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Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter - read by 25,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 5,000 other members at exitfive.com.

By the way - this email was designed in Knak which helps you create email and landing pages in minutes without having to write code. Learn more about Knak here.

💪 The Skill That Separates Good Marketers from Great Ones

It’s not sexy. It’s not “AI” driven. It’s *definitely* not something you’re taught as a marketer.

But it has a huge impact on your success: project management.

If you:

• Often see your carefully planned campaigns derailed by “urgent” requests
• Constantly feel like you’re always working, but never making real progress
• Feel like you start out with a great strategy, but get lost in the chaos of execution

You’re not alone – I’ve been there, Dave’s been there, every marketer we know has been there.

But every great marketer figures it out, and we’ve got a resource to help you learn the basics.

Our friends at Tenon put together a Guide to Campaign Confetti that will teach you the foundations of marketing work management.

Grab a free copy here.

How to be a better leader (without feeling like a micromanager)

I was really, really good at my first content job.

So naturally, the next step was for me to manage a team of people.

The only problem? Being a good marketer and being a good manager are two entirely different skill sets.

And dear reader, it was a painful learning curve… for me and my team. Turns out that’s why there’s entire courses for management training, like the ones David Kline runs at MGMT Accelerator.

As we’re looking ahead to 2025 and thinking of expanding the Exit Five team, I wanted to refresh some of my manager skills, and found this episode he did with Dave on leadership fundamentals.

Here’s a few takeaways from that interview that will help you be a better manager:

Define what success looks like together

Great leadership starts with clarity, but it shouldn’t come from a top-down command. Expectations hit differently when they’re created as a partnership.

Why This Matters: When your team members actively participate in defining what success looks like, they feel ownership – and ownership drives accountability.

How It Works: Use a collaborative approach to define both the “what” (goals and deliverables) and the “how” (approach, tone, and process).

Instead of just saying, “Here’s what you need to do,” start with a conversation:

• “What do you think success looks like for this role/project?”
• “What would exceeding expectations look like here?”

Check in often to review, adjust, and re-define, if necessary. This makes sure you stay on the same page, even as priorities shift.

Use these three docs to stay organized

David recommends three essential documents that every manager should use to stay on the same page as your team:

Dashboard

• Purpose: Tracks key metrics or deliverables owned by the team member.
• What It Looks Like: A simple, ongoing snapshot of their progress in their role or on a specific project.
• Why It Works: It ensures you’re always in the loop without needing constant status updates.

Development Plan

• Purpose: Outlines growth opportunities and skill gaps for the team member.
• Structure:
  • What’s the gap?
  • What are we doing to close it?
  • How will we know it’s closed?
• Why It Works: This keeps personal and professional growth on the table, motivating the team and helping them see a path forward.

Expectations Document

• Purpose: Outlines the expectations you agreed on for their role and work.
• What It Looks Like:
  
  • Key responsibilities for their position.
  • Three bullet points defining “meeting expectations” for each responsibility.
  • What exceeding expectations looks like.
• How to Use It: Use this document in your regular 1-1s to discuss what’s working, what’s not, and how to pivot if you need to.

These three tools create transparency, give your team members ownership of their success, and make oversight easier and more effective.

Oversight Without Overreach

Oversight doesn’t mean breathing down someone’s neck or micromanaging. It’s about creating consistent rhythms to review progress, address roadblocks, and provide support.

• What It’s Not: Hovering over your team’s every move.
• What It Is: A structure that ensures your team has what they need while keeping you connected to their progress.

Here’s how to oversee effectively:

Delegate With Confidence: Oversight is about reducing fear—for you and your team. When expectations are clear and agreed upon, you can delegate more freely.

Support, Don’t Hover: Check-ins should be about providing guidance, not control. Use tools like dashboards and regular meetings to stay informed without micromanaging.

Focus on the “How”: Aligning on the “how” reduces surprises and helps ensure work is done in a way that aligns with your vision and values.

P.S. What was the biggest learning curve you had the first time you had to manage someone? Any templates or tips?

Would love to hear from you! Just reply to this email – I read (and cherish) every one :)

Oh! And you can listen to the full interview with David here.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

🎤 Exit Five LIVE | Building a Marketing Operating System: How to Organize Campaigns, Align Your Team, and Deliver Results

Marketers are expected to be masters of strategy, creative, and execution.

But who’s teaching us to manage the endless moving parts of a campaign? With tighter budgets, higher expectations, and a mountain of competing priorities, it’s easy to feel stuck in campaign chaos.

We often talk about the tactics: SEO, ABM, email, content.

But for this session we're going to talk about the behind the scenes of B2B marketing. We're going to talk about the marketing operating system – specifically:

• how to organize your 2025 campaigns;
• align your team; and
• stay laser-focused on what matters most

Join us with the team at Tenon to see how top marketers are using work management tactics to simplify the complexity, free up time for high-value work, and boost team performance—all while showing your boss the real impact of marketing.

Join us live

🏢 OPEN ROLES

Who's Hiring Right Now?

HOT JOB OF THE WEEK: Neuron7 is hiring a Content Marketing Director to own their content ecosystem to create a top-of-funnel strategy that drives engagement and qualified leads. Fully remote, US only.

Interested? Apply here.

Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:

• Valenz Health is hiring a Marketing Events Manager
• Paramark is hiring a Head of Marketing
• Trovata is hiring a Senior Content Marketing Manager
• RightMetric is hiring a Founding Marketer
• Wynter is looking for marketing leaders to participate in their research
• SpeedWork is hiring a Senior LinkedIn Ads Specialist
• Dragon360 is hiring a Advertising & Media Strategist
• AROYA is hiring a Performance Marketing Manager
• Peak Support is hiring a Head of Marketing ($140k-$185k)

See All Open Roles >>

Have an open role and want to make sure the best B2B marketing talent sees it?

Just reply to this email and we'll send over more info on how you can post it on our job board + get it in front of 25k+ marketers.

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