This week’s question from our portal “Ask Us Anything” comes from Elizabeth.
I hired a marketing person two months ago, and they’re not meeting expectations with myself or my team members. On a call, I told this person, “You’re not grasping the concepts. This is your 30-day notice that you need to get your act together and perform at the level I expect, or we’re going to find someone else.” I went over examples of things that I felt they were doing incorrectly, such as not using our brand colors, the length and presentation of the videos they created, etc.
I gave them our study guide and access to our brand materials, so that they can learn our format of marketing. I’ve provided training, but they’re still not getting it. They’re trying; they’re doing the work — it’s just really bad work. I haven’t specifically said, “I need you to send out this number of posts today.” Do I need to be that specific with everything? How do I get this person to do a better job of our marketing?
The first thing I would ask you is… do they have a clear understanding of what you expect of them in the next 30 days?
To answer your question, yes, you definitely need to be that specific — specifying the number of posts you need each day. But you also need to be very clear and specific about what you want from them when it comes to the actual projects.
First and foremost, I’m concerned as to whether or not they actually understand what’s expected of them? If you can’t articulate specifically what they need to be creating, that’s a problem. If you can’t articulate it because you don’t know how to create it yourself, then your problem lies in your communication — how you’re communicating what you need.
Creatives operate from a very different place in their mind. They need to know exactly what you want. Otherwise, they’ll come up with a vision of how your project should look in their mind; but it won’t necessarily match your vision for the project.
I’m the same way you are — I can’t always communicate what I want with certain things. But that doesn’t mean that the person I’m communicating to isn’t doing a good enough job. It just means they haven’t hit on something that I haven’t been able to articulate yet. I’ll know it when I see it.
You don’t want to get rid of someone who’s good if the problem is just that you need to work out the bugs in your communication, so that they finally understand what you’re looking for.
How would you find someone who could give you exactly what you want, if you can’t articulate that to them? It’s rare that someone would be able to come in, read your mind, and automatically know what you want.
That’s all I’m suggesting… is that there might be a communication gap. They might be decent at what they do, if you just gave them enough time and space to figure the problem out.
You have to work very closely with creative people to get it right. You have to communicate clearly to them what you want. Have them repeat it back to you, so that you know that they understand it.
You might say something like, “Look, I’m going to have you keep going back to the drawing board until we get this right.”
The idea is… do the best that you can to give them as much feedback as you can. Get clear on what you want. Work with them to make corrections.
And if you do decide to let this person go — when you hire the next person, if this same issue shows up as a problem again, then it’s probably how you’re communicating with them.
David
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