Posts Tagged ‘Imagination Publishing’
Top Ten Soft Skills
27 Jan 2010
by James Meyers
Too often, when companies are looking to fill an open position, they become overly focused on the “hard skills” and experience of the candidate’s resume. Where did they go to school? What is their degree? How many years of experience? Where have they worked? And probably the most flawed barometer of all: What is their current or desired compensation?
While it’s true that all of these questions are important, I’ve come to the realization that hard skills in most cases should account for no more than 40% of the hiring evaluation process particularly if you’re in the agency business.
At Imagination, we’ve always lived the Einstein quote, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. That framed quote has hung on my wall for more than twenty years and was not only the inspiration for the name of our company but a credo that has served us well in hiring new talent.
With that in mind, here is my “wish list” of The Top Ten Soft Skills that we look for in every prospective new hire.
- Passion: The most important of all soft skills. You either have it or you don’t. If you don’t have it for custom publishing, custom media, working in a highly creative, high energetic, demanding environment where our customers’ needs always come first, you can’t work here!
- Personality: Our people need to have an outgoing personality. We work with clients everyday and they like working with people they like and respect. Everyone likes to be around people who make them feel good, who they respect, who can laugh and who can light up their day!
- Relationships: This goes closely with personality. Our best, most successful associates love and nurture relationships with our clients, our teammates and oh yes, did I mention our clients? For them, happy clients are the only measure of success!
- Listening: Clients expect our associates to listen and engage with them to find the best solutions that will exceed their objectives and expectations. From listening can come opportunities to grow and to identify and correct potential issues. The inability to listen to clients is the number one cause of missed opportunities!
- Curiosity: We look for examples of personal curiosity as a sign that prospective candidates can break out of the comfort zone, question why things work or not and will pursue activities that will lead to self-learning and new ideas!
- Initiative: It’s critical that a successful marketing agency like Imagination is filled with associates who take the initiative to get things done, to make a difference, to do whatever it takes to achieve our client’s goals. We look for associates who are constantly demonstrating their initiative rather waiting for direction or approval!
- Confidence: The most alluring trait I love to see in our associates is self-confidence. Self-confidence is earned and present when we have put in the work and gone the extra mile to achieve success. People are drawn to self-confident people but are turned-off by arrogance. Self-confidence is earned. Arrogance is assumed and cannot be tolerated in any organization!
- Presentation Skills: When an associate has passion, personality and confidence, they are usually exceptional presenters because those characteristics make all the difference in making a presentation electric!
- Flexibility: Behind passion and the ability to create and nurture relationships, flexibility is key in today agency environment. Everything is changing everyday in marketing and with our clients so if you’re not flexible you’re not going to be happy or successful. Like listening, flexibility is key to winning new opportunities!
- Innovation: Last but not least, we always look for examples of innovation in our associates. Rarely that means coming up with a new idea that’s never been tried before. Usually innovation comes from the curiosity I spoke of earlier. Being aware or what’s working or not working for others and adapting the best ideas to benefit our clients and our company is what we look for. Remember, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”!
Of course it’s extremely rare to find all of these characteristics in every candidate but a few times we’ve come very close. Some, like passion, are more important than others but I’d say that unless a prospective candidate can demonstrate at least five or six of these soft skills, they probably aren’t going to be a good fit for Imagination Publishing or any other successful marketing agency.
By the way, if you think you have all of these soft skills, our door’s always open!
They’re Partners, Not Clients
24 Mar 2009
by James Meyers
Over the past several years, Imagination has come to understand the importance of customer relationships to insuring business success. During the early years of our custom publishing business, we successfully grew the company by focusing intensely on driving new business opportunities. While the strategy worked, we too often found ourselves needing to replace lost clients. In the newspaper business, we called it churn. Often times it was because the client’s budget was cut, or a personnel change at the client or they decided to try something new. Like the time a client decided to eliminate their very successful custom magazine in order to pay for sponsoring seat cushions at the Super Bowl. They did it one year and the custom magazine was gone, the Super Bowl sponsorship was gone, the great ROI was gone and soon after the CMO was gone too.
Occasionally, our intense focus on developing new clients caused us to underestimate the opportunities that we had with existing clients. Eventually, we realized that our best opportunities for growth came from clients where we had moved beyond a client/vendor arrangement to a valued partner relationship.
For years, we had used terms like customers and clients to describe our relationships but the reality was that they weren’t really relationships because they were based on “I need something and you can sell it to me” rather than a much more intertwined partnership. And it’s true partnerships with partners who understand, value and are willing to invest in custom content and publishing services that are they key to long-term success for both parties.
Like every company, we began 2009 unsure of the effects that the global recession would have on our business. We’ve seen some losses but we have more than made up for them with new business opportunities from existing partners and new clients who were seeking the full range of strategic custom content strategies that we provide. We take pride in the fact that many of our largest partner relationship have been in place for more than five years and that our business with them has consistently grown. In the end, isn’t that what a successful relationship is all about? The opportunity for both parties to grow by understanding each other’s needs and expectations while working together in a spirit of mutual respect and trust.
Business relationships don’t happen on day one. It takes time to develop and nurture a partnership so that both sides benefit from the relationship over the long run. We’re proud of our partnerships with some of the world’s leading companies and trade associations.
