Learn how to build a Great Marketing Team from the expert Mauro Nardocci
“You cannot play a Champions League game without the right players. Do not rush into hiring the most shining resume to fill in that urgent vacancy. ”
– Mauro Nardocci, Leadership and Executive Coaching at Enjoyable Success
Marketing is currently the most dynamic profession in the world.
And creating a team of professionals to market the product/ service is also very challenging.
We talked to Mauro and learned about the qualities, strategies and tactics that are considered and followed while forming a great marketing team.
Read on to learn about the same and more.
1. What according to you are the top qualities one must look for to be a part of the marketing team?
Based on my experience the 2 qualities that really make the difference between average and outstanding performers are:
- Going the extra mile: Top marketing professionals have such a strong passion for their products and curiosity to deeply understand their consumers that they always go the extra mile, ask the extra question, and design an extra scenario. World class Marketing professionals consistently go beyond what is expected of them in order to maximize the value they create for the consumers and for the company.
- Growth Mindset: This mental attitude is essential regardless of the department you work for, but I find it’s particularly important for marketers.
People with a “fixed mindset”, as defined by Carol Dweck, the famous American psychologist from Stanford University who created this theory, assume that character, intelligence, and creative abilities are static givens that cannot be changed, so success is the affirmation of that fixed intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard.
Striving for success and avoiding failure becomes a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. Failure, in this view, depends on external factors or on the fact that we are just not “good” enough to face that challenge.
A person with a “growth mindset,” on the other hand, thrives on challenges and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a great opportunity for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.
Marketers with a growth mindset show higher resilience, improve much faster and are normally much better teammates than people with a fixed mindset, as they learn from and actively seek positive criticism and find inspiration from others’ success rather than feeling threatened.
2. What strategy marketing team must follow to drive profitable action?
Defining a strategy is essentially identifying where you want to go and how you want to go there, what you want to achieve and which activities you will implement to do so.
As such, it requires a deep understanding of the specific market, the competitive arena, and the main consumers’ drivers and barriers to purchase.
What it’s often missed though is that it is really difficult to be sure in advance if the strategy we design is a winning one.
So, in this ever-changing world, where very few decisions are clearly right or wrong, I found that 3 elements are really essential to create an outstanding performance, once you have designed the strategy you believe could bring you where you want to go:
- Execution is King: A Spotless Execution is as important as the strategy, and yet often we invest less time and attention to perfect it. As Mike Tyson’s famous quote goes “Everybody has a strategy until it’s punched in the face”.
- Be Agile: Trying different marketing activities on a small scale, learning as much as possible and scaling up the winning activities is a key strategy to leapfrog over your competition.
- Lead Your Way Forward: Regardless of the quality of your strategy and the experience and skill-set of your team, if you don’t motivate them with a compelling vision, show integrity, energize them through daily interactions praise their progress and help them to grow, or t create an inclusive and inspiring culture, you are likely to obtain average results at best.
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3. So, how to encourage and get the best out of your marketing team?
I think that this is the no.1 priority for any marketing executive. You cannot achieve anything significant by yourself.
That is why over my career I dedicated a lot of effort to extensively study and test in practice the latest scientific research in order to find simple and effective ways that would allow me to consistently get the best out of any team.
What I found is in the current corporate world, our people are often stretched thin across a myriad of different activities, working long hours and often facing unsustainable stress levels. As a consequence, it is common for many to feel disengaged, uncommitted, or just not really focused.
To change this vicious circle, it’s essential to make sure your team members know how to continuously regenerate their own energy so that they can perform at their best over time.
After years of practice, I created my own program, called iNERGY , which is designed exactly to help people to perform better, feel better and in general enjoy their lives more.
One of the tools I use to energize my team is Relational Energy. It’s a common experience that we “catch” energy through our interactions with people – this is called “relational energy”.
Extensive M.I.T. research shows that the experience of receiving relational energy, especially from a leader, increases motivation, attention and focus. This translates into higher performance.
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4. What three tips would you like to give to our community members when it comes to building a marketing team?
- Create The Right Culture: Diversity of Opinions and Ideas is the next frontier of Diversity and Inclusion. Work to create a culture that accepts diversity and sees conflict as a true gift for inspiration, innovation and growth. Conflict indeed is not only inevitable, but it also offers us all kinds of gifts — new ideas, refined thinking, and greater connection. We often tend to avoid conflict as it can be pretty uncomfortable to manage it on our own. That is why every high performing organization needs such a culture.
Positive Conflict is the natural consequence of an organization where everybody is free to express ideas and perspectives. That doesn’t mean encouraging unnecessary conflict but just clarifying that when natural conflicts emerge, it is accepted and acknowledged, to get positive outcomes.
2. Take The Time To Choose The Right People: You cannot play a Champions League game without the right players. Do not rush into hiring the most shining resume to fill that urgent vacancy. Take your time to wisely evaluate not only the talent but also the personality fit with the rest of the team. Do the same with the external agencies you work with. Go out of your comfort zone and what has been done in the past. Look for your star players.
3. Lead Them Courageously: Being a Leader is not about being the boss and telling everyone what to do. A true Leader who shares a clear vision and purpose is the ambassador of the consumers inside the organization and fosters connections within his team and with each relevant stakeholder in order to create the maximum value for the consumers and produce the right conditions for his team to succeed.
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About Mauro (in his own words)
I grew up in Italy, on the seaside near Rome. My family owned a small supermarket so I started being exposed to consumer purchase behaviour from a very young age.
During those early years, I started to learn how different brand activities were impacting people’s decisions and how they were creating awareness, brand preference and Top of Mind over time.
After 2 degrees in engineering, this passion for consumer products brought me to choose an internship at Ferrero International in Luxembourg where I started my Marketing career, surrounded by great products and amazing marketing professionals.
After a short time, I moved to Barilla, the world leader for pasta and sauces, where I spent almost 15 years working in Marketing and Strategy around the world, reaching the role of Vice President.
I had amazing experiences in Europe, Asia, Australia and the US. I drove business growth upwards of $100M and learned so much from world class marketing and management experts.
I decided to become an entrepreneur at the end of 2018 to leverage my skills and expertise to create passive income streams and focus on my personal passions and interests.
Since then I have co-started 3 successful companies, had my first daughter and learned to windsurf and play the guitar.
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