To check, answer the following:
- From a templated marketing plan, can you create your own?
- Can you hire an ad agency to produce a brochure?
- Can you execute a marketing research study and dial the findings into a business case?
- Can you work trade show booths and travel with sales people to create demand and advance sales cycles?
- Can you communicate customer requirements to R&D, and forecasts to Planning?
If the answers are "yes", then you qualify as a projecteer. Does this make you a marketeer? Not necessarily.
I think top notch marketers have something in their DNA that instinctually drives them toward accurate and creative (relevantly differentiated) ideas and decisions. They have a sensitivity toward customers and overall competitive market dynamics that enables them to see the world differently - more acutely - than others...anticipating market responses and creating meaningful recommendations. And executing against them. They are the ones that don't need marketing research to drive decisions - customers often don't know what they want until it's created by great marketers and engineers. They are the ones that give ad agencies ideas - or collaborate effectively in the creative process. And they understand the impact of a competitive launch...and courageous ways to win.
So can anyone be a great marketer? A truly great, instinctual marketer? I don't think so. But can most people become effective project managers, learn the marketing process, and contribute to effective marketing outcomes? Even becoming very strong marketers? Yes.
This hearkens back to similar questions such as, "are leaders made or born"? I'm not sure that one's ever going to be answered definitively...just like the question, "are you a Projecteer or a Marketeer"? Both are valuable, but don't mistake the two.
(Thanks DP for teaching me so much.)
Copyright @ Keith Chaitoff 2011
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