What should be expected from a "marketing expert?" Part I

Last November 1, I blogged about the nature of marketing expertise.  I asked a provocative question:  "what makes one marketer more expert than the other?"

This post stimulated the largest number of comments and trackbacks of any of my 2006 posts on The Expertise Marketplace; it also stimulated extended conversations on several other blogs (here, here and here).  I'm still receiving comments more than two months later. 

Over the next few days (week?), I'll provide some observations on the discussion. Here's the first salvo.

There remains an opportunity for both fee-earners and marketers to better understand and to change each others' roles within their organizations.  Many of the comments about my original post were centered on a perceived "disconnect" that commenters said exists within many professional servce firms.  For example (paraphrased): "Marketers don't really understand client needs because they don't have direct client contact." The flip side was also expressed (also paraphrased): "Our internal clients don't understand how well we could understand their clients.  If only they'd let us show them!"

But changing roles (closing the "disconnect" gap) will require fee-earners to take a leap of faith that their marketers can add significant new value beyond what they already add.  And, whether marketers like it or not, the burden is on them to make the case that changing roles will be a great step.  Marketers themselves will have to change the expectations of their internal clients. 

And this brings me back to the nub of my original question:  what new areas of expertise do marketers need to gain in order to contribute in new ways than they already do?   Let's go back to the original premise of my post about what makes expertise:  Author K. Anders Ericsson's main point that experts are experts because they "do things differently," not because they are better than others.

In the past two months of blogosphere discussions about the nature of marketing expertise, no one commented on Ericsson's idea and its application to professional services marketing:  The idea that marketers can become experts (or I should say "more expert") by doing things differently than what they are expected to do.

I'll address this issue in future posts.   

Comments

[Michelle Golden]

Hi Suzanne! Thanks for resurrecting this issue. To your original point, I don't know whether I'd define "expert" the same way as Ericsson, or not (have to noodle on that some more) but it is with tremendous sadness and disappointment that I feel pretty safe in saying that if "doing things differently" is what defines an expert, that you won't find many in the professional services arena. I wholeheartedly agree that "different" is most effective (if not "expert" critera) but we are talking about industries that are obsessed with benchmarking and staring at each other's navels to see "what they're doing." Marketers bear some responsibility for this but my earlier post expressed frustration with the stifling power of partners obsessed with bathing in the same bathwater as all their competitors and fellow association members, etc. They are all benchmarking mediocrity. And as my friend Ed Kless (of Sage Software) sarcastically hails, "Hey, tell me what you're doing to differentiate yourself so I can do it too." Law is a profession based on precedent. Accounting looks to documented rules and recommendations. I have little expectation that either of these professions are going to surpass others with thinking differently in the area of marketing, or hiring and supporting ultra-innovative ideas that "experts" will want to launch. Should be expected? Oh, yes! And celebrated, too! Likely? Probably not.

[Suzanne Lowe]

Michelle, your observations about law and accounting marketing are so articulate -- and frankly depressing. This is a huge issue. Won't the "stifling power of partners" affect the type of marketers that would be willing to accept positions at these types of firms? And then won't that negatively affect the whole industry of law or accounting, and eventually even the way these industries fare economically?

Is there NO way for this balance to be tipped in the favor of more astute (and yes, DIFFERENT) marketing? How would YOU recommend to your clients a way to change this situation?

I wonder if marketers in other professions feel similar frustrations.

[Chris Brown]

Suzanne:
Thank you for your very thought provoking blog. For the past 9 years I've run a marketing firm that functions like an outsourced marketing department, both for manufacturing companies as well as service providers. Over the past 5 years our client mix has shifted significantly to favor the professional service firm, so I find your blog, newsletter and other materials very helpful and interesting.
Chris Brown

[Skipper Jones]

Suzanne,

K. Anders Ericsson's never says 'experts are experts because they "do things differently," not because they are better than others,' rather that "successful people spontaneously do things differently from those individuals who stagnate." There is a vast difference between those two statements and I think it is causing many of your readers trouble.

We all know that the definition of expert does not include being different. You are an expert in marketing but I would not say you are "different."

[Suzanne Lowe]

Thanks for your remarks, Skipper. I remain intrigued by the role of "different" in being (or becoming) an expert. Ericsson's ideas (and I agree he doesn't have the last word on the subject!) offer new perspecives to get us all thinking. That's my goal!