Room 301 Podcast 014 – Getting Stakeholders on Board as a Marketing Leader

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0:00:07 – Rob Twells

We are back, Room 301. Thank you all for joining us. I’ve got another guest this week, so we’ve got Ryan from iMail Comms. Ryan, how are you?

0:00:45 – Ryan Hodson

Yeah, not too bad, thank you.

0:00:48 – Rob Twells

Good. Thank you for being here. So today’s podcast is all about stakeholder buy in, how to get stakeholders on board as a marketing leader. We all know, and the people listening to this podcast typically are in sort of marketing manager, marketing director positions. They might have a team, but they’ve almost certainly got seniors. They’ve got boards, they’ve got people who hold the money they need to convince to buy into their marketing strategies. And that is often from my conversations with marketing leaders, one of the most challenging parts of the role. So we’ve brought in Ryan. Ryan’s got a lot of experience doing this. Some tips and tactics on how to get the most out of it and how to be successful in doing so, so you can actually get on with your job. So Ryan, do you want to give yourself a quick introduction? An introduction to the business you work at and your it?

0:01:41 – Ryan Hodson

Yes. So I work for imail comms and we’re a hybrid mail provider. First we look after companies, business mail, hybrid mail, so anything that you generally want to avoid a mail room or a franking machine or stamps, for the smaller businesses, we look after that. So we allow people to print directly from their computer or send directly from their devices or software if you want to integrate completely straight into our system. And we’ll print mail and obviously distribute those items through the real mail network. So obviously my job as the marketing manager is to implement the strategy, oversee it and make sure that all the goals that we want to achieve are delivered.

0:02:34 – Rob Twells

And have you got a team or is it just yourself or do you use external agencies and freelancers?

0:02:40 – Ryan Hodson

Yes, it’s just myself in the business. So I wear many hats, obviously. I’ve got a history in graphic design as well, so sometimes I tinker away with doing bits and bobs on that. But generally, I like to use obviously freelancers for design. We use an external freelancer for our paid advertising at the moment. Yeah, obviously, like, I love to be I like that I have this ability to get involved in everything and anything. It’s nice that you can sort of see everything. I’d like to be more hands on in certain areas than the others and that will come from the growth that we will inevitably get. But it’s a good ball.

0:03:36 – Rob Twells

Cool. So you are the man that has to tie business objectives to marketing objectives and make them happen effectively. And obviously, to do that, we need strategy, we need money and we need to convince the people that hold the money to buy into what we want to do. So before we get into all of that, what is a stakeholder? What do you mean by that term?

0:04:00 – Ryan Hodson

I think a stakeholder is anyone that’s got an influence over key decisions that happen within the business. I think stakeholders can come in all shapes and sizes in that you have highly influential people that may not be regarded as a stakeholder, but they have an influence on a team, on an organization. And I think that sometimes you are managing up and you are managing down stakeholders just because there are people in your business that will be experts in their field. And like a locker designer, for example, you’ve got to trust in their ability and their interests to deliver. And if you’re trying to sort of manage up to a stakeholder and asking them for the advice, you’re going the wrong way about it. You’ve got to really got to trust the skill set that you have within the team and know that they will deliver. And then obviously that’s about then obviously you’ve got to manage that process through the business. So I think a stakeholder can be anyone within or any group within an organization and obviously then the difference is key stakeholders and they tend to be the decision maker, the final decision tends the one that signs on the dotted line and that’s obviously a different, slightly different process you take with those people.

0:05:32 – Rob Twells

I really like that because I think most of us, myself included, sometimes, will always think of a stakeholder as having the word director in their job title or chief of or chief executive CEO, and actually separating those who are like that who maybe sign the checks or make the final call, and those who have the influence to influence the decision on whether that happens or not is a really nice way to explain it. And having which clearly you have, Ryan, there’s two different ways of approaching those different groups of people as well, which is really smart.
So how have you gone about identifying that in some of your roles in terms of who are the stakeholders, who are the key stakeholders? Or is it really quite obvious from the get go.

0:06:14 – Ryan Hodson

I think yeah, I think it can be obvious in many scenarios you tend to see groups of huddles, especially when you’re in the office, you tend to see who the people that migrate together and who work together. We know who the CEO is, we know who the directors are of course. Yeah, but I think what you do get over time is you get to see the influence that people have over others and the approach in which you need to take. And I think that’s the learning curve that I suppose we should all enjoy in that everybody’s different, everybody’s got their way about them and understanding how to approach those people, speak to them, address them, really helps with your day to day job. I think that’s important to knowing who it is and how to respond to them is essential.

0:07:18 – Rob Twells

Massively. And there’s some blurred lines there between stakeholder management leadership as well in terms of how different people to react to feedback, how best to give people feedback, how best to get people on site buying and stuff that I’m really quite deeply interested in actually in terms of not everyone is created equally, and therefore the style of management or the style of how you manage a certain process of somebody it does need to tweak based on who you’re speaking to. And I think that is basically what you’re saying here. So what sort of challenges have you faced career in terms of gaining support from stakeholders, I presume in your career, you’ve largely been at the forefront of strategy creation, asking for the marketing budget and things like that?

0:09:12 – Ryan Hodson

Yeah, looking back early on in my career, you obviously start off in this world of you’ve got tons of enthusiasm with no experience, and then obviously then hopefully over time, it balances out a little bit more where you maintain that enthusiasm, but you’ve got the experience. And I think that during my time, I’ve had lots of different obviously lots of different stakeholders I’ve worked directly with. I’ve been fortunate. I mean, at UK Mail, for example, when I went there, I had direct access to the marketing director, there also the commercial director, and inevitably ended up the CEO of the business, made himself approachable because he had a real passion for marketing. So I’ve been quite fortunate in that I’ve had these interactions throughout my career where I’ve had access to people that have got status and power, I suppose, and been able to see the impact you have with decisions that you make. And I think the key thing that I’ve learned throughout the process is that a lot of decisions that are made on a day to day basis are emotional, right, and based off your own personal kind of desires and wants and your achievements. And that and although we have taken consideration objectives and business goals, we all want to do well. And depending on who you’re speaking to, you have to remember the pressure that they have from their superiors and what they have to go through. And I think that sometimes that can be overlooked, especially when you walk off and you gripe about that person’s not done that for me, or they’ve not let me do this. And I think that we have to remember that they have stay home stakeholders their own, whether that be shareholders or wherever it is someone is looking at your business and being critical in a way that you’ve not considered being emotionally aware of that process, I think, definitely helps with stakeholder management.

0:10:24 – Rob Twells

Perfect. What sort of challenges have you faced in your time in terms of getting that buy in? What’s a typical objection you might get?

0:10:35 – Ryan Hodson

I think a lot of it comes down to taking people out of their norm, so something that has worked for them for a period of time and then potentially followed suit. And I’ve always been keen to try and do something else or try and do something different. And taking people away from that is always tough because someone wants to just go, well, we’ve done it this way and it works really well. And if we just do more of that and we do more of this, then it will continue to work. Yeah. And I think that sometimes getting the buy in and the trust from from others is something that I’ve really tried to focus on and inevitably to do that and build the trust in your pitch, I suppose. It requires numerous facts and figures and also a ton of enthusiasm and grit. I think a lot of the times you find that you can get a no quite early on because it might not matter to them at that moment in time, they might have a bigger objective to handle. And sometimes timing, picking your right time, picking the moment and making sure that you’ve don’t always take no for an answer again, be critical about what it is you’ve asked and then question to yourself, was there a better way? Is there another way? Have I missed the boat? Have I just timed it wrong? And I think that tends to be if you can do that, I think you can find that you will be able to build that trust in others and say, look, just give me your time, give me your attention for a period of time and then it carves out more. I think sometimes like a subject line, having a really nice subject line that gets people just peak their interest and I think that’s what you tend to have to do with stakeholders sometimes you just have to say, if we try this, I reckon we could double the amount of leads we’re getting.

0:12:49 – Rob Twells

You’ve got to be a marketer for your own marketing strategy.

0:12:51 – Ryan Hodson

Yeah, I think so. I think you do have to that will happen with any role. I think you do have to kind of go plant a seed or plant a thought, an idea in someone’s mind so that it manifests and then you come at it again at a different time. I think that like, I actively read and listen to podcasts and stories and more than ever, and I think that one thing I’ve picked up is that no one actually sells to anyone. We sell to ourselves. And that means that you’ve really got to give people all the information they need to be able to sell to themselves. That that idea is a good one. When you’re trying to push anything down anybody’s throat and say, look, you need to pay attention to this, you need to have this. And you’d be wrong to not consider it. Puts people on a defense. Whereas if you are able to sort of understand their emotional side of it and their wants, their desires and you can with a tactical approach, then you end up with a much better response.

0:14:09 – Rob Twells

No, I completely agree. And you said a few times now things like leads, you’ve mentioned revenue and whatnot a lot of key stakeholders are very motivated by, unfortunately, sometimes. But facts, figures, revenue, sales leads real stone cold facts. So do you translate that for them? Would you go in with, here’s my strategy, and actually here’s the commercial outcome? Do you go as far as that?

0:14:38 – Ryan Hodson

Yeah, I think every time I think that’s something that I’ve definitely picked up, especially from my transition from being a designer to being in marketing. As a designer, it’s very fluffy and nice and you do pretty things. But it was only when I started to look at there’s a bigger pool of opportunity where you think, oh, I want to be involved in that, I want to be involved in that. I think that the facts and figures are almost essential, especially in small businesses. If you need to know that wherever you’re spending, you’re going to get a return. You can’t always quantify branding and awareness in the same way, because the likes of DHL used to advertise in F1 and God knows where else. It was everywhere and they’ve got a budget for that. But you can’t quantify it in the same way you can with a paid ad, for example. All you can say, I spent this and I’ll gain that. But equally, especially with B2B marketing. The sales process is far different from the B2C world. They take time. They have stakeholders that they have to manage. They have to go back and forth. We’ll see on our site, we’ll have people come visit, look at something, disappear, come back and forth, back and forth, and then they’ll reach out, and they still might not reach out, so we reach out to them and so forth. And I think that it’s a completely different process. Whereas B2C your consumers have only got themselves to sell to. So if you want a new phone, you just got to convince yourself you need a new phone for whatever reason that is. And making a nice marketing story or a nice pitch for that is fairly straightforward. You’re targeting one individual generally, unless you’re obviously a kid and you’re trying to sell it to your parent. They’re very different processes that take place.

0:16:43 – Rob Twells

You got to be a salesperson and market of your own stuff here to get it through, right?

0:16:48 – Ryan Hodson

Yeah, I think you do. I think you have to. With any relationship you have with anyone, whether it’s your family at work or whatever it is, you’re always sort of trying to show that that’s worth doing. If you want to go on holiday, you’ve got to say it to your family, that that’s the place everyone’s going to have a good time.

0:17:13 – Rob Twells

Absolutely. Yeah. And the more success you have in the role, the easier the process gets, I imagine. So in terms of measuring success, what do you do to sort of demonstrate value to stakeholders? What sort of things are you showing them? How are you communicating that? What are you focusing on?

0:17:38 – Ryan Hodson

Sometimes I think it will be sometimes you have to kind of ask for forgiveness rather than permission. I think sometimes you just have to kind of go, I’m just going to try this. Because you need to see for your own self to believe in it and say, I’ve had a go at that, and that’s done that. And you can then present that back and say, look, add a little tinker here and a little go at this and that, and it’s generated whatever it is. And if you can’t do that, obviously the access to the world of Internet has changed things. And the ability to look at case studies. Get information from whatever blog post or article regarding facts and figures on success rates. And obviously you can be really granular with that information. Being able to see what the conversion rate for direct mail is within a particular industry will be different to somewhere else. There’s lots of so many resource, third party resources where they those channels and they’ll offer lots of insights that help you build a model that creates an outcome. I mean, I’ve got loads of spreadsheets on my computer where I’m saying that if I put this many people or opportunities through this funnel, I expect to get this return based on common statistics that are available. It helps build a model. And then even then, the amount of times I’ve done it and I’m like, this is a no brainer. And then you think you’ve got to take it with a pinch of salt and you’ve got to consider so many other factors that they’re not even on your scope. I mean, like COVID, for example. COVID happened. I imagine all these marketing strategies that were planned before that and then they implemented and this happened. It all went tits up and then everyone would then. 2s You know, had to rethink their strategies. And those that didn’t potentially suffered, and those that did were a bit more savvy, were on the ball, prevailed. AI changed the game as well. I think having something that you can tap into do and ask a question quickly and get a response, it gives you a direction or a way in which you can move. But there’s podcasts, there’s webinars, there’s so much information out there that’s at your fingertips, and that helps you build a 360 view of what you’re trying to pitch. Because sometimes when you go into a pitch, you can have an isolated view of what you want. And I think and I think I learned that from being a designer. When you design, you design knowing exactly what it is you’re trying to get, portray. It’s only when you go and show someone and go, what do you think of this? And they go, what about that? What about this? What about that? You go, yeah. And I think that those years of being designer really helped me turn into a better marketing manager, because I do try to be self critical or even just park it and say, I’ve done that, I’m going to leave it a couple of days and then I’m going to come back to it. That helps.

0:19:35 – Rob Twells

Absolutely. For sure. Cool. So let’s put ourselves in a world where you’ve managed to presented your strategy, you’ve got it through happy, happy days, been given the bag, so to speak. You’ve launched a campaign, what are you doing? In fact, I can rewind a lot of managing up, managing with stakeholders, either the amount of visibility, clarity, honesty you can give them on a regular basis. So what sort of reporting structure have you found is useful for you in terms of just keeping them up to date with how things are going, knowing when things might go wrong and informing them at the right time and things like that? Have you got any sort of structure that you use personally for that?

0:21:47 – Ryan Hodson

Obviously we use HubSpot as our CRM, so I aim to bring everything in HubSpot generally. It’s our single version of the truth where we can use that as a success of did that opportunity or did that strategy do what we wanted, which was generate leads for the salespeople? And of those leads, how good are they? How many deals are we creating, and what value? And I think that’s the simplest measure that we can craft. But in, obviously, other organizations, you might track different things in different ways. But for us, the CRM is vital to knowing the team interactions that people have and also getting across the importance of a sales cycle and the time it takes. Like, it could take weeks, months for someone to convert. Understanding that it takes time, but generally you end up with results that are either working for you or not. And I think it’s really important that as person that’s created that strategy and created the idea and sold it into the business and got that money, is to also consider failing fast and all being able to know when to go, that isn’t exactly how I planned it. I need to rejig it or I need just an adjustment of some kind. And being able to do that, I think, again, is super important and holding your hands up. And that comes from having good stakeholders as well and being able to go to them and say, look, I’ve missed the trick here or I’ve missed something. And we do need to consider this. And it might be that there’s an extra bit of money that you might need. I’ve done that recently. I speak from experience because I did that recently. I implemented something and there was an extra bit of that I didn’t even consider. It was a little bit of bit of money, but I was comfortable enough to go to my manager and say, look, I’ve overlooked this. It is this. This is what it’s going to do. And on a quick basis, this is how much more productive I can be if we implement it. And he was just like, yeah, that’s fine, just crack on and do it. So being honest and open about the results to yourself and to stakeholders. Again will help you either progress further and move forward and be able to review it. Use all the tools that you’ve got available. Google analytics, we use obviously any of these analytic programs that you can get hold of. There’s so many whatever you’re comfortable using, as long as it gives you the information you need and you take it as, as a direction and challenge them. And then obviously, like I say, fail fast. If it’s not working, look at it, review it, and come up with a solution. And I think that’s one important thing to also consider when you’re managing stakeholders, especially if you made a mistake on a strategy, is don’t go to them with the problem without a solution. So identify the problem and give yourself time to either find a solution if you’ve got the time, or explain that there is an issue, you’re looking into it and you expect there to be an answer in whatever time frame. So how much time do you need to dig? If it’s a longer project, if it’s a longer research required, then be clear about, I need a week to give you an answer. And just having that transparency and honesty of where you’re at will pay dividends in the long run.

0:23:13 – Rob Twells

I think that’s massive. I mean, I’ve been in agency leadership for going on 11-12 years now. And the team members that we’ve stuck with, the team members that I’ve managed to build the most trust with, are the ones that are not necessarily getting it right day in, day out. It’s the ones that aren’t afraid to put the hand up and say, I gave this a good go, gave it my best. It’s not quite working out. Here’s what I’m going to do about it. I might need this, I might need that, I might need your support to do that. But it’s the fact that you’re not finding out at the last minute and the ones that you don’t necessarily bring trust, we’ve all lose the trust of the stakeholders are the ones that bury their head in the sand, try and fix a problem, fix a problem, fix a problem before it explodes. And then when it explodes, leadership, team or board thinking, what the hell is going on here? And then you’re left with egg on your face effectively. So I think being as honest and transparent as often as possible is really important. And there was something you mentioned there about asking for more budget as well. And again, the more you can be honest, the more you can be transparent. And something really crucial that you mentioned there now you mentioned it really in passing, was, I need some more budget, but here’s how much more productive I can be. You provided the outcome there, there’s no questions asked, what’s this going to do for us? What’s the commercial outcome for it? So, even without thinking, you’ve explained the risk, you’ve explained the problem, you’ve held your hands up, you’ve looked at a solution, but you’ve also given a forecast on what the outcome is likely to be. And that’s all you can really ask for as a stakeholder, isn’t it? And it’s all you can really do as somebody who’s managing a stakeholder. And I think they are the core pillars of getting it right. It’s honesty, it’s presenting the right data at the right time, it’s communicating at the right place at the right time, in the right way, and then holding your hands up when it doesn’t go quite right.

0:27:37 – Ryan Hodson

Yeah, for sure. And I think you talked about failure then from your team. My now current manager or CEO, a few Christmases ago, he bought a book for everybody. It was called “Black Box Thinking” and sends it out to everybody and I don’t normally read, and it’s something that I’ve actually been focusing on this year, trying to read more. And as soon as I started reading it, I was hooked and I ended up trying to get my son to read it. Although he was like 11/12 at the time. I was like, read then. But coincidentally, my niece, who is eleven now, my son’s 14 now, but she actually took it on. I was explaining to her what it’s all about, and she actually has got it now when she’s reading it. But I think that black box thinking inevitably teaches you all about failure and the importance of it, and it gives lots of examples about Dyson and the planes and how to look at failure and how to understand it and how to get more out of it. And again, that’s vital with having the faith and the trust that you build in stakeholders to allow you to fail, because we do need failure. We do need times where it’s not gone well for you to go: “I see what I did there, or I’ve not done something or and I need to do better”. And you obviously develop and you grow. And that’s the only way we all grow. That’s how anything changes. And that’s essential. So if I can recommend a book here, actually black Box thinking, I recommend that. And also there was another book, which I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s called “Never Split the Difference”.

0:29:36 – Rob Twells

I have heard of it. Yeah…

0:29:38 – Ryan Hodson

It’s such a good book. It’s a former FBI. He manages hostages. But anyway, it talks about this whole kind of negotiation and it’s so interesting because it talks about how to negotiate better. And that, inevitably, is part of the role of any position in a company. You have to negotiate. You have to kind of know when it is you need to stick your heels in and be firm with views and your opinions. But equally, there’s times where you need to think about the way you’re presenting yourself and how you’re doing it. And I think that one analogy that stuck out for me in that book was, sometimes, potentially, I suppose why it’s called “Never Split the Difference” is because there’s a bit where it talks about, I want to wear brown shoes, and my partner wants me to wear black shoes. Now, meeting in the middle would mean I wear one brown shoe and wear one black shoe, but you just can’t do that. So someone’s got to win that argument, someone’s got to win that negotiation, and I’ve got to wear my brown shoes, or she’s going to get me to wear my black shoes, or whatever it might be. And I think that, again, that resonated with me, because there are situations where you do have to kind of go, no, I’m right here. You’ve got to stick to your guns, and you have got to kind of go, just hear me out. That means maybe taking a different angle and going away and going right, I’m going to from a different direction and fight your corner. And equally, there’s times where you need to say, I am wrong on this occasion, and I need to relook at what it is that I’m doing. Because equally, you’re speaking to stakeholders above you. They have a different experience; they have a different. awareness of the problem or solution you’re trying to solve and you need to take on that experience and do something with it proactively.

0:31:40: – Rob Twells

No, massively. I think that’s really impressive as well. I think any form of negotiation, leadership, management, whether it’s up or down, you need that self awareness to know you when you hear somebody else out based on their experience or when you need to stand firm and be confident in what you’re doing. And I think you talked about failure there and I think I’ve spent most of my career yes, I started my own agency and all that kind of stuff, but most of my time in doing this, I’ve lent into either the marketing of our business or the sales side of our business. And I think in both of those things, you need to be able to fail comfortably because there’s no black and white answer, there’s no yes or no answer. There’s a lot of careers out there where there’s a right way to do something, there’s a wrong way to do something. Marketing, especially, and sales, but marketing especially is something where you do need to reserve maybe 20% of your time just for having a little play about with something, just to see how something just to try a new channel, just to experiment over here. And that takes a lot of guts to go into a board meeting or whatever it is. And almost showcase that you’re doing that. And by doing that, we might lose money, but what we learn is going to be almost more valuable than the money that we lose because we’re going to learn that we don’t lean into that anymore or we’ll lean into it more and whatever it might be. So that’s always quite a challenge. And I do emphasize to a lot of marketers who are in that position where you’ve got a finite amount of budget but you still need to reserve time and energy and money to keep experimenting. Have you ever been in that situation where you’ve got real maybe quite a limited budget but you need to reserve that time and energy to try something new? And it felt like a bit of a risk?

0:33:36 – Ryan Hodson

Yeh, I mean, early on in this role, Andy had a management buyout and obviously, therefore there’s risk involved with what we put into the budget and so forth and understanding what it is, our place and so forth. And we obviously getting our operations sorted and so forth and it all went really well. But obviously during that time you are still expected to deliver on everything that we were. We piggybacked a lot off the DHL brand and the UKML brand a lot during that time and obviously now own business. That meant we need to find our own way and our own solutions. And that takes time, but I think that what I ended up doing was you end up doing stuff out of work and it’s not because you are working longer for that person. It’s all about self development, self growth and listening to webinars, listening to podcasts, reading books, whatever media that suits you and looking to things. And I think that will pay dividends in the future and it compounds. And I think when you was talking about using that 20%, I think there’s that graphic where it shows you this, like, lines or boards and they drop a ball at the top and the curveball that sort of drops down and loses way, almost looks like it’s losing its way and then comes back to the finish line, ends up finishing first. And that line that’s straight through, which is almost like the line of no risk, ends up like sort of I can’t remember it comes last or second, but inevitably, the line that wins is the line that towers off a little bit and then it gains momentum. And I think that sometimes we have to trust that some things mean we might take a step back and we will leap forward too. That’s because of the growth and the things that we’ve learned from that experience that we’ve just had and.

0:35:45 – Rob Twells

Now, I think that’s spot on. I mean, I’ve certainly learned from this episode. There are different ways to talk to different people. And I think a lot of folks listening to this in your position or similar positions will feel probably quite a lot of comfort by the fact that everyone has a fear of failure. But actually failing is fine and part of stakeholder management and whatnot is communicating that failure, but also why it’s so important to fail and why we need to continue to fail to keep maximizing our successes. So, no, I really think this episode has been really insightful. I really appreciate your time. Ryan, any sort of parting words before we jump off?

0:36:25 – Ryan Hodson

No, I think you summarized it well. I think enjoy taking risks, enjoy failure, and understand that you are like a chain of buying a house. You are a cog in the chain and you are one piece of that puzzle. That means that you need to consider that there’s people below you, your decisions impact, and there’s people above you. And you need to remember that, while it might not go your way the first time have grit and determination to try again at a different time and review your process, review what you’ve said and think of there’s another way to do it and come back another day and fight another day. And inevitably you might find yourself in an environment or a workplace that you aren’t growing. And therefore you do need to look at alternatives. And again, being critical of that and saying, well, this isn’t my environment and I’ve been in those situations before where it’s not my environment. And when I’ve got out, quick and just gone, no actually I need a better one. And again its quick to failure, quick to learn.

0:37:45 – Rob Twells

Stakeholders as well, I imagine is a big part of that. Well, look. Appreciate that, Ryan. I will drop all of Ryan’s details in the show notes and thank you all for listening and we’ll see you again soon. Cheers, Ryan. Take care, mate.

0:38:05 – Ryan Hodson

Cheers. Thank you.