What personality trait should you look for when hiring for marketing?
Should the person be organized, creative, detail oriented? You could argue that all of those qualities are important.
But I believe the key personality trait of a great marketer is OPTIMISM - unfailing, unflagging optimism: the belief that just because something hasn’t worked before, it might work this time. Or the prospect who hasn’t responded to the last ten marketing touches, might just call today.
I can’t tell you how many times I have sat in meetings and had a conversation something like this:
“We could try this marketing tactic”
“We tried that before, it didn’t work”
“What do you mean it didn’t work?”
“We didn’t get any leads.”
“Ok, but did you get prospects to nurture; did you build awareness; did you learn something last time that we could change to make it successful this time?”
“It just didn’t work.”
A great marketer optimistically looks for the good in every campaign. Okay, so we didn’t get a bunch of new leads. But what did we get? What did we learn? What could be changed and what should stay the same?
You will have to fight tooth and nails with an optimistic marketer before they will delete a prospect from their database; some sales people give up after three attempts.
A marketer who I highly respect excitedly told me recently that a prospect she has nurtured for SIX years finally responded. She never gave up, and that was a sweet little victory!
Now I am not saying that marketers should be naïve. Some campaigns are outdated. Some prospects will never buy. And there is a point where you have to pull the plug. But great marketers don’t give up; they just keep pursuing their target market.
If you are hiring a marketing person, hire an optimist.
By Anya Ciecierski, Collaboration Works Marketing
Follow me on Twitter: @AnyaCWMktg