How Your Boss is Just Like Your Prospect

Learn how to understand your boss by referring to marketing basics.

We spend so much time as marketers defining our perfect customer. We craft buyer personas like no tomorrow and even give them graphics and a name. I’ve even seen persona fatheads.

So let’s pivot a bit and look at how your boss is just like your prospect.

What Motivates Your Boss?

Just like your prospect, your boss is motivated to accomplish something. Typically in Marketing, the leader is charged with growing revenue. This can be as narrow as increasing demand and sales for an existing product or service. But quite likely this means your boss is trying to compete on a much larger scale, such as finding new products, services, or markets that will grow your company exponentially.

Here’s where you win. Your boss probably relies on you to get the day-to-day work done, and done successfully. This is obvious. But looking beyond the obvious, think about how you can help your boss see the broader world. What “big ideas” can you bring to the table?

More importantly, bring these ideas with strategies and tactics that can make it easier for your leader to visualize how this improves long-term revenue for the organization.

Help your leader see the path to more revenue by sharing your “big” ideas.

What Challenge is Your Boss Trying to Solve?

You may have some idea what the executive meeting room or the boardroom is like for your leader. High pressure happens within the walls of these strategic sessions. And your leader is often in the hot seat.

Here’s where you win. Arm your leader with information. Make sure she has the details of the campaigns that are running, including the most up-to-date metrics of how these are performing. If marketing strategies are under-performing, give your leader specifics about what you’re doing to improve these.

You see, your leader must answer to his fellow executives when it comes to limited company resources. And what’s most important to the executive team and the Board of Directors is that your leader has his eye on being a good steward of these scarce resources.

Always arm your leader with a wealth of information that helps them when they’re in the executive hot seat.

What Does Your Boss’ Journey Look Like?

Leaders are on a journey just like any other team member in your organization. Their journey can take many forms, whether it is building a high-performing team, or personal, professional advancement. She may also be angling for your promotion.

How you win. To be successful in any job it is essential that you believe in the vision of your leader and perform at your best to help your boss achieve the organization’s goals. This doesn’t mean you always have to agree, but it does mean you have to support with your best effort.

Believe in your leader’s vision and do your best to help them achieve the organization’s goals.

Talking to your leader becomes your key to understanding their goals and the company’s objectives. Sound familiar? Isn’t this precisely the same thing you do when you market to prospects?