The document outlines essential skills and behaviors needed for a successful marketing team, emphasizing the importance of team development through identifying gaps and providing effective feedback. It proposes a framework for assessing skills and leadership capabilities, detailing the key areas where team members must excel, such as brand analysis, strategic thinking, and inspiring leadership. Additionally, it discusses training programs aimed at enhancing brand management skills to strengthen brands and empower marketing leaders.

1. Assessment tool for
your Marketing team
We outline the 20 core skills and 20 behaviors
that are needed for successful Marketing team.
As the leader of a marketing team, you have to realize you are only as good as your people on the team.
The only way your team will get better is if you identify the gaps on your team, then give your people the
feedback on the gaps they need to close, and then build personal development plans for how to close
those gaps. We look at people development in three different ways: skills, behaviors and experiences. We
will showcase five major skill areas that includes the ability to: 1) analyze brand performance 2) think
strategically 3) define the brand positioning 4) create brand plans and 5) how to inspire, challenge and
make decisions on creative brand execution. We will then outline five major leader behaviors that
includes: 1) accountable to results 2) team leadership 3) broad influence 4) authentic style and 5) inspiring
leadership on execution. To help with the development of your people, you can use the Skills and
Leadership Assessment tools to determine where your team sits today.

2. Marketing Skills assessment of your team
Definitions on following page
Identified gaps
•
•
•
Scoring for each element
5: Exceptional
4: Very strong
3: Solid
2: Below expectation
1: Unable to perform
Assessment scoring for your team
90%: Exceptional team delivering for the brand
80%: Strong Team, but may have one major gap area
70%: Performance gaps holding team and brand back
60%: Team not trained to deliver on your expectations
Below 60%: Team holding the brand performance back
Brand Skill Element 1 2 3 4 5 Comments
1. Able to analyze and draw conclusions
2. Leads a deep-dive business review
3. Understands all data sources
4. Writes analytical reports
5. Uses strategic questions for thinking
6. 360-degree strategic thinking
7. Leads strategic discussions
8. Makes smart strategic decisions
9. Defines target consumer
10. Turn features into consumer benefits
11. Finds winning brand Positioning statement
12. Generates the Big Idea for brand
13. Leads all elements of Brand Plan
14. Writes smart strategic objective statements
15. Effective plans presentation
16.Aligned marketing execution plans
17. Writes focused and inspired creative briefs
18. Leads all marketing execution projects
19. Inspire greatness from experts
20. Smart strategic decisions on execution

3. Marketing Skills assessment definitions
Analyze
brand
performance
1. Digs deep into data, draws comparisons and builds a story toward the
business conclusion
2. Able to lead a best-in-class 360-degree deep-dive business review for the
brand
3. Understands all sources of brand data—share, brand funnel, consumption,
financials
4. Writes analytical performance reports that outlines the strategic
implications.
Think
Strategically
5. Thinks strategically, by asking the right interruptive questions before
reaching for solutions
6. 360-degree strategic thinking: core strength, consumers, competitors,
situation, engagement
7. Able to lead a well-thought strategic discussion across the organization
8. Makes smart strategic decisions based on vision, focus, opportunity, early
win and leverage
Define
the Brand
9. Defines ideal consumer target, framed with need states, insights and
enemies
10. Consumer centric approach to turn brand features into functional and
emotional benefits
11. Finds winning brand positioning space that is own-able and motivates
consumers
12. Develops a big idea for brand that can lead every consumer touchpoint
Create
Brand Plans
13. Leads all elements of a smart brand plan; vision, purpose, goals, issues,
strategies, tactics.
14. Turns strategic thinking into smart strategic objective statements for the
brand plan
15. Strong in presenting brand plans to senior management and across
organization
16. Develops smart execution plans that delivers against the brand strategies
Inspires,
challenges
and makes
decisions on
creative
brand
execution
17. Writes strategic, focused and thorough creative briefs to inspire great work
from experts
18. Can lead all marketing projects on brand communication, innovation,
selling or experience
19. Able to inspire greatness from teams of experts at agencies or throughout
organization
20. Makes smart marketing execution decisions that tightens bond with
consumers

4. Leadership assessment of your team
Definitions on following page
Identified gaps
•
•
•
Scoring for each element
5: Exceptional
4: Very strong
3: Solid
2: Below expectation
1: Unable to perform
Assessment scoring for your team
90%: Exceptional team delivering for the brand
80%: Strong Team, but may have one major gap area
70%: Performance gaps holding team and brand back
60%: Team not trained to deliver on your expectations
Below 60%: Team holding the brand performance back
Brand Leadership Element 1 2 3 4 5 Comments
1. Hold everyone accountable
2. Makes it happen
3. Stays on strategy
4. Works system
5. Manages core team
6. People development
7. Coaches, teaches, guides the team
8. Provides honest assessments
9. Active listener
10.Controls strategy, flexible on execution
11. Carries influence throughout organization.
12.Thinks of others beyond themselves,
13. Aware of their impact on others
14.Exhibits leadership under pressure.
15.Consistency in leadership
16.Flexibility in leadership
17. Great client to agency partners.
18. Runs brand like a business
19. A partner with the sales team
20. Lives and breathes the culture

5. Leadership assessment definitions
Accountable
to results
1. Hold everyone accountable to the goals of their tasks. Acts like a “Brand
CEO” accountable to the long range health and profits of the business.
2. Makes it happen, get things done, don’t let details/timeline slip
3. Makes smart decisions and stays on strategy, eliminates ideas that are not
focused against vision/strategy.
4. Works system behind the brand, from sales to finance to operations to HR
Team
Leadership
5. Manages core team: focus, communication, solutions, results, let others
shine.
6. Interested in their people’s development and career development
7. Coaches, teaches, guides the team for higher performance.
8. Provides honest assessments to their people and upwards.
Broad
Influence
9. Active listener, seeks opinions, makes decisions, owns strategy.
10. Controls brand strategy, yet flexible to new ideas on the execution.
11. Carries influence throughout organization.
12. Thinks of others beyond themselves, empathy to pressures/challenges
others are facing.
Authentic
Style
13. Aware of their impact on others within and beyond their team.
14. Exhibits leadership under pressure: results, ambiguity, change, deadlines.
15. Consistency in leadership in how they show up.
16. Flexibility in leadership: admits mistakes, challenges self, adjusts to new
ways.
Inspires
outstanding
execution
17. Great client for the agency partners. Clear strategy, freedom on execution.
Clear feedback and decision-making, that motivates and challenges.
18. Runs the brand like a business. Knows the details underneath the brand,
stays on top of forecasts, financial reports and supply chain operations.
19. A partner with the sales team. Knows channels and accounts issues.
Listens to sales leaders and finds common ground on shared success.
20. Lives and breathes the culture, by exhibiting the values and behaviors
expected of a leader.

6. At Beloved Brands, we make brands stronger and brand
leaders smarter.
Our role is to challenge you to think differently about your future, so that you can
realize your full potential.
We will unleash the full potential of your brand. We will lead a 360-degree assessment of your business,
help you define your Brand Positioning, create a Big Idea that will transform your brand’s soul into a
winning brand reputation and help you build a strategic Brand Plan everyone who works on the brand can
follow. Here’s how we can help your brand:
• We lead a 360-degree assessment of your business, looking at the marketplace, consumers,
channels, competitors and the brand.
• We help you define your brand, with a simple, unique, inspiring, motivating and own-able Brand
Positioning Statement.
• We will create a Big Idea that will transform your brand’s soul into a winning brand reputation.
• We help you build a strategic Brand Plan that everyone who works on the brand can follow
• We coach on Marketing execution, helping to tighten the bond with your consumers and drive
brand growth
• We will make your team of Brand Leaders smarter so they produce exceptional work that drives
stronger brand results. We offer brand training on strategic thinking, brand analytics, brand
planning, brand positioning, creative briefs and marketing execution.
We make brands stronger.
We make brand leaders smarter.
Graham spent 20 years in Brand Management leading some of the world’s most
beloved brands at Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, General Mills and Coke, rising up to
VP Marketing. In his career, he has won numerous Advertising and Innovation awards.
Graham played a major role in helping Pfizer win Marketing Magazine’s
“Marketer of the Year” award.
Graham started Beloved Brands believing he could make brands stronger
and brand leaders smarter. Graham will challenge you and your team to think
differently and strategically. He leads workshops that will help define your
Brand Positioning Statement, create a Big Idea for your brand, and write
Brand Plans to motivate and focus everyone that works on the brand.
He will build Brand Management training programs that will help
unleash the full potential of your team, so your team can produce
exceptionally smart work that drives stronger brand results.
The Beloved Brands robust client roster has included the NFL
Players Association, Reebok. Acura, Shell, Jack Link’s, 3M,
Melitta, Capital One and Pfizer.
Graham Robertson at Beloved Brands
One of the voices of today’s Brand Leaders.

7. Beloved Brands Training program
At Beloved Brands, we can build a Brand Management Training Program, to unleash the full potential of
your Marketing team
1. How to think strategically: Strategic Thinking is an essential foundation for Brand Leaders, so they
ask big questions that challenge and focus their decisions. We teach Brand Leaders how to think
strategically, to ask the right questions before reaching for solutions, mapping out a range of decision
trees that intersect and connect by imagining how events will play out. We take Brand Leaders
through the 7 elements of good strategy: vision, opportunity, focus, speed, early win, leverage and
gateway. We introduce a forced choice to help Marketers make focused decisions. We teach the
value of asking good questions, using five interruptive questions to help frame your brand’s strategy.
This helps to look at the brand’s core strength, consumer involvement, competitive position, the
brand’s connectivity with the consumers and the internal situation the brand faces. We show how to
build strategic statements to set up a smart strategic brand plan.
2. Write smarter Brand Plans: A good Brand Plan helps make decisions to deploy the resources and
provides a road map for everyone who works on the brand. We demonstrate how to write each
component of the Brand Plan, looking at brand vision, purpose, values, goals, key Issues, strategies
and tactics. We provide definitions and examples to inspire Marketers on how to write each
component. We provide a full mock brand plan, with a framework for you to use on your own brand.
We offer a workshop that allows Marketers to try out the concept on their own brand with hands on
coaching with feedback to challenge them. At each step, we provide the ideal format presentation to
management. We offer unique formats for a Plan on a Page and long-range Strategic Road Maps. We
show how to build Marketing Execution plans as part of the overall brand plan, looking at a Brand
Communications Plan, Innovation Plan, In-store plan and Experiential plan. This gives the strategic
direction to everyone in the organization.
3. Create winning Brand Positioning Statements: A winning brand positioning statement sets up the
brand’s external communication and internally with employees who deliver that promise. We show how
to write a classic Brand Positioning statement with four key elements: target market, competitive set,
main benefit and reason to believe (RTBs). We introduce the Consumer Benefit ladder, that starts with
the consumer target, with insights and enemies. We layer in the brand features. Then, get in the
consumers shoes and ask “what do i get” to find the functional benefits and ask “how does this make
me feel” to find the emotional benefits. We introduce a unique tool that provide the top 50 potential
functional and top 40 emotional benefits to help Marketers stretch their minds yet narrow in on those
that are most motivating and own-able for the brand. We then show how to build an Organizing Big
Idea that leads every aspect of your brand, including promise, story, innovation, purchase moment and
experience.
4. Write smarter Creative Briefs: The Creative Brief frames the strategy and positioning so your
Agency can creatively express the brand promise through communication. Marketing Execution must
impact the brand’s consumers in a way that puts your brand in a stronger business position. The
Creative Brief is the bridge between the brand strategy and the execution. Through our Brand
Positioning workshop, you will have all the homework on the brand needed to set up the
transformation into a succinct 1-page Creative Brief that will focus, inspire and challenge a creative

8. team to make great work. The hands-on Creative Brief workshop explores best in class methods for
writing the brief’s objective, target market, consumer insights, main message stimulus and the
desired consumer response. Brand Leaders walk away from the session with a ready-to-execute
Creative Brief.
5. Be smarter at Brand Analytics: We show how to build a deep-dive business review on the brand,
looking at the category, consumers, competitors, channels and brand. We start with the smart
analytical principles that will challenge your thinking and help you gain more support by telling
analytical stories through data. We teach you the steps to complete a deep-dive Business Review
that will help assess the health and wealth of the brand, looking at the category, consumer,
competitors, channels and brand. We show key formulas you need to know for financial analysis. We
teach how to turn your analysis into a presentation for management, showing the ideal presentation
slide format. We provide a full mock business review, with a framework and examples of every type of
analysis, for you to use on your own brand. We show you how to turn your analytical thinking into
making projections by extrapolating data into the future.
6. Get better Marketing Execution: We show Brand Leaders to judge and decide on execution options
that break through to consumers and motivates them to take action. We provide Brand Leaders with
tools and techniques for judging communication concepts from your agencies, as well as processes
for making decisions and providing effective feedback. We talk about the crucial role of the brand
leader in getting amazing marketing execution for your brand. We teach how to make marketing
decisions with the ABC’S, so you can choose great ads and reject bad ads looking at tools such as
Attention (A), Branding (B), Communication (C) and Stickiness (S). We teach how to provide copy
direction that inspires and challenges the agency to deliver great execution. We also talk about how
to be a better client so you can motivate and inspire your agency.
7. How to generate Brand Love: Why does Brand Love Matter? We believe the more loved a brand is
by your consumers, the more powerful and profitable that brand will be. We challenge Brand Leaders
to find brand love through the by creating a Big Idea to rally around, strategically focusing all their
resources and instilling passion in the work to exceed the consumer’s expectations:
• Build an organizing Big Idea that connects consumers at every touchpoint, tightening the
bond, reflecting the inner Brand Soul and desired external reputation.
• Need strategic focus in deploying the brand’s limited resources to breakthrough points,
moving consumers along the brand love curve to enable your brand vision.
• Put all your passion into the execution creates breakthrough ideas that surprise and exceed
consumer expectations, becoming a favorite brand of the consumers.
8. Winning the Purchase Moment: Brand Leaders need to know how to move consumers on the path
to purchase, helping consumers to test, decide and then experience the brand so that they try, repeat
and become loyal brand fans. We provide brand leaders with analytics, planning and decision making
tools to help their instincts and judgement for moving consumers to purchase. Complete in-store
business review, looking at categories, consumer shopping behavior, competitors, customers and the
overall brand performance. We teach the basics of customer marketing planning, identifying the
target consumer, in-store messages, strategies, tactics and project management. We look at the
available tools for customer marketing including pricing, promotions, retail shelf management,
merchandising and operational execution.