MarketPro, a WBENC certified business, opens office in Philadelphia to serve customers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.

We are excited to add this location to our current offices in Atlanta and Detroit.

MarketPro – Philadelphia

12^th Floor- East Tower

1500 Market Street,

Philadelphia, PA 19102

About MarketPro:

MarketPro is the leading marketing staffing and marketing recruitment firm in the USA.  Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally.  Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers.  MarketPro places talent all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry

Effective marketing is one of the most vital components to getting a startup off the ground. The problem, however, is that most venture-based startups don’t really have the capital to put a seasoned marketing executive in place. Instead, Venture Capitalist-backed startups typically bring in someone with often significantly less experience – and more fiscally palatable salary demands, of course – and throw them directly into the fire.

More often than not,  junior-level professionals simply  can’t develop the   marketing strategy needed for a significant start-up to be successful.   The practical ideas they generate are often very good, but less effective without the benefit of an senior-level perspective for the marketing direction of the company.

So how does a start-up get past these hurdles? Outsourcing the work to agencies or an independent consultant are often more costly than hiring a full-time executive. A much better option is to bring in someone on an interim basis, typically six to nine months, to work with the company’s chief officers in drafting a comprehensive marketing strategy. You get the benefit of having an experienced professional on your team at a crucial time in the company’s development without having to swallow the steep salary that an individual of that caliber would demand over the long haul.

It’s the same general principle as bringing in an experienced software architect at the beginning to help design the entire system. Once everything is in place, you have the flexibility to bring in lower-level employees to implement the ideas. Software development companies don’t have to pay coders anywhere near what they would have to shell out to keep a high-level software architect on the payroll. Marketing is no different. The junior-level employees have an important role to fill, but they are much more valuable to a startup because of their ability to put a plan into action.

About MarketPro:

MarketPro is the leading interim marketing executive and marketing executive search firm in the USA.  Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally.  Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers.  MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.

Marketing Sherpa recently conducted a survey of 1700 BtoB marketers to discover their specific blocks to success. What was their number one obstacle?  62% of all marketers surveyed identify lack of resources in staffing, budgeting or time as the greatest barrier to their marketing success.

The historical solution to that age-old problem was to hire a consultant. But put the word “consultant” at the end of anything, and it quickly gets expensive. Yet on-demand marketing expertise is exactly what Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies need in order to set the pace in today’s ever-changing marketplace. How do the successful ones do it with today’s restricted budgets?  They do it on their own terms – with Interim Marketing Executives.

Companies outsource manufacturing and tech support to work faster, better, cheaper. Finance departments have used interim executives for years. Entire R&D efforts are purchased as companies identify new markets. Ad hoc marketing expertise is  now essential is all competitive business models – Interim Marketing Executives are moving in for brief periods of time, and getting results for  smart companies.

An Interim Marketing Executive is a highly skilled, independent mid- to executive-level professional, hired as needed to quickly integrate into a company and perform a specific task, project, or transition. They are especially effective when a new and impartial perspective is desired, marketing strategy is to be developed or revamped, or when a specific skill set is needed only for  a few months, or years.

In light of this creative solution, smart companies have found a way to take advantage of new, competitive landscapes they would not have been able to in years past.

For example, MarketPro, a national placement firm, helped a multi-billion dollar publicly-held company accomplish just this task. By hiring just one of MarketPro’s Interim Marketing Executives, they were able to launch one of its most successful brands in China. Directly following the strategic development and launch of the brand, MarketPro’s Interim Marketing Executive quickly and seamlessly transferred this strategy and knowledge to the existing staff. The value of the Interim Executive’s service to the long-term business sustainability is unquantifiable in its magnitude.

A nimble workforce has been the goal for a decade. All decision makers have visions of highly qualified personnel switching gears on a moment’s notice and redirecting efforts to new projects seamlessly. What is just now being understood, however, is that these changes need to happen from the top down, and realistically, the best way to achieve this level of flexibility is with interim partners, perfectly paired to a businesses’ needs, and with an unrivaled depth of expertise.

Interim Marketing Executives are the way for businesses  to get the talent they need when they need it, and at a price far more competitive than consulting firms. Free of internal politics, Interim Marketing Executives are utilizing their proven abilities to take savvy companies to the forefront of a new competitive edge.

About MarketPro:

MarketPro is the leading interim marketing executive and marketing executive search firm in the USA.  Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally.  Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers.  MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.

By Bob Van Rossum

Calling it win-win makes this a cliché and while I hate using cliché’s, unfortunately this is the best description.  Too often in the process, both sides get too focused on themselves and as a result too rigid.  A great deal for company and candidate can easily fall apart by focusing on things that are of little importance. 

If the hiring company gives a little is that better than going to the candidate who is second best?

If the candidate gives a little is that better than staying in a job that has no opportunities for career advancement?

Candidate

For the candidate it is important to remember that you only want to negotiate “go” or “no go” items.  Too often candidates confuse questions with negotiation points.  For example, healthcare is not a negotiable item, so you only need that information to help you make a great decision.  Ask for benefits related information in a separate conversation from you salary negotiation.  Keep the salary negotiation focused and simple. 

Company

Take a second to realize that while this is just business for you, it is very personal for the candidate.  You are working to fit the best candidate into you salary range and have internal equity, the candidate really wants to feed their kids.

By Bob Van Rossum

Great article in AdAge on how a CMO can benefit from having a Chief Marketing Technologist.  I agree with the author that now is the time to invest is such a role, it is actually the perfect use for an Interim Marketing Executive.  This allows the CMO the opportunity to utilize an outsider’s expertise to further develop the role for the maximum long-term organizational benefit.

Interim Marketing Executives are a growing trend allowing CMO’s the opportunity to navigate the changing landscape without the expense of a consulting firm.

By Bob Van Rossum

For longer than I have been in the business, candidates have tried to adjust momentum in their favor by creating deadlines for the company doing the hiring.  This is done by making up another offer and telling the recruiter you have an offer when in reality you do not.

Ultimately I have rarely seen this work out well for the candidate and most of the time it backfires.  Companies have a hiring process that they go through because it has proven successful for them in the past.  Asking them to shorten (disrupt) this process makes them uneasy, there is no good reason to do this unless it is absolutely necessary.

After the deadline has passed, it is amazing how often this other offer did not materialize and they are still interested in my client.  Unfortunately the candidate with the faux offer has now lost tremendous credibility.

What we recommend is transparency.  If you really have a competing offer, or are expecting one, share everything you know about it with the recruiter.  Then we can manage our client accordingly and if you are truly very talented it is likely we can get them to make a decision more quickly than they wanted to.  However there is risk they will not adjust the timing of the deal, risk you have no reason to absorb if you are not forced to do so.

By Bob Van Rossum

A recent article on www.cnn.com, entitled “Say goodbye to full-time jobs with benefits“, discusses the trend we are seeing towards an interim workplace.  Employers are looking to simply get work done, not necessarily add to headcount.  The article does a good job of describing the trend and why it exists.  Ultimately it understates how high up the corporate ladder this change is taking place and for how long the change will occur.

The fastest growing part of our business is our interim marketing executives.  Not necessarily the Chief Marketing Officer, but every position reporting to the CMO is now open for a discussion on whether it needs to be a permanent headcount or whether the needs of the corporation are better served by an interim professional.

Historically our contract staffing business has been more tactical (junior level) professionals and our executive search group handled placing marketing executives directly into corporations.  Currently our contract staffing business is experiencing growth, but it is at the senior strategic level where we are seeing the biggest shift.  Now for every two senior searches we engage in, one is for an interim marketing executive.  

This shift is significant and logical.  The world is changing quickly and as a CMO, the talent you need today might not be the talent you need a year from now.  Are you sure you want to invest in full-time headcount when the world around you dictates their skills might be less relevant to you in a year?  Do you really need an expensive marketing consultant when an interim marketing professional with strategy and implementation experience is available to you?  

The shifts in the marketplace regarding an increased pace of change and continued pressure on costs are here to stay, which means this trend is here to stay as well, long after unemployment dips back below 5%.

Thanks Elaine.

From the article in BrandWeek:

Marketers, then, may be worried, but Van Rossum said this new talent force is in no way a permanent replacement for or danger to the full-time CMO. 

“What we’re seeing is the CMOs themselves are looking for interim marketing execs to come in and fill in gaps in their current team,” he said.

By Bob Van Rossum

A recent BusinessWeek article discusses “The Disposable Worker”.  It does a great job describing the challenges facing today’s workforce.   But for the biggest brands, it shows a growing and necessary trend.  How do I compete on a global scale deploying talent on an as needed basis, increasing my flexibility and decreasing my cost?  Ultimately how does this trend impact how marketing is done inside the enterprise?

Marketing departments are required to provide ever increasing ROI with fewer resources and less budget.  This is difficult to do when you have a large headcount filled with too many generalists.  The marketplace is changing so rapidly it is impossible to keep the perfect balance of skills on your team.  CMO’s are increasingly turning to interim marketing executives to; build an analytics function, launch a new product / brand or handle merger integration. 

Reality is your headcount is lower than it has been in years leaving your team overworked.  Your internal team does not have the skills or bandwidth to handle a large influx of work and move from execution to strategy.  Outsourcing to an agency or consulting firm is too expensive and your results are limited by the talent they have on their team / bench.  Alternatively for significantly less money, you can have an interim executive who has direct industry experience working by your side on a daily basis. 

In the end you get much more than just a recommendation you would receive from a consulting process.  You get a recommendation from someone who knows what it is like to live in an enterprise like yours, so the recommendation is one that can be implemented and then they stay around for as much of the actual implementation as you see fit.

Researchers Also Develop Framework for Classifying Variances in Marketing Leadership Positions Across Companies and Industries Based on Scientific Analysis of Job Descriptions

Atlanta (PRWEB) November 18, 2009 — New research appears to indicate that, despite the volatility that sometimes surrounds the position, the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is being created with increasing frequency among publicly-held companies. This finding is the result of two studies conducted by Rajdeep Grewal, Professor of Marketing and Dean’s Faculty Fellow at the Pennsylvania State University, and Rui Wang, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Peking University, Beijing, China. The results are published in the current volume of The Chief Marketing Officer Journal (www.ChiefMarketingOfficer.com).

The purpose of the research effort was to answer several questions about the role of heads of marketing, such as: Are all CMOs created equal?; Are there any systematic differences in the job descriptions of CMOs versus those of a vice president (VP) of marketing in firms without the CMO position?; What are the ramifications of any such differences in the role and expectations of CMOs and VPs of marketing for firms and the heads of marketing?; Is the “Chief Marketing Officer” title just glorified nomenclature for the VP Marketing?

Read more: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3218374.htm