Great post by Eric Norlin entitled "An Open Letter to Technology Startup Marketers"
Eric and I have chatted on the phone a couple times and exchanged emails as he is the guy behind both the Defrag and Glue conferences and Gist is involved with both. He's a great guy and hits the nail on the head with this post. Here's a couple of my favorite parts:
As a marketer your purpose in life is two-fold: 1) find pools of demand and funnel that feedback into product management so that they can respond (ie, respond to market demand); 2) GENERATE demand (innovate and then land new sales). You are, in short, an outbound sales person with a budget for initiatives. And if being in sales makes you uncomfortable, you need try a different career.
And this one (which I have endured in a prior position):
If you have a VP title and you need your CEO’s permission to spend “your budget,” you’re not a VP and you should ask to be demoted to “director” so that you can enjoy life more via being scrutinized by the board less.
I totally agree with the point above about being comfortable in sales. Marketing success is viewed best through the sales pipeline.
Here's Brad Feld's post on it as well.
Great stuff Eric.
Venture Vice 