My CMO Journey – I knew we needed to develop a product that

I knew we needed to develop a product that could respond quickly to help our customers solve their reputation management problems. So we upgraded our messaging system and developed the COVID 19 answer set, which consists of tools to help our customers overcome challenges like managing customers’ own messages in Google’s My Business lists. My request to the team was simple: whatever you do now, stop and focus on helping our customers overcome the immediate crisis. But over time, we had to respond to a need that I always had: we had to refocus on our long-term strategy. As we streamlined our operations and protected our customer relationships, we also had to do everything we could to take care of our employees. In the early days of the recession, we had to adapt our approach to the short-term needs of our customers, and I’m glad we did. The meetings allowed the team to be aware of the state of our projects, to identify obstacles openly and without judgment, and to find ways to help each other. It was immediately clear that we needed to change our entire marketing strategy and approach clients one at a time. Since Transform, the world around me is still unclear and the future is truly uncertain, but now we are focusing on the story we need to tell and our clients need to hear. On my second day on the job, I took part in Zoom conference calls with Reputation.com management to answer urgent questions. But once the meetings were over, team members had to handle themselves and their daily tasks with confidence. When Reputation.com announced my appointment on March 11, I was tasked with developing the company and carrying out its new mission, which is to link reputation management with customer service. Pandemic made it clear that these companies needed a systematic approach to ensuring that information through their digital footprint remained relevant, as well as a proactive strategy for gathering and responding to feedback. We needed to show clients that we understood their pain and had answers to problems we knew they had. This year taught me a lot about leadership, team building and customer centricity, and among other things made me embrace the unknown.