In a hiring process for a head of marketing, the candidate asked a simple question at the end of the interview:
"What is the marketing target here?"
Silence. The CEO looked at HR. HR looked at the partner. The partner said: "We work with demand generation."
Demand generation is not a target. It is a task description.
The candidate thanked them, left, and sent a polite email turning the position down before even receiving an offer.
I heard that story and recognised the pattern immediately.
When a company cannot answer what the marketing target is, it is usually not for lack of data. It is because nobody ever really decided what the function of marketing is there.
And then the department lives in a limbo I call, in my book, a support function: it exists to serve other areas, fulfil requests, deliver assets, "support sales". Never to grow.
The problem is not having a small budget. It is not having a lean team. The problem is that the company never put marketing on the right side of the ledger, the revenue side.
Support marketing has a boss. Growth marketing has a target.
And the difference between the two does not show up in the org chart. It shows up in exactly that question the candidate asked, and nobody knew how to answer.
Before your next hire or your next round of planning, it is worth testing: if someone asked me today what the marketing target is, could I answer in one sentence?
If the answer stalls, the problem is not communication.
I am putting together material on how to structure a results-driven marketing function. Comment the word NARRATIVA below and I will send you the link.