How to build, maintain a winning marketing team

It is every entrepreneur’s dream to have a motivated and energised marketing team that runs its affairs with little or no supervision from the top.

The hardest task lies in spotting and hiring intelligent and motivated marketing interns at the interview level. If you are an entrepreneur who is serious about success in business, you had better be in the interview room alongside your human resource management team.

Human resource managers are only trained to sift through hefty CV’s and spot interns with strong academic backgrounds. This however is not adequate research because an intern’s abilities and skills ought to match the information laid out in the colourful resume.

It would be important for you as the captain of your business to ask questions related on how the interviewee plans to add value to your organisation. Personally I repeatedly advise clients to enrol for a marketing certificate, diploma or degree course.

That way you will be leading from the front and not from behind. As the business owner, you are the pioneer marketer who has the responsibility of going out there and coming back with business to your company.

The responsibility of sorting out your overheads on time is so enormous for you to gamble with marketing endeavours at this stage. Remember, when starting out you are alone since the capacity at that level is minimal to accommodate extra employees.

A common practice I have noticed in the Kenyan market is that one where you set up a business with so much money then sit back and wait for clients to come falling like free manna from heaven.

Others spend so much finances on hiring a new marketing team only to realise that they bought their school certificates and are actually very lazy, clueless and directionless.

Some marketing interns actually come to the office to mobilise fellow colleagues to agitate for increased pay perks yet they have nothing to show for their unnecessary course.

You ought to realise that the staff members who often unionise the office against change of rules or goals and visions are usually individuals scared of performance audits. Office baraza’s are used to divert attention and avoid looming performance audits.

On the other hand, if you see a staff member who promptly gives back reports of their daily work itinerary, that is the marketing energy you need to maintain in your company.

Interns who want to learn about the business, while out in the field, they are always calling you to make inquiries on how to serve your potential clients better, are what is needed in an organisation focused on growth.

Handsome budget

Proactive marketers have their own work plan that is aligned to the company’s goals and targets. They will not ask you for a pay increase, they will just present their completed work reports and wait for your response. Even when they are briefly late for work they will quickly send you a text message apologising in advance.

To shield your organisation from marketing snags, you must appreciate the importance of creating a handsome budget for hiring and maintaining motivated marketers.

You also need to be good at delegating and fence-sitting because, marketers who have a vision and are highly motivated don’t like supervision and pressure.

They can be quiet in the organisation but don’t confuse that with arrogance. They are simply doing business for you and concentrating on what brought them to your organisation.

A motivated marketer passively negotiates for a pay increase by use of results and reports of work done. You had better treat them with kid gloves lest you are left hanging when your company is about to take off.

The secret of hiring, maintaining and building a winning marketing team lies in your social skills and your ability to become a good friend and mentor to them. You must also have the company vision and direction at your finger-tips. Communicate the task at hand and demonstrate how each of your marketing staff should contribute towards handling the elephant in the room.

I always advise my clients in business networking sessions to always have targets that are hinged on your company’s monthly overheads. If your business spends Sh100,000 monthly on recurrent bills, that should be your first operational baseline. That forms the foundation under which all employed staff ought to base their activities on.

If you have three staff members, that forms a team of four including yourself. Split the Sh100, 000 among the four members of the team and implore upon each member to go out there and come back with business worth Sh20,000 monthly.

Do not forget your mission. Clearly explain to the team what the company does and how it plans to solve customer problems out there. Your service/product selling proposition must be simple and clear.

What is in it for clients? That question must be answered by your product/service selling proposition. How do you plan to add value to the market? It is a widely recorded fact that intelligent marketing interns have high affinity to clarity. Dilemmas, hang-ups and general lack of direction is a complete turn off to an intelligent team.

Remember also, your communication system must be modern and prompt. The younger lot prefers instructions given out through text messaging services. If you are a CEO and you do not have a smartphone, wake up and go buy one today.

You cannot motivate and maintain the digital age- group in your organisation with outdated business processes of memos and weekly announcements.

Lastly for your team to produce on auto pilot, set competitions and awards. Winning marketers who bring in the highest profits into your business deserve a weekly award.

Celebrate a team member who attracts a huge client to your organisation. Pay for them free trips to amazing holiday destination where possible.

Gachanjah is a marketing consultant.