Episode Six: (English) Agile Marketing Around the Globe Italy with Deborah Ghisolfi

Podcast Transcript of Interview with Deborah Ghisolfi on Agile Marketing in Italy

00:00:08 John Cass 

Welcome to the deep dive into Agile Marketing podcast with John Cass. I'm your host John Cass here in Boston, MA. Today I'll be interviewing Deborah Ghisolfi, and is a marketing coach at Agile Marketing Italia, today's podcast is a little different from my brand podcast. Instead of interviewing Deborah about her work as a marketer and using agile, the focus is on the state of agile marketing in Italy. Welcome, Deborah. Thanks for joining us. 

00:00:40 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Hi John. Happy to meet you and to help you to stride the other marketing cultures all over the world, I'm really happy. 

00:00:51 John Cass 

Great. Well, thank you and thanks for joining us. So in preparing for this call, we talked a little bit about your journey to using agile marketing. While the focus is on Italy, I think we should start with how you got started with agile and marketing and what you do in agile marketing today. 

00:01:12 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Well, here in Italy, the other marketing culture is a little bit different. Instead of for example, USA or Boston MA, where you are because when I start talking about agility in marketing, marketer says, well, these things can this way of working and these mice and mice and can't work for us because it's developed for software system engineering IT and I said, Are you sure? Remember that I am an ex IT manager, so I start to talking about agile and to develop my mindset in in an agile way. More or less 10 years ago, when I work in information technology companies, so when my path into business agility and my path to agile marketing was very, very appreciate. And stricter first of all, into the mindset and leadership style. 

After that I decided to spread the culture and I did it in a IT company. We start to spread the German marketing first of all in the customer care team and after that in the marketing team because we discovered that when the IT team create the infrastructure, create the software, digital products or product, yeah. The problem is that marketing is not allowed. For example, marketing team is not able to create initiative that spread the real purpose of the product or the benefit in using this. So in you need to be the agile marketing mindset is rolling. May I say that rolling? It it's correct if I use this word. 

00:03:50 John Cass 

Yes, yeah, growing definitely. 

00:03:53 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Is growing and we we are going to learn a lot. I want to be honest with you John. From the marketing point of view, I'm going to learn a lot in which way is I can help small company or big company, it doesn't matter, to manage and to understand the agile marketing mindset or the agile mindset at all. And this is the situation here in Italy. 

00:04:34 John Cass 

Great. So tell me a little bit about the business culture and structure of business, you know, especially around marketing in Italy and how that impacts how open marketers and businesses are to the agile approach. 

00:04:52 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Ohh OK. Here in Italy you can find different way of working. Because we are a peninsula and from the geographical point of view here in Italy, you can find huge differences between the northern part of Italy and the center and the South. Because the climate is different, products are different. Culture, business culture is different is different. For example, in the northern part of the Italy, you can see huge city. Like Milan, Turin, Venice. 

00:05:37 Deborah Ghisolfi  

In this city, you can find a lot of culture and you can find the digital business or entrepreneur that talk with other entrepreneur and there is a multi cultural aspect in this huge. So the business culture is open or I like to say more open than in the center part or in the southeast part of Italy. And.In the south this is the first the 1st. The first thing that I want to share with you, our business culture is also very, very. How can I say when? The the culture, the the business culture depends on the country where you live, for example. 

00:06:46 Deborah Ghisolfi  

If you live in a specific region, for example in the center of Italy, you can find business they talk about leather. Retail luxury inflation and so on. If you think about the northern part of Italy, you can say business. You can see business and talk about digital. They talk about energy bank, insurance and so on in the southern part of Italy, you can find a lot of business that talk about tourism, leisure. 

00:07:39 Deborah Ghisolfi  

So, and these businesses very are very different, not only for this sector, but only for, but also for the culture, because you can find very, very small, very, very small come money with an excellent level of customer satisfaction, for example, or customer loyalty in in the South. But they are small. Sometimes they are company made-up of key for employee. 

00:08:23 Deborah Ghisolfi  

And also the entrepreneur is a part of the and employee and she work with the with the, with the with all the people. 

00:08:36 Deborah Ghisolfi  

In the northern part of the Italy, the culture is different because there are big cities and there are also contamination with other culture and you can find those in the northern part of the Italy. Multi and very big company and multi multinational company that work with the other. Small company that I like to say system integrator or integrator engine. 

00:09:13 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Yeah. So as you can see, you can find a very, very small company, 2, three person and huge company and the culture is really different because in a small company you can see the the person that work with you, you can see your employee you can see your people every day and you know if something goes wrong, not only from the working work life point of view but I like to say from the life point of view. 

00:09:51 Deborah Ghisolfi  

In the northern part of the Italy, this is not really, but wait. I don't want to say that it's not true, but you can find the electrical company or you can find the seal also in in in this company especially in manufacturing. 

00:10:14 Deborah Ghisolfi  

But there are there are the pros and cons when you are too small, you can scale and if you are too big and develop in in silos, you can pay attention in the right way to your people sometimes. Happened so seriously. You can find a lot of different things. 

00:10:42 John Cass 

Great. So what is your assessment of the level of adoption of agile marketing by companies? I think we had talked a little bit about this before, you know some industries might be digital and luxury that you'd looked at. But you know what, what's the level of adoption in the different industries that are out there? Do you have a an overview? 

00:11:02 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Well, I I want to be to be honest with you and. 

00:11:09 Deborah Ghisolfi  

In the digital marketing in general, adoption is more or less five 6% of the entire of the entire company here in Italy, but from the into the luxury and fashion design, I discovered that they are the the the best, the best agile marketers that I ever I ever seen and I ever worked for because they in in luxury environment here, here, in, in. I work with company that produce customer goods, leather bag, shoes and so on. So they start from the lean production and they start from the mentality of excellence. No. And this is this is OK I say. 

00:12:23 Deborah Ghisolfi  

The the the, the the link culture. OK they they start with the link culture and then they transform the the other team for example the team that create the the design the the team that create the the the the prototype of the leather boots are very, very focused on in which way we can create an MVP of our dress for exam. 

00:12:54 Deborah Ghisolfi  

In which way we can review and in which way we can communicate. Here in Italy we have two events the the Fashion Week events and the to prepare the Fashion Week events in in the luxury environment. People, especially marketing and production, works for 6-7 months and they think with the mentality of OK we are in 2002. Two, but they are going to work for 2023 for winter and 2024, spring, summer. So they are capable to understand in which way you can start to work step by step. Keep in mind. Your vision mission focus because there's a huge event like the Fashion Week. So this is the reason why. From the five 6% of the entire population. Here in Italy. From my point of view and from according with the survey, that agent marketing Italian did in Italy, the digital and the sorry the the luxury and fashion company are in the right way here in. 

00:14:21 John Cass 

Deborah, that's excellent. So can you tell me about some of the companies who've adopted agile marketing in Italy? 

00:14:31 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Well, I as you as you mentioned, I work in with the a digital company or fashion and luxury and from the digital company in General I can mention for example, growers, growers.Is a huge group of companies and they created digital digital product for marketing automation to create conversation with your customer leads and prospects. And I work with them. I start in the IT in the IT team. And then we in this in this company, I start to introduce agility also in team outside the IT in customer care and then in the marketing and now I know that in grow W there's and very, very good people and culture manager that that, that I can say in in English. I'm sorry. Sometimes I can that I can find the words. Sorry, John and sorry, sorry to all the people that is going to listen, but Erica Erica is a very good girl. Focus on people and culture and growers and. 

00:15:57 John Cass 

Oh no. 

00:16:10 Deborah Ghisolfi  

From the in the digital in the digital marketing sector, they are they are very, very focused on on agile culture in a digital and local environment I work with a partner and with this partner, we work there with the daughter. Daughter is is a very, very huge company. It's a group of trains and they work in agile from the digital marketing to the production or prototyping, so the entire way of working from they they start from from scratch to create the the product and then we we work also in the in the marketing and in digital marketing with the digital marketing team. 

00:17:20 John Cass 

Great. Well, so how are companies deploying agile in Italy? What different types of adoption have you seen you? I think you previously mentioned Kanban. 

00:17:41 Deborah Ghisolfi  

I said no, we are we are creative. But when I when I start to to work with this kind of company, I usually start in Kanban. For example in in talks they work, they work in Japan. 

00:17:57 Deborah Ghisolfi  

And I love Kanban because. Not because of the framework itself, but because I love the idea that Kanban is wonderful mirror for us, because every day can combine if you. If you use combine as a as a mirror, combine every day can say to the team A. Are you going to say the right things in order to create value for your customer? And every day using combine the weight limit the Finland for replenishment meeting can help people to understand that agile is also for the marketing team is really, really the important to create and spread to create value for the custom create value for the customer means for example in a in a luxury company, create a conversation. Created this sense of engagement to create. I can see your sort of partnership with your customer in a luxury environment. 

00:19:25 Deborah Ghisolfi  

You can see people that want to want to be the around the around the the. It's not only with cake, it's something different and this is the reason why I start this, to to, to work with them in in Kampala. Another feature is for example, another experience I had in in a digital product. For example, because sometimes happen that digital the the, the IT the software development team or the partner in the system integrator works in SCOM so. 

00:20:11 Deborah Ghisolfi  

When, when? When I find this this ground, I prefer to help the marketing team working is in strong because in in one in one experience I had in my opinion one of the best experience I had in the marketing team, we decided to create a really future team made-up of developers marketing. 

00:20:44 Deborah Ghisolfi  

And salesperson. In this way. The marketing knows because the product owner is the same with the that the marketing product owner, the sales product owner and the the software developer product owner. But we have one product owner that help the three-point of view working together. In order to create feature redefined feature better create and will be create marketing initiative and the marketing selling it. This is the best adoption of the agile marketing mindset and framework that I had here in Italy. 

00:21:34 John Cass 

Great, Deborah. So in Italy, what organizations are supporting our job marketing, other podcasts, websites, organizations? 

00:21:45 Deborah Ghisolfi  

To be honest, I found as I'm acting Italia because OK there are very big Company 5 big company about consultancy that promote the business agility but not with the real focus on agility in marketing. 

00:22:10 Deborah Ghisolfi  

So I decided to create a community of practice about agility in marketing and this is the reason why here in Italy you can find a lot of articles that talk about agility, business agility, agile mindset, but only by company is really, really vertical is really narrow about or talk about agility in marketing and this is the reason why I created the first community that talked about agility marketing here in Italy, a community of practice because people can talk about their problems. 

00:23:02 Deborah Ghisolfi  

We can find not solution, but we can spread the culture, the values and the principle all together. Every month we have a meet up. I create the meet up the only Italian meet up that talk about agility in marketing and every month. With the ask Me anything format or the Fish Bowl format we can create and spread the culture around the the organization. 

00:23:37 John Cass 

That's excellent. What's the state of training for agile marketing in Italy? 

00:23:46 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Well, what about the training? 

00:23:49 Deborah Ghisolfi  

It's curious because I'm the only Italian certified trainer at this your job and this is really curious because. Sometimes I say OK, but why only one Italian? I don't have the answer. I want to be honest with you, John. I don't have the answer and the state of training is that here in Italy you can find only only by courses that sometimes with the easy agile and the the business Agility Institute I review, we start to we start to review and to and to and to manage. Probably because the spread the culture is not inside the marketing team. For example, I want to share with you these photos when I start working in agility marketing. So when I start working with the marketing team I see, OK, but I don't want to work and I created the bio personas. OK, I say OK, but probably I can't work with digital agency because in my mind, the digital agency are agile to put so, and I say OK, this is not my buyer personas. Well John, I want to be honest with you here in Italy, the digital agency are not agile.They work with the like they work with the Trello. They work with Asana, but they use the tools. 

00:25:42 Deborah Ghisolfi  

But they don't know the mindset. So the problem is that the tool is a great tool. If you understand in which way you can use it. Also like a mirror, like a command in order to understand in which way during the retrospective you can create an action plan to reflect. And to create the the the growth mindset, your growth mind. And so this is the reason why here in Italy, the training is not so. I can say that people at the moment at the moment, because we we we we spend a lot of energy to to create this kind of culture in in marketing, but the training and for example in one here I can certified more or less 50 people. 

00:26:41 Deborah Ghisolfi  

50 people, yeah. 

00:26:44 John Cass 

Great. So how are C-Suite leaders reacting to the adoption of our job marketing? You know, is there more transparency in communication between the marketing department and those C-Suite leaders? 

00:26:59 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Well, C-suite leaders. 

00:27:04 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Here in Italy, C-suite leader from my point of view, obviously, but when I work with the with the team and talk with the with the C level, I understand that. We are in a specific historical moment here in Italy because we had as I, as I said, we had a lot of very, very small company and the child of the entrepreneur. 

00:27:52 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Sometimes work in in other country they work. For example, in Germany they work in Spain and so on and then they come back in Italy with new idea, new mindset, new culture. 

00:28:11 Deborah Ghisolfi  

And in this historical moment here in Italy, the new entry person are going to take the take the seat of the Father, Grandfather, mother and so on. So now in, in, in money in in many organization. 

00:28:36 Deborah Ghisolfi  

There are, I can see some problem of generation changes. This is the first problem and the second problem and is that see leaders reactor in a positive way. 

00:28:56 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Using the now. But in the behavior they they behavior in in in a very very. I'm gonna say within all the mindset they they are not open to the change to the real change they say, OK, it's a great idea working in a child. I can support you, but for example, when the Chief Marketing Officer or the team leader. 

00:29:29 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Or the digital head of digital head of grow, come to the to the door of the sweet leader, this sweet leader say. 

00:29:38 Deborah Ghisolfi  

OK, but you can find the solution I they are not supportive. For example, they are not accuracy engage they they are not able to. The two two I can say when when there are friction in friction in in during the meeting and so on. And they're not to create ecological safety environment. But by culture, because we work, we we work there in. In a culture where the error is not a process to grow like the, I love the the the video. The video where the the growth mindset that I don't don't remember the group my city in. 

00:30:47 Deborah Ghisolfi  

They cannot work exactly. I love the Carol Black video video when where they she described the developing how to develop a growth mindset. But here in Italy it's very, very hard. So the sea level sweeper say OK, I love agile, but in they be in their behavior are very, very close to to their message that they want to cultivate the power of the sea level wage. 

00:31:22 John Cass 

Great. Great. So what are the big problems with the marketing profession in Italy? You know, martech adoption resources, enough focus on customer insights and building customer journeys. You know there are some ideas, but how would you describe the issues in the profession today and and how that impacts on agile? 

00:31:43 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Well, from my point of view, John, the big problem with the marketing profession in Italy is listen. So. I can see a lot of company. I saw a lot of company that, but we are excellent in doing this is our product and this is the best product we can put on the market. So this product kits for our customers and that's it. They don't listen and they don't are able to ask question to the customer leads and the and prospect active listening here in Italy from my point of view is we need to we need to do, we need to do it better, OK, because for example, from the framework point of view, when I work with the marketing team. 

00:32:52 Deborah Ghisolfi  

I see the customer journey NECTA, buyer personas, and poking NEPA, we do a lot of work with workshop in order to empathize with the the buyer personas with the customer and so on. But when I say hey, but why don't we create or why don't we ask to our customer to Co create a product with us to Co create an event with us, the chief marketing marketing officer say. You are mad. We can create this with our customer because we know exactly what our customer needs. 

00:33:37 Deborah Ghisolfi  

And this is not true. This is not true because I remember when I I'm an early adopter and I remember the first release of Spotify, for example, and in the first release there were, there were a lot of bugs. I sometimes happened that I do want the I can say I precious and then the music stops after few minutes and so on. But sometimes they listen. They are going to they talk with the customer using the survey and it's culture it's culture because sometimes I can get the Italian customer, but it's happened also when I start to create the A conversation with my customer I have a very open customer and very close customer. So I understand what the fear of the chief marketing officer or the fear of the marketing team. But what I want to say to my Italian six with the sweet level is please start to listen to our customer lead and prospect especially leads. 

00:35:10 John Cass 

Great. Thank you, Deborah. So digital transformation, many companies are focused on this sort of project, you know an agile is part of getting there. You know, can marketers use wider digital transformation as part of the process of adoption? What have you seen in in Italy? 

00:35:29 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Talking about digital transformation here in Italy, I hope that also the Government can help us during this this path in order to help the every industry to adopt the the digital, the digital and digital products and to and I believe that our government also help us to spread the digital culture and many companies are focused on this project here in Italy and but they are a little bit confused because they confused the digital transformation adoption to cure with the the digital transformation you like using the. 

00:36:30 Deborah Ghisolfi  

When did the when when we start to or when I talk about the digital transformation, I work with the for example with the very big and famous association here in Italy that talk about digital transformation Austin Intel, right. This is the name of the of the association and I work with the the technological focus point here here in my country the university also economical and economics and engineer University. But when they talk about digital transformation, they start talking about, OK, you can use this program or this software to create a digital process. You can use a digital marketing automation to create a conversation with your customer, you can use and so on. 

00:37:38 Deborah Ghisolfi  

They talk about products, they talk about software, but they talk, not they talk not in the right way about culture, because what does it mean from my point of view, digital transformation, digital transformation also means culture. 

00:38:00 Deborah Ghisolfi  

In which way I can use this software to produce value for my company or in which way I can promote to use this new process and in which way I can ask to my C level. 

00:38:04 

So. 

00:38:20 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Uh. 

00:38:20 Deborah Ghisolfi  

00:38:21 Deborah Ghisolfi  

To develop a new product or a new software in order to help us to create a new digital processor that can help us to reduce for example. 

00:38:36 Deborah Ghisolfi  

The total cost of ownership or to reduce the timing to manage? 

00:38:43 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Things. So we are at the moment we are really focused on digital transformation means for here in Italy in which way we can create the software that help the company to do something and we are a little bit late. In order to create the growth mindset, to spread the digital transformation and to treat people that can use digital products like alpha and so on in the right way. 

00:39:20 John Cass 

Great, Deborah. So what do you think is the future for agile marketing in Italy? 

00:39:27 Deborah Ghisolfi  

There are a lot of things to do. 

00:39:31 Deborah Ghisolfi  

And but I have a lot of enthusiasm in agile marketing here in Italy, because I can see in in the last two here, because of the pandemic, I can see Team marketing team, sales team HR team working together. And they grow. They grow not only from the business point of view. So for example, they not go only in marketing sector or incoming, they grow like a person. They start to create a multifunctional team. They start to create team that work together. 

00:40:30 Deborah Ghisolfi  

And the focus is the councillor, first of all, but the focus is also the team and every week they can, they say, but in which OK we start to create this marketing initiative but in which way we can help our selling people in which way we can start helping our I can say software development. 

00:41:01 John Cass 

And from my point of view the future is a a huge a big future and a wonderful future because we need it. It's only the probably we can start to talk more and more. Meet ups are not sufficient, probably cause podcast can help us to to spread this culture, but I think also the case study because next month, the first book, agility marketing in Italian focus also on digital transformation. 

00:41:45 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Is will be. 

00:41:48 

You. 

00:41:49 Deborah Ghisolfi  

You can find it and probably also the duker can help me and my friends. And because for me my, my community is made-up of friends, OK can help us to, to, to talk a lot about the agility market. But from my point of view, the future for agile marketing in Italy is a is a wonderful future. 

00:42:20 John Cass 

Well, Deborah, thank you so much for joining us today. I really, really appreciated all of the insights about how agile marketing is growing in Italy. Thank you so much. 

00:42:32 Deborah Ghisolfi  

Thank you too, and thank you for all the people that want to help me to spread the culture here in Italy. We need, we have a lot of things to do and I need a lot of people that talk about agility in marketing also in Italy. 

00:42:51 John Cass 

Thanks for joining us on the deep dive into agile marketing with John Cass. My thanks to Deborah and we'll see you next time.