Good marketing can’t fix poor leadership, but good leadership can fix…
Here’s an autobiographical story about how I came to do the work that I do (which I find to be really important work, BTW). If you come to an event and hear me speak you’ll likely hear some version of it. This past week at my 3-day workshop some of you did hear this, and now I’m writing about it. Content is endlessly malleable.
Story:
Heidi (wife/life, biz & parenting partner) and I have owned a couple small businesses over the past couple decades. They are musical services of different kinds as we are trained musicians. We sought out lots of continuing education to help these work better. Doing this taught us lots about how business systems work and fit together.
Eventually we noticed we were giving advice to other entrepreneurs and business owners about all sorts of things. Much of what we said, however, focused on marketing, particularly digital marketing and social media. Facebook marketing is one of the skills at which I had become proficient. It seemed natural to look at things through a marketing lens, and it often proved an effective route to problem solving, but this also led to us being pigeonholed as marketers. That’s how our clients thought about us.
Eventually this became frustrating because that’s what they expected from us, even if (and we could often see this more clearly than they) their problems were actually deeper than marketing.
If you have problems with leadership, posting every day this week is not the answer.
If your systems are not sufficient to support the growth you want, more content is not the answer.
Some of our clients realized I was capable of bringing a deeper and wider-ranging conversation. Some of them were not able to snap out of the old way of seeing me. And some of them still aren’t aware of their leadership problems.
Marketing can only fly as high as the leadership is effective. So can systems. So can culture. So can anything else.
My time as a marketing consultant allowed me to own the following truth:
“Good marketing can’t fix poor leadership, but good leadership can fix…EVERYTHING.”
Yes, it’s all about leadership. 100% of the time. The above statement isn’t even coherent if you don’t start with good leadership. Without good leadership you can’t even define what good marketing is, just one of the reasons it was frustrating to be so pigeonholed.
And so I decided to pivot. Because I was tired of having marketing conversations about leadership issues and being the only one in the room, real or Zoom, who even realized it.
Now I talk ONLY to leaders, within the space of a uniquely intentional, insightful, and inspiring conversation that examines all their frustrations and aspirations, quickly processes them, and delivers highly focused and customized strategic solutions to guide each and every action going forward.
Who is a leader? Simple. You are. If you have a vision for improving the cultures you touch, you’re a leader. Let’s articulate your vision and get you acting on it. There is no time like the present, because it’s ALL the present. The future just became the present, and the present became the past. Did you catch it? It just happened again.
Here and now you are, with a specific history, perspective, set of experiences, passions & skills. What does it all add up to and where will it take you? My clients are on a wonderful journey of discovering that each and every day. Want to join them?