How people actually become marketing leaders (the version your CMO doesn’t want you to see)
– Master the subtle art of taking credit for your team’s work while simultaneously blaming them for failures.
– Become an expert at data wizardry. When metrics are down, the data is « too recent to draw conclusions. » When they’re up, it’s « clear evidence the strategy is working. »
– Learn the skill of making simple concepts sound exceptionally complex. You didn’t run an email campaign. You orchestrated personalized digital touchpoint matrices across consumer journeys
– Master the art of CEO pushback. When asked about a competitor’s successful campaign, explain confidently why « our brand is different, » translation, « I wish I thought of doing it. »
– Repackage industry best practices to your CEO as innovative new concepts. You’re not doing boring account-based marketing, you’re orchestrating precision-targeted, multi-channel account-based experience journeys through AI-powered intent matrices.
– Master the art of metric manipulation. Present regular metrics when asking for small budgets. Switch to « brand impact multiplier metrics » when asking for millions.
– Perfect strategic team restructuring. You can’t be held accountable to the pipeline generation if you’re « rebuilding the foundation for scale. »
– Scale your career by being a strategic passenger. Everyone remembers you being « part » of that successful company. No one remembers exactly what you did. But the logo on your CV is enough.
– Champion the delegation paradox. Somehow be simultaneously « too busy to get into the weeds with team and do work » but « always available to give 50 slide presentation about the work to execs ».
– Perfect the CMO hit-and-run: Arrive, declare everything broke, rebuild team, rebrand everything that can’t be measured, leave before anyone can measure anything that matters. Start again.
What did I miss?