Benjamin Ard00:01 — Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Melissa. Melissa, welcome to the show.
Melissa Geertz00:06 — Thanks for having me.
Benjamin Ard00:06 — Yeah, Melissa, I'm excited. This is a fun subject. I think that every marketer is going to embrace this. We were talking before we clicked record. There are some episodes where I think people take the episodes and they go to their bosses or other people in the company and say, hey, listen here, there's something really good here. I think today's going to be one of those episodes. And I think it's going to be a ton of fun. Melissa, before we dive in though, let's let the audience get to know who you are. Maybe if you could share a few points of your background, work history, all that kind of fun stuff. That way the audience knows who we're talking to today.
Melissa Geertz00:36 — Yeah, absolutely. And again, thank you for having me. Really excited about today's conversation. So a bit about me, Melissa Geertz. I've spent about twenty-five years now in marketing, but my career actually started in broadcast news. That really gave me kind of a strong foundation for storytelling, for communication.
But really what I found was that that storytelling in that model was kind of transactional, right? It really kept you at a distance from people. You're kind of covering these hard moments and then moving on to the next story. And that pull towards connection and building something longer term is really what made me pivot towards marketing, and it has kind of shaped my thinking ever since. What's defined much of my career across multiple companies, though, is leading in an enterprise shared services marketing organization, where one team supports multiple businesses under a parent structure. It's a model I personally find, and professionally find, really fascinating, because it's constantly challenging how you deliver and demonstrate marketing's true strategic value.
Today I am privileged to serve as the senior vice president of marketing at Gray, a company with a really great story of its own. It started as a small family-owned construction company in a rural Kentucky town, and over the course of 65 years has grown into a fully integrated design-build firm, engineering, building, automating industrial facilities across North America. And today we have about 30 offices and 2,000 team members worldwide. Yes, for sure. Something to be proud of.
Benjamin Ard02:07 — Not shabby. That's come a long way in 65 years. That's incredible. What I loved about that background is you talked about something really cool there. You have these kinds of businesses where you get to serve almost like an agency and in-house. Like you get the best of every world, it sounds like, all in one. I think that's kind of cool.
Melissa Geertz02:26 — Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really interesting. I mean, it's maybe not for everyone, but it's something that is constantly challenging the way you think and the way you strategize. And so for me, it's been a very rewarding career path thus far.
Benjamin Ard02:38 — I love it. Very cool. Well, Melissa, we were emailing back and forth about what we wanted to talk about today. And something you brought up is really, really cool. And you called it the execution trap. And really, the definition is why most organizations only tap into a fraction of marketing's expertise. This is so cool to me. I think this is an opportunity almost to redefine what marketing is and how we should look at it. So let's start. What is the trap? Why has marketing fallen into it? And maybe after that we can start talking about ways that we can alleviate some of the situation.
Melissa Geertz03:16 — Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the reality is this execution trap in many ways occurs because marketing is good at executing. That's not a bad thing. That's not a dirty word, right? That's a benefit to having teams like the team I'm privileged to lead now, which just produces an immense amount of super high quality work at scale, right? And that's an amazing thing.
But I think part of that, it's you get into that process where you are in that execution mode. I think part of it is also that marketers have a broad set of skills. So when you think about most marketing organizations, there's a lot of skills. There's a lot of general skills. There's a lot of specialists within a team as well. But marketing gets pulled into so many different business functions. Thinking about the operations of a business, marketing touches so many aspects of that, right? So whether it's internal communications need to go out, or an event needs to be planned, or sales needs some kind of an enablement material, it could be any kind of aspect of a business operation. And we pull marketing in, right?
So those broad skills sometimes can mean that marketing can become a catch-all, right? Like projects will land there because either they don't know who else to send them to, or marketing is so good at executing that it makes sense to bring in marketing for that purpose. But I think really, one of the critical factors in marketing kind of having this more of this execution trap is often the nature and kind of results of sales and marketing being separate.
Like if you think about a lot of organizations, sales is in kind of one area, marketing is in another. We're very fortunate at Gray that sales and marketing is under the same umbrella with the same senior leader, and we work in a more collaborative environment, but that's not the case in a lot of organizations. And so what you find is that sales is often measured more from a quantitative standpoint, where marketing is more qualitative. So it makes a lot of sense. Business development, they're focused on the numbers, right? They're focused on revenue, pipeline, backlog, all of these opportunities, and it's very quantitative in nature. And then marketing, it's more qualitative. Not saying that there's not data aspects to marketing. We talked about that a little bit when we were catching up at the beginning. There are quantitative aspects to it, but it's much more qualitative. It's much more being able to deliver high quality work at volume and scale. And I think that it sometimes creates this unintentional divide, and it kind of pushes marketing sometimes into this execution arm. And then certainly when you add a shared services model on top of this, it can get even more complicated.
Benjamin Ard06:09 — So with a shared services model, it feels like it is pretty tough. Like I can see how the default is awesome. Sweet, we all have access to marketing, they're just gonna do all this stuff for us and we're gonna call it good, kind of an idea. How do you get out of the trap? Especially in the organizations you've been in, how do you start to educate people on what marketing can be? And also something I want to really dive into is, how do you also get your team to believe in that vision? Because I think a lot of marketers have ingrained that great, I show up, I'm a content creator or who knows what, I'm at the beck and call of everyone else, I'm a service center. But how do you get them to believe it and the organization to change? And how do you kind of make that impact and change that trap?
Melissa Geertz06:55 — Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that certainly the trap can occur whether you're a single kind of support vehicle for an organization, right? So it doesn't have to be just in that shared services model. I think it's amplified when it is shared services for a number of reasons. I think it's very quick and easy for marketing to fade towards or shift towards an internal agency model that's really transactional by default.
And with that, the challenge is that you don't always know what the business's goals are, what the priorities are, the strategies behind the asks for the execution. And I think because of that, you're limited to, not having the context to be able to deliver the way in which you want to deliver can be challenging, and it can in some ways be demoralizing to a team. And I think the real challenge to overcome in a shared services model is the volume of work, right? So you're getting a high volume of work, because it's coming in from so many different organizations that you're supporting. And so that volume can really handcuff you and limit your ability to seek out that information.
So it's kind of compounded in a shared services model, whereas sometimes in a more singular support model, you can kind of gain some of the context because all the teams in the organization are still driving towards the same goals. So you have a little bit more insight to go on. In a shared services model, if you're not careful, it could get transactional very quickly. And when it gets transactional, it also again can have an impact on the team and the productivity, the morale of the team, and all of those things are so important.
In terms of how you overcome that, I think there's an intentional relationship building aspect that cannot be understated. So we say, okay, well, with that volume, how do you focus on that? How do you be intentional about relationship building when you are trying to manage so much volume? And from my perspective and my experience, and what I've seen across not just any specific industry, but a number of industries, is that often it requires an organizational or structural change to your team. That means in many cases, not all, but in many cases, having a true dedicated business-facing role or small team that thinks and acts like an account executive, like a true point of contact. That individual, that group's not doing all of the work, but they know what the business's goals are, they know what the business strategies are. The businesses themselves know who to call and they know who to invite to that strategy meeting. And then over time, that familiarity builds trust, trust builds partnership.
So the key there from an organizational standpoint is that that kind of account executive type role isn't the whole team, but what it is, it's the bridge that unlocks the whole team. When that role is in place, the strategist can strategize, the creatives can create, the specialists can specialize, and it really kind of maximizes that full expertise of the team. But it really comes down to, you have to be structured organizationally to be able to manage through the volume so that you can focus on the relationship.
Benjamin Ard10:12 — And I love this definition, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels like the earlier marketing gets involved, the healthier the relationship. If you look at just this quantity based system where you are taking orders and there is no strategic input or insights, there is no origination of ideas and being a part of that process, you're not getting the full value out of your marketing team. But if you've got the strategic input to say, hey, we know our combined goals, let's actually figure out the right way to accomplish them, let's bring in the full power of marketing. It feels like that's the healthier relationship. Is that kind of what you're describing here?
Melissa Geertz10:54 — Yeah, absolutely. An example of that would be, a request comes in for a video, right? And in a transactional internal agency model, marketing is going to, with the absolute best intent, produce a super high quality video and send it back to the business. But when marketing is able to really tap into the full potential of the team, bringing all of that creativity, strategy, big thinking, we're gonna start asking different questions, right? What problem are you trying to solve? Who are you trying to reach? What do you want them to do? What action do you want them to take?
What we might find out is that what we actually need instead of a video is a way to highlight core competencies to a target customer. Now we can bring that full marketing toolkit to bear. So it could be content strategy, thought leadership, digital. There's so many ways that we could tackle that problem. But the difference between executing, it's really, I guess you'd say it's the difference between executing a request and solving a business problem.
And so for me, I like to say, I actually really, really despise the saying, marketing needs a seat at the table. That phrasing drives me crazy, because it's not about needing or wanting a seat at the table. It's about building the kind of trust and partnership that makes the business want marketing in the room because they know it makes their outcomes better. That's the end goal. And when you can achieve that, you shift right out of that transactional model and really are aligned to what the business's goals are. And then it also unlocks that full power and impact of the marketing organization.
Benjamin Ard12:35 — It almost feels like when you've earned that trust, the conversation shifts, right? It shifts from, hey, I need the video, and I love this example, it's perfect, to I've got this problem, can you help me out? Like, I gotta solve something. What can we do, kind of an idea. And it's cool because if you look at that internally, based off of all your interactions with other people, you can measure and say, where is my trust with this individual? Maybe I need to build more trust because I'm way down at the end of the line and it was just please make the PDF and move on with life and don't ask me any questions. Versus I've got this massive account and what can we do here? And say awesome, let's dig in, let's do something awesome here. So it sounds like you can also judge the trust and things like that as well from those conversations.
Melissa Geertz13:24 — Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think at the end of the day, I can't speak for all marketing organizations everywhere, but in my experience, marketing is always operating with positive intent, right? We're always trying to do the best possible job in supporting the goals of the business to the extent that we understand them. So I think that when information is limited, the result can sometimes feel like this misalignment between what marketing is producing and what the businesses need, or that we're not able to do more than what the request is, right? To fulfill that request, to be that execution arm, and then it's leaving that creativity, that strategy, that big thinking kind of unused, or limited, I would say is probably a better way to phrase it.
So I think it's truly like marketing and sales, alignment there is really critical. And again, the relationship factor is so important to seeing success. At the end of the day, when marketing and sales are aligned and are working towards a shared goal, we're gonna come at it from different ways, right? Sales is still gonna come at it from how they're gonna approach it, but marketing is gonna come at it from a different direction. So it's truly a strategic partnership. And the fact that we're measured differently is totally okay. That's how it should be. But we're going to be looking at it and coming at it to try to solve that problem differently. And when you put different approaches together, but all working towards the same goal, the likelihood of achieving that goal quicker and in a more impactful way is going to be increased, certainly.
Benjamin Ard14:56 — Yeah, a hundred percent. And it feels like there's less finger pointing as well when it comes to the accountability, to say, well, marketing didn't give me what I needed. Well, you gave me a terrible idea, I just made what you wanted. Versus, hey, we set out to accomplish something together and here are the results and we're gonna continue to improve.
Melissa Geertz15:13 — Yeah, absolutely. Here's the thing, marketers want to be accountable. I think that's a good thing. It's just we're not always put in a position to be able to do that, right? I think accountability is aligning towards a shared goal and owning your part of it. And I think in this execution trap model, which again happens across a variety of industries and different size marketing organizations and different structures, whether it's a single support team or an internal agency model or whatever it may be, anything in between, this execution trap often happens for some of those reasons that we spoke about earlier. But the reality is, getting that alignment and getting to that point where we're all working towards the same goals requires a level of intentionality. But when we do, everyone's accountable. Like the results are going to be magnified. So I think it's so critical.
Benjamin Ard16:07 — Yeah, I love that. Okay, Melissa, we're almost out of time. These episodes go by quick. I warned you about this.
Melissa Geertz16:11 — So fast.
Benjamin Ard16:12 — One final thing. I'd love to end with tactical advice. So let's imagine you're coming into a new organization and marketing has fallen into this trap that you described so well. What are your first steps this week to start to transition marketing out of that system and build this better, more holistic approach to marketing inside of an organization? What are your steps this week to make that happen?
Melissa Geertz16:38 — Sure. So I think step one is making sure your team is organized to be able to build those relationships. The structure has to be able to support relationship building. You can say all day long I'm going to focus on relationships, but if the team is not structured in that way to be able to manage through that volume, you can be as intentional as you want from a mental standpoint, but you're physically not going to be able to do that. So I think it's so important to take a look at your organizational structure and make sure that your team is set up to be able to build those relationships.
I think longer term, you have to be intentional but also be patient, which seems like they would be contradictory of each other. I think it's so important to be intentional about building those relationships so that you can build that trust and show how marketing can also support those business goals in a greater way. But also be patient because it takes time, right? Trust is going to be built through that consistent alignment and through having those shared goals. So again, the most important factor, if I haven't said it enough, is really just a key focus on the relationship side that will naturally help your team shift out of that execution trap.
Benjamin Ard17:47 — Absolutely amazing. I love this. This was such a cool conversation. I love the insights. And honestly, this is a trap that I don't know if I ever articulated before in my mind. As you said it, I'm like, yeah, obviously. But it was never a conscious thought until we had this conversation. So I love it. The audience is going to love it. This is great. For anyone listening who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Melissa Geertz18:11 — Absolutely. So certainly on LinkedIn, they can reach out to me there. Melissa Geertz is the last part of that handle. But yeah, absolutely reach out. And I'm happy to talk with anyone who's kind of facing a similar challenge. I know there's a lot of us out there. And again, to your point before, the team that I have the privilege to lead right now has highlighted this challenge even more so because they're so talented. And we want to see the full breadth of that talent unleashed.
Benjamin Ard18:39 — Love it. Amazing. Very cool. Melissa, again, thank you for the time and insights today. Really do appreciate it.
Melissa Geertz18:44 — Yeah, absolutely.
