Marketers Respect Thy Self

The other day I was talking to a client that was a marketer at an A/E/C company and we started talking about why marketers do not get the respect they deserve. After numerous conversations and just listening at SMPS (Society of Marketing Professional Services) events, I have learned a few reasons why this is happens. Reasons vary from many people fall into marketing accidentally and are not really marketers, marketing seems to be a mystical & magical art that executives do not always understand, and sometimes its the marketing team’s personality.

One reason marketers do not get respect is because they don’t respect themselves and their own time. Many marketers are doers that will work countless hours on near impossible deadlines without the right tools. Then, they do not take the credit they deserve for the win. Also many marketers are “stuck in the weeds” and not positioning their company strategically for future success.

Let me give you a first hand example of what a team member a few years ago. A client needed a sign for their new office which was opening up the next day. The client balked at $150 to print a sign so this team member, that was a administrative/management position, printed the company’s logo and mascot out on our printer and taped it together. In all, she spent 6-7 hours on it and didn’t want to bill them because she wasn’t a billable employee. She didn’t value her time or our company’s time and that project should have cost over $700 for her time, printing, & the rush. Also, the taped together sign wasn’t as good as a sign a printer could have done. If you really think about it, if she wasn’t stuck in the day-to-day, she would have had the sign printed well before the day before.

Although marketing is usually looked at as an unbillable expense like administration and accounting, they shouldn’t be looked at as an expense because marketing and business development (BD) bring business to the company. Without marketing & BD, the technical and field teams have no work therefore they are more important than the billable team.

Think about this, the greatest architect in the world will be unknown without a marketer while an average architect can be a rockstar with a great marketer.