GTM Advice with Connie Glover

In this GTM Advice episode, Connie Glover, GTM Strategist and Master Storyteller at CMarie Marketing Studio, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Connie answered the following questions:

1. What is the biggest go-to-market challenge today? How would you tackle this challenge?
2. Where would you focus your efforts if you had limited resources and had to drive immediate results?
3. How do you ensure there is alignment across all go-to-market functional teams? (i.e. sales, marketing, product, and customer success)
4. What’s the one “dirty little secret” in go-to-market that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to know? 
5. What do you think is the biggest misconception about having a career in go-to-market? 
6. What is one skill that all GTM professionals need to have mastered to be successful? 
7. What is one thing you wish you knew sooner? 
8. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to grow their career in go-to-market?

Transcript

Stephanie Cox: Welcome to our GTM Advice episode where each guest answers a fast round of questions and shares their go-to-market advice with you. Let's hear from Connie. 

Stephanie Cox: What is your biggest go-to-market challenge that exists today, and how would you tackle it?

Connie Glover: This was actually my go-to-market confession, and that is I know I'm afraid of this and I'm afraid as marketers we're kind of facing this. I feel like we're running out of ideas. I feel like we're running out of ideas in terms of breaking through all of the noise, how to get ourselves noticed, how to create the demand, how to do that faster so that we can make our mark in the market, and how we can do it at the pace and the expectation of the leaders. I'm praying that there are innovative marketers out there all over that will keep creating, there's new ways for us to do it. But at some point, I'm afraid that our challenge is going to be that it's all just gonna be crowded and messy. And we're gonna be out of ideas on how to neaten that up and get ourselves into our place in the market. It's a scary thought and I hope it doesn't ever happen, but that's what I feel like our challenge is right now.

Stephanie Cox: Where would you focus your efforts if you had limited resources and had to drive immediate results?

Connie Glover: I would focus on all of the amazing and now great creative ways that you can use social. Because that's still, those are still the platforms where you can just really put all of your creative juices, and at Marketers at Heart, we want to be creative people. We don't want to be number crunchers or lead creators. We want to be creative people. And those are the areas where we can actually for little to no money, create a splash. Not that you wouldn't need help doing that, and it always helps to have influencers in your space. But I think if you have influencers in your space and you can get them to help you and put them to work and then put all of your creative juices there, that you can make a pretty immediate sort of impact, at least from a visibility standpoint. Because everything else is costing too much money, right?

Stephanie Cox: How do you ensure there is alignment across all go-to-market functional areas (i.e. sales, marketing, product, and CX)?

Connie Glover: I'm going to quote you, my friend Stephanie Cox, in a recent LinkedIn post. It has to start with the CEO. And they have to be committed to the strategy and to getting everybody in sync. And they cannot waiver. Because if people see the CEO waiver, then regardless of how hard we're trying to keep everybody connected and working towards the same goal because I feel like that is whether or not we want it, it's kind of marketing's responsibility. I embrace it because I love that challenge and opportunity to get all of the departments in line and everybody thinking towards the same thing. Why is what we do a value to our customers and how do we communicate that and what role does everybody play? But you've got to stay on message and you've got to stick with your strategy. You said, and I 1000 % agree, it has to start with the CEO and they have to be the one to be the anchor for all of that.

Stephanie Cox: What is the one dirty little secret in go-to-market that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to know?

Connie Glover: Leads do not equal sales. Leads do not even equal opportunities. Leads do not even equal something that we should be paying attention to in their sort of definition. And leads should not matter as much as they really, really do.

Stephanie Cox: What do you think is the biggest misconception about having a career in go-to-market?

Connie Glover: That it's marketing.

Stephanie Cox: What is the one skill that go-to-market professionals need to have mastered to be successful?

Connie Glover: There's two, but they go hand in hand. One is the ability to manage up. For somebody that's new in their go-to-market career, it is kind of a scary thought and it may be a little intimidating. You have got to be able to effectively and gracefully manage up, or you will only ever be a reactor. And you also then, as a result of that ability, should then have a very specific knowledge in how to create and execute strategy. That should come from the top. It should come from the CEO. But you have to be able to manage up effectively and help that strategy and that plan and the execution happen.

You've got to be able to take that on so you have to have a very clear understanding and knowledge of how to do it so that you can help the leaders when you're managing up, do it.

Stephanie Cox: What is the one thing you wish you knew sooner?

Connie Glover: I wish I knew sooner how the marketing function was going to evolve in the digital age. It happened so fast, I feel like I was kind of caught off guard. New marketers coming into this space don't know anything differently. But I feel like I would have set my own expectations in my head about what my new role will be. Because when I started, it was the fun, creative, sexy job.

And now it's the high stress, data driven, revenue generation, accountability job. Which I am doing and I am doing well and I am still enjoying it, but I felt like I needed to be a little bit better prepared because I had way more fun before between me and you.

Stephanie Cox: What is the one piece of advice you would give someone looking to grow their career in go-to-market?

Connie Glover: Stay very, very up to the second, up to the split second as fast as it's moving, current in all of the digital technology tools and software solutions, all of that.

You have to be so on that and even looking ahead to that because it impacts every single thing that you do. So in addition to being knowledgeable about the revenue piece of it, the sales piece of it, the digital marketing, the traditional marketing, all of those things, you have to be so current because even if you're current, you're behind right now as fast as technology is moving. You've got to be so well aware of that and how to use it in your job because if you aren't then when the next thing comes up in the next five minutes you're already too far behind. So be very diligent about that and take the time.