Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2015 | Page 27

CONSUMER MARKETING

CMOroundtable
“HOW DO YOU BUILD AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING
MARKETING DEPARTMENT AND ASSEMBLE THE
KIND OF TEAM THAT GETS RESULTS?”
Lisa Dimson
Chief Marketing Officer
Tropical Smoothie Café
Hiring the right team is absolutely the most
important element of getting the results you
want. Without a strong team behind you,
even the best CMO won’t be able to take
their marketing initiatives to the next level of
success. Compared with
other brands, we have
a small internal team
tasked with developing
innovative and amazing products, activating
the national calendar,
and ultimately driving
brand awareness.
When hiring for the marketing team, we
follow a list of guidelines we call “SIDE” to
ensure that the potential candidate will fit
in with our company culture and work ethic
before they come on board. SIDE stands
for Smart, Integrity, Drive, and Enthusiasm, and those four words really capture
what the Tropical Smoothie Café team is
all about. It’s not enough just to have people
who are marketing geniuses and amazing
at what they do. We need people who are
also really excited about the product and
the mission because that definitely shows
through in the end results. We want people
on our team who are constantly striving to
perform at a higher level, and that kind of
passion and commitment is very apparent
when you’re looking to build a team.
It doesn’t stop just at hiring. To keep
everyone excited and engaged in the workplace, it’s equally important to establish a
solid company culture and to be consistent
in your messaging with your team that is
already on board. It’s easy for initial enthusiasm to fade as a result of the daily grind
and small frustrations that arise in any office
over time, so as a leader it’s vital to keep
employees stimulated and make sure they
know they are appreciated.
With our corporate marketing team we
like to keep an open line of communication
and make sure we show them that we care

to create a thriving, positive work environment. This means putting yourself in your
employees’ shoes to develop a deeper understanding of their feelings and respond
accordingly. This also requires being very
transparent with your team because being
secretive and keeping important detai