Marketing lessons from my time at one of the most innovative global brands

I spent 6 years at Tesla heading up the marketing team in Europe. Arguably the most fun time of my life, but also some of the most challenging and enriching. When I started at Tesla in 2014, Tesla's brand awareness was almost non-existent. By the time I left in December 2019, there were so many Tesla's in Amsterdam where I am based, that it became second nature to see one every few minutes. During that time, I learned a few things that I will take with me into the future.

• Trust in the process. Brand-building, marketing, and ultimately, sales, don't always happen in a week. It can take months, years or decades. Steady progress.

• Be consistent with your story. At Tesla we had a clear mission which all employees could rattle off. We were all marching towards the same beat.

• Stay true to your brand values through thick and thin. Don't compromise on your values, even in the tough times. We had a strict no-advertising policy at Tesla, and I would be lying if I said in the slower periods, we didn't all wish that we could craft up a sleek advertising plan and get our brand out the easy way. Now, looking back I am happy that we stayed the course and were creative in our approach.

• In the world of B2C, there are almost never "bad leads"; only potential customers. Every lead is valuable and has the potential to convert or to convert others. In our early days at Tesla, we had many brand ambassadors who never owned the product; some of them do now, as we added more affordable models. But they were the ones who knew so much about the car that they were doing some of the selling for us.

• From a geographic standpoint, spend the time to determine what's the right strategy for your markets; don't blindly follow the lead of other markets. In the early days of marketing in Europe, we tried following what the US HQ team was doing. But their market was at a different stage of maturity, so it was not really working. When we started to truly pay attention to the needs of each local market, we realized much greater success.

• Don't judge a book by its cover; you may miss out on a great story. In the early days, when we only sold premium luxury vehicles, staff would so often judge the potential of prospects based on one or two data points. That strategy so often ended up being the wrong approach. The very customer who we thought could not afford that car, would end up surprising us.

• Keep your existing customers happy. Their validation is worth more than any advertising dollar you will spend to try to accomplish the same result. Our biggest advocates were the early Tesla adopters. They not only sold new cars on our behalf to their friends and colleagues, but they also came out to support us at events and test drives, and even when we started to deliver Model 3. They were happy to alleviate the fears (ranging from questions of quality to range anxiety) of potential customers.

Not strictly marketing related, but one of the leadership principles I firmly believe in, is to give your employees the freedom to soar. When creativity is stifled, employees shut down; they become mute and ultimately they disengage. Invest in fostering an entrepreneurial spirit, and allow your team (within some boundaries) to play creatively in the sandbox.

These are just a few of the lessons I've learned during that time. If you'd like to hear more about my experiences, please feel free to get in touch. I love talking about my journey.