The first marketing hire for a startup is a crucial role.
Marketing has many benefits for startups, and every day that passes by without any marketing efforts is a missed opportunity. When chosen correctly, your first marketer can jumpstart your brand and set you on a path to market relevancy. But when you choose wrong, you can alienate your customers.
No pressure!
So, what should you look for when hiring a marketing person?
6 Characteristics of Great First Marketing Hires
When hiring a marketer, you should look for:
- Cultural fit
- Trustworthiness
- Availability
- Big thinking
- Friendliness
- Strong writing
Cultural Fit
Does this person embody what you want people to think of your company? Your first marketing hire is going to be building your brand through multiple channels and responding to inbound activities. They’ll talk with customers, prospects, the media and the community — all of your various constituencies. They must represent the very best your company has to offer.
Marketing also has an important relationship with product and sales. The cultural fit must extend beyond organizations. Startups are too small to have silos and in-fighting. This person sets the tone as you build out the rest of the team.
Trustworthiness
This is too big of a hire for you to hand hold. This person needs to operate autonomously. The front lines of marketing — talking to customers, doing media interviews and sharing on social — happen in real time. Speed can be the difference between success and failure. You need to trust them to make quick and decisive decisions.
Availability
Your company’s brand is accessible 24/7/365 on the web. Someone who is looking for a straight 9-to-5 job won’t be able to be truly successful as your first marketing hire. In addition, when a crisis happens — and a crisis will happen (or at least something that seems like a crisis at the moment) — will this person be available at dinner time or on the weekend to do what needs to get done?
Big Thinking
Can this person see months and years out? Can they paint a picture bigger than the reality you know today? Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, can they execute on that vision? The first marketing hire is a difficult one because not everyone can be a player/coach. This person needs to come up with the plan, but they also need to do a lot of tactical execution. Finding someone who can do both isn’t easy, but if you can, you’re setting your company up for tremendous growth possibilities.
Friendliness
This hire needs to be able to make friends inside the company and out. Your first marketer is working closely with sales and product internally. Externally, they’re probably working the booth at trade shows, talking to the media when possible, interviewing customers for case studies. In the early days of a startup, before they’ve built a strong brand, personal relationships and connections are everything. The faster they’re able to make friends and build strong relationships, the more quickly your company benefits from that.
Strong Writing
Clear, concise and efficient writing is super important — even more so if the startup is founded by a technical engineer. The technology may be great, but if a prospect can’t derive value within the first 30 seconds of landing on your website or listening to a presentation, then you’ve lost them. The ability to cut through the noise and be heard has never been more difficult, so the ability to do that has never been more important. That’s why the most important skill is the ability to process information, dissect it internally and then articulate it clearly externally.
Of course there are more than just the above six traits to look for when hiring a marketing person for the first time. But these are a great start, and if you find a candidate that checks all these boxes, hire him or her — immediately!
