A Growth Mindset is Essential to Your Marketing Success in 2023

Does your executive team approach marketing with a “growth” mindset, or a “fixed” mindset?

The concept of a?growth mindset?was developed by psychologist Carol Dweck in her book,?Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.?

“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point.?This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment,” writes Dweck.?

Students who embrace growth mindsets—the belief that they can learn more or become smarter if they work hard and persevere—may learn more, learn it more quickly, and view challenges and failures as opportunities to improve their learning and skills.

According to Dweck, “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits.?They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them.?They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.”?

Executive teams that trade out their CMO every 18 months approach marketing with a “fixed” mindset.??They are continuously in search of the CMO with the natural talent, the “hot hand,” the CMO that can do that “marketing magic.”

CMO’s during the interview process often hear great enthusiasm over what needs to be done, only to discover when they join the executive team, the consensus is on what’s always been done.

?Companies that practice a fixed mindset can often be overheard saying: “Billboards don’t work,” or “newspapers don’t work,” or “we can’t use red in our ads, red doesn’t work.” (I’ve heard all of the above firsthand).

(Side note, McDonald’s used billboards to effectively create an afternoon daypart with 99-cent soft-drinks, gourmet coffee and smoothies. When Facebook, a digital media company, had to apologize for data misuse – they used newspapers to get their story out, and Target has found a way to make red work).

CMO’s and companies that bring a growth mindset to their marketing embrace a learning approach.??"Crawl, walk, run." "Fail Fast."??Test and roll-out. A smart, effective 2024 marketing plan begins with initiatives that are market tested in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Markets are used as “learning labs.”

Marketers will continue to face a tremendous acceleration of change in consumer decision making, media, technology, purchasing, and distribution.??A fixed mindset approach to marketing results in no or slow innovation.?They restrict the world to strategies and tactics that used to work.

Many CMO’s will join companies this year that tell them during the interview process that they want change, need change, and will support a change agent.??18 months from now when that CMO is fired, she will be overheard saying “I brought them kicking and screaming into the 1980’s.”

If you are trying to bring “new” marketing to a fixed mindset company, here are some suggestions:

• Capture customer insights –?Have conversations with your customers to capture insights.?Create Customer Advisory Panels (in person or online) to tap into what they want changed, and unchanged.?They will tell you how to make your value proposition better.?I was taught early in my career that understanding the customer, better than anyone else at the company, provided leverage and opportunity to drive change.
• Create a Knowledge Loop -?Turn data into knowledge into action.?Marketing plans that drive profitable business come out of evidence-based conclusions.?Most companies collect data; few companies successfully convert their “information overload” into actionable knowledge.
• Listen to your sales force –?Your successful sales folks are listening to your customers daily. Convert their hard-earned wisdom into smarter, sharper, customer-focused plans. Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary says the first person he talks to before purchasing a company is the head of sales (before the CEO or CFO). He wants to know what the customer thinks.
• Create “Learning Labs”?– Use 2023 to “test-drive” initiatives that can be successfully rolled out next year.?If next year’s marketing plan is built on proven-sales building strategies and tactics, your plan will be successful.
• Move things out of the “too hard pile”?by trying new approaches– don’t restrict the world to things you are sure of, get out of your company’s comfort zone and try things. Marketing often “wins” when one company in a category “zigs” while everyone else “zags.” Football MVP Jerry Rice said: “Today I will do what other’s won’t, so tomorrow I will accomplish what others can’t.”
• Look at the world the way it is –?don’t be in the story of how it should have been but keep finding the way life is right now. People don’t want to purchase salads at McDonalds, but McD’s has had tremendous success with hand-held convenience.??The Wall Street Journal in 2013 said “At McDonald’s, salads just don’t sell, they haven’t had a blockbuster since the 2003 introduction of McGriddles.

Mark Jaffe in his book “Let Me Give It To You Straight” says “contrary to popular belief there are no success secrets, the important stuff is painfully obvious.”

It’s not too late to bring a growth mindset to your 2023 marketing plan.??Develop a strategic road map of “What” needs to be done, “How” it will get done; “Where you’re at now” vs. “Where you need to be.” As you begin to build,?go beyond the conversation of “let’s keep what’s working, and kill what isn’t.”

Specifically,?don’t update last year’s plan. Do the hard work of starting with a blank sheet of paper, define where you need to be and create the plan that gets you there.

Instead,?ask what will get you to purposeful strategy?that creates customers, value, demand, revenue, traffic, growth, and profit.

About David

This article is an early chapter in Dave's upcoming book: "High Performance Strategy: Connecting Vision to Strategy to Plan"

Dave works with senior executives on sales, business development, marketing, and growth strategy. During strategy season, he's leading client work sessions. He’s a?Partner at WizeWebz, a business growth consultancy that helps clients get to their next stage of growth through smarter business, marketing, and technology strategies. https://www.wizewebz.com

Dave is also the?CEO and Co-founder of High Performance Marketing Boot Camps.?These are customized to help senior executives get smarter and more effective with their marketing and business:?https://highperformancemarketingbootcamps.com

In his spare time, Dave teaches advanced brand strategy, marketing, competitive strategies, and entrepreneurship in the MBA programs at the?University of Missouri and The University of Kansas.

“David Patrick is legendary for two things: deep marketing expertise and extraordinary teaching skills.?My experiences as his student and collaborator have educated and inspired me.”?Jack Mackey,?Former Chief Evangelist, VP Customer Engagement, Service Management Group??

“David Patrick is masterful at understanding the strategies that unlock growth. He’s able to apply those learnings to a variety of industries and help executive teams approach marketing in a new way to achieve greater results.”?Laura Scobie, SVP Strategy, Barkley

"David Patrick's knowledge and experience in marketing is deep. I find he has wisdom and case studies for almost every conceivable situation. Always a pleasure to spend time with David and listen to his insights and perspective on business and marketing challenges. If you are considering David and his team to help with your marketing strategy you should do so with confidence."?Grant Gooding, CEO & Founder of Proof Positioning