TOP CMO: Neil Dowling, Rightpoint - 'Challenger Marketing: How Scarcity Tactics Drive Results'

Neil Dowling  0:00  

with scarcity, there's a massive opportunity for experimentation being much more agile. But for marketing functions to just experiment with more, there's never been a better chance, I think or opportunity to do that.

Ben Kaplan  0:10  

This is the podcast where we go around the globe to interview marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies, and most disruptive startups. Great Ideas packaged a certain way want to spread, you want to be told that someone else's simple, surprising and significant locking viral creativity is to make it rapidly scalable. This is top cmo with me, Ben Kaplan. Today we are joined by Neil Dowling CMO of write point, a digital consultancy and part of the Genpact family, a professional services firm with more than 129,000 employees. Neil has worked in senior marketing positions for many years. And as head of the marketing departments at Cognizant, a technology powerhouse, and Fujitsu the well known Japanese information and communication technology company, no stranger to a tight budget and how to do more with less Neil is a champion of balancing long term and short term thinking. So how does he do it? Let's find out more with Neil Delhi. You've made something of a career as a marketer of doing more with less How did that become a cornerstone of your career? And how has that kind of followed you through a number of tech related marketing positions that you've held?

Neil Dowling  1:30  

Thank you. Yeah, it has sort of, I guess, become a bit of a stick of mine. Certainly no one's really asked me to do less with more. So I guess that's become fairly consistent, I think really is I've been really fortunate actually, in terms of the the challenges and the opportunities that I've been given, I was really lucky in terms of where I started off in my career to build a big foundation in various parts of the marketing function. And then I was able to take that to companies that were looking to aggressively grow, but didn't necessarily have a mature marketing function or wanting to folks to come in with expertise and build out and build and run and transform a marketing function. So we're looking for leadership in terms of what's the right frameworks, what's the right processes, what's the right way to think about driving the brand driving new demand in the market engaging with clients. So I think some of it was like, just from my personal journey would have been a really strong foundation across a bunch of disciplines, which was early on in my career. And then being fortunate enough to go into organizations that were brave enough, I think, to actually bet big on marketing want to invest in it, but but actually allow somebody to come in and, and grow it in a best practice way. So I think then I've just kind of tried to apply what you learn and what you think is best practice, really, in terms of setting up program mix, bringing in the right talents, making sure you've got, you know, a really clear growth plan for the organization. And also, sometimes I've been lucky with going into organizations where there wasn't actually a lot of infrastructure or process or even things that come with it in terms of bureaucracy. So your actual, I was fortunate to be able to start from a Greenfield, really, one

Ben Kaplan  3:00  

thing you mentioned was clear vision. But I think it's interesting to think about it actually in terms of having a more efficient, spend doing more, with less being more able to get more out of your budget. Because when you say if your vision is not really focused, and you don't have a clear direction, it's easy to spend on a lot of things that you kind of feel like you're supposed to have, right? Like, okay, we need to have a partner's program, and we need to do some thought leadership and we needed all those things, maybe maybe good individually, but given constraints on everything, if you don't have that clear vision, you're just not going to be efficient, that becomes a prerequisite to do more with less.

Neil Dowling  3:36  

Yeah, I think it's a great point, I think sometimes you actually by definition of having, you know, parameters, and what you might be working with in terms of budgets, actually, I think makes you a sharper marketing function, it makes you think, to your point that you actually have to be much more efficient on a bunch of levels, right, you have to be much more efficient with your message in the market, you have to try really hard to get a simple, clear, efficient message into your audiences, you have to be super efficient with how you spend your budget and how you target and also that to your point, you have to be comfortable saying no to a bunch of stuff, if it's not in service to what the growth plan is,

Ben Kaplan  4:05  

I know that the things that might be good things to have, right and things that actually make sense, but just isn't precisely on that vision that you need. Yeah, you

Neil Dowling  4:13  

do have to sort of develop a mentality of like being able to polarize and bet big on things, I think you have to have a knowledge of what is like the the two or three big bets that you want to make, and then be comfortable with letting, prioritizing few things and doing those in a bigger, more bolder and focused way than maybe trying to, you know, spread too thin or keep everybody happy. That becomes a natural sort of not easy at times, but it becomes a strength. And I think that's something that's respected in an organization, especially now marketers need to show a clear path to growth. If you've got mentality of understanding and refocus vision and a message and a marketing plan, then you do need to really polarize actually then in terms of where you actually over index or put disproportionate focus of your team into and be comfortable with certain things that are just taken after not be at that same priority level, but it's not easy for every organization not easy for every every functional culture to get to that.

Ben Kaplan  5:03  

And then I think if you play the right now, zero sum game, these are all things we have to do right now, it can be difficult because resources can be constrained time can be constrained. But if you have more of a phased in approach, saying, We want to get to all that we want to do all the things we need to do, whether that's our family, or that's our marketing plan, but we're just going to phase it in at different parts. And we're going to focus in and we're going to get to all of it, just maybe not right now, you can make it work a little bit more,

Neil Dowling  5:30  

I think kind of what you're alluding to there is is actually something that's pretty prevalent in the market. Now, like short termism is when getting the right balance between things that need to happen right now and a business and create revenue, for example. But then also, how do you get the balance right between the bigger picture and, and having Future Focus sales or revenue coming in. So I think that's something that is actually really interesting at the moment that balance between short term long term, making sure you're able to articulate to the business what you're doing today, but not be forced down into a reactive narrow strategy and and also having the right amount of balance for sort of the longer term value for the organization, future sales, making sure that the brand is visible and in the market for when times probably slightly better than now. So I think you can actually end up getting too narrow to short term if you're not careful in certainly in a down economy. But it's hard, you have to get the right balance. And you have to get the right language to talk within the organization in terms of some of those bigger bets or more maybe things that are perceived as longer term.

Speaker 3  6:26  

The paradigm I'm trying to teach today is First things first, based upon relationships, not schedules based upon principles, not values based upon leadership first, then management based upon a compass, and then o'clock.

Ben Kaplan  6:45  

As marketers, we have to be efficient. In the words of Stephen Covey, start by putting first things first, there are usually a few components of any marketing plan that if you get them right, you cannot help but be successful on those first few priority items. streamline your process, get it right, first, manually, then automate, and optimize your campaigns to turn good integrate, everything else can flow from those first few things. Well, I think it's an interesting framework in general business planning, you of course, think like, what's my 2023 plan? What's my 2024 25 plan, or directly we had to, you might think like that in marketing plan, you might have that too, right? You might have Okay, here's our immediate plan for this. And here's where we want to evolve to. But I actually think it's interesting to think about it at a channel level, which is if we're in this kind of marketing channel, and we're activating, now, let's say we're doing thought leadership, how can our thought leadership activities drive a short term, medium term and long term benefit together? How can this effort we're going to do have benefits in different ways? And can we make all those align, because if you can make all those align, then you might not have to have like, here's my short term thought leadership budget, here's my medium term thought leadership budget, here's my long term thought leadership budget, and you know, it's gonna be 60% 30% and 10%. mean, you can do that. But sometimes we don't have that luxury, you might just have to have like, here's my thought leadership budget. That's it. I wish it was more, and you have to make it work for you, and all those things. So how do you structure that to deliver benefits in different time horizons?

Neil Dowling  8:16  

Yeah, I think some of it actually is around to your point now around the language that it needs. It's a bit of a moot point, sometimes if you get into those types of discussions about what something is for in terms of short term versus long term, I think probably changed the conversation, if you like, ultimately talking about growth, but you need to have a very good balance in terms of understanding the different channels that can give you maybe more short term reaction from the market, and then things that are building up a broader, bigger story to engage your clients. I mean, I tend to have a fairly sort of simple mix in terms of looking at the budget, to be honest, in terms of things that you might categorize as service to a longer term client value, or longer term positioning that you think will put the company in good stead going forward. And there's a certain percentage and a mix to that, then there's a category that's demand and the creation may be more short term, there's a bunch of tactics that you need to do that get you in year conversion, hopefully, if you put up the right program and processes around it. And then there's a certain category of how you need to engage your current clients and build deeper engagement with current clients and think about it as a bit of a calibration really you want, there's a certain level that you probably shouldn't go down from in terms of more or less that brand building element. And there's a really strong element that you need in terms of short term or demand creation in year. And then there's probably another portion that is about how do you actually keep the function and keep the brand Fit for the Future from the tools and technology in a talent perspective, I tend to think about it as a bit of a calibration between three or four different things. So making sure that you've got them in the right balance, and then kind of keeping that honest, if you like through the year, there's obviously replanting moments as you go into different quarters, whatever it might be, but trying to keep the shape if you'd like to have your plan and your budget and your objectives in line with what you know is kind of a sustainable growth path for the company. If you go too, too far, one way into just you know, broadcast and brand building You're not going to maybe get the budgets that you need longer term because it's not, you know, demonstrating the ROI. Potentially, if you go too narrow in terms of short term ism and sales, lead generation efforts, that might be too tactical, it's going to be a very long way back for your brand longer term. So I think some of it is just having a framework in terms of the objectives that you're trying to drive towards growth. And all of those things, whether it's positioning and brand, whether it's demand creation, whether its current clients, and your tools and processes to get there just have a kind of a clearer picture in terms of what that shape and what that mix is.

Ben Kaplan  10:34  

Scarcity is a powerful driver of innovation. when resources are scarce, we're forced to be creative, and find new ways to tackle old problems. It's in these moments of scarcity, that some of our greatest innovations are born. Scarcity forces us to think outside the box, to challenge assumptions, and to find new ways to do more with less. So embrace scarcity as an opportunity and use it to drive innovation in your marketing plans. The notion of balance is an interesting one, I hear on the on the podcast, I have a mixing board here and I have like different levels that I can adjust, right? So I can I can be a little bit more bass sounding. And we have to have it all in balance. If we just put one up. And we just like max out that bass. I mean, yes, we will sound very important and deep, but it's not the right mix. So how do you think about adjustments to the mix? Tweaking the mix? How frequent should you do it? How frequent should you look at how do you stay in balance? Can you wait as long as a year? Do you need to do it every quarter? Is this the thing? We're like, oh, for certain types of marketing, it's got to be monthly, heck weekly if you're spending huge amounts of advertising dollars, like what do you have to do to keep things in balance?

Neil Dowling  11:48  

I think regular certainly wouldn't be annually, I think you'd be looking at it at least quarterly, maybe maybe short term cycles even in that month. But I think for different industries, it's slightly different in terms of the buying cycle, I imagine the consumer goods industry and more high volume, high frequency stuff is daily. In terms of your running p&l, the world I come from is much more b2b Professional Services, the buying cycles are slightly well different. So there are longer term cycles, you probably don't have to have that daily kind of reactivity. But certainly you should be looking at it monthly. I think I do that with my team. And you know, whenever I get time to go in and look at the mix, and the balance in terms of spend, just to make sure to your point is like calibrating nothing's going to out of whack. There's often moments in the year that are just natural replanning cycles anyway, if it's an event in the market, or if it's to do with kind of quarterly cycles. So think you should absolutely have a really tight control of it and be really kind of keeping yourself honest with it, as you go through the year. Be very agile with you know, certain channels that you know, you can heavyweight up or down. And then in terms of like quick changes, I think things like I think other channels lend itself to it. So it might be something that digital marketing is clearly something you can ramp and you can turn very quickly. Other channels don't necessarily lend themselves to that. But there's might be also tactics you can bring into the mix. And again, in a in a professional services context, a lot of it is you know, how do you actually do deals in the year. So wherever you are maybe where the company might be struggling, for example, or there might just be a gap that you need to close down, I think marketing can come in and be quite streetwise, you potentially might go in and help convert a deal, for example, to make sure you actually put more pressure away from acquisition in the market into conversion. So you can think about certain areas where you want to maybe show up differently within the organization or actually help the organization get over the line from a revenue or growth perspective.

Ben Kaplan  13:31  

How do you think about the mix balance doing more with less in the context of just, you know, keeping everyone from the CEO to the CFO, to, you know, the head of sales to everyone else? sort of happy and on your team? And on your side? In the context of this mix?

Neil Dowling  13:48  

Commission? ongoing challenge, I would say, but I think there's a few ways to think about it, think first one is strengthen the position of your plan, do you need to have a very clear framework and articulation and narrative back to the organization in terms of how you're going to, you know, grow the company effectively. So everything should be in service to growth. And I typically find if you're talking the language of the the organization's certainly the language of the CFO, the CEO, you're able to articulate how you're going to get to growth that is actually you know, aligned to the company plan, you're starting from a good position. So you need to have a really strong baseline of like, this is what we're going to do this year, this is the returns we're going to get this is how it's going to move the needle from our brand perspective, from our growth perspective. So certainly start with your plan. I do think then there's part of it, it's just staying the course. Right? Do you just have to make sure you effectively earn the right to have the conversation and develop that plan and not to be dragged around or overreacted by things that might happen in the company or in the in the market too much. You have to be able to stay the course and sort of trust in your experience trust in the plan that you've put in place. Because some things won't come good in a week or two, you have to, again have that balance right. But alongside that you have to be able to sort of hold your nerve a little bit in terms of making sure that you do get the right mix into the market and that you get this sort of The level of exposure and the coverage and the consistency of the program that you want to put in the market. So some of that is just experience and making sure you articulate to people that actually it's the wrong time maybe to rip up the plan and start again, is actually is going to come good in the next quarter, or whatever it might be. And the third thing is then to be is to build agility into your plan. Anyway, I think it's something that marketing is now a very strong at certainly, in the last two or three years, I think re planning and experimenting and being agile with tactics and plans, it's just something that is kind of more common now for folks and some of the channels and the technology allows us to do that. So you do need to build into your plan, like just the assumption that that we emergent strategies through the year, they're going to need to be super agile, and then to go in and show that you can pivot, we've done that a bunch of times, certainly no, certainly through the pandemic, we were really planning I think every sort of two or three months and making sort of big changes to the mix. And you have to sort of deal with that ambiguity. So set up a system and skills and team and Tech where you know that you actually you're just going to have to pivot and be able to do it. But I do think there's that kind of mix again, back to balance that you have to have strength in position and the fundamentals of how you're going to grow the company and be able to communicate it properly to to people who aren't marketing as

Ben Kaplan  16:09  

well. And I think another underrated aspect of marketing. And being a great CMO is similar to what you just spoke about, which is being predictable. What I mean by that is, it's not just being great, like being great, like surprising, you know, like unpredictably great, like, I mean, yes, that's like Okay, once or twice, but it's actually to build up confidence, you need to be able to predict how you're gonna do but for marketing, you need to be able to like how can you say a vision, say, this is how we get to that goal. And these are the steps are going to are going to get there. And lo and behold, it actually happens in a similar fashion to what you described. And then if you do that, you get a lot of personal brand equity within the company confidence, more free rein more flexibility. So you articulate the vision in such a way that you can execute against it.

Neil Dowling  16:57  

Yeah, it's a great point, I think having a very simple and clear scorecard that the business understands from marketing can really help because often your marketers are able to talk about a plan and a program, but the rest of the organization doesn't really understand. I think being able to like boil it down to a framework of data points that are ultimately you know, where you're gonna win and lose on across the brand across revenue across current client revenue, or current client engagement can be really powerful, because to your point, you can have a simple scorecard that people can understand that at the top level, and you've got a bunch of metrics, maybe that lead up to that I think it's really important for folks, definitely now more than ever, is to have an ROI model, have your scorecard have a have a simple way of articulating the value of marketing inside an organization because there will be those knee jerk reactions where people are kind of, you know, question marks about the value of marketing or wanting to shift everything to a short term sales piece, if you like. So having strong data internally in the processes and the tech that get you to the data, and then having a narrative that shows the value and commercial language of marketing back into the organization. To your point really, and and keeping that predictable, he's a very good place to be.

Ben Kaplan  18:03  

A clear vision is like GPS for your marketing strategy. Without it, you're driving blind and hoping for the best. Sure, you could get lucky. But you could also end up lost, frustrated and out of gas. So take the time to define your vision, and make sure everyone on your team is on the same page. What makes a good one, a vision should be clear, concise, and consistent. It should have a feel of Yes, of course, finally, someone said it, complexity is not your friend, because it makes it infinitely more difficult to make your vision sticky with a team. All of this, if we were going to boil this down would almost be like storytelling within the organization. Right? The scorecard is a means of telling a story and seeing if we tell the story accurately. So you have to put some thought internally into that. And almost an analogy would be how this is different than your university experience like university experience, you like you took the test and like the professor set the test, you filled out your exam and you hope you got an A in this case, what that scorecard allows you to do if you set it rather than someone else is you get to be the professor to write like you get to set the scorecard by which will be judged. And if you can do that in a predictable way, then you execute against that scorecard. And if you can make those things match, then that's a whole lot of trust, you can get so organizations that aren't putting enough time into like one the scorecard or the outcome, but to to your point, one that you can communicate to others that they get because you're a storyteller within the organization to and that scorecard or that direction or that predict prediction or that predictable path is part of how you storyteller?

Neil Dowling  19:44  

Yeah, couldn't agree more, I think and then to your point has to be shown that you're telling the story of the company, first the company growth model, if you like and the district's Dziedzic agenda of the company and then people been able to see what marketing is doing in context of that and then you're able to score it and measure against that. I think that's a really good position to be in I think What we're talking about here a little bit is something I'm seeing a kind of an opportunity, I think for marketing functions is the language that's around marketing, I think you know more than ever has to be very sharp at the commercial level has to be kind of very consumable by the CFO. And I think there's some ways to go actually as the function to be a bit more streetwise with actually demonstrating the value of marketing, I do see often marketing teams and programs that have a great program, but they can't articulate it from somebody who is you know, financially driven, or a CFO headset. So I think some of it is actually using your skills to your point as a storyteller as a marketer to know your audience. And then actually starting with where you're meeting them, where they are, with what they think of marketing or the end goals in terms of commercials, and then working back into actually what your plan and your mixer sometimes marketing functions might start with the creative or with the kind of the program tactics when ultimately I think you depending on who you're talking to, certainly in inside organizations, and and commercial departments, you should keep it very simple around metrics that they understand. And here's

Ben Kaplan  20:59  

a specific example, we'll have different marketing channels. And in one marketing channel, we'll be like, Okay, what are our views? Another marketing channel will be like, how many impressions did we get another marketing channel will be like, how many plays? Did we get views, impressions, plays, it's actually all the same thing. It's like how many times people see our stuff. And by having that distinct language, we can't integrate it together and say, okay, like, what was the most efficient way in us getting our message in front of our customer, let's measure that let's compare, let's compare what's our most efficient spend, but because this is in views, and impressions, and plays, and those are different things, we don't integrate it. So even that simplification makes a difference in size, we don't think to do it, because it's just like a norm or a culture or a certain practice and a certain channel that's reported this way. And if we just abstracted that and integrated it, suddenly, we could actually see different things.

Neil Dowling  21:47  

Yeah, I agree. And I think that's how the conversation you're talking about, there would be like an inside marketing conversation, for sure. I don't think anyone else in the organization would understand,

Ben Kaplan  21:55  

no, but then the output would be, here's like, we relate the whole thing to audience reach, or heck, we want to be more closer to ROI, potential customer reach. That's our metric, right? It's a combination of views and impressions and plays and all stuff. But it just like, here's the potential customers we could reach and that metric, they're like, oh, you know, I want to reach potential customers. Oh, really, you know, 20,000 more potential customers like, Wow, that's great.

Neil Dowling  22:19  

No, I just think in the notion of that, like, a lot in terms of like, there's a level one metric, which would be rude, which probably has like 200 metrics associated with it with the marketing function should optimize and talk about and be super passionate about and drive into. But the one that you should talk about to the organization really is the big one that you said about reach or new revenue with clients, or whatever it might be. And there's like 50, things that inform that or help move the needle on that. But that's a good example of where that should be like an inside marketing optimization conversation, and then a very clear conversation in terms of where the board level individual, whatever it might be, in terms of just a simplified metric that to your point helps tell the story on on the plan that you've set out,

Ben Kaplan  22:57  

all of this becomes really relevant, and a time like now where you're either already seeing economic downturn, whether you're bracing for even more economic downturn, where all of this is happening, then suddenly, it becomes to the forefront of everyone's mind. So all of those themes, whether that's we've talked about short term versus long term, we've talked about going back to your core staying the course we've talked about having the right balance calibrating, how does all of that become especially important and time sensitive, in a time of economic downturn, where you're probably a lot organizations clearly getting pressure to tighten their belt, and do away with non essential spend?

Neil Dowling  23:37  

I mean, I think some of it is just discipline anyway, because some things we've talked about are just kind of common sense, right? being targeted, being focused, keeping things simple, they're things that you don't necessarily need just to do it in a down. So that's kind of good marketing, in my opinion, it just becomes a necessity, really, in terms of the things that go along with that headset in a in a downturn, you need to be very efficient and very kind of try and keep things as simple as possible in your mix. So it's a good muscle to build, I think certainly when budgets might get tighter, or you might be asked to stretch into new areas to have a sort of a mindset, there's kind of a challenge your mindset anyway. And you've been very streetwise already in terms of how you spend and think about your budgets, you just I think in a very good position versus maybe some of the other organizations that had huge budgets, and then come down if you've been able to operate in that kind of streetwise way for a long time and very targeted and thoughtful in terms of investment that it just puts you in a good place. I do think there's other elements that might play out in a downturn for marketing functions in terms of be asked to do just straddle into other areas, I can see a marketing function. I think this is kind of kicking off now a little bit, but you might be asked to actually not just think about your budget differently, but think about the agenda of the company differently. So if you think about the war for talent or acquiring talent from the from the market, I could see a world where marketing are taking on more of a role there so not just do more with less with your traditional marketing budget, but think about using your skills in a new dimension. Like how do you actually recruit people from the market? Create a end to end employer brand, think about employee experience within an organization. So, you know, not just customer experience on the front end, but how do you get your brand to pay off throughout an employee experience, I think some of the skills from marketing has been used in what might be considered non traditional parts of the market. So which again, can be you can use all those skills from a challenging mindset to benefit the organization, if they're looking to, you know, become an employer of choice or whatever it might be. So

Ben Kaplan  25:24  

marketing may need to be able to apply skills to other areas. I mean, one thing about economic downturn is that it creates pressure, it creates crisis, it creates needs for new solutions. And if you can think about the marketing function a little bit broader. And to your point, maybe this helps with, you know, some companies now, trimming seat, count our staff in certain areas and expanding it at the same time and other areas that become critically important, or just having to fill spots that really impact bottom line revenue. If you can think in different ways, even though you have traditionally not been used for recruiting, you can add more value. And in downtime or time of crisis. It's like all hands on deck.

Neil Dowling  26:04  

Yeah, it could be some interesting sort of trends playing out on that one, not just like we talked about just being smarter with what you're doing or more focused or trying to be bolder, but focus with what you're doing from a traditional marketing sense. But definitely that one in terms of how can you lend your skills in other parts of the organization or reinforce current programs or agendas, certainly around talent is an obvious one. And definitely Genpact, we started to do that, in my previous role, talent marketing became a big focus, the collaboration between the HR function and a marketing was probably stronger in the last two years than in the last kind of five or six before that. So I think that whole thing around there's probably two dimensions to that whole thing like to your point being fungible with your skills, and all hands on deck and thinking about, you know, 80%, probably of the principles of getting net new clients from the Marketo acquisition of revenue can can play out in getting people to join the company, you're talking about audiences, you're talking about channels to engage them expressing the brand, you're moving their mindset, potentially. So there's definitely a stretch or straddle over into that area, I think, and then also about your own employees internally, I think we're seeing a bunch of this at right point in terms of, you know, customer marketing, a charge with customer experience a lot of the time, but the hybrid working model, now employee experience is becoming a massive thing. So how do you actually get a true expression of the brand through an organization not just from what you're actually putting out there for your customers, but walking the walk, if you like, with your employees internally, which should then improve your customer experience, because they truly believe it, they experience it? Yeah. So that whole thru line, which, you know, thinking about experience, but maybe in sort of the totality of the experience, and what you can do internally and across your products, or your customers and employees is an interesting angle.

Ben Kaplan  27:43  

I think that brings us back actually, to where we started, which is that scarcity, whether that's money, whether that's time, whether that's people, which often happens in a economic downturn is also a driver of innovation. Because when resources are scarce, you have to innovate, you have to find a new way, you have to find a way to do more with less, you have to figure out how our marketing skills are going to help us recruit more talents, you have to do all these things. And so scarcity can be a challenge. But scarcity can also be transformative. It can propel you forward, it can drive you in ways to innovate, you would have never come up with otherwise.

Neil Dowling  28:18  

Yeah, couldn't agree more, I think so that conversation in terms of like, just, you know, better utilization of skills could be interesting, like all hands on deck was a nice expression, I think, how do you sort of put your skills to work and maybe other agendas for the company, I think there's a massive opportunity for experimentation, you know, being much more agile, but for marketing functions to just experiment with more, there's never been a better chance, I think, or opportunity to do that. So things might be scarce from a, you know, traditional financial perspective. But this huge opportunity, I think, in terms of experimenting, creating different agile cultures, within the team, trying out new tech and making experimentation, just a part of the norm, to be honest, and out of that should be a bunch of opportunity. And also, it's an opportunity, I think, to go back to some of the fundamentals of marketing, right. So like, even if you don't have blessed with huge budgets, there's a huge amount you can do on the fundamentals for your organization in terms of market positioning versus competition, that would have changed in the last 1218 months. You know, sometimes that gets neglected, your current clients are always there. And sometimes that gets neglected. Yeah, and getting yourself really fit for the future, if you'd like and, you know, kind of coming out into, you know, better times in a really strong position, you can, there's massive opportunity to spend time on some of the fundamentals in the function or in certainly in the strategic area of like market positioning and competitive dynamics that you don't need to spend huge amounts of money on, you should be doing that all the time. But often once you get busy and you're running programs and things you kind of you don't necessarily spend as much time on it. So I think you know, there's an element of going back to the core if you like and looking at your own core versus your position, your customers, your products, your employees experiences, and that doesn't need huge amounts of budget and you can work on that and that can put you in really good standing for the future.

Ben Kaplan  29:54  

According to Neil Dowling's CMO of Wright point, develop a vision that has a good balance between long term and short term thinking. Don't get trapped in a narrow reactive strategy, especially when the wind isn't at your back. Be predictable. Communicate your KPIs, and know what you are measured against. Don't be afraid to change the conversation of short term and long term goals are aligning. Remember, scarcity can be a powerful tool for innovation, so embrace it. smaller budgets can mean more innovative thinking if you treat it as an opportunity, rather than a blocker. And if you enjoyed today's episode, it's now your opportunity to subscribe rate and review for top cmo on Ben Kaplan

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