Soft Skills and Marketing Leadership
We believe ‘how’ you do it, is just as important as what you do. We need both the soft (or human) and leadership skills be able to connect, influence, collaborate and inspire those around us, whether that’s to build deep-rooted connections with our consumers or to gain buy-in from stakeholders to make our plans a reality.
Although we use the word soft to describe these skills and behaviours, as it’s a commonly used term, don’t be fooled by the term soft! These people-led skills are a fundamental pillar of our Whole Marketer approach and are truly essential to develop high performing marketing teams, who are successful and fulfilled.
NOT A ‘NICE TO HAVE’ BUT AN ESSENTIAL PART OF OUR ROLES
We have all worked with the person that is technically strong and competent but doesn’t work collaboratively with teams… they struggle to gain alignment and buy in from wider business and unfortunately aren’t very inspiring to be around.
Even if the plans are robust, lacking the ability to gain the support or motivation of those around them, can mean plans don’t become a reality and or aren’t as successful as they could be.
TO BRING PLANS TO LIFE WE NEED BUY-IN FROM OTHERS
Gaining buy-in from all levels across the business and working collaboratively with cross-functional team to bring plans to life is an essential part of our roles, without it the product concept and levels of investment needed will never get to market and in the hands of our consumers.
Nor will the product or service be relevant or succeed in our competitive landscape if not rooted in true, robust, consumer insight, which can only be gained from building a deep connection and understanding of our consumers. Which in turn delivers the commercial growth and true potential of marketing.
All of this matters. Because how you makes plans a reality and deliver is just as important as what you do.
WHY DEVELOP SOFT AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS
1. Build deep rooted emotional connection with consumers
- The empathy, curiosity and connection to build deep rooted emotional understanding of our consumers attitudes, values and beliefs.
- The creativity to develop new ideas, innovate, developing new approaches to transform our consumer experiences.
- Use this deepen understanding to speak up and be the voice of the consumer in every forum, to drive consumer centricity.
2. Lead and motivate the business to bring the plans to life
- We believe we are all leaders – be it leading a project, brand, team or formal leadership role. As such we all need to possess the skills, traits and behaviours to authentically lead and inspire those around us.
- The influence to be a visionary. Sharing your vision so clearly with a storytelling approach that others feel it palpably – and are emotionally connected and motivated to follow.
- The can-do attitude, conviction and resilience to bring the plans to life.
- The bravery to act quicker and ahead of your competition…
3. Build high performing and motivated teams
- The passion to want to deliver on the true potential and benefit of marketing.
- The drive and desire of marketing leaders to be great for the careers of the marketers in their care – prioritising time to develop their teams, so they are not only successful but fulfilled marketers.
- The collaboration to deliver effective and efficient work into the world that drives change and growth.
Possessing these skills is what elevates good teams to high performing ones, with passionate leaders who are truly inspiring and are impactful change-makers.
We’ll help you to make it happen with our training and workshops development programmes and consultancy.
HOW WE HELP
As experienced marketing practitioners, accredited trainers and coaches, we provide practical and inspiring sessions to learn and embed these soft skills and behaviours
Teams
Ideal for team days and PDP sessions, our workshops provide the space and guidance to develop the skills of high performing teams and their leaders
Continuation
Never ‘one and done’ – we support the whole process of learning, from pre-work sessions and prep, to leave behind workbooks in order to maximise the effectiveness of training and workshops on the day
Follow-up
We follow up to ensure what you’ve learned can be applied successfully in your day to day – providing exercises, resources, thinking tools and best-in-class examples
We’ll work with you to understand the current capabilities and dynamics of your team and deliver training and inspiration that they can embed straight away.
OUR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES
Building emotional connections
With your target humans – from persona and journey mapping to value proposition development
Gaining buy-in
Through storytelling and presentation skills
Leading and motivating
Leading teams through times of change and transformation’ should be it’s own point.
Building
Through building psychologically safe teams
Here are examples of some of our popular soft skills and leadership training and workshops
Contact us to receive more information on course criteria, outcomes and availability.
SUPPORTING AND EMPOWERING LEADERS
We’ll help you to develop high-performing and motivated teams through:
- Deepening your personal understanding, as we believe ‘you can only help others into the extent in which you know yourself’
- Defining and embedding your authentic leadership style and the way you will show up, as a human and as leader that allows others in your care able to connect, relate and share with you. Actively listening and sharing.
- Setting an inspiring vision for the future for your business, brand or team to provide motivation and clarity and that this is translated in clear goals overall and individuals know their role in delivering this
- Defining the role of marketing, your ‘marketing way’ and how you will make this happen through marketing excellence programmes, processes and ways of working
- Providing clarity on expectations and capability frameworks
- Creating development workstreams and career pathways, ensuring there are training learning and development programmes in place to develop, evolve and motivate the marketers in your care
- Empowering your team to take the reins of their careers with capability frameworks, PDP processes that provide clarity on the skills required in their current and future roles
- Ensuring there is support in place for everyone in the team to help with their day-to-day work and delivery. With clear accountabilities, consistent and efficient ways of working and processes and culture that ensures they thrive, not just survive
We combine training with our coaching, consultancy and advisory support, so we’ll not only share with you strategic and leadership processes for what we’re doing and why, but we’ll upskill as we go, so that you can learn and apply these yourself for the future.
“Abby was an excellent trainer, she engaged the team from the first word, and I could observe how she really flexed her style to ensure all team members contributed throughout the day. Training courses can often be a difficult balance for a large group, but the whole team walked away feeling inspired, reflecting on the day being beneficial to their work environment and personal wellbeing. Abby was exemplary on how to take a challenging question and ensure the team walked away knowledgeable and motivated.”
