1. Office Politics: The Unexpected KPI
Let’s start with the classic office politics. If you’ve worked in-house, you know the drill: there’s always someone angling for a promotion, another for an invite to the “big” meetings, and yet another for a better parking spot. And it’s distracting! While we’re trying to work out how to get an extra 2% ROI on our next campaign, a decent chunk of brain space is being swallowed by...well, the latest round of “who got promoted to Head of Sycophancy.”
Now, don’t get me wrong—politics exist in every organisation. But when you're relying on the person leading your growth strategy to also be playing diplomat between the marketing and product teams, things get muddled. Do you want someone who’s deeply entrenched in office dynamics or someone who can take a step back and, you know, actually see the full picture?
2. Who’s the Customer? (No, Really… Who Are They?)
After a decade, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people say, “We’re still figuring out exactly who our customer is.” This isn’t just at start-ups either. Big brands, small brands, and everything in between—there’s always this mysterious, elusive customer that we never quite “know.” It’s as if they’re always just out of reach, like Bigfoot, only dressed in business casual and apparently immune to our demographic research.
This struggle means we’re constantly iterating marketing messages to “hit the target”—only, it’s pretty hard to hit a target you’re still defining. And, let’s face it, if we don’t truly understand who’s buying our stuff, then how on earth are we supposed to craft a message that resonates? It’s like trying to woo someone when you’re not even sure if they’re in the same room.
3. The Perils of Obsessing Over Competitors
When you’re in-house, you live and breathe the brand, the business, the customers, and—sometimes obsessively—the competitors. In theory, it sounds like a good idea. Know thy enemy, right? In practice? You can get so sucked into what your competitors are doing that you start losing sight of why you exist as a brand in the first place. True story: I once worked for a company that ordered from all its top competitors every single week, incognito, just to analyse their order numbers. Why? Because someone thought calculating their revenue to see how they were doing would give us a better leg-up.
Did it help us make any meaningful changes? Not one bit. But, boy, did it make us feel like we were doing something. We ended up spending a lot of time figuring out what their customers were doing rather than our own.
4. When Your World Is One Brand, One Industry, One Story
Let me say this: working on one brand in one industry has its perks. You get to know every single product, customer pain point, and feature inside out. You know your brand’s voice like it’s your own, and yes, you can probably recite its mission statement in your sleep. But here’s the truth: when you’re in that bubble, you’re not getting outside perspectives. You’re limited to the ideas and practices that already exist in your industry.
Bringing in expertise from other industries can make a huge difference. Someone who’s seen what’s worked for other brands is far more likely to shake up stale ideas, and that’s something you won’t get in the daily grind of in-house marketing. But in-house? It’s all one story, one strategy, and a whole lot of tunnel vision.
5. Where’s the Growth?
At the end of the day, growth comes from fresh perspectives, clear-headed strategy, and yes—sometimes a bit of brutal honesty about what isn’t working. It’s hard to find any of those things when you’re busy navigating office politics, still figuring out who your customer is (for the fourth time this quarter), and investing half your energy in competitor orders that won’t move the needle.
In short, my decade in-house taught me a lot about what works and what doesn’t. If you want to grow, don’t get bogged down in the politics and the pressure to keep up with the Joneses. Take a step back, clear your head, and remind yourself why you’re here: for the customers, the creativity, and the real connection that drives results.
