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The Search for Meaning in B2B Marketing.

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Hello.I’m Doug and I do B2B marketing for a living.

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I’ve done it for over 30 years.
Holy cow.

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To be honest, I never really thought about whether it was a worthy thing for me to do.

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Whether it was meaningful.

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But the other night, I was at a party and someone complained that their work was meaningless.

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And that got me thinking.

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I’ve always known that my work wasn’t particularly glamorous.

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I mean, at a dinner party, you can talk about shooting a Nike commercial in Bali with Lady Gaga and Michael Jordan...

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But a website for a supply chain management software company? Not so much.

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And it’s not exactly an altruistic career, either.I’m not really making the world a better place.

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Like that amazing doctor doing outrageous things in Haiti.(Paul Farmer. That guy.)

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Or like my friend Steve Wood who runs Concrete Couch, a wonderful community arts incubator in Manitou Springs Colorado.

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Or his wife Laurie who’s an amazing wellness advocate for the community and schools.

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But B2B marketing?Nope.Not glamorous. Not altruistic.

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So how I could spend so many days doing this for a living?

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And so many weeks?

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And so many years?

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How could I have given so much of my time and energy and talent and effort and spirit to such a thing?

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Don’t get me wrong. I know I’ve always enjoyed doing what I do.

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It’s challenging and creative and yadda-yadda-yadda.

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But couldn’t I enjoy something more... meaningful?

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Over the years, I’ve written a fair amount about the what and how of B2B marketing.

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This is about the why.

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Why B2B marketing is not just an okay thing to devote your life and career to, but why it’s a good thing. A worthy thing.

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I’m trying to capture these thoughts because I figure you’re probably like me.

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You probably got into this game through a back door somewhere.
When you were a kid, you never said, “I want to be a B2B marketer when I grow up.”

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It just sort of happened.

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So you may well have the same doubts that I’ve had, in varying degrees, for my whole career.

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I actually hate these doubts.

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When I give these doubts their way, they hold me back from something important.

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They stop me from giving my whole self to my work.

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And that’s not a small loss, it’s a huge one.

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Because if you’re not giving your whole self to the thing you spend most of your life doing, you’re wasting your life.

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Ouch.

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So when I think about the things that allow me to get meaning out of what I do, I’m really thinking
about the things that make it worth investing my life in.

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I mean the things beyond ‘making a living’ and supporting my family and giving my kids
(Hannah, 18, Zoe, 15) a comfy, fun, happy, interesting childhood.(These are big things
and maybe ought to be good enough answers to the meaning question. But I’m looking
for more here).

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I’m looking for the things that give me fulfilment and a sense that this work is worthwhile.

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Things that make me feel I needn’t be embarrassed about spending my days and weeks and years doing it.

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So here are those things for me. They may not be the same for you.
But they’re the things that make me glad to do what I do.

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That give my work meaning (to me anyway).

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Here goes.

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Don’t laugh.

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1. I like helping good companies grow.

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I think a business is a worthy thing for someone to create.And that it takes guts and intelligence
and determination to do it. And so helping a good business to succeed is a fulfilling thing.

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This means it’s hugely important to choose to work with companies I admire.
Companies I really want to see succeed.

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2. I like helping our clients achieve success in their careers.

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I really love it when something I did (or we as an agency did) succeeded wildly and our client
is proud of it and gets some recognition or a raise or whatever.I get a lot of pleasure out of that.

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This means it’s hugely important that I choose to work with clients that I like and admire.

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Because if I work for clients I don’t like or admire, my soul shrivels up like a raisin.

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3. I love working alongside talented, engaged, positive people who also love what they do.

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This is massive.

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People who come to work and give their whole selves to what they do make me feel
good about giving my whole self.

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And people who hold back and only give the minimum make me feel like an idiot
for giving any more than that.

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This means it’s hugely important that I choose to work alongside people who are positive
and talented and smart and fun and mature enough to go ahead and dive in instead
of holding back.

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4. I love learning new things.

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I’m happy if I’m on the steep part of just about any learning curve.And I’m miserable if I’m just
doing what I already know how to do.

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Thankfully, B2B marketing -- in the age of content marketing, lead nurturing, search, social
and analytics -- is one of the steepest learning curves in the entire history of business.

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But just because there’s a lot to learn, doesn’t mean it isn’t easy to coast along,
doing what you’ve always done.

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This makes it hugely important to choose work that’s challenging and difficult and
a bit scary.Instead of work that’s well within my comfort zone.

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5. I love work that demands creativity.

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Work in which the solution to the problem is far from obvious at the outset.
Where a good solution may be the first thing that pops into my head, but a
great solution is one that takes a bit of sweat.

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This makes it really important that I choose clients who demand great work.
Because mediocre work is stultifying.

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6. I like honest work that asks me to build a great case for my clients.

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Not work that asks me to manipulate the target audience with bullshit.
(“Good mothers choose this fabric softener.” “Real men wear this watch.”)

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This means it’s really, really important that I avoid working for any client whose business
is based on anything less than delivering real value to its customers.

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7. I like figuring out how the business of business actually works.

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Call me a geek but, to me, this gigantic economy we all operate in is actually kind of fascinating.
A business is like an organism in the ecosystem of the wider economy.
And some thrive and some die and I really like trying to figure out why.

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I love getting an inside view into different markets and ‘value chains’ and individual companies.

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And I’m especially interested in the alchemy of success and the mystery of great corporate cultures.

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To be honest, I’m even fascinated by sad, inefficient, counter-productive dysfunctional cultures.
(I just don’t want to hang out in them for too long.)

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And all this means it’s really important to choose clients who are open about everything
and who see us as partners not just suppliers.
Because if they’re not open, I can’t indulge in my hobby.

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That’s pretty much it.

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Those seven things are my own personal sources of meaning in my work.

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I hope they aren’t too disappointing.(Hey, I never promised profound revelations).

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Why does all this matter?

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It matters because it guides critical decisions.
Every day.

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Notice the yellow slides above that summarised the choices I need to make in
order to get more from my work?

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These aren’t small choices.
They’re critical.

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They’re the choices that keep any work meaningful.

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I hope you choose to work for people you like in companies you admire that are
doing cool things in an honest, open way.

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I hope you choose to work alongside smart, talented, positive people who you really like.

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Because when we betray any of these choices...

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All the good mojo I just talked about becomes bad mojo.
And saps away all energy and enthusiasm.

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But when we honour these choices, then this not-very-glamorous work called B2B
marketing turns out to be actually packed with meaning.

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And instead of feeling vaguely embarrassed by what I do...

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I feel hugely proud of it.

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And actually quite lucky and maybe even privileged to spend my days, and weeks and years doing it.

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And if you do B2B marketing for a living, I hope you feel this way too.

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Thanks.
I needed to get that off my chest.
This is Velocity