“Good morning, today is Sock-It-To-Me Saturday!”

That’s a version of what Instagram followers hear every morning as I open a daily story where I spend one hour a day studying and learning very specific topics that I believe marketers need to know in order to future-proof their careers. In real time, and in the midst of a major market shift, I’m motivated to creatively find a competitive edge to stay relevant in an ever-shifting industry.

The premise of the daily Instagram Story “show” is broken down into six niche topics that I am convinced will be mandatory learning for future CMO’s. So, I am actively and very publicly learning these key topics in real time to keenly understand how to best help businesses I work with and for to move into the next phase of marketing more seamlessly.

🌎 Meta Monday – One of the largest social platforms in the world is betting BIG on the Metaverse. As Marketers, should we?

📉 Trend Tuesday – Not the shiny things, but consumer mindsets.

🌐 Web 3.0 Wednesday – The web is changing, again! Marketers need to know how and why!

💎 Thriving Thursday – What I’m doing and learning to future proof my marketing career? Let me show you!

📋 Foundation Friday – No, not the makeup. (Duh) The Strategy!

🧦 Sock it to Me, Saturday – This is where we discuss important issues in our industry and come up with solutions that will help us all grow together!

Here, I open up dialogue to provide a safe space for Marketers to discuss issues that are currently plaguing their work. While I do bring issues forward for the benefit of the group, I do not reveal identity’s unless it’s expressed to me that it’s okay to do so.

Let me show you what happened this Saturday, which sparked several conversations around the question “What are the biggest causes of eroding customer trust?”

Several Marketing Professionals shared the following concerns:

  • When a brand doesn’t live up the “Brand Promise.”
  • When a brand does not openly communicate with the public and its customers.
  • When Employees of the brand don’t keep their word.
  • The current staffing shortage is leading to inconsistency in the brands quality of service, leading to poor customer experiences.
  • Underappreciated staff result in poor or even lifeless brand touchpoints with customers.

Given what we know of the current state of the workforce after Gallop asked 68,000 employees in over 140 countries “how their lives and careers are going”- this topic became the leading insight during the 2022 State of the Global Workforce Report. The pulse being driven by wellbeing and engagement reveals what is happening among professionals. According to the world’s workers, not well. Gallup discovered that 60% of people are emotionally detached at work and 19% are miserable. Among the five main causes of a miserable workplace environment the common thread is: a bad Boss/Leader.

So, if marketers are struggling to the point where brand connections between customers are deteriorating, it’s not at the fault of the employee but of the one responsible for their marketing teams/departments. Making the simple fix to this on a global scale is as easy as installing the right leaders to these positions. The more difficult piece of this problem is being able to weed out and identify leaders who are able to execute at being great managers who help colleagues learn and grow, recognize their colleagues for doing great work, and make them truly feel cared about.

Although long overdue, employee wellbeing is the new workplace imperative. As Marketing Professionals, how are we doing?

While I’m no expert on this topic, I found it very interesting that this topic was a core thread identified in what marketing leaders are most struggling with, today! There’s certainly more to discuss on the topic, but for now – this is how Sock-it-to-me Saturday unfolded.

Until next time.