There’s an old saying that goes: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. It’s a crap saying. Mostly because it does teachers a huge disservice. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. Especially with all the marketers flooding my feed teaching us all things we already know. 

Now, I’m not saying teaching has no place in our business. Quite the opposite. We need more opinions. More debate. More disagreement. More people prepared to explain why something worked and, maybe more importantly, why it didn’t. 

My question is: why is it always the same people? And why are they all saying the same things? 

Those who can are busy working 

Spend any time in B2B marketing and you’ll know exactly what I mean. The same conference speakers. The same podcast guests. The same LinkedIn personalities. The same people commenting on every trend, every framework, every acronym and every new framework that’s apparently going to change marketing forever. And don’t get me started on all the new AI gurus. 

I won’t be winning any originality contests for calling it an echo chamber. But ours is like an echo chamber locked, inside another echo chamber, stuck deep inside the deepest, darkest, echoey-est cave in the world. 

And I can’t help but think we’re missing a trick. 

Because the people who do the work and the ones who become famous for talking about the work are often very different people. 

The strategist who delivered on an impossible ask probably isn’t writing a long LinkedIn post about it. They’re too busy working. The creative who’s cracked a tricky campaign isn’t building a personal brand. They’re trying to send in the work by EoD. The account director wrangling 50 snarky stakeholders isn’t on stage explaining relationships. They’re stuck on a Teams call. 

The work keeps people busy. Meaning the conversation ends up being dominated by those who’ve stepped away from it. 

But, what about those who did? 

All I’m asking is: what’s more valuable for marketers? Hearing from someone like me reflecting on the industry (yes, ironic, I know), or those right on the frontline of the industry? 

I’d rather hear from them than the armchair marketer.  

What’s our role then? In terms of that crap saying at the start, I think those who can should keep doing. But those who did? We should teach. Make sure we’re not on soap boxes but taking the time to listen instead. Show the doers toiling away with SoWs, budgets and tight deadlines how to shout about their work. 

We encourage them to write, speak and share what they’re learning. Not regurgitate our thoughts. Challenge them to think differently, mentor them when they ask, and then get out of their way. 

Because hogging the spotlight is just starving our industry of new ideas. And it’s scaring the next generation away at a time when too many are neither in training, nor education, nor working. It’s on us to help a generation battered by Covid, AI and constant economic turmoil. 

New voices, please 

Those who know me know I’m obsessed with our customers’ customers. Delivering something that’s commercially valuable is why I founded Differentiated. If something isn’t genuinely useful to our client’s audience, we don’t make it. We don’t say it. And we don’t sell it. 

And hey, if that works for the people buying from us, it should work for us too. 

I think it’s time to practice what I preach. Over the coming months, when you hear from Differentiated, you’ll hear less from people like me and more from the people doing the marketing work. Even the juniors. Especially the juniors. They’re often the closest to the work and the furthest from the echo chamber. 

Because if everyone’s asking who’ll be interested in marketing in a few years’ time, perhaps we’re asking the wrong question. The better one is: why are we waiting until someone has twenty years’ experience before we trust them with an opinion? Then, maybe, our industry will start turning more heads. 

That’s what we’re going to do. Less commentary from me. More from the people filling out timesheets at the end of each day. So, if you’re tired of the same old conversations, I propose we start asking those people to be part of it.