Meet Tanya Stanfield
A brand strategist, sales leader, performance activator, and well-being advocate, Tanya is a multi-dimensional entrepreneur dedicated to using her superpowers of content and connection to build brands and create communities for good. Her most recent project, MKTG XT, is a cross-training community built for marketers of all types to gather and build stronger skills, stronger networks, and transformed careers.
What are some of the general struggles that everyone's experiencing right now in this current environment?
First, I think a lot of people are experiencing a lot of uncertainty. And some might argue that goes without saying. But we all know that a lot of times marketing is the first to go when companies are struggling financially. So that's definitely top of mind. It's just a lot of uncertainty. But I think another thing marketers struggle with, and I think particularly marketers who work in house, more on the client side, is the thing I see here over and over stakeholder engagement, stakeholder management, influencing others who might not work on your team with who you need on board to accomplish certain goals is a constant challenge that I hear marketers talk about over and over again.
What can marketing leaders do to support themselves and our colleagues during this time?
I think during this time, what marketing leaders and colleagues can do to support themselves and each others is through continuing to just connect with each other and keep communication open with each other and continue to learn, educate themselves and also educate others. You know, when we talk about those stakeholders, again, there's just uncertainty all across the spectrum. And I think the more leaders and their teams can connect with others outside of their disciplines and really learn about what they value, what your colleagues value, and then share what you value as well. I think that's really important. It's all about capturing that. Our job as marketers is to capture customer value. But we also need to capture company value as well. So learning what's important to everyone from the C suite, in finance and everywhere in between. So really building relationships with each other and across disciplines I think is really important right now.
So how do you personally continue to stretch and develop your skills as a marketer?
I am a self-admitted introvert. An error I think earlier, my career was that I didn't really reach out a lot for help. Or I thought I had to learn things on my own. And while being self-sufficient, is really valuable. I found the most value in the past couple of years as I've progressed more in my career, in learning through speaking with others, and talking to others, and that's just not in my own industry, although that's been very important. Because our industry just changes so fast. I don't think there's any way you can keep up with the industry completely. But talking to people who are actually in it every day is a key part of how I've been able to keep up. So like talking to people in my industry, and then talking to people in other industries and just learning more and more about how other businesses operate. That's really how I've been able to manage my own education.
Can you share with our listeners, one of your most successful or favorite networking stories that you have?
About five years ago when I was still working at a consulting firm, and I was pretty early in my career there, I was really struggling to understand how I can move up. I can speak in front of big crowds of people that's not a problem. But when it came to more impromptu speaking, when someone asked me a question in a meeting answering off the cuff, I would just get my heart would just pound I could hear it and I would get so nervous. So from then I decided to join Toastmasters which I'm sure you've heard of. Every Toastmasters group is
