Instead of hiring marketing superstars think about hiring those that'll complement the team as a whole and are ready to learn new skills.
Is it ok to say that I don’t believe in superb employees? It’s not that I don’t think individual thinkers, doers, and creators are inherently undistinguished, but I believe that to truly create something special you need a superb team of people. Yes, a handful of people who know how to complement each other. Like anyone who’s ever worked with marketing I’ve come to realize that there there’s just too much to know. Inbound, outbound, organic, paid, affiliate, influencer, PR, keyword research, backlinks, top-funnel, conversions, newsletters, CRM. No, no, no, it’s way too much for one person to understand or manage. Then you’ve got to sync up all those specialties with copywriters, graphic designers, UX designers, art directors, videographers, producers, illustrators. Forgive me if I’ve forgotten someone—but all of this leads me to explain my first sentence.
In marketing, there are no superb employees, there are only superb teams. Marketing as it is today, in its very nature is collaborative. A mix’n’match between science and art. Long gone are the days where writers put something together in the local newspaper hoping it got enough attention to stir some late-1800s buzz.
That’s the real beauty of marketing. It’s the beauty of the collective.
So why am I writing about this anyway? The truth is that I don’t love the way marketers sell themselves or get recruited. It is in a marketeer’s training to know how to talk about a certain product or service, even if that happens to be themselves. They sell their expertise, list their USPs, get testimonials, sprinkle some attractive keywords in their portfolio, and convince any client or “customer” that they’re the right solution for you.
We take exactly what we’ve learned how to do at work and we replicate it to our own benefit. But here’s the thing, as simple, individual human beings we are not as ingenious as the products and services we build and sell. I’m sorry, but we’re simply not. We’re embarrassingly average—that is, until we find the right people to surround ourselves with. Those who stimulate our creativity and push us to keep working on our craft day in and day out, especially after long days and failed attempts. That’s the real beauty of marketing. It’s the beauty of the collective.
So that’s what I would tell future employees and marketing team leads. In a world where every marketing hack in the book has been crawled by Google, or has been branded into an unmissable podcast episode, what’s most important is not the mystique of the art director, the copywriter, the growth hacker, but the ability to be resourceful and learn new skills on the go while having synergy with the rest of the team.