B2B Marketing isn't Architecture

(I just dug this post out of my Blogger drafts, and seems even more needed after my recent post about a job definition for marketing manager. At the time I wrote this, I didn't like what I had to say, but don't remember why.)

In December Seth Godin wrote about someone looking to hire a senior marketing manager, whose job it would be to 'increase revenue'.

Seth wanted to know how much latitude this manager would have to change the business. The implication, which defines how Seth sees marketing, is that marketing is about the product, the process, and the business. He specifically used the word architect.

But, realistically, B2B marketers aren’t architects of strategy IMHO. The product and business process is already in place, and it is the context from which we must work. Instead, we protect the brand, create the customer, support salespeople, and advocate for the all three. This is tactical work, not strategic—the work of Guardians, not architects.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t advocate strategic changes. Guardians fix bridges, we don't redesign them.