Uncovering a Marketing Rockstar

I took a young marketing generalist who had been identified as not living up to her potential and, within a year, helped turn her into my top-performing employee and a Marketing Operations specialist.

I'll share some insights on why I think things changed and how you can implement the same approach with someone on your team.

"You changed the trajectory of my career." - Leah Schmitt

Let's set the stage.

It's February 2021. Four months prior I was part of a small company that was acquired by a much larger organization. I was put in charge of the Marketing Operations team, really defining a true "team" for MOps for the first time rather than individuals who sort of worked in tandem.

It was a big switch, and it wasn't easy. I was from the smaller company; I hadn't managed before. We were all remote. The team was not TEAMING.

On that team was one young professional that had been identified as not living up to her potential.

I saw something different.

Leah had been hired just before the pandemic. As in, she had a few weeks in the office before she went home. It was her first big corporate job. As you can imagine, the training was not ramped up for a remote world.

The basics of "how to job" and build relationships in an office hadn't been taught.

The team at the time was more focused on people staying in lanes than building up a young new employee that they didn't understand the value of. She internalized that and picked up their habits.

Here's the punchline: Within a year she was my top employee.

Not because I magically discovered some secret management technique.

Because we figured out what was getting in her way, gave her the skills and systems she needed, and then expected her to rise to the occasion.

Let's chat about some of the choices you can make to bring around a struggling employee — remote or in office.

Acknowledge the Struggle

As I mentioned above, Leah wasn't actively trying to perform poorly; she was set up in many ways to fail.

Ignoring the history, the time of life that the WORLD was going through, and the active roadblocks was key to understanding what was actually happening.

Before you can improve someone's performance, you have to understand why they're struggling.

Embrace Hope

I guarantee you, even if the employee did a 180, if you have written them off, they will not succeed.

A mind already made up will not get you what you want. I believed Leah's apathy and cynicism was tied directly to her environment, not to who she was. You can't be that cynical a year into your first professional job.

So I took it on as a challenge.

What if she wasn't a bad employee? What if she was an underdeveloped one?

Ensure Operational Basic Needs are Met

WAY farther into the process than I should have, I learned Leah was working off one monitor.

I don't know how ANYONE works off less than two screens. I'm a four-screener myself.

Get your team the right equipment and make sure they understand WHY they are using it. For a while she only had two screens on her in-office days. I celebrated her success on those days and explained how much more efficient she was.

Sometimes performance problems are embarrassingly practical.

Process, Process, Process

Also, check your processes.

People before process, but sometimes your process is hurting your people. To get ANYTHING done in our team then, you had to send an email and politely ask for people to do the next step in the process.

It was inefficient.

We added in a whole lot of process slowly but surely over the next few months and years to automate steps like that. We established that people assigning next steps was not wrong; it was just your job.

That's Marketing Operations at its best: taking friction out of the system so people can spend their energy doing higher-value work.

Be Present

It can be so hard to listen.

Once you master that, then you have to hear, then you have to figure out what you can change, then you have to follow through. It can take some time to learn this and to really CONNECT.

You have to connect though.

Get to know what's going on in their lives. Are they struggling with things at home that you need to have grace for? Are they excited about something new? Do they have a project they want to work on? Leave time for chats.

Train

Ok, I'm as guilty as the next person of throwing people to the wolves. A mentality that says, "I was thrown into the deep end and lived, so you can, too."

How rude and privileged. Level up those following you. Make each phase of humanity grow.

A learning project isn't always a bad choice, but you should provide plenty of meeting time and documentation so they can ask questions and not drown.

That said, I showed Leah this before I published it, and she said that being thrown to the wolves now and then showed her that I believed in her. She's grateful for those because it emphasized my trust and confidence in her skills. So train, but don't do it for them. The goal isn't dependency. The goal is capability.

Measure the Metrics

Little mistakes in preview emails sent to senior leaders called attention to Leah in a negative, but very visible light. I built a simple spreadsheet that I had her fill out when I reviewed her emails. The goal was for her to get to a 90% accuracy rating on reviews done by her before they were sent to the rest of the team. It was a clear, simple system that also provided her a way to consistently remember what to check. (Process. Process. Process.)

Leah was promoted off my team [stolen more like by two women I deeply admire]. I've moved onto a new company.

She's widely known as the rockstar I've always known was inside her. I'm barely remembered as having been a marketer these days. A lot has changed, but our mutual respect and admiration is still strong.

We were together recently, and I mentioned wanting to write this article. I offered to make it anonymous, but she enthusiastically offered to be a part of it. She said she wasn't going to cry when she spoke about what my attention and INTENTION did for her, but we both got teary eyed. She told me I changed the trajectory of her career. I can't imagine a greater compliment as someone's leader.

And here's what I want you to take away from this:

You don't always need a new employee. Sometimes you need to level up the one you already have.

If you have someone on your team who is smart, capable, and just isn't performing at the level you know they can, that's exactly the kind of problem I like to solve.

That's why I built the Six-Week Level Up.

It's a focused six-week engagement designed to take an employee who has potential but needs direction, skills, systems, and confidence and help them become a stronger, more capable Marketing Operations professional.

And development doesn't have to stop after six weeks.

For the employee who just needs a tune-up, a second set of eyes, help with a problem, or a little targeted coaching, a one-hour session can often be enough to get them moving again.

You don't have to replace every struggling employee.

Sometimes you just need to give the right person the right development at the right time.

Manage well, my friends. You have the power to change careers for the better.