ABOUT ME
I’m an Agile Marketing consultant and coach working mostly with B2B technology companies. The majority of my work is focused on aligning Marketing specialists into teams and prioritizing marketing workflows against meaningful KPIs with trend/insight/impact analysis.
I’ve been teaching and speaking at conferences, on webinars, in writing, and through podcasts for over two decades. It’s not my first rodeo, yet I still get a kick out of learning every single day.
A Simple Starting Point
Marketing was, I thought, doing alright. We got a lot of stuff done and we were providing both good leads for Sales and helping our Support teams with good content for existing clients. Until I saw what could be. There I stood in front of a 60-foot wide magnetized whiteboard with dozens of cards on it showing exactly what was being produced, how it was going, and what was coming next. On that day, I realized that while Marketing was good at producing more stuff, the teams represented on the ginormous whiteboard were doing the right stuff and they were doing it better and a lot faster than we were. That was the day Agile made me rethink Marketing so that we are can now be measured and held accountable for successful business outcomes, not doing more ‘stuff.’ That was the day I stated to believe in real teamwork. Today, I have earned several Agile certifications, including ICP-ACC, ICP-MKG, and CAL-1.
What started out as applying the rules I observed from software developing using Scrum led to some early learning lessons and began a deep dive into learning how Agile could be applied to the non-linear world of Marketing.
Agile is a belief, not a methodology, that groups of aligned, focused, and cooperative teams of people can outperform any single superstar. We are better together, but we need a way of working better together. The Agile framework is that better way.
Responsive, not Frantic
All those years ago I turned my back on Marketing-as-usual, which relies on an editorial calendar, project management of ongoing work, and the fire-fighting of frantic work requests. I left the old way of impossible deadlines, limited planning, and the last-minute frantic frenzy when I was introduced to Agile Marketing.
Marketing is always in a responsive mode given the nature of the work, so planning every detail out with rigid inflexibility for weeks at a time is lunacy.
Many marketing departments had teams in place well before Agile marketing hit the scene. The difference is that with Agile, the very idea of teams is abstracted from roles and instead organized into skills and capacity. It’s amazing what happens when teams create and foster this kind of healthy culture through candid communication where honor is given and respect can be earned. Not only is the right work delivered faster, but because the team drives the decision-making since they’re closest to the problem, they’re more likely to find a better solution.
Agile Marketing is the responsive, strategic game-changer for those marketing departments stuck in the frantic loop of tactical fire-drills.
I teach Agile not because it first worked in the Toyota production model or for software developers, but because it brings people together with clarity, focus, and purpose.
A Personal P.O.V.
These days I spend my brain power coaching teams and consulting with marketers on implementing an Agile Marketing framework. I’ve combined my years in leading sales and marketing teams, inspiring not-for-profit volunteers, and managing remote employees across six timezones on three continents into something more fulfilling than the sum of those disparate experiences.
I fuel my heart with mentoring and writing. I value empathetic leadership. I even have an odd penchant for Oxford commas. And, just between you and me, I think that Chips Deluxe cookies taste so good the tiny Keebler Elves should be taken more seriously.
But the best parts of who I am are highlighted, softened, and improved by my best friend and wife, Babs!
