The year is 2022 and no one executes anymore.
The business world has shifted from execution towards rewarding company politics over results. To put it plainly, we’re seeing a lot more talking and a lot less walking.
That may be exaggerating the current situation a bit, but after interviewing 100+ individuals over the past 12 months, it is directionally accurate – applicants are hungry to work for a marketing agency that actually executes and delivers results.
The story is the same on the partner-facing side; our partners work with us because they know they can trust us to execute the plan and finish the job.
Why Execution Matters
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu
We define execution as the intentional actions that deliver the desired results. A plan is useless unless it is effectively executed.
Working with new partners, we often see them struggling with the same thing; they create an amazing marketing strategy and plan every quarter only to fall short on execution. Unfortunately, today’s corporate business culture rewards the “fluff” (i.e. look good, sound good) while ignoring the actual clicking of the keyboard (execution). The result is often leaders who look and sound good but do not understand what needs to happen tactically to get the job done.
At this stage, most businesses come to the conclusion that they either need to hire a team of individuals who can execute (expensive and takes time but more control) or bring in an execution-focused marketing agency (quicker and cheaper but less control). These options have their pros and cons for obvious reasons but what is missing in both is an understanding of marketing that is simultaneously deep and broad.
Enter “unicorn marketers”.
A Team of Unicorn Marketers
At OM we pride ourselves on being a team of marketing “nerds”.
We’re the group of professionals who love to learn new skills, lead the conversation and execute… we get stuff done!
Our company mission is to empower people and companies to reach their full potential and what we’re realizing is that “full potential” for our marketing team is to become a “unicorn marketer”.
Referring back to those interviews, we have only found a few individuals who have a majority of the skills (and intangibles) that we require from our team. This got us thinking about what it is that makes someone a “unicorn marketer”.
Unicorn Marketer: Profile
A unicorn marketer is a professional who is committed to progress, has the drive to see things through to completion, and is constantly in pursuit of being world-class. From a strong foundation of intangible characteristics, a unicorn marketer must also understand the bigger picture; they have to be both strategic and execution-focused. Finally; a unicorn marketer must have the skills, tools and ability to build and manage digital demand from the ground up.
Our CEO, Daniel, does a great job digging into Unicorn Marketers in this blog post.
So how do we find these “unicorns”?
We don’t; we help our team build and develop the skills required to be unicorn marketers. We are simply working with the best and brightest marketers (did we mention amazing people?) to help them reach their full potential.
Learn more about OM and our proprietary demand framework here.
