This month I’m delighted to be speaking to David Nelson, a sales and marketing director with over 15 years of experience leading high-performing teams and driving revenue growth within professional services firms.
Here’s his 5 minutes with…
Let’s start by you sharing with our readers your marketing background?
I was fortunate enough to find a love for marketing early. I took a degree in Marketing Management, started my career journey in professional services in a small Oxfordshire based accounting firm as their first Marketer. I then moved into a mid tier firm in a broad marketing and BD role, in a fantastic team, and gained a huge amount of experience across sales and marketing. I then joined PwC as a Marketing Manager and have enjoyed nine years across a number of roles.
What does your role at PwC involve?
I now lead Sales and Marketing for our Deals business and AI for the firm here in the UK. I work closely with leaders across the business to develop and execute go-to-market strategies to drive successful business performance. In this role I lead hugely talented teams across sales and marketing covering Marketing and BD, Pipeline Management, Pursuit and Client Listening.
You’ve worked in professional services for many years, what have been the biggest changes in marketing in recent years?
I believe we’re living through the biggest change in a generation with GenAI. Not only due to the significant opportunity for Marketing itself but also because of the transformational change it will drive in the professional services sector as a whole. Not only how we do marketing, but what we are marketing, is going to change so significantly in the coming years in many ways that are still unknown.
While the technology and how firms / marketers utilise it is still in its infancy, it is clear to me that it represents both huge opportunity as well as significant challenges. At PwC we have a strong relationship with OpenAI and through that I have had a glimpse of what’s to come from the technology itself. It’s fair to say, there is so much we are yet to learn and we as marketers are at the start of an exciting journey.
In the more immediate term it is clear the change is already having an effect. Even the most basic uses of publicly available GenAI tools are driving efficiencies and other benefits, while introducing new risks for brands. A recent survey from Microsoft and LinkedIn stated that ‘three in four knowledge workers (75%) now use AI at work’ and ‘78% of AI users are bringing their own AI tools to work’.
Are you viewing AI positively or negatively in regards to how it can support you in your role?
I’m excited by the full potential of the technology for Sales and Marketing and ultimately the experience businesses can deliver for their clients. While I am conscious of the challenges that the technology poses to sales and marketing, and the workforce more broadly, I am of the belief that it will accelerate innovation in a way that we haven’t seen for many years and I want to be part of that future. Our job is to understand the capabilities, opportunities and risks and utilise the technology safely in order to deliver value. Some of the examples I’ve seen within our team have blown my mind and I know there’s plenty more to come.
You’ve rolled out many successful campaigns throughout your career, what has been your favourite and why?
I’m really proud of our work around ESG and specifically COP26 back in 2021. This stands out for me as it represents a moment in time where ESG was becoming a far more prominent area of focus for Boards and COP26 was an important milestone in bringing the business community together with policy makers to tackle the shared challenges for the world. It’s a project that truly made a difference in so many ways to such an important societal issue.
PwC is a leading firm in ESG, both in terms of our long standing commitment reducing our impact on the climate as well as the capabilities we bring to clients. We ran a significant programme of activity on the ground in Glasgow, nationally and across the globe engaging with staff, clients and broader stakeholders on the key issues.
Often with things in life, you learn the most when times are most challenging and this campaign was a great example of that for me on a personal level. The build up to COP26 was fraught with challenges driven by COVID restrictions still being in flux, making it very difficult to plan for and justify investment in a time of great uncertainty. We had to remain agile from start to finish and brought together a fantastic team from across the breadth of our firm to make it a success.
The programme exceeded all of our expectations and delivered fantastic results across our key performance metrics and importantly through the valuable contribution of our sustainability experts to the policy agenda.
You hear so much talk about metrics these days, if you could only report on just three marketing KPIs what would they be?
I’m sure many people recognise that with the complexities of modern marketing we can get lost in KPIs and lose sight of their real purpose. Just having three unifying KPIs that are benchmarked over time to provide genuine insight to drive informed decisions and actions would be beneficial. I’m less concerned about which the three would be but more importantly that they are aligned to the business strategy and universally agreed and consistently measured. One KPI aligned to reputation, client relationships and business trading performance would be a good start.
To succeed in professional services marketing, you need more than technical (skills) capability. You’ve had a lot of success at building strong relationships with senior stakeholders and empowering teams to deliver their best, what to you are the most important soft skills that you think are needed to be successful?
I’m fortunate to have worked with many great business and sales and marketing leaders over my career that have influenced how I lead and what I respect in others. Some of the attributes that I value and work hard to apply are:
Consistency
While it sounds very boring, it is something that I think is really important. In my view having consistent behaviours aligned to your values demonstrates integrity and authenticity and inturn plays a big part in building trust. Whether it’s working with stakeholders or a team, I think people work together more effectively when they know where they stand, have clear expectations. Volatility can be unsettling and not conducive to high performance, and while it’s not always easy in a high pressure environment, consistency is king.
Empathy
No matter who you’re working with, seniority or skillset, all of us have our own goals, ambitions, challenges, anxieties etc and without taking the time to listen to others and understand them, it’s very hard to be consistently successful in the long-term. Taking the time to listen not only helps me understand and support them, but also provides great insight into myself and to challenge my own perspectives to continuously evolve and adapt to be the best I can be.
Empowering others
I am passionate about developing others and supporting them to be their best. I believe that empowering and supporting the team is the only way to help them reach their full potential and ultimately deliver the most value to the business. While not everything is going to be perfect, there’s an art to stepping back and evaluating how as a leader you stay close to critical elements and sharing advice while providing space for individuals to take ownership.
Thinking back over your career to date, what’s the best piece of marketing advice you’ve ever been given?
Be fearless!
And finally, what one piece of advice would you give to a high-potential professional services marketer looking to step into their first leadership role?
I am a big advocate of personal development planning and over the last couple of years have been running workshops for our top talent cohorts in sales and marketing. I have found having a PDP extremely valuable and would advise everyone to invest the time to create and maintain one. There are many benefits to PDPs such as providing clarity of your ambition aligned to your values, greater self awareness, stronger relationships with leaders and mentors, along with the structure of a plan to identify the near term actions that help you to achieve your goals. This is well summarised by the Napoleon Hill quote “Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.”