Article for Directors
Why Do You Dedicate Yourself to This Discipline?
According to Gartner (2025), a concerning trend among CMOs is being more focused on the tactical than on the strategic, which should define a leader. If they are centered on execution, what are you focused on? Are you simply executing without questioning your contribution to the strategy or the goal?
Sometimes we start a job, move to another, and then another, and perhaps we stop asking ourselves if this is truly what we want. If you are reading this article, it is almost certainly because you work in marketing and sales. But why do you dedicate yourself to this discipline?
This article is an invitation to reflect and to strengthen — or correct — the direction in which you want to take your career. Execution matters, but as the result of a well-planned strategy.
Our Core Activity: Creating Value
Our core activity is creating value. How are you creating value today?
Value creation is not limited to our consumer, but let us start there. All of us as consumers have needs and desires: human needs for food, security, protection, and growth; and desires to have or do something specific.
The intellectual debate in marketing about whether it creates or satisfies needs is still alive and well — exploring that topic is material for another article — but my answer is that marketing can both create and satisfy needs from the consumer's point of view. For example: is a cell phone a want or a need? When I ask that question I always hear both answers, and both are correct because they come from the consumer's own perspective.
So, what need or desire do you satisfy? In what way? How satisfied do you feel doing it? What is your target market's response?
McKinsey (2025) noted that marketing leaders have three fundamental priorities: building trust, being effective, and being bold. Marketing leaders want to be authentic, build trust, and create value for their brand. Does your work build trust? Does it generate authenticity? And does it create value for your brand?
The Marketing Plan as a Systematic Value Creation Process
To create value, marketing moves the consumer from point A to point B through the marketing plan: conceptualizing, researching, planning, developing, implementing, and measuring results. It is a systematic process that requires constant review to change, adjust, and achieve desired outcomes, balancing the strategic with the tactical and the operational.
How often do you build your marketing plan? How often do you review it and readjust it? How do you prepare your marketing team?
According to McKinsey (2024), only 12% of marketing directors reported clear and systematic planning as a distinctive feature of their marketing organization. In other words, the remaining 88% operate without a systematic process. Do you have a systematic marketing process?
McKinsey (2024) also found that marketing-driven growth happens when data and analytics are the primary input for company decisions. Research first, evidence always — that is the primary input that elevates your systematic marketing plan from something repetitive and merely operational to something strategic, generating direct impact in the market you serve.
According to the CMO Survey (2025), marketing directors must demonstrate the financial impact of their systematic marketing plan to the CEO and CFO. Remember: if you do not measure, you cannot demonstrate the value of your work. In marketing we generate value in the consumer's life, and that value will always be measured through sales. It is not the only measure, but it is the most important one: if we do not sell, how can you justify that your marketing is effective? Being well-known but not purchased is not success. So, what performance indicators do you use to measure your results?
What Area of Marketing Are You Passionate About and Why?
Which area of marketing calls your attention and why? Which marketing activity has been the most challenging for you, and which has given you the greatest satisfaction? These are powerful questions: they help you identify where you perform best and where you do not deliver your best results. This is strategic analysis for your career.
Gartner (2026) notes that marketing roles are transforming toward modular and flexible structures within organizations, and the most sought-after skills are strategic thinking, problem solving, and technological capability with an emphasis on AI. How would you rate yourself in these three dimensions today? What is your strength? What is your area of opportunity?
According to Gartner (2026), only 15% of CEOs believe their CMO has sufficient AI training, and Gartner predicts that by 2027 a lack of AI knowledge will be one of the primary reasons CMOs are replaced. How are your AI skills today? Do you integrate them into your strategy and tactics within your organization? Do they generate results and value? How do you measure that contribution?
Your Career Plan: Where You Come From, Where You Are, and Where You Want to Go
Just as we do marketing planning for our products and services, we can also apply it to ourselves. I invite you to this reflection exercise: where do you come from?, where are you today?, and where do you want to go in the future with your marketing and sales career?
Do you want to take courses or certificate programs? Do you want to earn an academic degree — a master's or a doctorate? Do you want to start your own firm? Change companies? Become the marketing director of the company where you work?
Avoid the busy marketing director trap. According to Gartner (2025), 50% of CMOs are so consumed by operational work that they have no time to think strategically. In the same study, 46% of CMOs want to know how to prioritize strategies that will help them grow. Therefore, avoid falling into the trap of having no time because you are too busy with operations to think strategically about your own career. Give yourself the time and constantly make sure you are always giving direction to your career.
According to the CMO Survey (2025), marketing hiring grew 5.4% in 2025 and is expected to continue in that direction through 2026. The market is growing — but it is growing for professionals who know how to demonstrate value creation through results.
After this reflection, develop your own plan for where you want to be in one, three, five, and ten years. Your professional marketing career plan will help you clarify your professional goals and answer why you dedicate yourself to marketing and sales. And that "why" will be your new driving force from this day forward.
References
Cvetanovski, B., Jacobs, J., Moulton, J., Gediehn, O., Exarchos, P., Rickert, S., Freundt, T., & Teichner, W. (2024, October). Connecting for growth: A makeover for your marketing operating model. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/connecting-for-growth-a-makeover-for-your-marketing-operating-model
Gartner. (2025, November). 3 trends for chief marketing officers in 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/2025-trends-chief-marketing-officers
Gartner. (2025, December). CMOs' top challenges & priorities for 2026. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-12-04-cmos-top-challenges-and-priorities-for-2026
Gartner. (2026). Marketing trends 2026. https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/future-of-marketing
McKinsey & Company. (2025, November). Past forward: The modern rethinking of marketing's core. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/past-forward-the-modern-rethinking-of-marketings-core
Moorman, C. (2025). The CMO Survey: Leading marketing in a complex world (34th ed.). Duke University Fuqua School of Business, American Marketing Association & Deloitte. https://cmosurvey.org
Technical note: Author: Dr. Carlos Valdez. Date: March 2026. Editorial assistance: Claude Sonnet 4.6 — proofreading, grammar correction, research and academic reference verification. Image generated with: Gemini 3 Nano Banana. Publication: Revista Mercadotecnia y Ventas. © All rights reserved. Revista Mercadotecnia y Ventas 2026. Reproduction without the author's permission is prohibited. Editorial syndication: This content is available for syndication. For licensing or collaboration inquiries, contact: carlos.valdez@mercadotecniayventas.com
