UnicornyHow to create valueThese episodes look at what it takes to build and lead a marketing team that performs when it matters: the psychology of motivation, the role of emotional intelligence in senior marketing leadership, and the uncomfortable reality that the behaviour you ignore is the culture you end up with. For marketing leaders who want to build something that outlasts them - and careers that don't stall at the first difficult manager.
How can marketers add value and lead with confidence? In this episode of The Unicorny Marketing Show, Rachel Fairley returns as host and is joined by Leo McCloskey, VP of Marketing at Echodyne. Together, they discuss the evolving role of marketing in B2B,…
Could your company’s most valuable asset be its culture? In this episode, Hilton Barbour, a seasoned marketing consultant, discusses the vital role of organisational culture. He explains how culture shapes decisions, brand identity, and even the ability to…
Welcome back to Unicorny! In this episode, host Dom Hawes continues his discussion with psychologist Simon Hartley, focusing on how to reignite enthusiasm in marketing teams. Building on the PEAR framework discussed in part one, Simon provides practical…
In this episode of Unicorny, host Dom Hawes addresses the troubling issue of job satisfaction among marketers. With the help of Simon Hartley, an esteemed author and sports psychologist, they explore why only half of marketers enjoy their work. Simon provides…
In this episode of Unicorny, Dom Hawes and guest Paul Worthington discuss whether marketing should be recognised as a formal profession or continue as a trade based on practical experience. They evaluate the potential impacts of standardising marketing…
Simon Hartley worked with a 100-metre breaststroke swimmer who realised his job was not to win, which he could not control, but to swim two lengths of the pool as fast as possible. Reviewing everything in his training against that goal, he found about two-thirds did not help, so he dropped exercises like the bench press and replaced them with work that did, such as removing stiffness in his hips to improve his streamlining. The lesson is to define your real job simply and cut what does not contribute. Hear the full discussion in episode 77
Paul Worthington argues no. Professions such as medicine, engineering and accounting set minimum standards to prevent death or financial harm, while marketing exists to create competitive advantage, so standardising it removes that advantage. He also asks which theories would be chosen as the standard, and warns that standardisation makes fields less dynamic. He favours continuous on-the-job learning and mentoring instead. Hear the full discussion in episode 58
A Marketing Week survey found only about half of marketers are satisfied with their jobs. Sports psychologist Simon Hartley believes it comes from a lack of the things that make people happy: work has become an endless to-do list with targets and measures, leaving people feeling like 'biological robots'. He says leaders should explain why work matters, make people feel valued and give them licence to experiment and make mistakes. Hear the full discussion in episode 76
Paul says the statistic sounds alarming but many untrained marketers are highly effective because they learned through mentoring, experiments and self-study, which makes marketing more like a trade. He cautions against relying on training from tech vendors, which teaches people to operate tools without understanding why numbers move. Dom, who has no formal marketing training, concludes that giving people the basics plus room to experiment matters more than the label. Hear the full discussion in episode 58
Simon suggests three columns: what definitely contributes, what definitely does not, and what might. The 'might' column is usually the biggest, echoing the old line that half of marketing is wasted but nobody knows which half. The task is to find the missing information needed to move every item into one of the two outer columns. Hear the full discussion in episode 77
From asking people 'why do you come here and do this stuff with us?', Simon found every answer fitted four categories: Purpose, Enjoyment, Ambition and achievement, and Recognition and reward. Everyone is driven by all four in different proportions. He argues relying on one pillar is fragile, as with salespeople motivated only by commission whose drive collapses when the economy turns, so a strong environment supports all four. Hear the full discussion in episode 76
Paul warns that numbers presented with confidence are often believed far beyond their accuracy. He values the principle that far more buyers are out of market than in, but says marketing science wraps social science in the language of hard science and draws mainly on low-involvement FMCG purchases. For high-involvement decisions like cars or cloud providers, buyers research for a long time, so treating people as simply in or out of market can mislead. Hear the full discussion in episode 58
Simon suggests expanding requests: say what needs doing and why it matters, then afterwards say thank you for something specific and explain the difference it made. Recognise progress, not just finished goals, and make sure customer feedback reaches the people who made it happen. His sports example is praising the player who ran 60 yards to stop a dangerous pass, not just the goal scorer. Hear the full discussion in episode 76
Simon suggests using ten blocks across Purpose, Enjoyment, Achievement and Reward, with at least one in each, to map your own or a colleague's motivation, then do the same for the team environment. A medical devices company whose sales staff were purpose-driven former clinicians, not commission-driven, saw results climb after rebalancing its approach. He also recommends incentives that vary from cash to a pat on the back, from individual to whole organisation, and from immediate to annual. Hear the full discussion in episode 77