Christina Reckard | Source | Vice President of Marketing at Southwestern Family of Companies

The biggest risk in business is inaction. Waiting for your business model to break is too late. Technological advances are “moving our cheese” and we need to be able to adapt to those changes in real time. Audiences no longer want to be marketed to; they want to interact with personas and brands that they can personally relate to. With those shifts, we cannot continue to market in the same way we have and expect to keep pace.

You must continue to grow in the world that is marketing, or you will become irrelevant. We no longer watch the same three networks and read the local newspaper. Many times, the social media platform that you used to build your business is all but nonexistent in just a few years or its appeal and its audience has shifted. Even if you use the same channels to reach your audience, the algorithm can change overnight and completely diminish your reach. We always need to be finding new ways to break through the noise in order to get our message across to our desired market.

In order to be successful in my role in such a highly collaborative environment as Southwestern, I need to be very aware of all of those components of our business and need to be naturally curious and attentive. Listening is the most important component of my role.