Earlier this week, I posted an article about the importance of looking beyond subject matter experts when hiring. If you want new ideas, you can’t keep hiring the same kind of people. For this next post, I’m featuring an article written by my friend and colleague from PGi, Liz McClellan. Liz talks about the importance of looking beyond the pedigree and accessing the candidate’s fit for the company. Big thanks to Liz for her contribution to the Single Minded Proposition blog. — jp
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When Hiring, Look at the Whole Candidate, Warts and All
by Liz McClellan, VP of Field Marketing, PGi
abc
Hiring these days has been challenging. You would think that with so many people out of work it would be easier, but I haven’t found that to be the case. In fact, I’ve found it harder lately to find good candidates.
On the one hand, you have many overqualified folks willing to take lower-paying jobs and eager to get back to work. But that doesn’t always work to your benefit. When I go through the recruiting process, ultimately I’m trying to achieve the right team mix. And while someone might have the right pedigree on paper, the fit within the team and company environment is most important.
In the “old days” we used to rely on written or verbal references to help us screen prospective employees. Now we Google prospects and check their Twitter feeds to make sure that they haven’t done or said anything that would prevent us from hiring them. Read More
Here are some things being said at this very moment in marketing departments all around the globe:
We need some new ideas.
We have to think out of the box.
We have to break the paradigm.
What got us here won’t get us where we want to be.
Sound familiar? You’ve probably heard someone say something like this. Or maybe you’ve even said it yourself. Seems there’s universal acknowledgement that the current state is never good enough. You have to continue to change, grow, adapt, innovate.
Recognizing the need for new ideas is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out what to do about it. Read More
Coca-Cola: A study in brand consistency
Earlier this week, I wrote about advertising for the “Howard Stern brand”. As a follow up, I want to share a some thoughts on the importance of being patient with brand-building ad campaigns.
I used to be an ad agency guy, and I spent many years developing ads for clients. We would spend months working hard on a specific ad campaign. We’d finally finish it, get it launched and immediately our client would say, “You know, we really need to start working on the new campaign.”
This never made sense to me. It always seemed that my clients were never patient enough to wait for a campaign to start making an impact before they were on to the next best thing. Read More
Advertising has a perception of being a sexy business. But the reality isn’t quite as glamorous as it seems. Long hours. Low pay. Tough clients. But, every now and then something incredible happens that reminds us why we got into advertising in the first place.
For me, that happened back in 2005. I was an Account Director working at Euro RSCG (know called Havas) in NY. My main client was GlaxoSmithKline. I was doing the advertising for Advair, a $3+ billion asthma drug. The account was an important one for our agency, generating millions in billings.
But, after spending over a year on the business, I was starting to get bored. Doing advertising for a pharma brand is very interesting in many ways. But, it can also be a grind. All the FDA regulation makes the creative development process extremely slow and challenging. There’s a lot of waiting around for the government to approve our ads before they can air.
So, one day I was sitting in my office when an email came in from our COO Annette Stover with the subject line: “Are there any Howard Stern fans in the office? Read More
Earlier this week, I posted a blog about the importance of sales and marketing working together entitled Think the Sales Team Doesn’t Get It? Maybe It’s You. For this next post, I want to share the sales perspective on that topic. Here’s a great post from Drew Prante, PGi’s Director of Ecommerce Sales. Drew and I work closely together to make sure there’s alignment between sales and marketing. Please welcome Drew to SingleMindedProposition.com. — jp
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Help Me Help You – How Sales Helps Marketing and Marketing Helps Sales
by Drew Prante, Director of Ecommerce Sales, PGi
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There’s a great scene in the movie Jerry Maguire that recently had me thinking about collaboration between sales and marketing. The sports agent, about to lose his star client, tells his client that he can deliver, but he needs the client’s help – really his partnership – to close the deal. Read More
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