Marketing's Most Underrated Superpower
Welcome to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence.
In today’s episode, we’re joined by Gwen Cantarera, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Nordic, for a deep dive into the critical role of alignment in organizational success and how marketing leaders can serve as catalysts for trust, connection, and strategic clarity. With experience leading global strategy, partner marketing, and communications for a complex healthcare consulting portfolio, Gwen brings a powerful perspective on breaking down silos and building bridges within healthcare organizations across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
The conversation focused on why alignment is more than process and documentation; it's fundamentally about relationships, vulnerability, and trust. Drawing from a rich entrepreneurial background, Gwen shared why marketing often sits in a unique position at the heart of an organization, able to both gather diverse perspectives and act as the nexus for communication between teams like sales, delivery, and internal counsel.
The discussion explored how curiosity and emotional intelligence are indispensable for marketing leaders aiming to create shared understanding and move organizations in the same direction.
Key Takeaways:
Alignment Is Built on Relationships, Not Just Process
A key theme that emerged was that organizational alignment doesn’t stem from more meetings or elaborate documentation but from frequent, informal, and transparent communication that builds trust. Gwen described how regular gut checks, open brainstorming, and a willingness to ask questions in real-time pave the way for true alignment across departments. It’s the “sausage making” the unpolished, vulnerable moments that ultimately drive connection and understanding 08:35.
Marketing as the Organizational Heartbeat
One concept discussed was marketing’s unique vantage point. Marketing often has touchpoints with every part of the business, from delivery to sales to counsel, making it ideally positioned to collect diverse inputs and act as the connective tissue. If approached with curiosity, marketing is able to notice dissenting opinions, identify where teams are misaligned, and distill the core issues so the organization can move forward together 01:26.
Vulnerability and Curiosity Are Essential Leadership Qualities
The discussion explored how effective marketing leaders model vulnerability by putting half-baked ideas forward for feedback and are not afraid to be corrected. This requires setting aside ego and demonstrating a willingness to learn in public, which encourages a culture where others feel safe to contribute openly. The willingness to “put down the wrong answer” is often the fastest way to arrive at the right one 14:08.
Transparency Through Open Dialogue Drives Impact
Several points were raised about the importance of intentional, open forums like “True North,” where anyone from C-suite to front-line consultants can hear what marketing is working on, ask questions, and share feedback. These sessions open the doors not just for reporting, but for meaningful, cross-functional dialogue that surfaces blind spots, fosters psychological safety, and establishes trust as the foundation for passionate, productive conflict 16:14.
Shared Language and Shared Purpose Accelerate Alignment
A key theme that emerged was the power of creating a common language and analogies to help diverse groups of engineers, clinicians, legal, and marketing work together effectively. When alignment is achieved, the organization will see messaging and positioning propagate organically, and leaders will notice their ideas reflected back by stakeholders without having to explain repeatedly. True alignment is visible in the pervasive, shared understanding and reference points adopted across teams 35:09.
Thank you for tuning into the Health Marketing Collective, where together, we navigate the intersection of leadership, marketing, and healthcare transformation.
About Gwen Cantarera
Gwen Cantarera builds the market clarity healthcare technology companies need to grow. As Senior Director of Global Marketing at Nordic, she leads global go-to-market, partner marketing, communications, and positioning strategy across a complex consulting portfolio serving healthcare organizations in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. She connects strategy to revenue by turning complex services into buyer-relevant narratives, integrated growth programs, and executive alignment that strengthen market presence and business performance.
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Sara Payne [00:00:09]:
Welcome back to the Health Marketing Collective where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. One of the most valuable things a marketing leader can do is create alignment across an organization because even the best strategy will struggle if people don't understand it, support it or see where they fit. Marketing has a unique opportunity to build trust, create shared understanding and help organizations move in the same direction. Today we're talking about why alignment is such a critical leadership skill and how marketing can become a catalyst for it. Joining me is Gwen Cantarera, senior director of global marketing at Nordic where she leads global go to market strategy, partner marketing, communications and positioning for a complex consulting portfolio strategy serving healthcare organizations across the U.S. canada and Europe. Gwen, welcome to the show.
Gwen Cantarera [00:01:03]:
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Sara Payne [00:01:06]:
Yeah, this is I think an important topic for our audience to dig into and I really wanted to start with something you said in our prep conversation that really stuck with me. You described marketing as potentially being the heart of an organization. Let's talk about what you mean by that.
Gwen Cantarera [00:01:26]:
Yeah, I really believe, and I think it comes from my background in startups and very entrepreneurial teams where the disparate groups were very close. But marketing tends to get the best from people. Right. People tend to need things from marketing and so we are so exposed to what the delivery team strategy is. In our instance, internal counsel with us. So what are those back office folks? What do they need from us? Where might there be dissenting opinions among people? We tend to get all of that information and then are able to make connections across groups. In my opinion that really help at times if done well and if the trust is there, kind of distill down, oh, this group thinks this thing because they're in delivery and representing a client. Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:02:30]:
This group thinks that thing because they're in sales and they're representing a different lens. And so if in my opinion, if we're doing it right and we're approaching what we offer with curiosity, then that exposure comes. And so then we really have this unique view of the organization and the varying parts and pieces and opinions and influences that everyone is driven by.
Sara Payne [00:03:06]:
Yeah, I love you framed that, you know, really sitting in a. Having a unique position, that unique view to make those connections. And I love the word that you use of curiosity. I think that's an important attribute that marketing leaders need to have to your point, to be able to ask questions, to listen, to pay attention, to understand and to help be able to make those connections and create that alignment across an organization. Why do you think many organizations maybe don't fully see that role, that leadership role that marketing needs to play in inside of an organization from that overall alignment perspective.
Gwen Cantarera [00:03:49]:
It's an interesting question and I think one that we all grapple with, right? All marketers grapple with. And I think it's multifaceted and I think that there can be again, a misalignment of what is the goal of marketing, what are we here to do, how do we do that? And then. And there can be a myopic view of that, right. It's very single threaded. And then you layer on the fact that it can be difficult to thread that needle from impact or from activity to impact for marketing. Right. There are any number, any more of metrics and data and KPIs that I can report against. I just had an instance recently where we're talking with the team and we were sharing some KPIs and we shared a stat and I literally said, but the next question you should be asking me is this, right? Because that's what puts that metric into the proper context to really evaluate it.
Gwen Cantarera [00:04:53]:
And so I think that we're in it day to day, right? We know, we know the impact, we know the difference between a nascent brand and an established brand and the levers that we need to pull to drive the trajectory of something like that. But like any specialty, it can be undervalued and underappreciated when you're not in it day to day and when you haven't had the benefit of the storytelling and you're so busy, right. How many of these other leaders and these other executives are. Are so busy and they have so much on their plate that asking them to sit down and really tune in to what marketing is doing, especially with the stereotypes around marketing, it's difficult, right?
Sara Payne [00:05:48]:
Yeah. And really the responsibility is ours to really pull people out of that myopic view and lens if that's perhaps what their legacy perspective of marketing is. And to lead by example and demonstrate as you gave those great examples of. These are the other questions that you should be asking, right? As I'm presenting this information, using those KPI reporting meetings and other meetings as opportunities to demonstrate how to evolve the way that the organization is really looking at viewing, viewing the role of marketing.
Gwen Cantarera [00:06:25]:
And I really think, right. So often marketing gets conflated with other departments, especially sales, right. And that role of how is marketing driving the pipeline into sales and then. Right. That those parts and pieces and those tactics can be so fluid, which is amazing. And they should be. Right? Marketing, my opinion is marketing and sales should be so interconnected and working in lockstep. But there are very defined goals and we are aiming for different things because we are trying to achieve different ends of the same buyer journey.
Gwen Cantarera [00:07:10]:
Right. And so where we come into play is different from when sales comes into play. But especially now, right. Like especially now with what the AI is doing to the buyer journey, really getting integrated with those teams. It's immensely important and impactful, but it can also really complete what is marketing supposed to do versus what is a sales enablement role versus?
Sara Payne [00:07:44]:
So anyway, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think we'll probably come back to some of those threads throughout the conversation here. I opened the episode with the word alignment and I really want to dig in around that. I think many organizations we talked about this believe alignment comes from process. More meetings, more approvals, more documentation. But that's not how you described it when we first talked. So let's talk more about how you believe that alignment actually happens inside of an organization.
Gwen Cantarera [00:08:18]:
Yeah, I probably drive some people crazy. We just were addressing this as a team. Right. And for the record, I, I believe in process. I also believe in breaking process. So I am one. I really believe that alignment comes in. It's the same way the sales come in our industry.
Gwen Cantarera [00:08:35]:
Right. It's relationships. It's relationships building trust. It's bringing you into more of the sausage making, if you will, than maybe other people are comfortable with. It's having check ins and not, not overly engineered check ins. A ping to say, I've got some language questions here. I want to say this, but I'm worried that it means that. Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:09:00]:
And I might say that to a delivery leader. And so alignment to me is really built on a foundation of transparency, of communication, of trust, which is built in these unofficial casual moments where we as marketers are not afraid to be vulnerable and say. I actually don't know what you mean when you say we impact. Right. And also, and I have really greatly benefited from this culture throughout my career, but absolutely at Nordic, where then my stakeholders are incredibly generous with their knowledge as well. Right. And so there's two pieces to this. But quite frankly, anytime I can take advantage of a casual moment where I am, I am not afraid to ask a question, any question at all, and get further explanation.
Gwen Cantarera [00:09:57]:
And then I'm not afraid to say, here's, here's a, here's a messy whiteboard that I'm thinking about. Can you look at this with me and tell me what you think? Right. And it's not a fully baked presentation. It's not something that's gone through five rounds of creative and two dry runs. It's. I'm literally playing around with post its on Microsoft whiteboard. Will you sit with me for 15 minutes?
Sara Payne [00:10:21]:
I love that. I think that's, that's a great example and I love the frame of thinking of this as like very real time, tiny moments, Right. Many of them are spontaneous in nature as you described it. It's like bringing them into the sausage making as cause as I look back at, you know, across my career and some of the very best leaders and most successful marketing leaders that I've benefited from working with do exactly that, right? They will go, we need a gut check on this. Right? Before we go too far down this pathway, I need a gut check and I need to know that the organization is bought into this, right. I'm not going to go spend all this money or all this time baking this out and perfecting, quote unquote, perfecting it, right. Walking in and being like, here you go. And have it be completely off the mark.
Sara Payne [00:11:14]:
Whether it's this, you know, a word choice thing that's off the mark, it's an audience thing that's off the mark or all of the above.
Gwen Cantarera [00:11:24]:
Right?
Sara Payne [00:11:24]:
Right. And we need those check in points to your, to your point. Bring those stakeholders along and make sure that they feel bought into the process and that we are making then the right decisions along the way to make sure that what we're going to put out there is successful.
Gwen Cantarera [00:11:41]:
Absolutely. Because to your point, right, this could be anything from. There's one example I have. We were writing a case study and it was about, it had to do with revenue and revenue improvement. And I'm not even going to try and state whatever, whatever it was, right? How I said we did this thing with revenue, it was like two words were flipped, right? And it. And when you're talking about revenue and margins and two words can be massively different, right? And of course you build in redundancies and you build in checks. And so it would have gotten caught, right? But being able to catch it before that hook then was proliferated across all of the promotional material. Honestly, because I was like, hey, this is how I want to phrase this, right? It's a team's message, hey, this is how I want to phrase it, is this, right? Followed by a 45 minute call where I pretended to keep up with my revenue cycle team and understand what they were saying.
Gwen Cantarera [00:12:38]:
But right. It can be anything from that to we are completely reimagining our website and we're reimagining the way that our clients and prospects and analysts and media come into our website and figure out what we do. Come, come with me on that journey because I'm proposing something that's a little bit different.
Sara Payne [00:13:02]:
Yeah. And one of the things that is striking me is, you know, going back to the word you use earlier is, is curiosity. That's important. But another trait that's really important here is vulnerability. Right. And being willing to share what may be a half baked concept to get a gut check, check on something and make sure that it's right. And that, that requires a level of vulnerability. Right.
Sara Payne [00:13:28]:
And being willing to, to have an answer of like no, that's, that's not right. But that normalizes that, that normalizes this notion that, you know, we need everybody to be involved and it does need to be a collective thought process. Not that marketing is just going to sit over here and you know, develop campaigns or messaging or whatever it is and have it just be know, ready for prime time. So I think that's really important.
Gwen Cantarera [00:13:56]:
Yeah, we, one of our, one of our team's favorite. Well, it's one of my favorite phrases and I, I don't know if my team just puts up with it, but it's, it's the fastest way to the right answer is to put down the wrong answer. Right. Like, and, and, and I, I really, I swear by that. Right. Because we also, you know, this, we are also walking this fine line between we need buy in and we need to be right. Right. And if we're right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:14:22]:
So we have the buy in because we're doing it, but we also cannot go so far that we're doing this decision by committee. Right. Which like where you have to get 75 people to approve a thing. And so there's a very fine line there that we're always trying to balance. But anyway, the, the point is to, to talk about the vulnerability that you have to have. To me, that reframing of. I am owning this, I am owning that I'm putting something down. It's not a shot in the dark.
Gwen Cantarera [00:14:56]:
Right. It is an informed opinion or an informed deliverable. Right. It's not, I'm not talking about purple skies when I need to be talking about patient experience. Right, Right. But I'm also, I'm just putting something down. And I'm putting something down because I know the easiest way for most people to react to is when they see something and usually, yeah, wrong. We get there faster.
Gwen Cantarera [00:15:18]:
Okay. Because you can identify it.
Sara Payne [00:15:22]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about what bringing people along looks like in practice. You've given a couple of examples. You've mentioned to me that you, you hold a recurring meeting where marketing essential essentially like opens the doors. That's like, here's what we're working on. What questions do you have? What do you need from us? What really prompted you to start doing that? And like who are the stakeholders? Right. What are the cross functional teams that you invite into that?
Gwen Cantarera [00:15:48]:
Yeah, so we do. We. It was, it was called for a long time marketing Monday. We've rebranded it recently to True North. Right. So we want to be that North Star that our team knows they can come to us and, and we're here and it's once a month we meet. The impetus for it was quite frankly this reaction of several people in the organization. We don't know what marketing does.
Gwen Cantarera [00:16:14]:
Right, man. What do you mean you don't know what marketing does? But to me that's the kind of feedback that you have to take in. Right? That's where we go to like you have to check your ego. That's not about. Okay, so that means if I think Sarah, that you should know exactly what we're doing. If I'm telling you X, Y and Z and you still say to me we don't know what you're doing, okay, then I, I need to adapt, right. I need to meet you where you are. And so that, that was the impetus.
Gwen Cantarera [00:16:42]:
We don't know what marketing's doing. And so I was quite frankly brainstorming with one of my mentors and, and she was like, why don't just meet with everybody? I'm like, people are going to want to come to a meeting once a month with marketing. And she was right. People. I, I just on a whim, this was maybe a year, year and a half ago, threw a calendar invite out there for a Monday for half an hour and said it started out very casual. It started out with a. I'm gonna come on here and I'm just gonna talk about what we're doing, what's on our radar and I'm reserving the back half. I want to hear from you.
Gwen Cantarera [00:17:18]:
What are you guys hearing? So that's how it started out. And it has evolved. It's evolved to being more formal. You asked who, who was invited. I tend to be a go big and then get called back person. And so I invited everybody. I mean I'm from C suite through all of my sales team and it's grown now initially some of Them some delivery leaders came, presidents of my organization were there, chiefs of staff were there and, and they still will come periodically. Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:18:00]:
And now it's grown and so a lot of the sales team comes. Most, most of our delivery centers have representatives there, the international team. And almost any time I talk with someone internally who I haven't connected with previously, I'll mention the call and I'll say, you interested? And 90% of the time they say yes. And so recruiters and our consultant managers and consultants, it's. If I could, I would probably do a. You know, this isn't all hands but you know, we know there's formal internal comm. Strategies that we need to follow. But anyway, yeah, that was it.
Gwen Cantarera [00:18:42]:
It really started from, from. I just couldn't stomach that feedback because part of my ethos is transparency and communication. Right. I, I want you to know what's going on. I want you to ask questions, I want you to feel like I am accessible if you think you need something or you have feedback. And so to get that feedback, we don't know what's going on with marketing. I was like, well, I gotta do something about this and I'm gonna go.
Sara Payne [00:19:07]:
And I don't think you're the first marketing leader or marketing department or team that's ever heard that. I think that's actually a pretty common reality out there. But kudos to your mentor for giving you such a great piece of advice and kudos to you for acting on it. Right, right. And you know, like your, your initial reaction was kind of like what people really want to come to this thing and like look at, you know, look at what it's turned into. And then curious for you to share a little bit more in terms of what the overall impact you believe that it has had and or what has surprised you about creating this format and really letting people into. To the process of what marketing's working
Gwen Cantarera [00:19:46]:
on, I think so this meeting has really become the moments of this meeting I'm the most proud of. This meeting in particular that I'm the most proud of are actually when we start to have dialogue. So it's not just marketing saying yes. Here's. Here's the campaign we're running. Here's our latest social media following. Those are all important. But what I'm most proud of honestly is the moments when.
Gwen Cantarera [00:20:12]:
And this happened relatively early on. It's a little bit of a high I've been chasing. But one of the folks who was on one of the extended teams, if that's broad enough, actually said Right. This person was vulnerable and they said, hey, when I'm, when I'm positioning Nordic, right, I say xyz, But I find that sometimes that falls flat. What do other people. Right? And so to have that person show up and engage that way and then for.
Sara Payne [00:20:44]:
Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:20:44]:
Because that's one thing. But then really we had this amazing engagement. And because it was such a cross functional call, right? You. We had, we had sales, we had delivery, we have recruiters, we had marketing, we had leaders that all were able to answer in this unbelievably supportive way. It wasn't a, oh, my gosh, you don't know how to position Nordic. It was, hey, this is my experience. This is what's happening. Right? And so I am, I am proud of that.
Gwen Cantarera [00:21:16]:
I'm proud that that moment was created for this person to ask the question and, and to be met with, like I said earlier, nor I do feel immensely blessed at Nordic. Our, our folks, our delivery leaders, our leaders are incredibly smart and they are unbelievably generous with that. You just need to tune into it. So anyway, so I'm most proud when the conversation opens up, when it goes beyond whatever it is that marketing's presenting and questions are asked and we're able to respond. And I think that has the most impact. The other impact I think is the trust. Right? So the more that we are open and direct and we bring people into the process and we show that if you have a question or you have feedback, like, we love feedback, right. We can take it.
Gwen Cantarera [00:22:12]:
We, you know, that builds, in my opinion, to this environment where we can have these conversations. Right. One of my colleagues just call it passionate conflict. We can really get into what we don't see eye to eye on. And we can do it in this space where we know tomorrow we're going to show up the exact same way to each other. Right? And so I'm not saying that that necessarily happens on this call. This call's quite big, right? But in my, in, in my opinion, opening it up, being vulnerable, showing everyone what we're working on, letting them know there's no secrets behind these marketing doors. Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:22:53]:
I mean, why not show you the real mess behind, you know, this pretty scene? But come in, see what we're working on. I think it goes a long way to building trust, which is foundational.
Sara Payne [00:23:05]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I want to come back to trust in a minute here, but you mentioned that one of the biggest things that has come out of this or one of the things you're proudest of or Your favorite part of this whole format is the dialogue. And I think you're absolutely right. I think that that is one of the most important takeaways in this conversation. And I think the missed opportunity for many organizations because I see this all the time as a consultant or an agency partner, as we're. We are best at what we do when we know. Right. As much as we can possibly know about your customer, their pain points.
Sara Payne [00:23:42]:
Right. What's going on inside of the organization. And so this is. It can't just be a one way, you know, marketing reporting to the organization. Here's what we're doing, here's how it's performing. Performing, but rather, hey, here is something that we're seeing as something that needs to be fixed or an initiative that could be incredibly powerful for the organization. What do you all think? Or here's a question that we've been pondering as a marketing organization. We'd love your take on it.
Sara Payne [00:24:13]:
Really opening that floor for a rich collaborative discussion of, I think, to your point, is absolutely the magic of a dialogue like this.
Gwen Cantarera [00:24:22]:
I love it. I. It's my favorite thing in the world when you have a group, right. Because it speaks to so much. It speaks to that psychological safety that people are willing to be open. It speaks to the trust that you're going to do something with this information that makes sense, you know, you're going to action it in some way. It really, truly is my, my favorite thing when you get any, any kind of, of people really kind of disagreeing on something. Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:24:50]:
Because I also think none of us have a good idea. Right.
Sara Payne [00:24:54]:
You.
Gwen Cantarera [00:24:54]:
No idea comes out of our brains perfectly baked. Right?
Sara Payne [00:24:58]:
Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:24:59]:
Yeah. Nothing like we need each other to build on that initial, you know, kernel of inspiration to say, oh, but what about this? What about that layer? Oh, have you considered this angle? Right. And that happens most acutely when there is open dialogue, in my opinion.
Sara Payne [00:25:19]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Or taking like, hey, I heard this, I heard this the other day. You know, I heard this word, I heard this phrase, but I'm not sure I fully understand it yet. Like, tell me more about that because I think there might be a powerful idea inside of that and that, you know, it's a learning, it's a learning moment for, for everybody. You've also mentioned the word trust several times in just the past, you know, five minutes. Right. And this really brings out, I think, the human side of marketing leadership and emotional intelligence as being so important for marketing leaders. And I also think it requires removing ego from the process.
Sara Payne [00:26:00]:
So what's your take on that? Like, how do you remove ego from the process and, and any thoughts you have on sort of like the role of emotional intelligence in this kind of, kind of a format and why that's so important for marketing leaders?
Gwen Cantarera [00:26:17]:
I think that if you, if you buy into this philosophy that marketing is really like the hub, the hub, the heart. It can be a really central part of an organization. Then you're taking on an immense responsibility to understand those people to whom you're feeding, right? And you're getting fed from. And that means understanding their motivations or allowing space for motivations that you don't understand. And it, it means tuning in to what's happening in their world. It means meeting them where they are at times and being able to do that is predicated on having, being able to set your ego to the side, right? Not. Not to have no ego, right? We are all humans. If we are a marketing leader, we probably have decent sized egos and levels of confidence, right? But with that comes responsibility to recognize when that is impeding progress and impeding connection.
Gwen Cantarera [00:27:29]:
And all of that is predicated on, on pillars of emotional intelligence, right? And understanding how to talk to people, how to match energy, how to understand what's not being said, how to. Oftentimes I think of it like I'm playing double Dutch. Like, what am I, what am I coming in? What am I jumping in? What do you mean from really? I mean, maybe it's the Gemini in me, right? But the goal is I just want to connect. I want, I want what's in your brain, and I want that to influence my work. And so that happens when we have a relationship, right? And when, you know that I have, for me, right. When I have the best interest of the firm at heart, right? And I also think in our industry in particular, it helps immensely when you're connected to that through line, right? And so what I mean by that is it can be six degrees of separation. It can be one degree of separation, but there is a real impact that happens on the clinician's ability to serve their patients and the outcomes that those patients realize, right? So for Nordic, what that can mean is truly six degrees of separation, right? We are, you know, updating a password, which may or may not have immediate impact. I don't mean to denigrate that at all.
Gwen Cantarera [00:28:58]:
It's very important, right? People have access. But it can also mean a dashboard that gives real time, actionable data to clinicians during clinical trials, which is a, you know, both of those things are accurate and so stepping back to putting my ego aside because someone might come to me and disagree with the way I've positioned something. Right. And they might be very passionate about it. This isn't passion because they think they're right above all else. Right. They think that they know best. This is passion that is born in wanting outcomes for those we ultimately serve, in my opinion.
Gwen Cantarera [00:29:37]:
Right. And so if we as leaders can reframe every time we approach these discussions and conflict, which I strongly believe in, conflict, right. With this isn't about me. That's the putting your ego aside. This isn't about me. This isn't about. Did I get that word right or wrong? This is about ultimately I'm trying to solve a problem for a provider so that someone who needs them gets their best.
Sara Payne [00:30:09]:
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And. And I know this is something, you know, because. Because we know each other. That you're particularly good at is, is creating that sort of shared language, shared understanding, shared reference point. And a lot of that, to your point, comes from knowing, like really keeping the audience's needs in mind and who you serve and at the end of the day, what are we trying to do for the them. But I also know that you are also really good at creating, you know, other mechanisms, whether it's an analogy or a metaphor or.
Sara Payne [00:30:46]:
Etc. Like just as an example, you recently gave a presentation around using celebrity comparisons as a way to help create that shared understanding. This was for a new brand launch. And to me, what's interesting is not necessarily the celebrity comparison itself, but it's the idea that people often need that shared language to get aligned around something. Right. So that it we, you know, I might, to your point, be coming in with a really passionate idea on something and it might seem like I'm being argumentative or contrarian to what you're saying for the point of being contrarian, but actually not. And it's just because I'm really passionate about, you know, getting this end result right for a customer. But when we can, when we can use maybe an analogy or a metaphor, maybe that shows us we're actually more on the same page than not.
Sara Payne [00:31:37]:
Right. And so I think realizing amongst these stakeholder groups, you're going to have people who are coming from very different backgrounds and disciplines, right? You might have an engineer over here, you might have a clinician over here, you might have a legal or compliance person over here, and then here sits marketing. Right. And so creating that shared language and shared understanding, I think is really important to be able to work together and work through some of the conflict, which, to your point, is actually really healthy for the organization.
Gwen Cantarera [00:32:07]:
Absolutely. I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. I couldn't agree more. Honestly. It's that and that, like, that's our role. Right. That our job is to understand what problem needs to be solved. Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:32:25]:
And then it's our job to tell the story on how we can solve it. And that's not just about our clients. Of course it is. Of course. Right. We're, you know, with. None of us is here, right. Like, it's all right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:32:38]:
My dead at that part out. Like, what did I try to say, Sarah? It's. We are the storytellers. Right? We are the storytellers. We can do that. And. And we should, in my opinion, not just do it for our clients and our prospects. Of course we want to grow our businesses.
Gwen Cantarera [00:32:55]:
Of course we do. Of course we want to serve those people. I talked about serving. But in so doing, we also have to serve problems for delivery. We have to serve solve problems, the problems we can solve. Right. For sales or facilitate problem solving. And it's what we should be best at.
Gwen Cantarera [00:33:14]:
There's a problem, there's a solution. How do we convince everybody that this is the way down the path to the solution? Right.
Sara Payne [00:33:24]:
No, I love that. And we're almost out of time, but I would love to end with a few quick fire questions here, Gwen. What's one sign that an organization has an alignment problem?
Gwen Cantarera [00:33:38]:
When you. All right, Sarah, I might need a couple takes on this because that's fine. But to me, I use this. We have this safety mechanism with my kids. Right. You can keep a surprise from mom and dad. You may not keep a secret. Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:33:56]:
And so I think when that shows up in business, what you'll see is, in my opinion is fear that I've misspoken, fear that I've said too much. And I'm not talking about. There are things that not everyone is privileged to. Right. Set that aside. We're talking about things that, you know, you found out this person, you know, maybe stepped out of process a little bit or this thing might not have checked all the boxes and now there's fear around saying something. No. Right? No.
Gwen Cantarera [00:34:29]:
When there's alignment and when there's culture. I don't know if I like that answer, Sarah. I think because I'm speaking more about culture, Right. I don't know if that's an indication of alignment. Let me think really fast because it's interesting. Okay. I think really when you start to see alignment across the board, you start to see common language that may have been fresh six months ago, a year ago, right. That you may have had to explain.
Gwen Cantarera [00:35:09]:
And I've got to explain it again. And now all of a sudden, you're starting to see this common language, common positioning threaded throughout conversations that you have nothing to do with. And then finally, people are presenting it back to you, right. Or, or whatever, as if it's just completely ingrained in the organization. So you'll know that you've driven to a point where people are in agreement, they're aligned, because there is now a common language that you almost don't even know. Where did it start?
Sara Payne [00:35:45]:
I love that. I love that. And what you're describing is essentially no surprises, right? They've been, they have been brought along so much that really, by the time this thing is ready to go live or whatever word you want to use right there really should. It should kind of be like a non. Thing. It's not like, here's the thing, right, with the confetti coming down like, no, the organization already was bought in how many weeks and months ago that this was the direction we're going to go, but now it's just kind of like, yep, and there it is, it's out in the world. Great job marketing on the next thing, you know, Love that. What, what is a leadership trait that you think marketers need to be more intentional about developing?
Gwen Cantarera [00:36:32]:
I do think that that balance of executive confidence with the vulnerability. Right. It's the. It helps with that conflation of what is our role, what is our impact when we are confident. Right. When I can go back to a group that. Back to an earlier example of, you know, did you name this right or wrong? I can confidently come and defend my position, but I'm also going to be open.
Sara Payne [00:37:04]:
Right.
Gwen Cantarera [00:37:04]:
And so I think the trait that marketing leaders most need to embody really is that, is that balance of executive presence with confidence while also being incredibly open to what's happening and feedback and strategy updates, etc.
Sara Payne [00:37:27]:
Love that last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give a marketing leader trying to build more influence inside of their organization?
Gwen Cantarera [00:37:38]:
I. I like to lead with questions. I want to ask more questions, then I give answers I want to really deeply understand. And then once an opinion is formed, I like to have the data behind it. Right. And to have reasoning and to be able to really explain why we've landed where we've landed.
Sara Payne [00:38:04]:
That's so great. I love that. Gwen, thank you so much for being here today. I really enjoyed the conversation with you.
Gwen Cantarera [00:38:11]:
Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.
Sara Payne [00:38:14]:
Yeah. Hopefully we've inspired everybody to think bigger about our roles as connectors and translators, helping our organizations all swim and move in the same direction. If you liked today's episode, don't forget to subscribe to the show. Thanks for tuning into the Health Marketing Collection Div, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence, because the future of healthcare depends on it. We'll see you next time.
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