Interview with Scott Pope, VP Marketing
Scott Pope is a marketing executive with 10+ years of lead generation, graphic design, and business development in a variety of vertical markets including health care, financial services, retail, and manufacturing industries. I have personally seen Scott’s commitment and hustle on display in the field.
Right now, you are a VP of Marketing. I have seen you work on the supplier side, as one of the hardest hustling sales reps I’ve ever met and on the client side as a extraordinary operator. Taking all of that experience into account… What kind of it of advice do you have for us who are in sales in the marketing space? Which of the tactics you used as a sales rep to open relationships and generate new business do you still like? How has your perspective on those changed since moving to the client side?
- Buyers working in the enterprise space are hard to find and don’t have time. Know your stuff, have an opinion and hit hard.
- Likes a lot of the demo stuff in the marketing world. Make it very experiential with the client’s data, etc.
- If I heard your VM but didn’t call you back, I probably forgot. Don’t over think this stuff. Call back. We’re not thinking about you.
There’s so much going on in the marketing world today, so many changes, so much to keep track and make sense of. As a marketing leader in a mid-size organization obviously have to prioritize, help us understand how you go about that privatization…
- Ideas are a dime a dozen but implementation costs money.
- Everyday is learning and testing new ideas.
- Learn heavily from people that have more experience than you. Have mentors. Learn from them.
- Test it. Test it again.
- Build an audience.
What trends you see being most impactful over the next 12 to 18 months?
- Amazon is huge right now. Buyers (the audience) are there.
- Facebook for targeted ads – mine and look for specific targets. There’s not as much competition as you might think and the targeting is very discrete.
- Lead capture around buying right now. This is an instant gratification time so you need to get people buying now and more to the second sale immediately.
One of the big gaps I see in marketing (and business in general) today is between strategy and execution. I see a lot of people talking about strategy, talking about having a plan. I see some people executing around a plan but I see a most just posting to Facebook and shooting out tweets, without necessarily being able to point back to the strategy. Is that something you see in your experience as well? What what do you do in your organization to bridge that gap?
- Need to understand what you are, what you want to be as a company / salesperson.
- Execution needs to go through the filter of ‘Does this fit what we do? Does it get us closer to what we want to do?’
This podcast is all about learning from the hustlers of the world. What piece of business advice would you give to the up and comers, the driven professionals? Something they can put to work today.
- Be realistic. Know what you do and who you do it for. Don’t let grand ideas or ideas that don’t work out slow you down. Sometimes you just have to grind it.
Reach out to Scott to let him know what you’re taking a way from this podcast and putting to practice.
Contact: spope@hamiltonusa.net