By Bob Van Rossum

Now is a great time to give your company a Talent Advantage.  At a time when most companies are scared to make permanent headcount additions, you can hire an interim CMO on a full-time or part-time basis for less than you can imagine.  Need someone to set online marketing strategy, no problem.    Top companies are not running scared but using the opportunities available in the marketplace to strategically improve their marketing programs for years to come.

Outside experts bring valuable experience to your company.  Now is the time to move your company forward not sit idly and wait out the tough times.  It is time to utilize contractors / consultants to evolve your business. 

Top reasons to move your company forward with outside talent:
Many companies are finding that they get more bang for their buck by consulting with outside experts instead of hiring new staff people. Here’s the logic:

·    Executive Level Talent without a long-term commitment. Most companies avoid hiring the senior level talent they need due to the long-term overhead commitment.  Bring in an executive to set a new course and when they hand over the new plan you existing staff can execute.  If you are expecting your existing staff to get you any farther than they already have, you are likely expecting too much.

·    Ability to insert an entire team.  Many organizations have an area of their business that is behind the competition.  People on your team are already too busy to fix this, but you can easily insert an outside to completely revamp an area of your organization.  We have found many companies have failed to keep pace with web / online marketing.  Good news is help can be on the inside of your organization in about a week.   

·    Ability to scale up or down at will.  Having contractors on staff is much more like dating, as opposed to marrying a full-time employee.  If your needs change, so can the people you have working for you.   

·    Fresh Ideas.  The new team comes from a variety of experience and backgrounds. All companies suffer from group think and limitations based on what they see.  Outsiders avail you to an entirely new set of thoughts and ideas.  They will provide a unique perspective that will increase the productivity of your existing workforce.   

·    Peace of mind.  Would you like a chance to try before you buy? The risk of hiring someone into your organization is significant.  The reality is you can try before you buy at most any level of the organization.  Hiring an employee into your organization means you have made at least a short-term commitment.  If you hired your CMO or web designer on a contract / consulting basis and they are not a culture fit, making a change is fast and easy.   

The concept of outsourcing your CMO is new, while outsourcing your CFO or CIO is more common.  Ultimately outsourcing the CMO function makes more sense.  Companies with more than $ 1B in revenue must have a CMO, about half of smaller companies are better off with a strong VP and they bring in an interim CMO for 3 months a year to set strategy.  The quality of your marketing will increase and the cost saving is tremendous.  

By Bob Van Rossum 

www.marketproinc.com

By Bob Van Rossum  

The average CMO tenure is 18 months and the responsibility of this is shared by company and candidate.  Ultimately neither side knows how to properly run the interview process.  Both sides end up making a decision from far too little data.  If you are interviewing for a CMO job and want to make sure you can succeed when you get there you need to prepare properly for the interview.  From the interview, the candidate needs to glean the corporation’s vision of marketing.  Does this vision actually match the expectations of the job you will do? 

Too often, corporations have lofty marketing goals, but are unwilling to give the CMO the latitude to create marketing programs that will make those goals possible.  Bottom line is to achieve success in today’s marketplace you must successfully differentiate your brand and products.  However most corporations take a risk adverse approach to marketing that leaves them with a lot of me too advertising, you can throw away remarkable amounts of money when your advertising looks like all your competitors.  You always have to protect your brand, but you can do that and still have great marketing.  Unfortunately it is rare a CEO knows enough about marketing to understand what differentiation is, let alone why it is important.  That is not to take anything away from a person who is probably extremely qualified to be the CEO, most CEO’s simply have not spent any significant time during their careers in a marketing role.  So they manage the CMO the same way they manage the CFO and it quickly becomes a disaster. 

As a candidate for a CMO gig, you need to ask some vital questions?  Some of which will seem very basic, but are overlooked most of the time:

1.       How do you plan to define success for the new CMO in the first 12 months and the first 3 years? 

2.       Does [COMPANY NAME] have a marketing strategy to differentiate itself from the competition or are you looking for the CMO to create such a strategy?

3.       How does the company’s culture impact its marketing?

4.       How would you grade the company’s marketing over the past year?

5.       How has marketing impacted the company’s bottom line over the past couple of years?

Properly hiring a CMO is the most important and challenging task any organization has.  Unfortunately the CMO candidate often fails before they ever started because they did not find out enough about the opportunity before accepting.  CMO will have big deliverables, which can be obtained if they hire the best possible candidate and give him/her the enough latitude to truly differentiate.  Too often new CMO’s are expected to do great things while only painting inside the lines.    

Recommended CMO Reading:

1. Eating the Big Fish
2. The Speed of Trust
3. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

www.marketproinc.com

Simply having a professional looking and up-to-date resume is no longer enough to help you secure a new marketing position. Web 2.0 exposure is quickly becoming a real-time living, breathing demonstration of your expertise. Social networking sites can tell colleagues and potential employers what you know, who you know, and what you’ve done. But in order to leverage that tool for your next marketing job search, you need to know which sites to concentrate on. Then, highlight your skills and expertise for the whole world to see. You never know who may be “following” you—possibly your next employer!

Whether you’re looking for a job now, or anticipate making a change at some point in your career, now is the time to put your best foot forward in the social marketing arena. Recruiters and prospective employers will be googling your name and seeing what pops up. Years ago, resumes and CVs were the main tool for showcasing your past positions and skills, and while they are still important, interested parties can find so much more information online. They can see how involved you are in your industry, get a sense of your personality, and see if you play (interact) well with others. No matter how far off your next job search is (and do you ever really know?), you need to utilize Web 2.0 to stand out above the crowd.

The best social networking sites allow you to interact with others and make your statement on the marketing world by building your name recognition, highlighting your accomplishments, and building valuable connections.

LinkedIn is one of the top social networking sites in the business world. There you can fill out your profile (don’t forget to upload your professional headshot!), connect with other people you know and trust, and post questions (and answers!) to your group.

Article marketing can help develop your expert platform. Pick a topic you know and write an article about it. Send it to professional associations you belong to, post them on your website or blog, and submit them to article submission services. Don’t forget to include your author box, which is like free advertising for your business. A word of caution though—make sure your articles contain useful information and aren’t overly self promotional or they might get rejected.

Blogging is an effective tool for easily demonstrating your expertise.  Remember to keep your blogs relevant and that quality is more important than quantity. Schedule “write blog post” assignments in your calendar so you don’t forget to update it. A couple times a week is ideal, but no less than a few times a month. And don’t forget that blogging is a two-way street. Comment on other blogs too! Readers of popular blogs may just click back through the comment you left and become new fans of yours. Look into guest blogging opportunities, comment on local news blogs, industry blogs, and on blogs of colleagues with similar interests to yours.

Twitter, a site for microblogging, is a rapidly growing, low-time investment way to keep active in your profession. Short, 140 character updates go out to those subscribed to you. Just like blogs, don’t forget to comment on other people’s posts to build relationships.  The real value of Twitter is in who you chose to follow, if you chose wisely you might just learn something yourself.  Try TweetDeck to keep it all sorted.  

Of course, there are many more social networking opportunities out there and new ones crop up all the time. Look for those that allow you to showcase your expertise, connect with others you respect, and grow your fan base. Don’t forget to update your status and posts regularly, just as you regularly check and respond to emails and keep appointments. Networking with fellow marketing colleagues today may just land you a great new marketing position tomorrow.

www.marketproinc.com  

By Bob Van Rossum 

By Bob Van Rossum 

Gone are the days when throngs of salesmen in penny loafers knocked on businesses’ doors one by one in hopes of introducing, educating, and converting those “blind” prospects into long-term customers. Thirty years ago, there were only a handful of ways prospects could get information from anyone other than your sales force. Now, your marketing department has assumed the role of educating your customers, and your sales team’s role has shrunk to simply converting interested and educated prospects into buyers. Plain and simple, marketing has trumped sales in the corporate hierarchy.

Marketing today is a complicated game. Back in the 1970’s, your company might have spent almost its entire marketing budget on television commercials to run during I Love Lucy, or bought up a bunch of newspaper ads or radio spots. These choices alone would allow you to reach your target audience. Not anymore. Focusing your marketing efforts with laser accuracy has replaced broadcasting. Now your marketing department needs to know where and how they can reach your targeted demographic.

Read more: http://www.marketproinc.com/success/why_marketing.html

By Bob Van Rossum 

Marketing has never been more important than it is today.  In fact, marketing is now even more important than sales.  

However, many companies have a difficult time finding and keeping the best possible CMO.

Let’s look at a few of the core reasons why the average CMO only lasts 18 months.

First, even though several members of a company’s executive team will interview a potential CMO, typically, none of them truly understand marketing.  This makes them uniquely unqualified for the task. 

Marketing is, to say the least, unique. It’s not like finance, IT or operations and asking similar interview questions when recruiting a CFO, CIO or COO will make hiring a CMO a gamble at best. 

Without the knowledge to make an informed decision, even the best interview process offers no real value to you. 

Few CEOs understand marketing and how it can benefit their organization.  They understand why marketing benefits them, but not how and this makes them ineffective interviewers for the CMO role. 

As someone who has placed many CMOs, and all of the ones we have placed in the last 3 plus years are still are still in place, I am constantly dumbfounded by the interview questions candidates get when interviewing for a CMO role. 

The CMO role is strategic, but the questions CMO candidates are typically asked are usually tactical and often more appropriate for someone interviewing for a manager level role.  Asking the wrong questions, not only gets you inadequate data to make a decision, but also turns off the most talented candidates.   

By the same token, most CMO candidates who have achieved enough success in their career to be a viable CMO candidate, do not routinely understand which CMO roles they can excel in and which ones are best left to someone with different experience. 

Hence they customarily do not ask the right questions, assuming their past success can be replicated in any CMO role.  Ultimately that is not the case for even the brightest mind with the incorrect career foundation.

As an example, the first question candidates usually ask is about budget. This question is irrelevant and it sends the wrong message to the employer.  Successful candidates need to know how to differentiate this company from its competitors..   

Legendary management consultant Peter Drucker said, “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only these two basic functions: marketing and innovation.  Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.  Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” 

So, when both sides of the interview process enter it with gaps in knowledge, how do you overcome this problem and hire successfully? 

Referencing Drucker’s statement , you must first acknowledge you are talking about the most important position in the company. 

Second, from the company perspective, you want to stop seeing marketing as an expense and view it as the most strategic part or your organization.  Then develop a performance-based job profile, not a job description.  Using this profile, develop the qualifications you need in a candidate and then craft interview questions to determine if someone has already been successful doing these things. 

We are not looking for someone who can do the job, we are looking for someone who has already done it. 

Third, if you are a CMO candidate get real about your background, skills and abilities.  If you go for the job because it has a big title and it’s a new challenge, don’t be surprised to find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. 

Marketing does not mean the same thing to all organizations and how they achieve differentiation varies greatly. 

 www.marketproinc.com

By Bob Van Rossum

Epsilon recently surveyed CMO’s and realized they were having a hard time finding talent for today’s evolving world of marketing.

http://www.epsilon.com/modules/Press-Releases-012909-Profile-of-an-American-CMO/p83-l3

http://www.marketingcharts.com/topics/nearly-40-of-cmos-unhappy-with-new-hire-talent-pool-7897/?utm_campaign=rssfeed&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink

The results suggest that there is less talent or inadequate talent in the marketplace.

But nothing could be further from the truth. 

In any economy the best talent is hard to find, because businesses don’t lay off top performers. 

The problem leading brands have is:

1.      Lack of an employment brand

2.      Lack of talent reach or an inability to identify the top talent

3.      Lack of talent access or an inability to create interest from top talent in their company and / or opportunity.

Ultimately recruiting marketing talent is not like recruiting for finance or IT, the recruiter cannot use certifications to determine who is truly talented.  If a skilled recruiter who normally does not look for marketing talent calls a rockstar candidate on your behalf does not truly understand marketing you have zero chance of convincing an A player to come join your team.  Not only do they pass on joining today, they will remember the interaction the next time a marketing recruiter calls, making it more difficult in the future.  Unfortunately in most recruiting processes, not only is there a lack an understanding of marketing, they lack the time to proactively reach out to the top talent and do not understand where to find them.  Real problem for the CMO is convincing others in the organization that recruiting marketing talent is fundamentally different from recruiting other functions.  The talent is out there you just need to know where to find them and how to convince them making a move is in their best interest. 

www.marketproinc.com

Showing interest and being committed are integral to interview success.  This young man impressed after he made it to the interview with a stab wound in his leg.  While I would not recommend trying to repeat his feat on the way to your next interview, ask yourself how committed you are to getting this job and what have you done to make sure you are prepared to win.

Teen stabbed in leg, but makes it to job interview, then hospital – Welland Tribune – Ontario, CA

http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1422078

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Client Side Best Practices – Adopt a Hiring Methodology

By Bob Van Rossum

In today’s increasingly competitive world, leaving mission critical positions open longer than absolutely necessary is unacceptable. The lost productivity and opportunity costs are staggering. Following are two practices you can implement to limit these costs by getting better talent into your organization more quickly.

1. Make sure you and your search firm adopt a hiring methodology and hiring focus, as opposed to having a perpetual search focus. It’s important to understand how your executive search process is impacted by you, your hiring methodology and your search firm. Unfortunately, having great candidates does not always result in making a great hire. The ability to take those candidates and move them through the hiring process quickly – from initial client interview, to follow up interviews, to offer – in a short window is very important not just to getting someone hired, but getting the right person hired. At MarketPro, we are known for getting a short list of candidates to our clients faster than anyone else in the industry. How do we do this? We have a team of experienced marketing professionals screening talent. Additionally, we benchmark every position at the start of the search process. This goes far beyond a typical search intake process conducted by most firms. In addition to the typical assignment study, and a position and candidate brief, we benchmark the position’s key deliverables necessary to move the company forward. Try this in your own company – develop functional, leadership, commitment and cultural benchmarks to maximize your success. Then, as we do, benchmark your candidates against these criteria and create a success profile. Only candidates for whom you can make a business case for clearing the mark move forward in the process. This is continually reevaluated as the process goes along and additional data is gathered.
2. Send a clear message to your top-level candidates that your organization is one that values talent. More and more in today’s marketplace, a passive candidate puts himself or herself out into the search process and begins to do some comparison shopping. With unemployment at an all time low, and with top quality talent getting harder to find, I would be disappointed if the top candidates were not smart enough to do this. If you conduct a slow interview process or are viewed as having a weak employment brand, you will continually find yourself losing top candidates to your competitors. If you want to successfully onboard your next top performer, send a powerful message during the interview process about how your company values talent. The good news is that it’s a very easy and powerful step to incorporate.

To illustrate my points, let’s look at two client examples from our experience at MarketPro.  Read More:

http://www.marketproinc.com/success/adopt_a_hiring_methodology.html