Building a team

Grant Leboff: So Thomas, one of the things that you talk about in the book is building a team, because obviously as a marketing leader, you can’t do it all on your own, you need to surround yourself with a great team. I think, certainly my experience, recruiting talent is not easy in today’s environment. So how would you advise a marketing leader to start to build what would be a really effective team?

Thomas Barta: So let me first of all agree with you, by the way, on the team part because as much as, in The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader, we talk about leadership there is still the doing of the marketing and you got to have the right team to do this. Now, one thing has fundamentally changed. There was a time when you as a marketing leader could know it all, you had all the skills, and everybody was learning from you and that is of course is very different. The other thing that has changed is what you need in, terms of skills is changing reasonably fast. All the time there are new skills. You can make this as complicated as you want, and that’s the problem by the way, that a lot of marketers are currently hitting.

Now I believe, and our research has shown that as a marketer, there are two very important principles when you want to recruit a team. The first one is you got to be very clear, at a very high level, what the right mix is of analytic creative skills that you really need and that requires you to be very clear about the big issue you’re tackling. What’s the big challenge we’re actually solving as a marketing, the big V zone, what customers want, the company want, that overlap, what is it actually?

This will not be 25 things. It’s 1 or 2 things. It’s getting higher revenue in certain countries, it is becoming a catagory here, it might be being faster to customers there. They’re very specific issues. You got to have that overview and the first principle is, as a marketing leader you’ve got to absolutely sure you have the right mix in your team. You’ve got to zoom out and have a look. Very few marketers take that very holistic perspective on their team, and that’s why we’re finding, for example, you know, pricing is a skill that’s very often missing in marketing teams and nobody talks about because nobody is zooming out and having a look. While social media sometimes is actually over-rated currently compared to, say, pricing or some other things that may have a really big business impact now.

The second principle is simplicity. You cannot recruit someone for 18 different criteria on some competency frameworks. It’s impossible to find that person. So, what are the 1 or 2 distinctive skills you’re looking in a leader, then you recruit for those skills and that’s important.

Grant Leboff: So lets say you do that. You get that right. You’ve zoomed out and you’ve decided the exact skills that you require. That would indicate to me that, unless you’ve got a huge resource and marketing department, that perhaps you can’t have it all. So then it brings us into outsourcing. Where, for you, would outsourcing fit and how does that fit within that whole marketing team and mix?

Thomas Barta: That’s a great question because outsourcing, you’re right, is a great way to bridge your skills gap and there are two strategies. The first one is, this skill is not important but we need it now and we may not need it in a year from now so we’re just filling a hole. Lets outsource it, give to someone who does it, done. The other strategy is, this skill we don’t have, it’s important, we want to have it in 5 years from now, in 2 years from now, in 1 year from now, but we don’t have it. Let’s outsource it but under the condition that through the outsourcing the skills will be brought into the company, so your people get trained to do this.

So outsourcing can either be getting rid of the work or it can be bringing a skill into the company and you’ve got to be very clear, for each single skill you outsource, which strategy you’re choosing.

Grant Leboff: And would you say there are any hints or tips that you would have for a marketing leader in terms of choosing their outsourcing partner or finding that ideal candidate. It’s the same thing really, it’s finding the ideal partner, whether that’s an employee within or whether… because I think one of the things is where do I start? You know, I’ve got my key skills that I need, either we going to outsource or are we going to bring it in house, but how do I locate that talent? Where do I start? What’s the best way to approach it?

Thomas Barta: I believe there are two important aspects to think about. The first one is you want someone who has proven experience in the space, and proven is different from what they’re telling you, but you want to see evidence of the success they had in the past.

The second thing is, you’ve got to get on well with those people, because if you outsource, this is a working relationship. So I would equally weight the personal factor and pick someone who is good but you can work with as well.

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