Reinforcing Greatness in Your Business

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?? by Murray Joslin , Editor in Chief

If you’re a social media user, you’ve doubtless seen this image deployed in arguments plenty of times.

The picture shows a World War II-era fighter plane. During the conflict, the Allies marked where damaged planes had been struck by enemy fire – the red dots you see in the image – in an effort to assess which sections of their aircraft were the most likely to be hit during flights. Using this primitive heatmap as a guide, the high-traffic areas would be reinforced with extra armor, theoretically allowing the planes to absorb more damage on their next combat mission.

You may have already guessed the crucial factor that the Allies overlooked. The analysis, pointed out Columbia University professor Abraham Wald, was conducted entirely on planes that made it back in one piece. The aircraft that didn’t survive their missions, he reasoned, were the real story. Indeed, those high-traffic areas on the surviving planes – i.e. the sections that sustained lots of damage without the plane being downed – had to be highly resistant, he added, and argued for reinforcing the areas that had taken the fewest hits.

There are major lessons for businesses in the story of survivorship bias. One is in the value of healthy skepticism in interpreting data; another is in constantly assessing whether or not you’re focusing your energies in the right direction. Like Wald, you might be better served by thinking about the planes that didn’t survive.

Where is reinforcement needed in your business? Where has your firm’s greatness allowed you to survive and what you thought was great did not? Businesses that are good at scaling can more accurately recognize and assess their weaknesses. Which activities should you focus on to get more messages heard, more deals closed and more business won??What parts of your creative and marketing operations are yielding success, even with holes in them, versus which are not returning from the front lines of client acquisition?

? ?A marketing generalist or specialist? The hiring manager’s dilemma?

?? by Catherine Ostheimer , Contributor

According to a recent survey by HubSpot , 35% of marketing leaders surveyed ranked “recruiting the right talent” as one of their biggest challenges. There is no doubt that having the right blend of skillsets in place is critical to operating a high-performance marketing team.

Weighing up the benefits of various candidates can prove to be a real challenge for recruitment teams. For in-house marketing groups deciding on a new hire is an important choice with potentially far-reaching consequences.

If you are in the fortunate position to be expanding your marketing team, you’re likely to run into two types of candidates: generalist marketers who have broad experience in different marketing practices and channels, and specialists who have significant expertise in a particular area.

The broad skillsets that generalists possess can help to boost multiple aspects of your strategy at once. Being able to understand buyers' needs, having creativity, writing and project management skills are all essential talents fa or marketing generalist to possess.? They may also have experience in strategy planning, some knowledge of SEO, dabble in audience analytics and be able to easily craft a social media post. Having this style of “Swiss Army knife” marketer will allow you to guide them to apply one of their specific talents where the need is greatest. But if you’re looking for long-term intensive work on a particular channel or audience subgroup, or if the specific marketing activity is constantly evolving in terms of “what’s works,” as is the case with search strategy for example, the generalist might require extra training with specific tools or additional time to conduct research.

The specialist, on the other hand, is a great fit when you have a specific issue you want to address. Point your analytics specialist toward your consumer data, for example, and your numbers will be crunched at lightning speed. Looking to update your company’s website to increase site visitors and page rankings? Then you need both a UX design and a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist to guide a site refresh. But if you complete a project and need to turn your focus toward a separate or new aspect of your strategy, your specialists may be left spinning their wheels.

In your hiring decisions, think about the long-term objectives that your marketing department is aiming to achieve and your preferred ways of working. A generalist may struggle if your marketing tends to involve lengthy periods of intense focus on particular aspects of the strategy – in such cases, using specialist freelancers or outsourcing to a provider on an individual project basis could work in your favor. Considering outsourcing the specialist tasks is a growing strategy to support the challenges of scaling both talent and productivity.

? ?Recently at Integreon...

In August, Integreon partnered with the Financial Communications Society to present a panel discussion on “The Art & Science of Marketing”. Panelists from AllianceBernstein, AXA Investment Managers and Morgan Stanley joined Murray Joslin (our EVP of Creative & Business Solutions and Editor-in-Chief of Scaling Greatness) to discuss and share insights into balancing and coordinating harmony between creative, data and sales teams.

Watch the webinar recording to hear the entire conversation.

As a trusted partner to many of today’s dynamic and forward-thinking organizations, Integreon has first-hand experience in helping clients to recognize and take full advantage of their best ideas. Clients look to Integreon for help streamlining communications, research and design - creating impactful content and materials for both internal and external consumption. You can learn more about Integreon’s work here .

Ready to learn more about scaling your firm’s greatness?

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Murray Joslin | Editor in Chief | Executive Vice President, Creative & Business Solutions

Emily Watkins | Executive Editor | Senior Marketing Manager, Creative & Business Solutions