Thomas Barta, Speaker, Author, and Consultant 

In this episode of My Quest for the Best, Thomas Barta talks with Bill Ringle about the difference between doing marketing and leading marketing, and the challenges faced by both CMOs and customer-facing employees alike.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

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Interview Insights

Key points that you’ll learn from this interview:

What it means to “Walk the Halls” in MarketingPopular Myths still held by senior managersHow a CMO overcame his problems with both agenda and budget.The question every marketer should ask themselvesWhat it means to be in the value creation zone

Read the Show Notes from this Episode

1:35 Barta discusses how his Mother was an early inspiration for his young life.1:40 “She had one principle, and that is, ‘You can always advance.’ Whenever I had a new idea, her best advice was, ‘Go try it.’”2:00 How growing up in Germany and driving ambulances for civil service prepared Barta for his career.2:36 [On speaking to people in the fields of marketing and customer relations] - “The main challenge – everybody who does marketing and everybody who worries about customers is facing – is how do be relevant, how to get things done, how to really help customers.”3:12 “I believe everybody who works with customers or for customers deserves a stronger voice in their organization.”3:39 “Over 50% of C-suite executives, just surveyed by The Economist, just said they do not believe that marketing drives revenue, which is a problem, because, as a marketer, if you’re not revenue, you may end up being costly.”4:16 “It’s super important that every marketer who listens asks themselves, “Am I cost or revenue?”4:49 The story of the CMO and his problems with agenda and budget, and what Barta’s team did to help him overcome these roadblocks.5:48 [On the importance of removing buzzwords from marketing speech] - “We really stopped the buzzword: “Bingo!”6:32 “When he started to use the language of the rest of the c-suite…he changed so much [about] what the discussion was.”6:53 “We need to get marketers into the flow because that’s where the customer always belongs.”7:20 Barta describes his inspiration for developing a course and writing his book while working at McKinsey, and how he ultimately decided to do it on his own.7:34 “What you do when you want to do something at McKinsey like this, you’ve gotta get your act together and find the best practices, tools, research, and what have you.”8:23 “My reason for writing this book was really that there wasn’t one, plus, I felt probably it was a good way to get the word out.”8:44 How long the writing, editing, publishing, and promotion process for the book was, and why feedback from industry leaders made it worth the wait.9:22 Barta describes the 3 surprises he uncovered while distilling down acquired data into 12 central ideas.9:21 “The first surprise was that doing marketing is very different from leading marketing, and in fact, you can be a very good technical marketer – you can be very good at branding, segmentation, and what have you – but have absolutely no impact in the market.”9:45 “What found is that the skill of marketing inside a company, of leading marketing,