How Can Temporary Work Broaden Your B2B Marketing Skills?
To explore how temporary and contract work can expand your skill set, we asked B2B marketers for their expert advice. From enhancing adaptability and flexibility to building a holistic skill set, here are the top eight insights shared by marketing managers and strategic marketing consultants.
- Enhance Adaptability and Flexibility
- Set Clear Boundaries
- Gain Diverse Industry Exposure
- Develop Crisis Management Skills
- Maintain Marketable Skills
- Rejuvenate Creativity and Innovation
- Broaden Project Management Skills
- Build a Holistic Skill Set
Enhance Adaptability and Flexibility
Being on a temporary or contract assignment can truly enhance your adaptability and flexibility skills. This is mainly because temporary roles often require us to adapt quickly to new environments, teams, and different workflows. Being quick on your feet, flexible, and agile is a must in the world of B2B marketing, and one possible way to develop such a skill set is through contracting opportunities.
Furthermore, such assignments can be very helpful in overcoming new challenges, as each new job presents a unique challenge and learning opportunity. This helps us develop the ability to quickly understand and properly address various marketing needs and issues.
Maggie Bolt
Marketing Manager, Forum Ventures
Set Clear Boundaries
Taking on contract work is a great way to get your foot in the door while having clear guardrails on the work you do. It’s really easy to start helping a company under a loosey-goosey contract, only to have the scope grow and your fees stay the same (eek!). Contract work is, therefore, the crucible for setting clear boundaries and building a reputation as someone who gets the job done on time, on budget, and within scope!
When you work with new teams, or see a similar problem from a new vantage, you’ll learn how to identify the right solution more quickly in the future. The modalities of different teams allow for new ways of seeing the same old problems, which you can then store in your memory bank for later.
Munger talks about making decisions by passing them through a latticework of mental models. When you work with new and varied projects, your experience grows and you can pull those old campaigns up in your mind and see if they have utility for your current project.
I find my experience of working in a marketing agency on over 100 companies’ marketing to be the cornerstone of much of my ability to solve problems today.
Casey Stanton
Founder, CMOx
Gain Diverse Industry Exposure
Temporary and contract work can significantly broaden your skill set as a B2B marketer by providing diverse industry exposure, which allows you to understand different markets, customer behaviors, and business challenges. This variety enriches your adaptability and enhances your ability to swiftly adjust to new environments, teams, and projects—an essential skill in the ever-changing landscape of B2B marketing.
Additionally, working in temporary roles introduces you to a range of marketing tools and techniques, as different companies employ various technologies and methodologies. This experience not only enhances your technical proficiency but also expands your professional network, connecting you with new colleagues, mentors, and industry contacts.
Furthermore, temporary roles often involve tackling specific challenges, allowing you to develop focused expertise in particular areas such as SEO, content strategy, or lead generation. This deep dive into specific marketing aspects hones your problem-solving skills and strategic thinking. By working with various companies, you gain exposure to different business models and strategies, broadening your perspective and making you a more versatile and strategic marketer.
Overall, temporary and contract work provide a dynamic environment for learning and growth, enabling B2B marketers to accumulate a diverse range of experiences and skills that can be leveraged in future roles and projects.
Jonathan Hedger
Founder and Director, Amplify Digital Marketing
Develop Crisis Management Skills
As a marketing consultant and CMO coach, I’ve observed that temporary and contract work in B2B marketing can be an incredible opportunity for skill development, particularly in the area of crisis management and agility training. These short-term roles often thrust marketers into high-pressure situations, requiring them to think on their feet and manage complex marketing challenges under tight deadlines.
In my experience guiding marketers through various career stages, I’ve seen how contract work can simulate a constant state of “productive discomfort.” This environment forces B2B marketers to rapidly assess situations, make quick decisions, and implement strategies with limited time for extensive planning. It’s like a real-world crash course in agile marketing methodologies.
These experiences build resilience and adaptability—crucial traits for any marketer aiming for leadership positions. By consistently facing and overcoming new challenges in different contract roles, B2B marketers develop a unique problem-solving mindset that serves them well throughout their careers, whether they’re managing unexpected product launches, navigating market shifts, or steering through industry disruptions. This agility becomes a marketer’s secret weapon in the fast-paced B2B landscape.
Greg Davis
Owner, Azola Creative
Maintain Marketable Skills
Like anything else, if you don’t move it, you lose it. Even if it’s a temporary contract, maintaining your skills, plus staying on top of the latest trends, keeps you marketable. Most importantly, you never know who you’ll meet—your network is everything.
Jessica Yost
Strategic Marketing Consultant, Powerhouse Planning
Rejuvenate Creativity and Innovation
If you’re someone who has more ideas than one current role can handle or gets discouraged when upper management says “no” to an idea you believe in, diversions and problem-solving for others are a great way to self-motivate. A lot of B2B marketing folks get demoralized by the grind of more content, more leads, more data under a cloud of dissatisfaction across the organization. It’s also a machine that perpetuates the same, myopic routine. That’s not a formula for creativity and innovation. Contract work has the potential to rejuvenate the spirit and expand boundaries—and getting paid for the opportunity is even better.
Derek Cheng
Fractional CMO, Wildcard CMO
Broaden Project Management Skills
Temporary work can significantly enhance your B2B marketing skills by providing diverse experiences and exposure to different aspects of the field. Here are some ways temporary work can broaden your skill set:
- Adaptability and Agility – Temporary roles often involve working with various companies, industries, and projects. This exposure helps you adapt quickly to different environments, learn new tools, and stay agile in your approach.
- Networking Opportunities – Temporary assignments allow you to interact with professionals from different organizations. Building relationships with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders can expand your network and open doors for future opportunities.
- Industry Insights – Working across different companies exposes you to various B2B sectors. You’ll gain insights into industry-specific challenges, trends, and best practices, which can inform your marketing strategies.
- Project Management – Temporary roles often involve managing specific projects or campaigns. This hands-on experience hones your project-management skills, including planning, execution, and measurement.
Jeff Quinn
Marketing Manager
Build a Holistic Skill Set
Despite years of experience, many hold misconceptions about B2B marketing. Beneath the veneer of marketing automation and AI-optimized customer journeys, a human being is always at the receiving end of your messaging. But B2B marketing involves distinct behavioral differences, such as sales cycles, time-to-revenue, and purchase-decision drivers, which differ greatly from B2C fields. Business models influence strategy—the marketing funnel for a subscription service with easy cancellation differs from one requiring a longer commitment and extensive onboarding.
Temporary roles, whether contract or fractional, offer a valuable opportunity to build a holistic skill set. It prepares B2B marketers to anticipate and respond to diverse consumer needs across the industry and build stronger professional networks.
Stella Xiao
Marketing Manager, Orbbec
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