When Hiring Marketers Choose Athletes Over Experts

I asked Patrick Morrissey, "What are some of the keys you find to building really high performance marketing teams that can deliver results?" 

He said... "It's an interesting question because I think everybody comes to the notion of team a little bit differently. But I would say, particularly in marketing that, marketing is fundamentally a team sport. And not just on your team, but the extension of marketing into sales. So, there's a few different things I would call out in terms of focus on teams that I have found to be successful over time." 

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"One is as a general rule when you're trying to put together a team, I would have a strong bias for athletes versus experts. Because, the pace of change across every business and across every market is so quick now, that there are a lot of people who may be an expert in a particular sub-discipline, who can't transfer those skills and can't help other members of the team. So one, I'd look for athletes not experts and people who can really work to solve the problem." 

"The second thing, when you're thinking about marketing is really having an understanding and a focus on learning to try to understand the customer in the market. And a lot of that comes out of my heritage in product marketing, but also I think there's a lot of bias that people, particularly on the sales sides of this discussion have, that marketing does a lot of hand waving, doesn't really actually understand what's going on. And so you need people across the entirety of the team to really be focused on, not just the mission of the company and trying to produce a result, but really understanding the customer in the market."

"And then the third thing I would say... specifically that helps inform teams, is look for people who have sales DNA. Because more often than not, the ... Having lived the life of somebody in sales and you had a great example, Elissa Fink was on with you a couple weeks ago from Tableau. She is a great example that proves the pieces in my mind, which is people who started early in their career or who have had experience in selling, have a lot more empathy for the realities of what it takes to generate an opportunity to get a deal done. But, also what results look like as measured by revenue, and I think all those things are important."

Listen in to hear more!

More from Patrick:   I am a growth-driven marketing, sales and business development executive in high technology focused on building high performing teams, building lasting relationships and delivering results. I am also an advisor to innovative start up companies. I run marketing, alliances and channels at Altify. We focus on making the lives of sales people better by delivering great software that help strategic sellers win the deals that matter.

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