I've had a fantastic career so far, working on incredible brands for incredible marketing leaders. I’ve led brilliant campaigns, been a part of new product launches, set brand identities, built brand propositions, trained marketing teams and improved operations. It’s been hugely rewarding, satisfying and immensely fun!

It’s also been very frustrating. 

So much of a marketer’s time is spent keeping stakeholders happy and justifying our existence rather than doing the job we’re actually employed to do. Marketing has become synonymous with being a service and cost. It’s often the first to have budget and headcount cut. 

It's such a shame because executed correctly, marketing is an absolute force to be reckoned with. It’s the art of putting the customer at the heart of everything a business does (the 4Ps and more) to deliver value to them, driving customer satisfaction and, crucially, profit!

Yes, some Marketing departments might own just the promotion element of the 4Ps in some businesses. But, if alongside that they can also assert themselves as the voice of the customer, they become well positioned to influence the rest. To start having their own voice rather than juggling the voices of others. To start adding real, commercial value.

This is what I've excelled at in my most recent roles, where I've managed to galvanise businesses around a common goal delivering a single-minded, valuable proposition.

This is what I want to do in all future projects. To support business and marketing leaders in building propositions of value to the customer. To alleviate the pressure, provide focus and start influencing the right direction of travel to reach profitable growth, by being that extra pair of hands that helps get back to the basics of marketing.