And Carrie On

I’ve been in the CMO role now at my institution for about a year and a 3 months. Like any new position it’s been filled with great wins and a few misses. However, overall, I could not be happier with this season of life.

If you’re thinking about making the move to a more advanced leadership role on your college campus, here are five lessons to help you prepare for success as a CMO. Some of these I learned the hard way. Others, I had great mentors who helped me navigate these possible pitfalls. .

1. Learn the Budget

Have a strong understanding of the budget and the budgeting process. Coming in at the end of one fiscal year, meant I had to quickly get up-to-speed to understand contracts in place, spend processes, etc. Because every institution does things differently, this is such a critical tool to understand.

Budget has two forms — the dollars you have to spend. Understand that amount and also the operations items you have, contracts in place, and already budgeted expectations. The more accurate of a picture you have the better you can put budget dollars to your strategy instead of reacting to what comes your way.

As creatives, I’ve heard many folks say “I’m not a numbers person,” and this makes me sad. I’ll be honest, the numbers part isn’t my favorite; however, it’s critical to understand our spend and track it to make sure we’re where we need to be for the year and are maximizing our investments.

Additionally, it’s important to understand the nuance of how the budget process works, because it can help further advance your marketing agenda or in some cases hinder it. By fully understanding timelines, bid processes, order of budget processes, you’ll be able to better steer your team in how to approach projects and make sure you purchases stand the highest likelihood of approval. The more information; the better!

2. Get to Know Your Leadership

Take the time to understand your Chancellor or President. As a CMO, you’ll work with this leader on messaging, advertising strategy, media relations, and much more. It’s important to understand what is important to them on those items. What messages matter? What kinds of media engagements do they shine in? What makes them uncomfortable in the work? This will help you in pitching and showing them as a thought leader in a meaningful way but also a way they’re comfortable.

It’s equally important to understand the processes they like to follow. This is where I struggled at first. Not realizing the Chancellor’s full schedule, I didn’t allow enough time for items, which caused her to have to rush. Additionally, it took me some time to learn what things she wanted to be looped in on. These are all learning curves, and we quickly figured out a process that works well. Looking back, I now realize I should have done a better job asking those questions on the front end.

That same insight also works in the other direction. I’ve now used those experiences to articulate my preferences to my direct reports too, so they understand what I prefer.

3. Spend Time with Your Team

Get to know your team, both personally and professionally. I want to start with I have the best team. They’re talented, smart, funny, and push the envelope. When I first started, I gave each member a one-pager about me. It shared my professional background, personal interests, leadership philosophy, and also my communication preferences.

My hope this helped everyone to have the same understanding of who I was and what working with me would entail. I then scheduled lunch meetings with each of my direct reports, at a location of their choosing. We had a casual conversation but also had our “get to know you” meeting. Then, I met individually with every member of the team to better understand who they were and the role they played.

I also have ongoing meetings with my direct reports. In addition to the to-do list, we talk about their professional goals, objectives, and have a place for feedback. In this meeting, the team member sets the agenda, as it’s their time for my uninterrupted attention. After they’ve finished, I can cover anything on my list. We also spend time in the meeting talking about kids, life, vacations, and the like.

4. You Won’t Please Everyone

You will upset people, often many of them. I had this grand notion that being a CMO was going to be all sunshine and roses. Many times it is, but there are moments the work is hard. In looking at your team, meeting with vendors about advertising spend, or working with media requests, you will certainly upset people. It is going to be part of the job, so be ready for it.

They won’t like a decision you make, and they may be vocal about that to their audiences. The first time it happened, I really let it eat me up inside. Thankfully, I had a friend remind me this was normal and help me feel more at ease about it. She kept reminding me that I had to do what was right for the team and for the university. While this is still one of my least favorite parts, I’ve gotten comfortable in knowing if my motives are in a good spot, that’s all I can control in such instances.

5. Meet Your Community

Make a continual effort to meet your campus community and your local community. In getting acclimated to campus, I met with many members of campus (and still do). Some of the meetings were just “get to know you” meetings, while others quickly became standing meetings within our divisions. After all, we are better when we’re working together.

However, being new to the community, I really wanted to get to know the community members more too. I spent a ton of time meeting with advertising representatives, members of the licensed vendor community, getting to know our local reporters, and attending community events. This lots of evening time. My lesson learned here is this aspect took way more time than I realized, and it meant I had many after work and evening meetings.

Looking back, I needed to figure out balance a bit more. Meeting with multiple people a week internally and externally, meant my inbox and team needs also stacked up. It took me a good six months to figure out how many meetings I could balance while also being there for my team. If this is a role you’re interested in, don’t try to take all the meetings at once. It will wear you out and distract some from the strategic time. I felt pressure to get them all in quickly, but looking back, balance would have been a better strategy.

Still Interested?

Being the CMO is hard work, but it’s meaningful work. If you’re still interested, I’d be happy to chat offline to share more of my experiences. This role is so important, and helping new leaders understand what all it entails is so valuable!