What Does it Take to be a Top Sales & Marketing Assistant Today

It always has been a little complicated to figure out what exactly makes a top-notch Sales & Marketing Assistant. Well-Run Concepts has been conducting research to quantify what is needed in the position of Sales & Marketing Assistant today by defining these key areas:

· Attributes: personal skills or competencies

· Values: rewards and culture

· Behaviors: how they do the job

We used a comprehensive, validated, step-by-step process called the Trimetrix™ system to determine what is needed for top performance. This article will summarize our findings to date and here is what we found.

Attributes tells us if an individual can do the job by looking at what personal skills or competencies are needed in the job of Sales & Marketing Assistant.

The Top Seven Attributes are:

1. SELF MANAGEMENT: The ability to prioritize and complete tasks in order to deliver desired outcomes within allotted time frames.

• Independently pursues business objectives in an organized and efficient manner
• Prioritizes activities as necessary to meet job responsibilities
• Maintains required level of activity toward achieving goals without direct supervision
• Minimizes work flow disruptions and time wasters to complete high quality work within a specified time frame.

2. PLANNING AND ORGANIZATION: The ability to establish a process for activities that lead to the implementation of systems, procedures or outcomes.

• Defines plans and organizes activities necessary to reach targeted goals
• Organizes and utilizes resources in ways that maximize their effectiveness
• Implements appropriate plans and adjusts them as necessary
• Consistently demonstrates organization and detail orientation

3. RESILIENCY: The ability to quickly recover from adversity.

• Continues toward goals in the face of difficulty and adversity
• Handles criticism and rejection from others with objectivity
• Recovers quickly from personal setbacks
• Moves past unforeseen obstacles without unnecessary delay

4. RESULTS ORIENTATION: The ability to identify actions necessary to complete tasks and obtain results.

• Maintains focus on goals
• Identifies and acts on removing potential obstacles to successful goal attainment
• Implements thorough and effective plans and applies appropriate resources to produce desired results
• Follows through on all commitments to achieve results

5. SELF STARTING: The ability to initiate and sustain momentum without external stimulation.

• Initiates relevant activities toward achieving business goals
• Independently completes projects and produces desired results
• Requires little or no supervision to stay focused on necessary activities
• Readily identifies and pursues business opportunities without outside direction

6. CUSTOMER FOCUS: a commitment to customer satisfaction.

• Consistently places a high value on customers and all issues related to customers
• Objectively listens to, understands and represents customer feedback
• Anticipates customer needs and develops appropriate solutions
• Meets all promises and commitments made to customers

7. INTERPERSONAL SKILLS: The ability to interact with others in a positive manner.

• Initiates and develops business relationships in positive ways
• Successfully works with a wide range of people at varying levels of organizations
• Communicates with others in ways that are clear, considerate and understandable
• Demonstrates ease in relating with a diverse range of people of varying backgrounds, ages, experience and education levels

Values make up the next critical success factor needed, which tells us why an individual will do the job or, in other words, what rewards & cultures are they seeking on the job.

The Top Three Values are:

1. UTILITARIAN/ECONOMIC

Rewards those who value practical accomplishments, results and rewards for their investments of time, resources and energy.

2. TRADITIONAL/REGULATORY

Rewards those who value traditions inherent in social structure, rules, regulations and principles.

3. AESTHETIC

Rewards those who value balance in their lives, creative self-expression, beauty and nature.

Behaviors tell us how an individual will perform the job. We analyzed which of the behaviors an individual should possess to perform well in the job of Sales and Marketing Assistant. This is very important information to know in understanding communication styles.

The Top Three Behaviors are:

1. FREQUENT INTERACTION WITH OTHERS

The job requires a strong “people orientation," versus a task orientation. The job will comfortably deal with multiple interruptions on a continual basis, always maintaining a friendly interface with others.

2. CUSTOMER ORIENTED

The job demands a positive and constructive view of working with others. There will be a high percentage of time spent in listening to, understanding and successfully working with a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds to achieve “win-win: outcomes.

3. FREQUENT CHANGE

The job requires a comfort level with “juggling many balls in the air at the same time!" It will be asked to leave several tasks unfinished, and easily move on to new tasks with little or no notice.

Now that we have a clear picture of what the Sales & Marketing Assistant Job looks like, I would like to ask you this…

• If you are a Sales & Marketing Assistant, do you have these critical success factors mastered? If not, what’s your plan to develop them?
• If you are company, how are you currently measuring the talent in your sales team today?
• Do they have the above named attributes, values and behaviors?
• If so, great! You are ahead of the competition!
• If not, how will you develop them or better yet, select talent that already has it?

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

If you want to know for sure, then run a Personal Talent Profile on yourself or your staff. Then match the results to the benchmark of the Sales & Marketing Assistant Job in this article.

Either way, if you are not assessing your talent now, how can you meet the challenges of today’s evolving Sales & Marketing Department needs?

Jennifer Selland is the Founder and President of Well-Run Concepts, a Human Resource Consulting Firm based in Ocala Florida, founded in 1997, whose mission is to Help Organizations Define and Develop Top Talent. Jennifer has over 15 years of Human Resource Management and Executive Operational hotel experience.

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