How To Hire An Unparalleled Marketer

As the visionary behind your company, you’ve likely been doing the brunt of the sales and marketing work. After all, who knows the product better than you?

Unfortunately, the day-to-day of promoting your products and services can’t be a full-time job for you forever. You’ve got bigger fish to fry, and while some of your work might still include developing promotional content and strategy, it’s better to have a leader who can focus solely on this aspect of the business. Yes, we’re talking about another one of our critical startup roles: Marketing.

Getting someone to run with your ideas, lead a growing team of marketers, and develop more detailed analysis of marketing campaigns is crucial for generating leads. And the volume of leads isn’t nearly as important as the quality of leads – the more qualified your leads are, the more likely your Sales team can close them. That’s what a good marketer can do, and it can streamline almost everything in your operation.

Just as there are unique personality traits that make someone a natural fit for a Product Lead role, there are also traits that suit a strong marketer. When you’re ready to fill this vital startup role, here’s what you might want to seek out:

• They’ve got to be willing to take risks. Testing – and being okay with having tests fail – is priority number one for marketers. That’s how they learn, improve, and bring your startup to the top.
• A strong numbers game is key as well. Make sure they know how to dig into data to prove that something’s working well or to indicate what should be tested next.
• A star marketer has their content strategy outlined a few months in advance, but they can still churn out great content in real-time if something big happens. You’re a startup, so agility can make or break a great publicity opportunity. Make sure your new hire can balance planning with on-the-spot projects.
• Bonus points if they come in thinking beyond your existing strategies. Be prepared to hear that things could be improved – that’s a sign that this person has successful experience pushing the boundaries of what currently exists inside organizations.

Consider these personality traits as you start to look at handing the reigns over to a full-time marketer. You might differ on ideas about tackling certain projects, but Marketing is one of the key positions in a small business because it sets up Sales for success in a way no other department can. Putting someone else in the driver’s seat for marketing allows you to provide direction, while letting them focus on figuring out how to get it done. Your Sales team will thank you, and your daily calendar will probably thank you, too.