In my colleague Chris Wood’s wide-ranging interview with MarTech contributor Milt Hwang, he got Milt to talk about a subject rarely discussed in marketing: Fear. It is one of the biggest challenges to overcome many things. Fear of making a mistake is a huge handicap in marketing because it prevents you from learning.
When Jim Stengel was CMO at Procter & Gamble, he regularly visited all the marketing offices around the world. The first thing he would talk about was a big mistake he’d made during his career. He wanted everyone to know that mistakes were OK. In fact, you have to make them to get it right the next time. Mistakes are how we discover our false assumptions about the consumer, the channel, the creatives and even the product itself.
The most common fear of all is speaking in front of groups. It’s one many people handle by avoiding every chance of this happening. However, sometimes you have to. Presentations are a fact of life in business. Preparation is the key to this fear and my colleague Kathy Bushman has three tips to help you with that.
Constantine von Hoffman
Managing Editor
