Marketing Has a Yes Problem

Most departments in a company have a no problem. No, we can't include that feature this quarter, or even this year. No, that's not on our plan. No, that doesn't fit our strategy. No, we don't have the budget to hire someone to do this. No, we don't even want to maintain current headcount, we need to streamline.

If you're trying to get anything done in any department, you're basically hoping to find a yes person among all the no people.

Except marketing. Marketing has the opposite problem. Marketing has a yes problem. Yes, we can include your department when we talk about the company on the home page. Yes, we can include a statement about this. Yes, we can include that customer segment. Marketing is expected to keep saying yes.

What marketing really needs is a no person. Someone who says, no, we're not going to do that. Or, if you want to be more politically sensitive: sure, we'll do that, but not right now. We've got a list of priorities to stick to. We agreed, and the board and the plan say so.

Marketing benefits from having at least one no person who can kick stuff back over the fence. The rest of the company needs someone to pick it up and say, we're going to run with this. I know it's challenging. I know there's a lot against us, but this is worth doing, so let's do it.

Marketing, like in many other ways, is kind of the opposite of the rest of the company.