Leadership is something a lot of people think is about bragging rights, or being the face of something. In reality, it’s far more about encouraging teams and including others than it is about you as an individual. That’s one thing that Steve Mosinski, Global Head of Marketing at Fox Rent a Car has worked hard to do.

“It's not my department, it's our department. So I'm going to make sure that's echoed throughout the organization, because when you share that and people realize that marketing isn't just Steve. … Otherwise, if you're trying to grow a team… if they view it. ‘Well, Steve is just gonna get that done. Cause Steve's always gotten it done because that's how Steve represents himself.’ The goal is to always, always pay it back to the people that actually help,give credit where credit is absolutely warranted and trumpet their successes”

Steve has been through it all. Starting in the low ranks of marketing, to heading up global operations. He’s even gone through the good, bad, and ugly parts of acquisition - while keeping his eyes on the goal of reaching his customers in human ways that makes his entire company happy. Be sure to listen to this episode, as he shares some important insights for how you can bridge the gap between departments on this episode of Marketing Trends.

Main Takeaways

Get customer feedback. The last thing you want is for a customer to blast you on Google or other review sites. It’s better to get that feedback directly from the customer, so your team can try to take action - and apply the lesson for future problems.
Communicate with other departments. Usually in marketing, you are ether first line of contact, and a sales team executes the deal. Take the time to talk to the salespeople, see what friction they are having. Find out the feedback from customers and develop ways to improve the customer experience to get rid of the headaches early.
Know your target. If you are aiming for a high-end client or an average person - this can really affect your strategy. Really be true to yourself, are you competing against a luxury brand? Once you know that, look at where you can find them in an everyday situation (where they will actually be) for your products to make an impact.

Key Quotes

“The biggest thing for me, historically, has always been blending the online and offline. So making sure that you always stay connected with that piece. The marketing department doesn't own the end transaction, our corporate operations team owns that interaction with the customer. Largely the history has been the marketing leader does not get involved in any of those conversations. Stay in your life type of thing. I've never been to one to be like that. So I have I have regular calls with the operations group going, okay, how can I help you? What's something that I'm not doing on the front side that's causing you a headache on the backside?”

“The most difficult aspect for, is allowing somebody else's input and effort to actually help execute on something that I have as far as a vision. I've had to figure out how to articulate that thing in such a way that they can grasp it and still allow them the levity to put their own spin on it, but end up accomplishing the goal that we have in mind. The hardest part is stop being a doer as much as being a strategizer behind the doing.”

“Customers want to be recognized. They want to be known that, ‘Thanks ,John Smith, for coming in today. We're, we're glad that you're here. Ee see that you reserved a compact car with us.’ That's what I view as a frictionless experience. You're not surprised that I'm here today to do a transaction with you.”

“The biggest aspect of anything in car rental is the website, because that's our gateway to the customer. That's what the customer sees, whether it's under mobile device, tablet, phone, and all that. That's the biggest shift is that 98% of our transactions are done online. So only 2% are done in a call center environment. So, that's exactly where I looked at my team and went, okay, I need somebody dedicated to looking after the website alone and all the pieces that go into that site and maintaining it day in and day out.”

“Historically being an entrepreneur organization, you can't really build a franchise network. There’s a lot of overhead, there's a lot of governance, there's a lot of cross-checking and everything else. So what we looked at is, what's the quickest way to get a global presence? And what you find is local market heroes.”

Bio

Steve Mosinski is the Head of Global Marketing at Fox Rent A Car and has succeeded across multidimensional roles. He believes he has to perform as a leader in order to call himself one. It's with that drive that he pushes to find ways to lead by example, inspire and be a change agent. Of course, this is only possible with experience to back it up. He has held many hats in his career -- Marketer, Advertiser, Analyst, Salesperson, Brand Innovator, Operations Manager, Trainer, Coach, Financial Analyst, Product Manager and Digital Marketing Executive. As a result, he has the unique ability to manage multi-dimensional projects and complex challenges.

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