While there are a lot of people with marketing qualifications, it is a matter of finding the right person for your business. Personal qualities such as passion and good commercial sense are among the attributes you should look for.
When the time comes for a small to medium-sized organization to appoint a marketing specialist, many managers and business owners are not sure about the type of person to look for, the skill set, the level of marketing experience nor the measurable objectives they should set.
The salaries for top-flight marketing managers invariably seem high when you run a small company. In addition, there is the worry about selecting the right person with the right cultural fit.
And in the marketplace today, judging by the large number of applicants that go for every advertised position, there seems to be a scarcity of marketing people who have worthwhile credentials and concrete marketing achievements.
Meantime, there is no shortage of marketing courses with institutes and universities everywhere delivering quality diplomas and degrees to an apparently ever-expanding number of students.
So what does the business owner look for?
Apart from commercial sense and business acumen that you would like to think every manager would possess, there is such a thing as a “marketing personality” and there are personal attributes to look out for in candidates.
True marketing executives intensely observe the marketplace around them and constantly recognize opportunities for brands to grab an advantage. They are forever on the alert for any points of competitive difference. It is a sort of sixth sense that is part of their competitive make-up.
Such thought processes are not necessarily observable at a single interview but they are always there inside any individual with a flair for marketing.
In addition to such a mental approach, outstanding marketing people will have the abilities and personal attributes mentioned below:
A genuine interest in human behavior. After all, that’s where marketing starts, with the audience. A smart marketer will love people and be a keen observer of people of all ages and life stages.
The confidence to trust personal intuition. There always comes a point where innovative marketers have to go with their judgment. Without the confidence to do this, they will be bogged down in analysis to the point of paralysis.
A willingness to challenge their own thinking and to be challenged by new evidence of changes in marketplace thinking. The marketplace is a dynamic entity and marketers who are not alert to the constant change are the ones who continue to run campaigns long after they have outlived their usefulness.
Perception. There is no shortage of marketing information and data of all kinds today. Marketing managers have to be able to not only ask for the right research in the first place but they must have the ability and the perception to extract the relevant conclusions that can lead to action.
The discipline to remain focused on the real issues that can make a measurable difference to their major objectives. It is easy for marketing managers to be distracted by the many fads or “quick fixes” that pass by from “customer focus” to “relationship marketing”. Such prescriptions invariably have some underlying value to offer but none will be the all-embracing “answer” that they so often purport to be.
Sustained enthusiasm for success and for fresh and innovative ways to improve performance. Personal enthusiasm is almost always observable. Marketing people have an enthusiasm for life, for people and for the challenges that they accept. Only people who can sustain enthusiasm will have the ability to carry a team with them over an extended period of time for ultimate marketing success.
A well-developed commercial sense with the financial understanding that enables them to manage marketing investments as well as marketing expenditure.Over the years it has probably been marketing people with little or no financial skills who have done more harm to the credibility of marketing than any other group.
Above all, effective marketing people have passion. A passion for marketing, a passion for life and a passion for successful results. Without such passion, your new marketing team member may become nothing more than an overpaid administrator and your competitors will happily sail away into the sunset leaving you to wonder what went wrong.
Copyright 2002, RAN ONE Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from www.ranone.com.
Chris’ combination of academic credentials, career experience and temperament ideally suit his calling as a business development advisor. Clients say he has a mind for business and a heart for service.