On today’s episode, we’re speaking with Sarah Stansberry about how to take a disparate panel of marketing experts and integrate them into a cohesive team with common goals. Sarah discusses her seven tips for leaders to help guide teams through the use of shared principles and methods to open engagement and conversation. Sarah’s insight into storytelling expresses how the simple act of telling a story changes both the listener and the speaker alike. 

 

More About Sarah Stansberry

Sarah Stansberry was named Interim Chief Marketing Officer of Equifax in March, 2019 and brings strong expertise in general management, digital marketing strategies, global demand generation, product marketing, public relations and brand activation across web, social and search channels.  As the Interim CMO, Sarah champions corporate marketing as the catalyst for Equifax growth focused on strengthening stakeholder engagement, demonstrating market leadership and optimizing marketing effectiveness globally. 

Sarah joined Equifax in 2013 and has held numerous marketing leadership positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as the SVP, Solutions Marketing and SVP, Marketing Operations where she and her teams focused on creating and activating customer-centric marketing strategies across the Equifax enterprise. During her tenure, Sarah has led lead product marketing, digital strategy and web experiences, product and solutions sales training and marketing operations teams.

Her focus on aligning people, process, tools and team dynamics helps change marketing organizations from reactive, sales support teams to true business partners that enable business growth through delivery of integrated marketing strategies.

Previously, Sarah held other marketing leadership roles including VP Marketing for LexisNexis Risk Solutions and SVP Marketing for AccuData Integrated Marketing.   She has also served in a number of marketing positions for start-up and large enterprises such as Click Commerce, RR Donnelley & Sons and PLATINUM Technology. 

Sarah was recently recognized as the 2018 Marketing Executive of the Year by the Technology Association of Georgia.  She holds a degree in Marketing from Loyola University, and an MBA in Strategic Management from DePaul University.  

Interested in learning more about Sarah’s take on fostering collaboration across teams or her little book of tips? You can reach out to her via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-stansberry/ 

On this episode we discuss:

• Specialized teams vs. a general focus on marketing: how do you solve the challenge of bringing together subject matter experts to generate broad insights and effective teams?
• How do themes and stories play a role in helping people do self-checks? How can this help with guiding principles of a company in order to keep disparate teams on the same page?
• Educate, enable, empower. For example, you shouldn’t create from scratch if you don’t have to. Utilize templates to help generate common work such as go to market plans. How does this three word concept help with team cohesion and trust? 
• The Tiny Book of Teamwork… What is this guide about? How did this guide come about? What are the green boxes of love, and how do they set expectations among teams?
• Many Ways for Many Brains… How do people consume content differently? Why is it important for marketers to keep this in mind? Plus, other segments of the book and what they mean to the modern marketing team.
• Check Yourself… Why it’s important not to be a jerk. Negativity in the workplace is each individual’s responsibility.
• One of the responsibilities of leadership is developing future leaders. Sarah discusses the ways her seven tips help foster this mindset, even subconsciously, allowing leaders to be more thoughtful and get more engagement from their teams by providing a way and framing to have a conversation. 
• Sarah discusses stories and storytelling and their impact on both listeners and the communicator themselves.