Do You Have IT? What I Think It Really Takes to Be Great at Marketing

I'm going to start this one with a potentially controversial opinion.

I think great marketers have IT!

You probably know what I mean.

It's difficult to teach. Difficult to put on a CV. And you certainly won't find it listed under the requirements of most marketing job descriptions.

• It's confidence.

• Curiosity.

• Creativity.

• Communication.

The willingness to walk into a room and speak to someone you've never met.

The confidence to present an idea that might get completely rejected.

And the ability to get back up and try again when it does.

I've worked in marketing for years, and the longer I do it, the more convinced I become that technical marketing skills are only part of what makes someone great at this job.

You can learn how to use advertising platforms.

You can learn SEO.

You can learn analytics.

You can learn CRM systems.

You can learn AI.

But there's another side to marketing that's much harder to teach.

You need to be willing to put yourself out there.

Here are the qualities that, in my experience, can turn a good marketer into a great one.

1. Learn to Be an Extrovert - Even If You're Not One

Let's get the controversial one out of the way.

Do I literally believe every marketer needs to be an extrovert?

No.

But I do believe great marketers need to be able to switch it on.

Marketing is communication.

You're going to have to pitch ideas.

Present strategies.

Attend events.

Meet customers.

Interview people.

Challenge senior stakeholders.

Speak on camera.

Network.

Walk into rooms where you don't know anyone.

Sometimes you'll need to be the person who brings the energy.

That doesn't mean you can't be naturally introverted.

It means you need to become comfortable being uncomfortable.

And confidence isn't something you're simply born with.

You can build it.

If starting conversations with new people doesn't come naturally to you, I'd recommend reading Mark Rhodes' How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone. It's a really practical book about overcoming the fear of approaching people, starting conversations and becoming more confident communicating with people you don't know.

For a marketer, that's an incredibly valuable skill.

Because sometimes the biggest opportunity in the room starts with simply having the confidence to walk over and say hello.

Which brings me to the most important quality on this entire list.

2. Build Confidence and Stop Fearing Rejection

If I could give someone starting their career one piece of advice, it would probably be this:

Learn how to be rejected.

Your idea will get rejected.

Your campaign won't always work.

Someone won't reply to your email.

A customer will say no.

A presentation won't land the way you expected.

So what?

Try again.

I know that's easier said than done because I used to be incredibly shy.

Throughout school, I hated putting myself out there.

Then I discovered music.

Eventually, I found myself performing in front of my entire class and their families on graduation night.

I was terrified.

But I did it.

And something changes when you repeatedly do things that scare you.

You realise that the anticipation is often worse than actually doing them.

That lesson has stayed with me throughout my career.

So deliberately put yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable.

Go to networking events on your own.

Start conversations.

Take a drama class.

Try musical theatre.

Give a presentation.

Volunteer to speak.

And you don't need alcohol to give you the confidence to do it.

You want to build confidence that belongs to you.

One book I'd highly recommend is Susan Jeffers' Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.

The title basically says it all.

You don't need to eliminate fear before doing something.

Do it while you're afraid.

That's how confidence gets built.

3. Look the Part

This one might sound shallow.

I don't think it is.

How you present yourself matters.

We love saying:

"Never judge a book by its cover."

But humans do exactly that.

All the time.

We form first impressions incredibly quickly.

That doesn't mean everyone needs to look the same, wear expensive clothes or chase some impossible standard of attractiveness.

It means take pride in yourself.

Look after yourself.

Dress well.

Eat well.

Exercise.

Walk into the room looking like you belong there.

In Robert Cialdini's Influence, "liking" is one of the principles of persuasion. Appearance can contribute to that, but so can similarity, familiarity, compliments and positive associations.

For me, the bigger point is what taking care of yourself does for your own confidence.

When you feel good about yourself, you tend to carry yourself differently.

You stand taller.

You communicate differently.

You feel more comfortable walking into that meeting.

And when you're representing a company or a brand, you're part of the customer experience too.

Your personal brand walks into the room before your PowerPoint does.

4. Stay Ahead of What's Coming

Marketing changes ridiculously quickly.

The tools I use today aren't the same tools I was using five years ago.

And five years from now they'll probably be completely different again.

AI is an obvious example.

It's changing how marketers:

• Research consumers

• Analyse competitors

• Create content

• Develop ideas

• Analyse data

• Personalise communications

• Automate repetitive tasks

You don't need to jump on every new piece of technology.

But you absolutely need to be curious about it.

Ask yourself:

Could this make me better at my job?

Could it save three hours of work?

Could it uncover something about our customers we didn't know?

Could it allow us to test ten ideas instead of two?

Could it help me make a better decision?

Great marketers don't wait until everyone else has adopted something.

They're experimenting while everyone else is still asking what it does.

5. Be Creative

I've only recently started watching Mad Men, and there's something I find fascinating about Don Draper.

Everyone is waiting for the idea.

The room can be full of research, account people and business strategy, but eventually someone has to turn everything into something that makes another human being feel something.

That's creativity.

And marketing desperately needs it.

Data can tell you what's happening.

Research can tell you what customers want.

Technology can help you reach them.

But somebody still needs to have the idea.

Creativity doesn't necessarily mean being an incredible graphic designer or copywriter.

It's a way of thinking.

Ask yourself:

What haven't we tried?

What would make someone stop?

How could we say this differently?

What would happen if we did the complete opposite of everyone else?

And then test it.

Some ideas will fail.

Good.

You learnt something.

I'd much rather work with a marketer who occasionally tries something that fails than someone who spends their entire career repeating what's already been done.

6. Make the Customer the Hero

This might be one of the biggest marketing mistakes businesses make.

They talk about themselves.

Constantly.

We're the best.

We've been around for 30 years.

We have incredible technology.

Look at our facilities.

Look at our people.

Look how brilliant we are.

That's great.

But your customer is sitting there thinking:

What's in it for me?

Great marketers learn to see the world through the customer's eyes.

What problem are they trying to solve?

What frustrates them?

What do they want to achieve?

What are they worried about?

What would make their life easier?

Donald Miller explains this brilliantly in Building a StoryBrand.

One of the simplest ideas from the book completely changes how you think about marketing:

The customer is the hero. Your business is the guide.

Think Star Wars.

Your customer is Luke Skywalker.

You're Yoda.

Nobody needs Yoda to spend the entire movie talking about how fantastic Yoda is.

Yoda's job is to help Luke win.

That's your job too.

Your product isn't the hero.

Your company isn't the hero.

Your customer is.

7. Stay Curious

I'd actually add one more quality to my original list.

Curiosity.

I think the best marketers are slightly obsessed with understanding people.

Why did someone buy that?

Why didn't they buy this?

Why did that advert make me stop scrolling?

Why is everyone suddenly talking about that brand?

Why is this competitor growing?

Why did customers completely ignore the thing we thought they'd love?

Pay attention to everything.

• Advertising.

• Packaging.

• Music.

• Fashion.

• Technology.

• Social media.

• Restaurants.

• Retail.

• Human behaviour.

• Culture.

Some of your best marketing ideas will come from completely outside your own industry.

A marketer who stops being curious eventually starts repeating themselves.

So... Do You Have IT?

Here's the good news.

I don't think IT is something you're either born with or you're not.

I think you build it.

You build confidence by doing things that scare you.

You build creativity by constantly looking for inspiration.

You build communication skills by talking to people.

You build resilience by being rejected.

You build commercial awareness by asking questions.

You build curiosity by refusing to stop learning.

And slowly, you become the person who's willing to put their hand up and say:

"I've got an idea."

That's the marketer people notice.

That's the marketer customers remember.

And that's the marketer businesses need.

So if you're naturally shy, don't convince yourself that marketing isn't for you.

I was shy too.

Put yourself out there.

Take the meeting.

Walk into the room.

Start the conversation.

Pitch the ridiculous idea.

Get rejected.

Try again.

You don't need to be the loudest person in the room.

But you should have the confidence to speak when you've got something worth saying.

That's what I think having IT really means.