Post by Stephanie McCarty

The hardest part of being a #CMO isn’t the marketing. It’s marketing marketing. The skill no one talks about but every long-tenured CMO masters. 💪 The CFO doesn’t have to pitch the importance of finance. The COO isn’t explaining why operations matter. The CTO doesn’t have to sell the value of technology. But the CMO? We sell marketing. Every. Single. Day. Not to customers, but to our own organization. Proving value. Defending budgets. Explaining (yet again!) why brand matters just as much as the bottom line. Why? Because marketing is a specialized skill… (but everyone thinks they can do it). And honestly, I get it. Everyone has ideas. That’s the fun part! But the real work? It’s data. Consumer psychology. Media mix modeling. Brand architecture. And yes, creativity—on demand, on deadline and usually right before the board meeting. 😅 So yes, I’m out here selling homes AND selling the discipline of marketing itself. It can be exhausting, yet oh so essential. Because nothing kills a great idea faster than stakeholders who don’t believe. And nothing accelerates a brand faster than stakeholders who do. IYKYK. 🤑