The Beginning of the End

Last September, I started my own business: The Gettemy Group. Its goal is to give entrepreneurs and start-ups the marketing support they most desperately need.

You’d think another one of these marketing companies was as necessary as horse-drawn carriage mechanics and Dr. Whoever’s Incomparable Miracle Elixir. (AI: the amazing cure-all for all your marketing ills, blood-liver humours, deranged systems, and feminine states!)

But you’d be surprised how many companies don’t treat marketing like a strategic function, and structure it only for short-term goals. Nowadays, the snake oil salesmen have laptops, not bigtops, but that’s a pop-off for another day.

So I find myself in unfamiliar territory. No, not because I’m new to the hustle and grind of the start-up marketing life. Hell, my DNA is permanently recombined because of it (and I hope I haven’t made hustle and grind part of my kids’ genetic inheritance.)

What isn't familiar is that in order to build my business, which supports Adda’s unicorn habit and Lukey’s pancake addiction (ok, all normal with them so far) I’m supposed to talk about what I’ve learned in 20+ years, whether here, on LinkedIn, or in the glut of in-person entrepreneurial networking events over-correcting for three Zooming years.

Maybe you’re like me: you see so many of the self-serving, look-at-me, I-know-more-than-you-do posts out there as a bunch of, frankly, bullshit. And while I grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania, I never shoveled actual shit of any sort. So adding to the pile is an unfamiliar feeling. But Adda would tell me that’s a sign of a growth mindset. (That’s a future post, too).

So what do I offer on a different frequency in the cacophony? Beyond the lessons from the trenches of high-tech SaaS marketing from the scrappiest startup to highly desired acquisitions by worldwide behemoths:

I see how marketing fits within the overall business. Marketing should never be sidelined or designated as a subfunction of sales. It’s the strategic heart of every business that has a singular view into all other corporate functions.
I can always tie marketing to outcomes. Too many times completing tactics overtakes the driving to outcomes, especially if the business isn’t doing well. This quickly spirals the organization's decline even more and leads to continued bad decision-making.
I work with all areas of the organization to drive alignment and cohesion in ways that drive results. The most successful organizations I’ve worked at have always had a clear vision coming from the top. No exceptions.

The familiar, self-destructive repeat patterns I’ve seen too many times from the C-suite that keep businesses stuck in idle or cause them to crash into a dumpster fire-flaming wreck. The grace notes from one hell of a career and the many freakingly amazing people I’ve met along the way.

It’ll be a messy, beautiful, snarky conversation. Just me being me. You’ve been warned.

Last September, I started my own business: The Gettemy Group. Its goal is to give entrepreneurs and start-ups the marketing support they most desperately need.

You’d think another one of these marketing companies was as necessary as horse-drawn carriage mechanics and Dr. Whoever’s Incomparable Miracle Elixir. (AI: the amazing cure-all for all your marketing ills, blood-liver humours, deranged systems, and feminine states!)

But you’d be surprised how many companies don’t treat marketing like a strategic function, and structure it only for short-term goals. Nowadays, the snake oil salesmen have laptops, not bigtops, but that’s a pop-off for another day.

So I find myself in unfamiliar territory. No, not because I’m new to the hustle and grind of the start-up marketing life. Hell, my DNA is permanently recombined because of it (and I hope I haven’t made hustle and grind part of my kids’ genetic inheritance.)

What isn't familiar is that in order to build my business, which supports Adda’s unicorn habit and Lukey’s pancake addiction (ok, all normal with them so far) I’m supposed to talk about what I’ve learned in 20+ years, whether here, on LinkedIn, or in the glut of in-person entrepreneurial networking events over-correcting for three Zooming years.

Maybe you’re like me: you see so many of the self-serving, look-at-me, I-know-more-than-you-do posts out there as a bunch of, frankly, bullshit. And while I grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania, I never shoveled actual shit of any sort. So adding to the pile is an unfamiliar feeling. But Adda would tell me that’s a sign of a growth mindset. (That’s a future post, too).

So what do I offer on a different frequency in the cacophony? Beyond the lessons from the trenches of high-tech SaaS marketing from the scrappiest startup to highly desired acquisitions by worldwide behemoths:

I see how marketing fits within the overall business. Marketing should never be sidelined or designated as a subfunction of sales. It’s the strategic heart of every business that has a singular view into all other corporate functions.
I can always tie marketing to outcomes. Too many times completing tactics overtakes the driving to outcomes, especially if the business isn’t doing well. This quickly spirals the organization's decline even more and leads to continued bad decision-making.
I work with all areas of the organization to drive alignment and cohesion in ways that drive results. The most successful organizations I’ve worked at have always had a clear vision coming from the top. No exceptions.