Ask, and it shall be given. That was Steve Blank’s experience:
Our small training department had been without a manager for months and finding a replacement didn’t seem to be high on the VP of Sales list. We four instructors would grumble and complain to one another about our lack of leadership.Then it hit me — no one else wanted to be manager — what was the worst that could happen? I walked into the VP of Sales’ office and with my knees trembling, I politely asked for the job. I still remember him chuckling as I nervously babbled on what I good job I would do, what I would change for the better in the department, why I was qualified, etc.
He said, “you know I figured it would be you to come in here and ask for the job. I was wondering how long it would take you.” I was now manager of Training and Education at Zilog.
All I had to do was ask.
He learned to keep asking:
One day I heard there was an opening in the marketing department for a product marketing manager for the Z-8000 peripheral chips. The department had hired a recruiter and was interviewing candidates from other chip companies. I looked at the job spec and under “candidate requirements” it listed everything I didn’t have: MBA, 5–10 years product marketing experience, blah, blah.I asked for the job.
The response was at first less than enthusiastic. I certainly didn’t fit their profile. However, I pointed out that while I didn’t have any of the traditional qualifications I knew the product as well as anyone. I had been teaching Z8000 design to customers for the last year and a half. I also knew our customers. I understand how our products were being used and why we won design-in’s over Intel or Motorola. And finally, I had a great working relationship with our engineers who designed the chips. I pointed out it that it would take someone else 6 months to a year to learn what I already knew — and I was already in the building.
A week later Zilog had a new product marketing manager, and I had my first job in marketing.
Now all I needed to do was to learn what a marketeer was supposed to do.
He came up with a heuristic:
In a technology company it’s usually better to train a domain expert to become a marketer than to train an MBA to become a domain expert. While MBA’s have a ton of useful skills, what they don’t have is what most marketing departments lack — customer insight. I found that having a senior marketer responsible for business strategy surrounded by ex-engineers and domain experts makes one heck of a powerful marketing department.