicity
Some people bring a toxic environment along with them. The result of this is when other people are asked to work with them, they develop a feeling of dread and start to feel tired. There is just something about these people that makes others actively not want to work with them. You simply cannot afford to have them as a part of your marketing department. That negative impact will spread like wildfire, and sap the energy within the entire department.
