Dear CEO:

Next time you interview a marketing candidate, I suggest adding these questions:
  • What marketing books have you read lately? 
  • What marketing periodicals do you take?
  • Which publications are your favorites? Why?
  • Which publications would you recommend to be shredded and buried under a spot where nothing for human consumption is to be planted for at least seven years? Why?
It’s true that book learning isn’t everything. But it’s not nothing, either. A voracious consumer of marketing writing indicates someone who wants to grow and excel at the craft.

As an agency guy, I am surprised at the number of marketing decision makers I am doomed to work with who don’t know a damned thing about marketing. How did they get where they are? Maybe they write well (“PR and marketing are the same thing, right?”). Maybe they graduated with a B.S. in psych and a parent on the Board of Directors. Maybe they “just seemed to have a lot of good sense.” Such “reasons” are not unusual.

Thus I often find myself presenting a fully thought-out, proven strategy, only to have the marketing director fixate on the color of, say, a border. Wouldn’t a midnight blue be nicer?

We all start out in our careers underqualified. Heaven knows I did. At 25, I faked my way into the job of Marketing Communications Manager for a tri-state bank! But the difference is, I knew I was faking it. I was desperately afraid of being exposed.

So, rather than assume I knew it all because I had a PR degree and my card said “Marketing Director,” I devoured every marketing book I could find. I took Advertising Age, Adweek, DM News and others. I called on seasoned pros and picked their brains. I ran tests. I went to seminars. I developed a thirst for knowing how to do effective marketing. I wanted to be worth what I was getting paid. (Happily, in the process, I found out that real competence is more fulfilling than feigned competence.)

I still have that thirst. I still read every sound marketing book I can find. I still go to seminars. I still pick brains. I do these things even though I am the author of a marketing book myself, I write internationally published marketing articles, and I conduct my own marketing seminars.

So, back to your marketing candidate. Is this person someone who wants to continue growing—or who feels that, having attained a certain marketing je ne sais quoi, simply knows it all?
Warm regards,
Steve Cuno
 


Comments

Robert Rosenthal link
11/06/2009 17:20

You're so right, Steve. The best marketers are perennial students.

One problem: Once you're great, you're more likely to be frustrated by all the mediocrity out there.

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Mark DiMassimo link
12/02/2009 15:44

Once again, Steve, you are right on!

Mark DiMassimo

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