It’s safe to say, we know having a great marketing strategy for your business is your major key to running a successful business. But having a completed marketing strategy just to simply follow is not enough.

A marketing strategy is like the roots of your precious indoor plant. It can grow and evolve depending on your business’s needs. Adaptation and maintenance are where your marketing managers come in. But - how much time are your marketing managers spending on marketing strategy?

I have always wanted to be a marketing manager. Started in the early 90’s, I wanted to achieve this position by the age of 30. This is my goal, and my expectation.

Marketers are able to progress quickly in the corporate environment in various ways. However, for those with no business upbringing, or simply do not have sufficient experience and qualifications, there are always new opportunities.

The marketing industry has changed significantly in the last few decades. When I started, Chief Marketing Officer (CMOs) did not exist. It is almost impossible for anyone in the marketing field to attain the C-suite. Today, CMO is exactly the positions that all marketers are aiming for. In the present, among board members and senior managers of large companies, there would always be someone that carries a marketing degree.

If you are new to the marketing field, here is my recommendations to help you progress on your path, based on my 30-year work experience with hundreds of different marketers across the globe.

Have you ever cut of your nose in spite of your face? If you think that you haven't - ever - then perhaps you are kidding yourself. We have all done it in life and our careers. It's the lessons we learn from our mistakes that often take us to where we need to be. We've all heard this many times before, and without sounding like a broken record, it needs reinforcing. No matter what age we are or what stage we are in our careers, we will make mistakes, choose the wrong option and be afraid to the take risks that might just lead us to where we want to go.

Establishing the best practices for work-from-home employees will help reduce distractions and helps increase productivity. Keeping your team on the same page, involved, and regularly providing guidance is the best way to motivate your employees as they work from their homes. This is key to having a successful team within your business.

You've made it, but what's next. You are a marketing manager with 10 to 15 years experience and all of a sudden you are wondering where do you go from here.

With a growing business there are pains, and sometimes things happen that are out of our control.

Our Sydney office experiences an exponential inflow of leads every single day. We are completely irked as to why we receive so many Sydney based leads from our social media and website, and as such, we need to employ more people.

In the recruitment process, we have received a lot of applicants, but in fairness, we should have gone back to the original applications we received 6 months ago, who may not have re-applied this time around. The quality of applicants in June last year was much higher than the quality we are receiving today.

But with the pains of growing, we have to be strong delegators to various offices and make sure we are all super organised.

And that is exactly what Emily Ryan has done. Emily is a marketing manager in our Sydney office and the minute we identified that we needed more staff, and with one of our team leaders moving to Geelong, this need was urgent.

What I found in this situation it had a profound effect on my opinion of people.

Emily not only stood up and took control without any quarrels or even being asked to, she fixed any problems that had arisen and became this dynamic, unbelievably capable person who looked immediately to the future and ensured that every part of the business in the area of marketing was completely, utterly, under control.

It blew my mind.

I didn't know Emily very well as I don't travel to Sydney as much as I use to, but what I did know is that she comes from a really good, ethical family. Going back to my theory that the best hires come from good families that install manners, respect and integrity in their children, Emily epitomizes exactly the type of employee or team member more precisely, that is instrumental in taking a company to the next level.

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Both of her family members are Pharmacists and own a Pharmacy. They have seen as much as I have no doubt with employees who perhaps don't have the company's best interests at heart.

Her parents have taught her right from wrong. They installed the ethos of doing a good job and being the best you can be. She has zero sense of entitlement and works hard without any supervision. 

The work that Emily does with clients is all based on what is in their best interests and is in every respect ethical. I really cannot speak highly enough of her morals and loyalty, alongside a very apt marketing manager who one day will be a marketing director or CMO.

She has stood out and the respect I have for her right now is enormous. I am genial that we've had this hurdle in our business because through it, I got to know Emily much better and I am so proud to have her on our team.

I also want to give her family a hug. Through their impeccable parenting skills, they have brought up a young woman who outshines other millennials ten-fold. She gives me certainty that my theory on good parenting produces the best employees.

I am positive that there is more to come with my thoughts on the effect of parenting on the future employees in a company.

There are many reasons why companies should fire their marketing managers - you just have to work out what their value is to the organization and the cost to replace them.

“Before we engaged Marketing Eye, we had alot of great ideas and concepts, but they were going in every direction possible. Then we hired Marketing Eye as our marketing managers, and they put all of these ideas together and added their marketing experience, to develop a strategy that is finally getting implemented."

Marketing Eye listens to what clients want and quite often adapts what we offer accordingly.