Who’s responsible for educating your B2B marketers?

They are (or depending on who’s reading this, YOU are).

Sure, it’s in your best interest as a manager or employer to give your emerging B2B marketers access to all the training they want and need.  Send them to conferences, encourage and facilitate learning amongst peers.  That learning never ends, no matter how long you’ve been doing it.

But B2B education and learning for modern marketers must be self-motivated.  Curiosity, initiative and a discipline for self-improvement are key attributes for successful professionals in the modern economy, let alone B2B marketing.

I’ve heard in various conversations recently that it’s the employer’s responsibility to educate their marketers to be better.  But there’s a big difference between educating and learning.  Between learning, translating, applying and doing.

Great employers provide the environment, context and even channels for learning.  But they can’t force employees to do it, let alone care enough about it to use it.

Perhaps the hardest part about accepting this personal responsibility for self-improvement is making the time for it amidst an increasingly busy, harried schedule.  Our jobs as B2B marketers aren’t getting any easier, or faster.  Where does the time come to regularly learn?

Employers can, again, provide the environment, resources and encouragement to take time to learn.  But ultimately this requires prioritization and discipline from the individual.  Ever wonder how some people have so much time to read, to learn, to find new best practices and ideas to apply to their work?  It’s not because they have time, it’s because they make time.

In the end, what’s most important is doing the work (and generating results).  But if you aren’t taking responsibility for your own B2B marketing education, how do you know which work to do?  Or how to do it?

You already own the results.  Take ownership of how you get there.