The world is messy. Business even more so. And winning is a team sport.
My experience isn’t that marketers are unwilling to learn or engage with the commercial side. It’s that a huge amount of that reality is actively gatekept.
Margins, trade-offs, risk, funding pressures – all the things plenty of marketing frameworks assume you understand – are often kept behind closed doors. Then people act surprised when marketing decisions don’t fully line up.
It’s not that the models aren’t wrong. They’re just written for environments where information flows freely and decisions are clear.
If you want marketers to think commercially, start by letting them see the commercial reality they’re being asked to deliver against.
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.
