There is no doubt that amongst all the functional departments in a business enterprise, marketing is the most sought after, to work in. The flamboyance, the heady feeling of signing contracts, the uncontrolled STD and the international telephone talks, the wining and dining of clients and the aura of being the visible face of the enterprise, all add up to confer upon these marketing executives, a sheen of their own. Other departmental managers, of similar designations always bear a grudge towards this “most favoured nation” – like status accorded to the marketing department and often fret at not occupying this supposedly “drivers” seat.

There is also this spectacle of young graduates of engineering and/or business management wanting to choose a “marketing & sales” career for, without pausing, even for a moment, to think if their personality and emotional quotient matches with what is required for success.

In reality, marketing assignments are probably the toughest and the most back- breaking.

The visible face of these tough tasks constitutes only 10% of the whole and there have been many occasions when this “iceberg” has sunk the careers of otherwise promising executives, like one of its “cousins” did to the Titanic. Our purpose today is to identify the personality traits which are necessary for a successful marketing career. Let us evaluate ourselves on these and then decide if we are likely to do a good job in this area. For those of us who are already in the thick of it, let us use these yardsticks to apply mid-course corrections, wherever possible.

Can you take “NO” as an answer:
Many of us who have not been denied the good things of life from childhood, and are used to living in comfortable conditions, find it very difficult to take a refusal at its face value .Customers have this nasty habit of saying ”NO” and shutting the proverbial door in the face of persistent marketing people. There are, on an average, ten “NO”s to every one “YES”, when it comes to getting an order and if you are not strong enough to accept this denial (many take it to heart and start doubting their self-worth), this career is just not for you. You need to be like the mythical “phoenix” – ready to rise from the ashes.

Do you take people for granted?
Frankly, many of us do and are not worried about it. Do you for example, feel there is nothing wrong in breaking queues or treating the basic needs of a person according to his financial status? When you go for picnics, do you always take care of where your driver eats or sleeps, while you are inside that comfortable hotel room? If you don’t, you are in for a trouble in a marketing career. Customers do not like to be taken for granted irrespective of their purchasing power.

Are you a good reader of minds?
No, you need not be an astrologer or a face reader, but after interacting with a stranger for say 30 minutes, are you able to recognise his or her preferences/tastes and can you reasonably predict the processes and criteria that are going to be applied by this stranger while taking decisions? In short, will you be able to make a guestimate of how he/she will behave in a given condition. Customers do not give you a year to study their decision making patterns and a good marketing person is constantly assessing the best way to convince him, while talking shop with the prospective customer.

Are you good at assessing the exact needs or requirement of others?
Customers have stated needs and implied needs. A marketing man has to assess, both reasonably well. For example, employees of an Indian office always feel this need of drinking tea/coffee every few hours. A chaywallah who opens a kiosk outside this office is trying to satisfy this “stated” need. An implied need of the same customer could however be that the cups in which the tea is served be clean. If the chaywallah fails to assess this, his business will suffer. All aspirants to a marketing career must have this innate skill of recognising what their customers actually want. Which need of theirs is being satisfied? Like if people didn’t want to remain clean, how could have bath soaps got sold? People missing wood for the tree have no chance of wooing the customer in this competitive environment.

Are you innovative?
Do you have the knack of doing the same old thing in a refreshing manner? If not, please reconsider making marketing as your bread and butter career. Try and remember AKAI’S buy-back schemes! Did they not explode the sales of the same old colour televisions? Or for that matter, did you expect a cinema theatre to give you convenience of booking on the fax or the Internet? Innovation is the name of the game, here. Everyone knows that buy - back schemes are gimmicks, but still you and I lap them up when presented with one. I am sure some enterprising marriage bureau is soon going to come up with a scheme where spouses will be available with a warranty and later with an appropriate “return-back” scheme.

Are you a good communicator?
What is the point in having brilliant ideas in your head if you cannot communicate them effectively to those around you? This is an essential managerial trait (and not restricted to marketing professionals). Skills of good communication are never more required than when you persuade a stranger to buy your product or service. The most important aspect of being a good communicator is to possess the skill of good listening. Isn’t it surprising that keeping shut and listening to what others have to say is a vital part of your scheme to let them know what you want to say?? Braggarts, against popular belief, are never successful sellers, because they are full of themselves.

Are you a good networker?
Haven’t you admired some people for the information they seem to have on their fingertips or readily know where to find it? They always seem to have a “network” which they activate when required. This network may not have got created out of any formal steps taken by them- many a time it gets created on its own because of the creators' personality. Since interpreting events that take place around us and gauging their effect on sales of our products or services is an important task to be performed by a marketer, those with a good networking capability are always good marketers. This also explains why persons with an average IQ manage to “go around the globe twice” while the brilliant guy is still “tying his shoe laces”.

Are you an optimist?
The “hit rate” in a marketing job is low. Pessimists find the going very very difficult. A wag once defined an optimist as a person, who when he accidentally falls into a river, starts bathing. We require marketing guys to make the most of whatever opportunity comes their way. Even if they lose an order, they look at the information about competition that was gained in the process, as a worthwhile gain. A marketing career demands persons with such a sunny outlook, ready to extract whatever benefits they can, from a given situation.

Do you value after sales service?
All products which require after sales service sell because the facilities to provide the same are adequate. In modern organization structures, the service department no longer reports to the technical guys in “production”; it is the responsibility of the marketing manager. No longer can the marketing guys shirk this responsibility of looking after customer satisfaction because it makes economic sense to have “repeat customers”. Persons who by their very nature, are not “ service minded”, therefore make poor marketing professionals .A good self test is to find out if you give adequate weightage to this aspect of after sales service, while buying (when you are a customer).

Are you “research oriented” or do you have many “blind spots” in your thinking?

Most people can be divided into two categories – those who will look for evidence, however weak, before believing things and others who would believe things because they have been told to them by persons who they think are “trustworthy”. Please examine which category you fall in. If it’s the latter, consider some career other than marketing.

Perceptions of what customer’s value systems are, factors influencing his buying behaviour, past performance of how your product sold in a particular territory and the reasons thereof, analysis of the secondary indicators which may affect sales, are some of the things which a marketing professional needs to study continuously in order to be on top of the situation and in order to adjust his strategy. If all this sounds like so much boring work, let a warning bell ring

How good are your social skills?

The popular concept of marketing guys being excellent social animals is true. I am mentioning this skill towards the end of this article, not because it is less important but because it is too well known and fits into the image-stereotype that already exists in our mind. This is not a field for loners. You must enjoy being with people, without letting their obnoxious habits come in the way of your concluding a deal with them.

Why don’t you give yourself a small self-test and find out how well you score on this eleven-point-scale? If you manage 7 and above, plunge head along into this exciting career-path. For those scoring 4 to 6 points, there is hope and you can vigorously try to improve on your weaknesses, to still make things go. For the stragglers getting 3 and below, it is time to think of something else – don’t lose hope though – marketing is not the only exciting thing in this world.

"Mr. Prakash Shesh, the author, has done his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad after his Masters in Physics from I.I.T. New Delhi. You may send your feedback to him by choosing an option at the top right corner of this page." He can be reached at creative_ngp@sancharnet.in