Managing Up

👑 Quick Bio

An experienced marketer, I have worked with a variety of agencies and companies, primarily with a focus on technology. Have a passion for all things marketing, including community building, social media, content marketing, SEO, and analytics. I'm also a huge believer in developing a customer-centric mindset to fuel growth and success in all other areas. Currently, I am the Head of Growth at PromoPrep and publish a marketing newsletter. In my free time, I love creating digital art and biking.

‍Twitter: @ccmarce_writes Website: promoprep.com

‍🛠 What scrappy tool can't you do without?

I love both Yoast and Screaming Frog SEO Spider. Those are two tools I think are invaluable for digital marketers today.

‍🎵 What karaoke song would you sing?

Probably a song by the Spice Girls or from Hamilton.

‍🏆 What's a recent win you've had?

I've grown the organic traffic on my personal website by over 300% when comparing the first 4 months of 2021 to the last 4 months of 2020. And posting a Bridgerton meme to the PromoPrep Twitter account that performed pretty well.

‍🎤 If you had to speak for an hour right now, what topic would it be?

The importance of finding the right balance between organic and paid acquisition in a marketing strategy. It's an especially difficult challenge for small businesses or start-ups that want immediate growth but also need to cultivate brand relationships for long-term success.

Thanks for sharing, Chantelle! It's so great to get to know you a little better.

‍Would you like to be featured in the Scrappy Reader Spotlight? Let me know!

Yes! I want to be in the Spotlight >

Frustrated with Your Boss?

Does your boss:

• Think they are the marketing expert, not you?
• Pepper you with emails day and night?
• Have no clue what you really do every day?
• Have you running in six different directions at once?

You are Not Alone

Typically, if you are a Marketing Team of One, you are so busy with marketing strategy, execution, and fire-fighting that you aren't proactively managing up but in a constant state of reacting.

You can turn it around. Learn how to manage up. This does not mean "kissing up". Managing up is the skill of making both your boss's life and your life easier. It is setting expectations, listening to underlying needs, and providing value. It is also communicating what you need from them and speaking the truth.

‍☑️ What I think is important and what my boss thinks is important are totally different.

• Agree on your "North Star". Your North Star is the one thing that keeps you guided and helps you set the priority on what you work on. It is usually aligned with the company goals, like "increase revenue."
• Tie the priority of tasks to the impact on your agreed-upon "North Star."
• Share the concrete metrics that show the impact of your marketing tasks, for example: revenue generated, quality leads created, or churn reduced.
• Ask for the reasons your boss thinks certain things are important. There may be things going on in the background you don't know.

☑️ I keep getting new tasks thrown at me and my plate is full.

• Prioritize the new tasks based on the impact it has on your "North Star" and the scale of the task (if it is easy or hard).
• Identify other tasks that will need to be put on the back-burner or what additional resources will need to be brought in if you tackle the new task.
• Discuss with your boss which tasks need to move up/down in priority.
• Make this a consistent habit, so that it is expected when a new project comes your way, this process will be followed.
• Have a visible status board (like Trello) that shows all of your open tasks with deadlines so there is an understanding of your workload.
• Send a weekly status report showing what you have accomplished and what remains outstanding to ensure there is an understanding of what you are working on.

☑️ My boss doesn't respect my role as the marketing expert.

• If your boss is the founder, the business will be very personal. Take this into consideration.
• Ask open-ended questions to get to the underlying reason why the boss is disagreeing or recommending different tactics.
• Incorporate those underlying reasons into what you know to be best.
• A/B test anything you can instead of arguing over which idea is better. Let the results speak for themselves.
• Make data available and visible to show the impact of different marketing tactics.
• Find allies in the company.

☑️ I am constantly asked for updates.

• This may be a symptom of the boss not having the information they need readily available in a way they can understand it.
• Try to get to the bottom of the information they need. Talk to them. Look for patterns in what they are asking for.
• Create a dashboard or report(s) that gives them confidence in the state of marketing and the business. It may take a few rounds. Sometimes the boss may not know what they specifically want. Give options and work together.
• Proactively send weekly status reports of your important KPIs, wins, challenges, and goals for next week.

☑️ My boss doesn't use the dashboards I set up.

• Try to identify if it is a technical issue. Is it using an application they are not comfortable with?
• Try to identify if the data is too detailed or complex. Many times the data you need is too in the weeds to get an overall picture of the business.
• Try to identify if it is a presentation problem. Some people prefer tables and numbers, and some prefer graphs and visuals.
• Make sure you both agree on what the important KPIs are and why.
• Provide context to the numbers. Show trends and compare them to goals.

☑️ When I ask for resources, I am always told no.

• Quantify the return you will get for the dollars spent. If it is technology resources, you can show time saved and translate that into dollars. If it is resources to generate revenue, you show the return on revenue dollars.
• Identify the tasks that will not get done if resources are not found.
• If you still don't get the resources, you will have at least set expectations on what will and won't get done as a result.

Hopefully, this gives you some tools to manage up and position yourself as a marketing leader. Not every situation is fixable. There are some environments that are too toxic and some bosses that are unreasonable.

‍What You Use It For

‍Google Data Studio is a free report builder that allows you to bring together your data sources, create a consolidated executive summary dashboard, and share it.

‍What You'll Love

Visualize Your Data

• Tell a story using your data by creating easy to understand dashboards.
• Turn your complex data into easy to understand charts, including line, bar, pie charts.
• Create maps to tell a geographical story.
• Annotate your reports with explanations.
• Brand your reports with text and images.

Easily Connect Data Sources

• Easily connect a variety of data sources without any programming including Google Marketing Platform products and social media platforms.
• Connect hundreds of databases, CRMs, ad platforms, and applications.

Customizable & Interactive

• Make your reports interactive with viewer filters and data range controls.
• Create a flexible template so anyone can use it to see their own data.

Share and Collaborate

• Share your dashboards with individuals, teams, or make it public.
• Invite others to view or edit your reports.
• Schedule emails that send out links to the dashboards.
• Embed your reports in other pages.

What's Cool

By default, reports in Data Studio get data from a single data source. To combine data from different sources, you can "blend" multiple data sources into one report.

‍What You Can't Do

Data Studio will not replace a good marketing database. Blending data is a bit limited. You can only blend up to 5 data sources. Also, there is only one way to combine the data, and that is with a left outer join.

‍Check It Out - Free Google Data Studio.

Method

Manage up by keeping your CEO up to date with a simple yet powerful weekly status report.

‍What You Need

• Any document or email editor.

Steps

‍1. State your North Star.

Your North Star is aligned with the company goal and the one thing that keeps everyone guided. Emphasizing the North Star keeps the focus on what's important.

‍2. Report your critical KPIs.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics that show how you are doing compared to goals. Keep it simple and don't overwhelm with detailed data. You can always dive deeper if your boss requests more information.

‍3. Summarize last week's wins.

This section is for important successes. Highlight accomplishments.

‍4. Identify last week's challenges.

This section is to proactively communicate what were challenges and how your boss can help you.

‍5. State next week's goals.

Identify what your priorities are for the coming week. This tells your boss what you are going to be working on and allows you to take control of your time.

You're done!

‍Advanced Tips

To make your status reports easy to produce, you could hook in your KPIs to automatically update your report. You could also use Trello or Asana to keep track of your tasks to help populate your wins, challenges, and goals sections.

The 2009 Pixar movie Up was directed by Peter Docter and co-directed by Bob Peterson. They also co-wrote the screenplay. He is Chief Creative Officer of Pixar and is the first person to win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature three times.

Here's a little about Peter you may not have known:

• Born in Bloomington, Minnesota
• Grew up introverted and socially awkward
• Junior high classmate considered him "this kid who was really tall, but who was kind of awkward, maybe getting picked on by the school bullies because his voice change at puberty was very rough."
• Plays double bass and joined the orchestras in the soundtracks for Monsters, Inc and Up
• Taught himself cartooning making flip books
• Is the voice of "Kevin", the bird in Paradise Falls, in Up

I don't know about you, but the montage of Carl & Ellie growing old together is a masterpiece. (I'm not crying! You're crying!)

‍

Managing up is one of the most challenging things to do as a Marketing Team on One. I hope you found some ways to help manage your own boss.

If you ever have a question or need specific help, please reach out. I am happy to talk.

See you next week. Happy Scrappy Marketing!

‍

Michele Hsu

michele@revgabba.com

‍P.S. Did someone forward this email to you. How nice of them! Subscribe for yourself.