September 4, 2018
Contributor: Chris Pemberton
A CMO’s first 100 days on the job presents a window of opportunity to set the tone for their tenure. And it all starts well before Day 1.
“A key determinant of success is ensuring job expectations are aligned by understanding your role, scope and influence,” says Marc Brown, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner for Marketers. “Above all, strong communication will greatly enhance your chances of success.”
“The Communicate phase spans the full transition and is critical for success.”
Your first 100 days will create the foundation for how other employees view you. The way you choose to establish yourself during this time period will affect long-term plans and associations.
To accomplish all that needs to get done in the first 100 days — from aligning with the CEO to talking with customers, assessing your team, establishing your priorities, building key relationships and showing quick wins — you need a plan. Break this time into six overlapping phases for an effective 100-day plan that sets you up for success.
The Communicate phase spans the full transition and is critical for success. Focus on communication elements in each of the distinct phases, from interviewing key stakeholders and the CEO before Day 1 to using data to tell your story to reviewing key performance indicators in the Measure phase.
The Prepare phase is all about assessing, or reassessing, cultural fit with the organization, understanding CEO expectations and developing a conversational fluency. Ensure that expectations are aligned and check for passion. Can you envision yourself as the single most passionate brand ambassador on the payroll?
Use the Assess phase to determine corporate goals and priorities, assess organizational structure and staffing, establish agency relationships and meet with customers. Use the first 30 days to conduct a maturity assessment and evaluate marketing spend. In this phase, it’s also important to share your process and time frame while keeping stakeholders apprised.
Use the Plan phase, which overlaps with the Assess phase, to baseline the marketing strategy, identify critical imperatives, assess and address capacity for change, and develop plans for early wins. Even though you’re starting to see some patterns form, don’t get ahead of yourself. It will take time to fully understand organizational dynamics at the proper depth before you can feel comfortable making larger, more sweeping decisions.
In the Act phase, communicate and prove your strategic assertions, gain trust and gather operational feedback. By this time you’ll have a grounded point of view on what needs to get done and the discipline to contain your enthusiasm to a series of time- and resource-bound areas of focus. Kick off a test project from your marketing plan and meet daily with your test project team to detail the accomplishments from yesterday, priorities for today and any roadblocks to progress.
In the Measure phase, assess outcomes relative to your 100-day onboarding plan, identify new insights, showcase early wins, roll out new organizational refinements and update processes. Prepare a short presentation for stakeholders that tells the story of project outcomes and key findings in simple and summarized terms.
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