Is marketing talent overrated?

My November 2006 issue of Fast Company magazine features an interesting Final Word (p 116 for you hard copy readers). 

The column is called "The Expert on Experts," and it outlines K. Anders Ericsson's huge (by number of pages -- 918!) new book "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" (Cambridge University Press, 2006).  Ericsson says experts are experts because they "do things differently," and that experts really don't have any more ability than the next person.

I have spent a career helping professional service firms market their experts and their collective expertise.  But I have yet to hear a single person refer to their MARKETERS as experts.  It's as if the only expertise resident in a management consulting firm, say, are the management consultants! 

So here's my question for those of you who are trying to hire marketing talent for your professional service firm:  are you thinking of your next marketing hire as a Professional Services Marketing Expert?  Do we marketers have any idea what makes one marketer more expert than the other?  It's intriguing to imagine that we could do better at identifying our hoped-for marketing team members if we thought more critically about what it takes to be a professional services marketing expert (especially since we often end up scrambling for just the right marketing talent, and we often end up settling for someone who has simply got the right number of notches on his or her marketing belt). 

And, beyond that, what if we used Ericsson's idea that "expert" has more to do with doing things differently, than it does with just having tons of same-old same-old experience?   

Comments

[Betsy Buckley]

I think the real expertise that marketing professionals can demonstrate in professional services firms is that they bring an understanding of the prospect/client. I've watched way too many managing partners and management committees consistently feel frustrated by their marketing staff because "they don't understand what WE do." And, I've watched just as many talented marketing professionals say the same exact words about the lawyers, accountants, architects, consultants, that they work with.

Think of it as an equation.
Lwayers(Professional expertise) + Prospects (marketing expertise)=firm growth.

Both sets of competency are required to get the strongest possible results.

[Stuart Jones]

Yes, Betsy but as a chartered accountant I want to know why you're an expert compared to everyone else. Most accountants use terms such as professional, pro-active, approachable but it doesn't make them experts.

[Martin Calle]

Right on! Just who are the marketing experts? And do they really know something you and I do not? Or are they self-promoting hype monkeys?

My interests are in consumer products marketing. Why are Scott Bedbury and Sergio Zyman touted as marketing experts? Scott did not start Starbucks or Nike. He merely worked there. Sergio Zyman did not start The Coca-Cola Company. He merely worked there too - and presided over the largest new product failure in company history - New Coke.

So what makes a marketing expert, an expert. Is it merely that they are there, and you are not? I would rather speak with Howard Schultz. I would rather speak with Phil Knight. They are the founder-executives of Starbucks and Nike. They are the real marketing experts.

Magic marketing fairy dust does not mystically fall on your shoulders by association. You do not become an expert just by association. Were these guys just "managers" in the right place at the right time? So what makes these people experts? What do they have that you, and I, do not? They say that most successful people have a deep fear of being found out. What do you think?

Please contribute to my blog carnival on this subject. I hope submissions will be electric. And thank you for bringing up this subject! http://advertising-age.blogspot.com/2006/11/calles-carnival-of-consumer-marketing.html#links

Thank you.
Martin Calle
Chairman
Calle & Company
http://www.callecompany.com
http://advertising-age.blogspot.com

[Patrick McEvoy]

I think the entire "expertise" by conveyance of power from some other authority has been over rated throughout history.

I've seen people with 5 university degrees that couldn't put together one coherent thought...conversely, I've seen brilliant people with grade 3 educations!

One thing is common though...I know expertise when I talk to it for a few minutes...and I suspect that we all have that ability.

Patrick McEvoy
President
Rainmaker Gateway
http://www.rainmakergateway.com/home/

[Steve Roesler]

Betsy's comment reflects my experience perfectly. I hired a marketing guy earlier this year because of a trusted reference. I then fired him a few months later. He never "got" or "learned" my business. His approach was to work with templates and then berate me when I told him they didn't apply to what I was doing as if, after 30 years in business, I didn't know what I was about. I've been working with another marketing "expert" for one month. He has never referred to himself as an expert. In between meetings he comes up with information about me and my target audiences that is so accurate I ask myself how I've lived without him all this time. He constantly asks me the "right" questions. But most of all: he is all about serving me and learning my business.

Steve Roesler
RoeslerGroup

[D.L.]

I disagree. I would suggest this is often because of blindsided business owners.

Most biz owners never truly concentrate on marketing. They're preoccupied with distractions that burn time. Fixing the copier. Hassling with callers. Stocking shelves.

They do eveything ELSE but focus on bringing in the money.

People with a pool store worry about the signs, or the chlorine display. Or the types of rafts.

They should worry about the marketing of bringing people into the store.

[Kevin Hillstrom]

It has been my experience that marketing folks are among the least respected individuals in the companies I have worked at.

Maybe the hardest thing for marketers is that the skills they learn at one company are not transferrable to other companies.

The marketing techniques you learn at Starbucks are not likely to work well at Walgreens, and vice versa. What makes you an expert at one company might make you look like a fool at another company.

Conversely, other professions have skills that transfer between companies. Therefore, an individual can build up an impressive resume across companies, and become an "expert".

Therefore, as Steve Roesler said earlier, the marketer must listen, and serve the customer/client.

Those skills are not always correlated with the term "expert". But those are the skills a marketer must possess to be successful.