Claire: Alright, hey everyone. Welcome to this weeks Forget the Funnel. I am Claire, hey.
Gia: Hey, and I'm Gia.
Claire: This week we have someone ... I always say this, but I just get really excited about who our guests are. We have Len Markidan on the show this week, who is currently CMO at Podia. I came across Len's work in his previous role where he was director of marketing at Groove. He ran a kickass blog there, and then we got in touch shortly after you transitioned over to working at Podia. Our conversation started based on what you're going to be talking about today, which is the internal relationship part of being a marketing leader.
Claire: Len's going to walk through some really, really good frameworks for how to get your boss to stop micromanaging you. Len, I'm going to hand it over to you. Do you want to take it away?
Len: Yeah. Let's do it, awesome. Thank you so much. I'm going to take control here. I'm really, really excited to be here. Thank you so much to Claire and Gia for having me. I've been watching Forget the Funnel since the beginning so I'm stoked to actually be on stage.
Len: As Claire mentioned, we're going to talk about how to get your boss to stop micromanaging you. I know this is a sensitive issue for a lot of in-house marketers. Doing this will help you get the freedom to do cool stuff. Cool, deep, meaningful fun work that we all want to be doing but that we're not doing because we're getting interrupted every hour, getting checked in on all the time. So I'm going to show you how to get rid of that.
Len: Real quick, before we get into that, who am I? Who is this guy? I'm still trying to figure that out for myself, but in the meantime, a few bullet points. CMO at Podia, like Claire said. Podia is a site that lets you create online courses, membership sites, digital downloads like eBooks, things like that. If you have knowledge or expertise and want to make some money from that, check us out. Formerly head of marketing at Groove, which is customer support software, was there for five and a half years. Have also been a marketing consultant to companies like Prudential, Jet.com, Chegg, Groupon, Healthline, and a whole bunch more.
Len: What that should tell you is that I have reported to a lot of managers. I have reported to CEOs, COOs, VPs of Marketing, CMOs, board members, everybody. Through all of that I have dealt with every managerial style. I've dealt with a lot of micromanagement and through these experiences I have come up with a framework that I use to make sure that I don't get micromanaged so that I do have the freedom and ability to do to really, really good work. So, I will show you how to do that, I will show you my framework for it.
Len: But, before we get into that, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. This is LeBron. LeBron James, I know a lot of you probably think you know LeBron James but you're thinking of somebody else. This is a different LeBron James. This LeBron James, his position is head of marketing at a company called rebound.io, Rebound is a SaaS company, it's exactly what it sounds like, it's a targeting platform. Total ad roll fund, insignificant detail, doesn't really matter. He's six foot eight, he has really good stats, seventy-one growth hacker submissions. As you can see, he's really, really happy.
Len: Why is LeBron so happy in this photo? LeBron has dealt with months and months of micromanagement by his boss. A few days ago LeBron had a really, really good idea. LeBron said, "I'm going to create this amazing Trello board. I'm going to put all of our marketing stuff into it. It is going to be super fancy, it is going to be super thorough and it is going to eliminate this problem once and for all." So, that's what he did.
Len: He created the Trello board to end all Trello boards. There are columns for pending and staging and in review and backlog and everything. This thing is color coded, it has labels out the wazoo. He spent forty minutes trying to figure out a zap that sends confetti emojis to Slack every time he needs something to be done. It's really, really impressive and he's feeling really good about himself. He's the king of Trello. He shows it to his boss and his boss looks at it and she's like, "Yeah, this is really, really great. Good job LeBron."
Len: LeBron thinks okay, great, this is done. This problem is solved. I know that a lot of people watching have probably done something similar to this to try and eliminate micromanagement. What happens a day later? A day later LeBron gets a Slack message from his boss. It says, "Hey, LeBron. Just checking in on those new drip emails. How's that going? By the way, we should re-write the pricing page. Also, I talked to Claire at Calendly, we're going to do a webinar next week. Can you get that ready for us? Thanks LeBron."
Len: LeBron is no longer very happy, LeBron is very, very sad. Just to rub salt in the wound, "Just confirming, are we still good to launch the new blog on Thursday?" You know what's really funny to me about those? You know when you are watching a movie and you hear an alarm clock and you are triggered by it? You're like, "Oh, make that sound go away, that's the worst ever, that needs to stop!" I know this is how a bunch of in-house SaaS marketers feel right now by reading messages. Just checking in on that thing. I know what you're feeling. I've been there, it's fine. We're going to get through that.
Len: LeBron is thinking when he gets this response and realizes that all of that work was for nothing, he's thinking what most marketers are thinking in this situation, which is, “How do I get my boss off my back?” We've all been there. How do I get my boss off my back? I'm going to show you exactly how to do that but what it's going to require is thinking about the problem a little bit differently.
Len: ‘How do I get my boss off my back’ is actually the wrong question. Your boss breathing down your neck or your boss being all on your back is not actually the problem we need to solve. Micromanagement is a symptom. It's not the disease, it's a symptom of a larger disease. That disease is not understanding what's going on. The full medical term is not-understanding-what's-going-on-itis, but that's too long so I just say not understanding what's going on, you can use the shortened version, too, it's fine. Yeah, makes life easier for everybody.
Len: But not understanding what's going on, that's what causes the micromanagement. Let me tell you a little story. I want you to meet Zoe. So, I mentioned to you that I have reported to a lot of different managers. Zoe is one of them. Zoe is my cat, this is actually her in action, micromanaging me at my desk. She's wondering where the blog post is.I'm sure that a lot of [people] listening are cat owners or dog owners, pet owners of some sort. You know that when you go out of town, go on vacation or leave for a long weekend, you need to get somebody to come take care of your pets. You need to basically keep them alive, scoop their litter, top off their food and water, make sure they're doing okay. Zoe, she's still our cat. Whenever my wife and I go out of town, we get a cat sitter to come check in on her.
Len: For a really long time we had this cat sitter that… we would text them to schedule the visit, we'd say, "Hey we're going out of town in a few weeks, would you come by on Saturday and check in on Zoe?" They'd say, "Sure." That's the last we'd hear from them. They'd come by but the only way that we would ever know that they came by would be if we checked in with the door man and we looked at the log book, but we wouldn't actually hear from them. So what would happen was, I would wonder. Are they at our house? Did they come by? Did they check in on Zoe? Is everything fine? So, what I would do is I would just send them texts every time they were supposed to be there.
Len: I'd say, "Hey, did you get in okay? Everything fine with Zoe? Everything good over there?" Then they would respond, they'd say, "Yeah, we got in. Everything was fine." The only time we would ever get that information would be when I texted them. Fast forward a couple of years, there was a weekend we were going to be going away. Our cat sitters weren't available, they actually were out of town that weekend. I asked a friend of mine, I said, "Hey, do you have anybody that you use that you'd recommend?" Her eyes lit up, she said, "Awe, man, you have to meet Andy. Andy is amazing, he is our cat sitter. We have him come every time."
Len: That sounds great, I'd love to meet Andy. Andy came by, we set up a visit for a few weeks for when my wife and I were going to be out of town. Come by on Saturday and check in on Zoe. Do all the cat sitting stuff. They're going to come on Saturday. Friday rolls around, Friday night I get a text message from Andy, "Hey Len, just confirming our visit for tomorrow. Really looking forward to it, will be there between twelve and twelve thirty." Not used to that, okay, thank you for that, that's a nice update, I appreciate it.
Len: Next day, around twelve thirty rolls around. I get another text from Andy. It says, "Hey Len, just wanted to let you know I'm here with Zoe, we scooped her litter, topped off her water, gave her more food, we're cuddling on the carpet now, here's a photo." They sent me a photo of Zoe.I thought, damn, that guy is really, really good. Maybe he was doing the same stuff that the other cat sitters were doing but he's letting me know about it, he's keeping me in the loop. I had zero lack of trust, zero uncertainty that the job was actually getting done. I would never text him.A few months later he was actually running late one time and he texted me and he said, "Hey, just to let you know, we're running about twenty minutes late." He didn't have to tell me that either, I would have no way of knowing that he came by twenty minutes late. I'm not checking log books, I would never know if he didn't tell me, but he did tell me.
Len: Think about how much trust that engendered to me. I know this guy is on top of it, I know he's owning it and I never have to worry about whether the work is being done. I never had to micromanage him.
Len: If we believe, if we agree, that micromanagement is not the problem but that a lack of understanding about what's going on is the problem, then we can also agree that the solution is not an email script. There are so many people that are looking for email scripts on Reddit or Quorum. Looking for templates of stuff they can send their boss to get their boss to stop micromanaging them. The solution is not a heart to heart conversation where you tell your boss their micromanagement is cramping your style, that's not going to work. The solution is not looking for another job, until you address the bigger issue. Micromanagement is going to follow you everywhere. The solution for everyone is learning how to manage up.
Len: What can we learn from the cat sitter that we can apply to managing up? I love being able to use cat sitters for business lessons, this is the best.
Claire: As the cat person between Gia and myself, I'm also really appreciating the use.
Len: Oh, Gia's not a cat person? Gia's like, "Aww, I never should have had the cat people come."
Gia: No, I just have a dog right now in my life.
Claire: You just own a dog and I own a ...
Len: For all you dog people, imagine I never introduced my cat, this is a dog story. This cat thing is just a typo.Len: Not knowing what's going on leads to uncertainty and a lack of trust. I didn't know what was going on with the first cat sitters, that led to uncertainty and led to a lack of trust. If your boss only gets information when they ask, they will keep asking you for it. I was trained by the first cat sitters that the only way that I would get updates and information is if I asked them for it. So, how else can I possibly know what's going on?
Len: If you show ownership you will be trusted and you will be left alone. I never micromanaged the new cat sitters. Ownership is really, really a key word here. I know that Claire and Gia have discussed ownership on Forget the Funnel because it's so, so, so important. It's really, really important when it comes to micromanagement, too.
Len: We're going to make a distinction when it comes to ownership here that's really important. Micro-ownership versus macro-ownership. They're both important but most marketers actually only do one. Micro-ownership is when you own your to-do list. Macro-ownership is when you own something bigger than your to-do list.So, owning the marketing Trello board does not equal owning marketing. This is where LeBron went wrong. If you own the task list, then that is what ... you're positioning yourself as just the person who just controls the marketing task list. But, if you own marketing, if you own the macro side of marketing, which is, as Claire and Gia have discussed many times, the KPIs or the greater goals that you're aligned with, that you align with your boss on. If you own the marketing KPIs, that's macro ownership. That shows ownership that is so much bigger than just owning the Trello board.
Len: If you're owning the lead quota, if you're owning the traffic growth, if you're owning revenue, whatever it is that's the priority for you and your boss that month in marketing, if you're owning that, that's macro-ownership versus the micro-ownership of owning the Trello board. You have to own the Trello board, too, or the to-do list, but you really do have to own both.
Len: When you can show macro-ownership, when you can show ownership, and I'll show you exactly how to do that tactically, when you can show macro-ownership of marketing, here's what you'll be able to do. You'll be able to get your boss to stop checking in on that task, they'll know that you've got it. They'll know that you share this mission with them and that this is in your plans and that you're going to handle it. You will have the freedom to do that deep, meaningful, fun work that I talked about. You will have large pockets of time that are uninterrupted, that are unchecked-in on, you will be able to do awesome marketing work.
Len: Finally, you'll be able to push back and be respected for it. Now, think about this, if you show micro-ownership and you own the task list and your boss says, "Hey we're doing that webinar with Calendly next week, can you get that ready?" If you just own the task list, what leverage do you have to push back? You can say, "Yeah, my task list is already really full. I don't really have the bandwidth for it." That doesn't look very good. That doesn't really make you look like you're owning marketing.If you show macro-ownership and you own the KPI and your boss says, "Hey, we're doing this webinar with Calendly next week." Then you can say, "Actually, we're really, really focused on organic traffic right now, we're trying to get it to 15% month over month growth that's really important to us, we're on that goal. We've reverse engineered that goal with a bunch of activities that we're doing right now that will get us there but I'm concerned this will make us lose focus a little bit and we're not going to actually hit our goal that we agreed is really important. So, I'm going to put that on the backlog and we'll consider it when we do our next planning session. But for now I'm just going to stay focused on this KPI."
Len: Think about how much more leverage that gives you when you can show macro-ownership. That's just one of the fun side benefits. A few tactical ways...
Claire: I want to like, hug you. I love it.
Gia: Every word you're saying.
Len: Still one of the technical limitations of Zoom for now. Can't do that, unfortunately.
Len: Some tactical ways you can show both micro and macro ownership in your marketing. Number one, send daily and weekly updates. That might sound like a lot but it's actually not at all. The daily updates that I'm talking about, and I'll show you an example later, the daily updates that I'm talking about should take you less than sixty seconds to put together. Weekly updates really should take you less than five minutes to put together. If you can spend sixty seconds a day to write an update that will avoid five interruptions a day, that math easily works out in your favor.
Len: This is really important. So, there's daily updates that are your highlight reels for what you did that day. Your weekly updates are what you did the week before and what you're going to do the next week, and why. It has to be in your boss’s channel.
Len: What do I mean by that? This is a really, really key point. This is probably the biggest place LeBron went wrong. A lot of marketers will do this. They'll say, "I'm going to go find a project management tool that is going to help us track all of our marketing activities and it's going to put everything in one place and everybody will be able to track it and my boss will never have to check in with me again about what's going on."Then they go and they open a Trello account or they start an Asana account. They put everything there and they push it on their boss, not realizing that that's not really a channel that your boss checks. If you put yourself in your boss’s shoes, and they have three or four or five or six different departments that report to them that they have to track and every single one of those departments has their own project management tool, that's a massive burden. That's a lot to keep track of.
Len: I'm not saying you can't have a Trello board or Asana to track your marketing, but that's for you. The updates you send have to be in your bosses channel. You have to make it easy for them to stay in the loop. If they can stay in the loop, they're not going to micromanage you. Remember how my cat sitters would always text me updates, because that's how I preferred to communicate with them. If I'd preferred phone, they would have called me. If I'd preferred email, they would have emailed me. Nobody said, "Hey, I created you an account on catsitterwatch.com, you can check in on our progress there." I wouldn't do it, I just wouldn't do it. I would still text them and say, "Hey, what's going on with my cat?"
Len: Make sure that your updates are in your bosses channel, whether that's emails, slack, text, whatever they prefer, whatever they use to communicate, meet them there. Two magic words, could be four depending ... it's two, it's two - just FYI. Here's what this does. The first couple of times that you send updates like this to your boss, they're going to think, "Ah, okay, just got this update. I guess I'm going to have to evaluate then have to respond to it, I think they’re asking for my feedback, I have to send them some feedback on this."
Len: It's going to be extra work, they'll do it, of course, but it's going to be extra work for them. But, by just adding two magic words - just FYI, you're resolving them of all that responsibility. You're making it very clear that this is just you making sure that they understand what's going on. There's no burden, there's no work, it's just an update. Just FYI.Len: How do they always explain why you're doing something? This is how you show macro-ownership, this is the macro part of the updates. It's not, "Hey, next week we're going to publish a blog post about online courses." No, that's micro-ownership. That's owning the task of creating a blog post.Macro-ownership is, "Next week we're going to publish a blog post about online courses. Since organic traffic and getting it to 15% month over month growth is our key metric this quarter, we've done some research and we think that having some really good content around online courses is getting a lot of back lines [and] will help us get that target. So, next week we're going to publish this post then I'm going to do a bunch of email outreach to try to get us backlinks." See how different that is than just saying, "I'm going to write a blog post?"
Len: Ask for opinions and help from your boss. This one is also really, really underutilized by in house marketers. They think if you ask for opinions, if you ask for help, you don't look like you know what you're doing. You look like you don't know what you're doing. Here's the thing, your boss is actually really smart. If you listen to the Forget the Funnel workshops, you're probably a really good marketer, you're savvy and you know what you're doing. So, hiring you was the decision that a smart person would make. They're a smart person and they probably know a lot about your market, about your business, about your competitors. They might actually have some really good ideas when you're figuring out what it is that you're going to be doing next.
Len: Going to them and asking for opinions or asking for help when you're coming up with your marketing plan, that's not actually a sign of weakness, it's a sign of macro-ownership. You're saying to them, "Hey, I'm owning this KPI and I want to make sure we hit this goal. I want to make sure that we're creating the best possible strategy so I'd love your feedback on a few things if you have a minute."
Len: Lastly, be honest and bring up issues as soon as you learn about them. This goes back to the cat sitters telling me they're going to be fifteen minutes late, even though they didn't have to. Make sure you tell your boss the bad news, too.Here's the secret, if your boss is only getting good news updates from you, they don't actually think that there's only good news. They know bad things are happening because bad things happen in every single organization. They expect there to be down weeks, down months, down quarters. It happens. But, by getting out ahead of that and letting them know that it's happening or that it's going to happen and then telling them what you plan on doing about that, that shows a really deep level of macro-ownership.
Claire: I love that one, I'm so sorry. I have to interrupt. That one I particularly love. It makes me think of a time when I messed up huge, it was one of those, I sent an email to tens of thousands of people with a mistake in it or a broken link, like, bad. As soon as I figured it out I beat myself up about it so much and I was so apologetic to my boss.He was like, "I could never be upset with you, you were upset enough for the both of us." He never would have made me feel bad about it because I felt so much ownership over the mistake and the macro side of it. He never felt the need to get mad at me or reprimand me in any way because I took so much ownership. I remember him saying, "You're beating yourself up enough for both of us." Anyway.
Len: That's such a great story and it's totally on point with this. It's going to happen, bad things are going to happen, mistakes are going to happen. But the fact that you showed ownership and the fact that you clearly cared so much about this clearly signals to your boss that you're going to be pretty damn careful that that's not going to happen again. You're going to do a good job of making sure that that probably won't happen in the future. If it does, you'll probably show ownership of it again.
Len: I want to show you a perspective that I think will actually be really helpful in changing the way you think about micromanagement. This is a continuation of the theory that your boss is a really smart person, because your boss is a really smart person, they're getting advice from really smart people. They're probably reading things by really smart people. If they're reading things by really smart people, this is kind of advice that they're getting: It's not your job to micromanage your team. Harvard Business Review: How to stop micromanaging your team. Inc.: Five ways to kick your micromanaging habit and become a much better leader.
Len: This is the message that your boss is getting. They don't want to micromanage you. The know that micromanaging you is not helping, it's not the trade of a good leader. But they feel trapped because they don't know what's going on. They don't feel like they're in the loop if they don't feel like they know what's happening they have no other choice. If they know that the only way to get that information is to ask for it, what else are they going to do?
Len: To recap: Micromanagement is a symptom of not understanding what's going on. People will micromanage what they don't understand. To manage up and to stopmicromanagement you have to show macro-ownership and micro-ownership, they're both super important. Update your boss often. Ask for help when needed. If you do these things, everyone will get exactly what they want. Your boss will be able to be a better leader and feel like a better leader because they're not micromanaging you, they'll actually know what's going on. You will have the freedom to do amazing, uninterrupted work.
Len: So, that's pretty much it. That's all you have to do to eliminate micromanagement. Thank you so much for joining me for this workshop. I really hope it was useful to you. If you check out Podia.com/Forget-the-Funnel, I put together some cool stuff for you, you get the slides from this workshop. There's a checklist that's going to help you implement all the takeaways that we talked about here today, including really specific examples of updates you can send, all that stuff, a couple of other neat goodies that I think you'lllike.
Len: Claire and Gia, thank you so much for having me, I'm going to turn it back over to you.
Claire: Len, what I really took away from this and loved about it... I mean, there were a lot of things, as we saw from Gia's expressions
.Gia: I had a visceral response to this.
Claire: But, what I really loved was honestly, that you basically apply the same mindset that you do in your marketing to your relationship with your boss. You would never try to reach your audience in the channel where they don't hang out, you need to communicate with yourboss the same way. I think a lot of people forget that. I love, love, loved the point you made about, "It's great if you are head of the Trello board, congratulations. It's great for you to manage all your projects there but your boss is never going to go in and try to learn how to use your Trello board."
Claire: I'm so glad you brought up that piece of it. The idea that, just like you would in your marketing, go to where your boss already hangs out. Send your updates there.
Len: I really appreciate tying it back to marketing, that's a much smarter way than I put it but it's absolutely perfect for this audience.
Gia: Even the cat sitter example, what I was actually thinking was, "Damn, this cat sitter really needs to use this in their marketing, that they do this." It is such a key differentiator for them as a cat sitter. The analogy was perfect. I also love the “just FYI” as well. I'm going to completely not do it justice, all the points I would be like, "I love that you said this, I love that you said this." There are so many amazing takeaways.
Claire: Gia's just going to make every marketer ever watch this.
Gia: I am. I am not kidding, it was my exact thought. I was like, "Everybody needs to see this." Everybody I've ever managed needs to see this, everybody I ever will and vice versa.
Len: Everybody that ever pet sits your dog.
Gia: Exactly.That actually crossed my mind as you were describing it. I'm like, “Dog walker needs to watch this.” Anyways. Amazing. Thank you so, so much. I will not be able to recommend this workshop enough to people who very... so commonly experience this and you've heard it time and time again. We hear from a lot of marketers having run these workshops for a while now, and far and away their number one struggle is that they don't feel like their boss trusts them and you've just totally nailed how to address that. Thank you.
Gia: Also, for the resources, too. Definitely, make sure, everybody, to go check that out at podia.com/forget-the-funnel and then find Len on Twitter and then ask him about all of this stuff. I would highly recommend. I will also add that, Len, you have a cool inner circle as well.
Claire: Oh yeah.
Gia: About marketing.
Len: Thank you.Gia: That people can find on your Twitter account, I believe, in your Twitter bar. Anyways. Twitter is probably the best place to find your inner circle, I'm guessing?
Len: Yes. Twitter or Len.Podia.com.
Gia: Or that. Even better. Thank you so much. This is so great, I can't even, I can't even.
Len: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure to be on and I'm very excited to hear what people think.
Gia: Thanks everyone. Bye.
