So, What Do You Do?

There is a peculiar silence that follows the question “So, what do you do?” It usually happens at a conference or networking event, or occasionally at a wedding or funeral, and almost always when I am holding a drink I don’t want and a small plate I don’t need.

The person wants a tidy answer, not a well-rehearsed elevator pitch or list of differentiators. Like a noun. Doctor. Plumber. Teacher. Pilot. Something they can file away and feel reassured by. You hear “pilot,” and you think, “good, I know exactly what that is.” They want a job that fits on a business card without the lettering getting small and unapologetic around the edges.

Marketers at a networking event. Where are the canapés?

“I’m in Marketing,” I say.

And there it is. The polite nod of someone who has been handed a word that explains nothing. And that’s understandable. “Marketing” now means many things. It’s like saying you live in the UK. It’s a region filled with different zones. Where exactly? Doing what? With whom?

What do marketers do exactly? What don’t we do?

I’m sure people automatically think ads, in an Emily in Paris sort of way. That’s the bit that bobs cheerfully above the waterline. Underneath sits everything else, and the everything else is enormous.

There’s growth, which is a polite way of saying “make the line go up, ideally before the next board meeting.” There’s digital, which used to mean “the website” but now means at least a dozen things, a handful of which were invented last quarter.

There’s Lifecycle, a discipline that involves agonizing over subject lines and email content that the majority of the recipients will delete with a brisk indifference.

We also manage agencies, vendors, and teams. We hire them. We brief them. And on occasion, we fire them.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg; depending on your corner of the business world, that includes soothing C-Suite demands, brand and product marketing, PR, DTC, Amazon, paid media, content, copy, and more.

And now, apparently, some French guy called Claude can do all this better than any of us?

But as marketers, we care deeply about our chosen profession, so it’s time to turn the narrative around, show where we add value, and why it’s important to bring the human element to where it matters.

Here’s my take on what you could say:

“I help people sell more stuff.”

“I help companies build relationships with the people who buy.”

“I build marketing systems that let founders achieve their dreams.”

Marketing was never a noun. This matters more than ever.

Not the 405. This traffic actually moves.

The Fractional CMO space is more crowded than LA’s 405 freeway on any given weekday. The tenure of a marketing leader is shorter than the shelf life of a lettuce. It’s time for marketers to better market themselves and change up the narratrive. Now is the time to make the change.

So, what do YOU do?