T-Shaped vs. C-Level

Becoming a T-Shaped Marketer is helpful to people starting a career in marketing but can be destructive to marketers later in their careers.

Being T-Shaped definite will help you get promoted to the level of specialist or manager. But then you will hit a wall.

On the flip side, if you begin connecting the dots between marketing and the other functions of the business right away, your odds of getting to a much bigger marketing role in your career increase dramatically.

I call this type of marketer a "C-Level" marketer. These marketers are difficult to find because it is difficult to see the whole board and understand marketing's role across the business.

These C-Level marketers understand:

1) How marketing connects to sales, product, support, client success, engineering
2) Financial and build a relationship with the CFO
3) Manage up in their conversations with the CEO
4) Communicate expectations and connect the dots for the team

These are the people who get the big promotions, who eventually take over as CMOs of companies.

If you want to become one of these people in your career, stop worrying about being T-Shaped and knowing everything about SEO, Paid Media etc.

Instead, know the ins and outs of the organization and the overall business strategy.