Here’s why (and how) successful marketing leaders are using consultants to help them think faster.

Business and marketing leaders of all stripes now find themselves at an inflection point. Charged with transforming the organisation from a 'spray and pray’ lead-gen machine or an awareness bullhorn to a truly customer-centric model, the first task is often to move marketing’s role strategically upwards within the business. Shaping the marketing agenda to align with the board’s own business agenda requires leaders to not only develop big thinking and new ideas, but to also demonstrate lateral mastery of an expanding range of marketing skills, technologies and data sets.

Today’s marketing leaders are finding themselves with both more to think about and more to get done, but chief among these tasks are:

• Deeper integration with the business

• Leveraging an expanding range of digital channels and data platforms

• Balancing the pressure to insource workloads while ruthlessly prioritising to deliver results.

Taking a ‘scaling up’ approach to strategic thinking in the marketing role.

The elevated role of marketing in today’s growth-oriented organisations is stretching many business leaders too thin, reducing their ability to pursue meaningful programs of change and forcing them to make an artificial choice between strategy and execution. Many leaders are now beginning to look for ways to pursue additive thinking as a way of delivering both transformation and efficiency.

The old models of outsourcing made pretty clear-cut distinctions about who was responsible for a particular role or piece of work. Either you gave it to someone within the business (insourcing) or handed it to an external party, such as a consulting firm or agency, to own and report back.

A post-pandemic, new collaborative model is rapidly gaining traction, where strategic thinkers inside the business are pairing up with peers (and perspectives) from outside, usually in the form of senior, independent consultants. This ‘additive thinking’ approach aims to rapidly accelerate the development of strategic thinking, by removing ‘mindset barriers’ to innovation and adding a new layer of accountability that often drives much faster, more focussed responses.

Where to focus your attention when working with a strategic marketing consultant.

Experienced strategic marketers are in short supply, so it is critical to make the most of the time you have with them and ensure they are helping you with the pieces of the ‘marketing landscape’ jigsaw that will yield the best results.

• Direction-Setting: Beyond a simple stocktake, the strategic thinker uses the Marketing Audit process to understand where you are today and help define exactly where you can grow.

• Organisational Alignment: If you’re looking to define and create the optimal marketing organisation through vision, mission, values and transformation plan.

• Rapid Ideation: Many CMOs are seeing the value in a trusted – yet challenging - strategic sparring partner to help them rapidly work through ideas and options for moving the business, as well as the additional accelerant of having a tactical coach on hand to help their teams execute.

• Context Analysis: Although it’s critical to understand the Customer, Company and Context to drive insightful marketing plans, flying solo on this project can leave many marketing leaders in a state of paralysis as they try to strike the right balance between diligence and agility. The risk of relying on long-held assumptions in a rapidly changing market has also become too great to ignore.

• Talent Uplift: Contemporary business leaders are increasingly recognising the value of instilling a learning culture to empower their teams to thrive. If your team has a strong tactical base, this process will ensure strategic thinking is used to enhance the effectiveness of each opportunity while improving your team's capabilities over the longer term.

Finding the right strategic partner to help produce additive thinking.

While the idea of outsourcing the ‘doing work’ is well established, what has emerged more recently is the ability to outsource detailed strategic thinking and planning capabilities to a trusted, experienced marketing consultant. Someone who not only thin ks at your level but, crucially, has the time and the capacity to do it, and do it well. Someone who is able to help to accelerate your thinking to ensure strategic imperatives aren’t railroaded by day-to-day managerial responsibilities or bogged down by the internal politics inherent in an y large organisation.

Ideally, you should be considering people who are able to bring a new lens and level of understanding to your industry. Someone who has been in your shoes, who knows how large organisations behave and can deliver ideas a fully-formed plans: the thinking and the instructions.

To get the most value from the engagement, it’s also worth investigating the independence of a senior consultant - unencumbered by large firm’s need to sell in downstream production or programs of work - to ensure you have access to the broadest suite of execution options.

Talk to one of the leaders of ‘additive thinking’

Jarther Taylor is a marketer, an educator and an entrepreneur. It’s these three complementary perspectives which inform not only a comprehensive view of the marketing landscape, but also your brand’s position within it. If you’ve been feeling like your focus has been unfairly split between thinking and action, consider a conversation with Jarther to see where the collaborative approach of additive thinking can take your organisation – and your career. Contact us.