Too many marketing teams are stuck in production mode, and exist to launch whatever the business decides is important. But if you try to jump from that to ‘Chief Strategy Officer’ in a single leap, you won’t get very far.
It’s a 0 to 100 move that most businesses aren’t built to handle.
I recently sat down with Luis Clark, EMEA GTM Lead at monday.com, to talk about a more realistic path. And on reflection, making a shift isn’t about hijacking the strategy seat. It’s about positioning yourself as a dependable copilot.
Don’t hijack, copilot.
There’s a lot of noise about marketing ‘owning’ strategy. In most firms, it’s fantasy talk. If you try to grab the wheel without earning the right to be there, you’ll just end up turfed out onto the roadside. But there is a different way.
The entry fee is curiosity. You have to demonstrate that you actually understand how the business works under the bonnet. What does it take to compete and win? Where are we actually losing?
When you show you care about the mechanics of the win rather than just the aesthetics of the launch, your status changes. You stop being a service provider. You become a partner who knows how the money is made, and the levers to pull that makes it happen.
GTM is not a campaign plan
Most GTM plans are tactical plans. And you’ll have seen them plenty of times. They’re a list of assets, a timeline, and some messaging.
A real GTM strategy requires a blunt articulation of the competitive landscape. If you can’t explain why a customer picks you over the rival down the road, you don’t have a strategy.
A strategic copilot is the person who points out that the fireworks are useless if you don’t have a match to light them.
The incentive collision
Alignment is the great corporate lie. Group objectives look great on a slide, but in the office, priorities are crashing into each other.
Being a copilot isn’t about finding a middle ground where everyone is equally unhappy. It’s about understanding the specific pressures your colleagues are under.
Is in-year revenue the only metric that matters right now? Is there a long runway to develop the brand? When you understand what is actually keeping the Sales Lead or the Product Head awake at night, you can stop presenting marketing plans and start presenting solutions.
The goal is to make yourself a key ally in relieving that pressure. If the business is desperate for revenue, your GTM strategy needs to reflect that reality, not fight against it in the name of brand consistency.
The McDonald’s approach: recognition and purchase require different drivers
Consistency is a trap if you use it as a straitjacket. Brand codes are really important for long term salience, but being recognisable and being chosen are two different things.
Look at McDonald’s. They have global brand codes for recognition: the golden arches, the red and yellow, the furniture. But they have regional menus for the purchase. They understand that a brand’s journey is different in every market.
If you are a household name in the UK but a total stranger in Singapore, you can’t run the same play. You need the global codes to be found, but you need a local menu to actually get the deal done. Recognition gets you in the room. Solving a local problem gets you the revenue.
The questions to ask
Moving from the the asset factory to the cockpit doesn’t always require a promotion. It requires a change in the questions you ask before you start building assets.
The next time you are in a room with Sales or Product, try asking questions like:
- What is the specific hurdle killing the most deals right now?
- If we miss our revenue target this quarter, whose fault will it be?
- What is the one piece of feedback you get from customers that makes you wince?
And notice the difference is makes to your relationship with the business, and the impact of your work.
By Dave Heywood
A marketer who’s spent his career figuring out how real growth happens – for brands and people alike. He runs Marketing Careers Uncovered, a podcast where marketers talk honestly about the work, the missteps, and what actually moves the needle.
