My first real job out of college, I had a manager who reviewed everything I did with a red pen — metaphorically, because it was 2007 and we used Track Changes — and handed it back without explanation. I’d look at the corrections and try to reverse-engineer what she’d wanted. Sometimes I figured it out. Mostly I guessed. I got faster at guessing, which is not the same thing as getting better.

What I needed wasn’t a manager. I needed someone to actually show me what good looked like.

I think about that a lot when I talk to business owners about their marketing coordinators.

Before you replace your marketing hire, bring in a new agency, or spend another quarter convinced the problem is the person — have a real conversation with them. Not a performance review. Not a “checking in” that’s actually a correction with a soft opening. A genuine conversation fueled by curiosity and an open mind.

What you learn will tell you a lot. About them, about your marketing, and — if we’re being honest — about whether anyone has actually shown them what good looks like.

Here are five conversations worth having. And why each one matters more than you might expect.

1. Good people leave when they stop growing… and replacing them costs between one half and 2x their annual salary.

Ask them: “What’s something you’ve learned in this role in the last 90 days?”

Then stop talking and wait.

An employee who is growing can usually answer that quickly and specifically. They’ll describe a skill they developed, a problem they figured out a new way to solve, something they understand now that they didn’t before. It might be small, but it’ll be real.

An employee who is stagnating pauses. They reach. They eventually land somewhere like “I’ve gotten a lot faster at scheduling content.” Which — fine. But that’s not growth. That’s just getting comfortable.

Here’s the thing about that pause: it’s not their fault. Stagnation isn’t a character flaw. It’s the absence of someone to learn from. Good people don’t leave because they’re unhappy — they leave because they stop feeling like they’re getting better, and eventually they go looking for somewhere that will give them that. You usually don’t see it coming until they’re handing in notice and you’re scrambling to write down everything they know before Friday. In fact, more than 20% of people cite issues with their direct manager, senior leadership or a lack of development as their reasons for leaving a job.

Replacing a marketing person runs somewhere between $25,000 and $100,000 when you factor in job postings, recruiter time, interview hours, onboarding, and the long ramp before a new person actually contributes anything. That’s before whatever institutional knowledge walked out with them.

Follow up with: “Where do you feel stuck?” and “If you could learn one thing right now, what would it be?”

Those answers tell you exactly where the gap is.

Plum’s take: We call this service team mentorship. But what we’re actually doing is stepping in as the senior marketer in the room — the department head they’ve never had. “Mentor” is the accessible version of the ask. The real version is: someone who sets a high bar, shows them what it looks like, and cares whether they actually get there. That person is worth more than a job posting.

2. Your coordinator is capable. They just desperately need guidance.

Ask them: “When you’re not sure how to approach something, what do you do?”

This is the question that cuts through everything.

What happens in the moment your coordinator faces a decision they don’t know how to make? Do they have a senior coworker to call? A framework to apply? A standard to measure against? Or do they Google it, ask someone in a Facebook group, make their best guess, and hope it lands?

For most marketing employees at growing businesses, it’s the third option. And that’s not a knock on them — it’s just the reality of what the role requires. They’re supposed to be executing someone else’s strategy. When no one is setting that strategy, they fill the gap with activity. Posts go out because posts should go out. Emails get sent because the calendar says it’s time. The work happens. It just isn’t really connected to anything.

There’s a meaningful difference between a coordinator who does what they’re told and one who understands why. The second version catches things earlier. Makes better decisions independently. Produces work that belongs to a strategy instead of a content calendar. The gap between those two versions isn’t talent — it’s whether anyone has been in the room showing them what good actually looks like. And having someone at work who supports their development is one of the highest rated reasons people stay at their job.

Follow up with: “Can you walk me through the thinking behind one of your recent projects?” and “How do you decide what to prioritize when you have a lot going on?”

You’re not testing them. You’re diagnosing. If the reasoning is murky and entirely task-based, you’re looking at a leadership gap — not a capability problem. Those are different things. One means you replace the person. The other means you replace the void around them.

Plum’s take: When we step into a team mentorship engagement, we’re not fixing the coordinator. We’re filling the space that should have been occupied by a great manager. Within a few months, most coordinators we work with start functioning differently — not because they changed, but because they finally have someone in the room who knows what good looks like. And who tells them, specifically, when they’ve hit it.

3. Your team executes faster when someone is setting direction, not just assigning tasks.

Ask them: “How clear do you feel on what the most important marketing priorities are this quarter?”

Not whether they know what’s on their to-do list. Whether they understand the priority order behind it — why this campaign matters more than that one right now, what they should drop if something urgent comes up, what winning this quarter actually looks like.

If they can answer that clearly and specifically, you have a coordinator with real strategic context. If they describe a list of tasks, or say something like “whatever comes through from the team,” they’re executing without direction. They might be executing a lot — but it’s motion, not momentum.

This creates friction that’s hard to see week to week. Revision cycles get longer because work misses an intent that was never actually communicated. Small decisions escalate to the business owner because there’s no one in the room with the authority to make a judgment call. You end up spending time on marketing approvals you were never supposed to be near.

Ask yourself honestly: how much of your week goes toward reviewing and correcting marketing work that should have been right the first time? That number is the cost of the gap.

Follow up with: “When something you’ve worked on gets sent back for revisions, what’s usually the reason?” and “If I wasn’t available to approve something, how confident would you feel making the call yourself?”

“Not very confident” isn’t an admission of incompetence. It’s an honest answer from someone who’s never been given the tools to feel otherwise. That’s fixable — and it’s a mentorship problem, not a talent problem.

Plum’s take: For EOS companies, this one hits differently. You’ve built a tight accountability structure everywhere except marketing. Team mentorship closes that gap — marketing gets its seat, the Integrator stops fielding every approval, and the Visionary finally has a strategic partner who isn’t them. Everyone in their lane. Marketing included.

4. Your coordinator grows into a real marketing asset, not a task-completer.

Ask them: “What does success look like for you in this role six months from now?”

This question is the most revealing.

A coordinator who has been given real context — strategy, direction, honest feedback — tends to answer in terms of outcomes. Skills they want to build. Results they want to own. Ways they want to show up differently. A coordinator who has been operating as a task-completer answers in terms of volume. More content. Faster turnaround. Cleaner project management.

Neither answer is wrong. But they point toward two very different versions of what this person could become.

The task-completer keeps things moving. They’re reliable and consistent. But they hit a ceiling — and you hit it with them. The asset version thinks in outcomes, catches problems before they’re crises, brings recommendations instead of waiting for direction, and can walk into a leadership meeting and explain — in business terms, not marketing terms — what their work contributed this quarter and why. Those aren’t the same person. The distance between them isn’t time or talent. It’s mentorship.

The word “mentor” is the soft entry point. The real thing is having the senior marketer they’ve never had — someone who has set a high bar, shown them what it looks like in practice, and held them to it consistently enough that it starts to become their own standard.

Follow up with: “Can you tell me what you were trying to accomplish with [specific recent project] — not just what you did, but why?” and “What’s a decision you’ve made recently that you felt really good about?”

The first shows you whether they’re thinking in goals or in tasks. The second shows you whether they’ve been given the space to develop real ownership. If they have to think hard to find a decision they felt good about, that’s worth sitting with.

Plum’s take: We’ve had coordinators come into mentorship who were doing genuinely good work and producing almost no measurable business impact. The capability was there the whole time. It just needed someone to draw it out — to set a standard high enough to be worth reaching for, and then actually help them get there.

5. You get better results from the same budget when the person doing the work understands why.

Ask them: “Do you know what metrics your work is being measured against?”

Not whether they know how to pull a report. Whether they know which numbers actually matter, why they matter, and how what they do on a Tuesday afternoon connects to them.

A coordinator who knows what they’re being measured against works differently. They write copy that serves a goal instead of filling a slot. They notice when an email list hasn’t been segmented and bring it up before it hurts deliverability. They flag a campaign that’s getting clicks but not conversions — and they know why that distinction matters. Every small decision they make along the way is grounded in something real.

A coordinator who doesn’t know what they’re being measured against optimizes for the appearance of activity. Not because they don’t care. Because nobody told them what winning looks like.

Here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about enough: the marketing budget isn’t just agencies and ad spend. A significant piece of it is the salary of the person executing your marketing. The return on that salary is almost entirely determined by how strategically that person is working. You don’t necessarily need more budget. You need the person spending it to understand what it’s for.

Follow up with: “If a campaign you ran underperformed, would you know why — and what you’d do differently?” and “What would you change about how we’re approaching marketing right now if you could?”

That last one is the most telling. A coordinator without a framework struggles to answer it. A coordinator with strategic context has a list. That list is worth hearing — not because they’re necessarily right, but because it shows you how they’re thinking. And if they’re not thinking strategically yet, it’s almost certainly because no one has created the conditions for it. That’s the whole point.

Plum’s take: The best version of team mentorship isn’t a service we deliver — it’s a function we fill. The senior marketer in the room. The department head they’ve never had. The person who makes the work mean something. Most coordinators have never had that. The difference it makes is bigger than you’d expect, and it shows up in the results faster than most business owners think is possible.

So what did you learn?

If you asked these questions and got clear, specific, strategy-grounded answers — you have a great hire who may just need more of what’s already working. Keep investing in them.

If you heard hesitation, task-based thinking, and no real framework underneath any of it — you’re not looking at the wrong hire. You’re looking at a capable person who’s been operating without a great manager. The gap between where they are and where they could be isn’t their fault. And it’s absolutely closeable.

That’s what team mentorship is for — not to replace your coordinator, but to give them the senior marketing leadership they’ve never had, so the investment you already made actually pays off.

We’re easy to reach. Let’s talk.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is marketing team mentorship? It’s a structured engagement where a senior marketing leader works directly with your internal coordinator or small team — not to replace them, but to develop them. Regular working sessions, strategic direction, real-time feedback on live work, and coaching on how to think about marketing as a business function rather than a task list. See our team mentorship page for how we structure it.

Is this really “mentorship” or something more than that? Honestly, both. “Mentor” is the accessible version of the ask — and it’s what the service is called. But what we’re actually doing is stepping in as the senior marketer in the room: the department head your coordinator has never had. Someone who sets the standard, shows them what it looks like, and holds them to it. It’s more than advice. It’s leadership.

How is this different from training? Training gives someone information. This gives them judgment. A course teaches a skill in isolation. Mentorship builds the ability to apply that skill in the context of your actual business, your actual goals, and the real decisions your team faces every week. Without that context, even good training doesn’t stick.

Who is this for? Businesses that already have a marketing coordinator or small internal team — capable people working hard without real senior leadership. If the work is happening but results aren’t connecting to business outcomes, team mentorship was built for you.

How does this work alongside a fractional CMO engagement? Naturally. Fractional CMO sets the strategy and owns the outcomes. Mentorship makes sure your internal team can execute on that strategy with skill and confidence. Strategy without a capable team stalls in execution. A capable team without strategy is effort without direction. Together, they’re how marketing finally runs like the rest of your business. What does success actually look like? You’ll know it’s working when your coordinator stops asking permission for every decision. When they show up to leadership meetings with something real to say. When you stop being the bottleneck for marketing calls that shouldn’t require your attention. It doesn’t happen overnight. But it happens faster than most business owners expect.

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