This post first appeared on Forbes
I've worked at seven startups. Startups are messy; they grow in fits and starts. Sometimes they hit a rough patch and an entire department is let go -- nothing personal. To combat this, early in my career, I sought to create so much value that I'd be irreplaceable. That worked when the startup was stagnant. But what I learned is that when the startup was growing, the dynamics of what made me valuable changed completely.
As your startup grows, as a marketer, two counterintuitive things will -- or should -- happen. For me, I learned that, instead of doing so much that you become irreplaceable, the best managers actively work to put themselves out of a job. And I discovered that, as your team grows, you may actually see your scope of responsibility narrow.
The best marketing directors aim to put themselves out of a job
I learned this by comparing my own journey to that of one of my peers who leads the data science team. For three years, I led our growth team. I had a team of eight -- four salespeople and four marketers. But because I wanted to be seen as scrappy, I didn't have a marketing coordinator, marketing analyst or product marketing generalist who I might have been able to delegate to. And rather than delegating to our channel marketing managers or our inside sales reps, my thinking was that I'd rather they spend time doing revenue-producing work than building reports or presentations that would help me communicate internally with other teams.
Over time, I developed a deep understanding of our business, so that if we were experiencing a soft month, if a new product was underperforming or if pricing strategy wasn't landing with customers, I often connected the dots earlier than others. But I was so busy in the weeds of running a team that, instead of communicating my insights thoughtfully with data, I'd state brusque conclusions without data and get frustrated if people weren't persuaded.
One of my peers (we'll call him Brady) took a different path. Brady led our data and ops team, a team that some might consider entirely overhead -- not directly revenue-producing at all. Brady made a case that he needed a full-time data analyst to support him. Through a combination of effective delegation and careful focus, he was able to dig into problems, synthesize data, present it to the team thoughtfully and impact the company's strategy in a way I often failed to do. What I learned is that he didn't design his organization to be lean and overworked. He designed the organization to put himself out of a job, which freed him up to be a better communicator and to be able to influence strategy.
As a startup moves from finding its product-market fit to scaling growth, a director of marketing has to learn to switch gears completely, from doing everything to delegating like Brady did. Because, as the startup grows, your value stops coming from getting everything done and instead will come from creating a coherent strategy, driving organizational alignment and planning for long-term success. When it's time to shift gears, don't be afraid to change your hiring approach. Start hiring generalists who don't directly move the bottom line, and reset expectations with your team so you can delegate your workload. Oftentimes, you'll find that they find ways to make the same impact on revenue while taking work off your plate.
To get promoted, narrow your scope instead of broadening it.
It's counterintuitive, but the more you narrow your scope, the more likely you are to gain more responsibility.
Let me share a bit about two senior marketers on my team who were both quite talented. The first one we'll call Karen. Karen was smart and hungry, and she wanted to have a broad impact and eventually lead a team. She was a content marketer and, in addition to our content programs, she made sure to be included in discussions about branding, product strategy, product copy and the support team's email scripts. When it came time to write her annual review, the feedback from other teams was that Karen was knowledgeable and helpful. But the feedback from her own team was that work was often late, copy was rarely polished enough to be published as-is and the content strategy itself was, in many ways, flawed.
Compare Karen's story to that of Jennifer, who owned email marketing. Jennifer was smart, reserved and focused. Truth be told, I was often frustrated Jennifer wasn't taking on more projects. It always seemed like we could be moving faster and shipping more.
But, I had to hand it to her. Jennifer's email campaigns never once had a typo, no mean feat. When our engineers didn't have time to code an email trigger, Jennifer found a way to code it herself. And when our A/B testing tool wasn't working, Jennifer was able to troubleshoot with our engineers. By not taking on as many projects, Jennifer was able to focus. Her focus allowed her to deliver higher quality work, develop new skills and overcome technical hurdles that would have blocked other marketers.
Who do you think I promoted?
Don't feel pressured to cover all the bases, market in every channel or test every idea. It's hard because it can feel like you're arguing to avoid work or against good ideas. Instead, argue in favor of focus. Identifying objectives and key results (OKRs) can be a helpful tool here. And don't assume that, by hiring, you can start to do more things. Instead, view hiring as a way to put more wood behind fewer arrows.
It's easy to believe your extra hour is best spent on the work itself. Instead, I encourage you to spend that hour gaining perspective. It's the only way to clearly see opportunities to apply these two lessons. Journal. Complain about work to a fellow marketer. Attend a marketing talk. It's when we step away from our work that we gain a better perspective.