Three Levels of Mastery: The Lost Art of Tradecraft in Marketing

Recent reports from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) indicate that 83 percent of HR pros are struggling to recruit trained and viable applicants, and 52 percent say that finding skilled candidates is getting increasingly difficult year-over-year. This so-called “skills gap” has been the subject of various papers, webinars, and expert speaker presentations. But, in the midst of this proverbial exodus of skilled workers, we want to ask a question. Are people not self-sufficiently learning skills anymore, or is the old guard failing to teach?

Mentorship has decades upon decades of research backing its value and worth. People with wise and helpful mentors advance in their fields faster, are more loyal, have higher levels of job satisfaction, are healthier, perform better, and possess stronger relationship and business skills than non-mentored employees. Yet, fewer than one-third of employees — across all industries — have mentors. Those that do are happier, healthier, and higher-performing.

Unfortunately, marketing is an industry where mentorship is fundamentally lacking. HR reps grind against mountains to find highly-skilled and highly-engaged employees. But many of those same companies struggling to secure talent are failing to connect entry-level marketers with skilled and experienced professionals. And the idea that college experience overtakes on-the-job mentorship is depriving an entire generation of marketers — which is beginning to crack the foundations of this incredibly powerful, resourceful, and valuable industry.

The Rocky Road to Success

Personally, I believe that trades have the single best style of training in any industry. The apprentice, journeyman, master pathway involves constant skilling, on-the-job performance, and continuous engagement. The college degree route doesn’t engage in this flow. As a result, 41 percent of recent grads are underemployed, while HR reps yell from rooftops looking for skilled workers. Something isn’t working. We won’t go into the astronomical increase in college costs (which are rising 8x faster than wages) or the obvious issues with the traditional college-work-retirement route — which has been decaying year-over-year.

Instead, I want to discuss the clear-as-day problem the marketing industry is facing. There are more marketing graduates than available marketing positions. But the majority of companies are struggling to find skilled marketers. In other words, there’s a serious training issue happening across the entire industry. Sure. The internet has opened a whole new world of self-skilling and training, but it’s no replacement for one-on-one human interaction and knowledge transfer. Instead of focusing on providing experience and training through mentorship, most businesses rely on college credentials and past work experience. This leads to the all-too-common “+3 years of experience” requirements on entry-level positions. No one wants to train. Yet everyone wants skilled workers.

A Generational Clash Exposes Fundamental Training Flaws

Let’s be honest: Millennials and Gen Z have been hit the hardest by this lack of mentoring. Fifty years ago, mentoring was a common practice at marketing firms. Yet, instead of carrying on that tradition, college degrees have superseded training, and many people in Gen X and above approach knowledge transfer with a scarcity mindset.

I don’t want to pull punches. A good portion of experienced marketers are scared that knowledge transfer will put them out of a job. This may have to do with underlying ageism architectures or generational values, but knowledge transfer in marketing is largely contained in blogs — most of which are simply regurgitating cookie-cutter strategies with the right keyword density to rank their agency — and for-pay courses. This isn’t a small issue. It’s degrading the marketing landscape. While I won’t cover the frictions between newer marketers and older marketers in a world of super-fast tech advancement, many of the old guard are failing to spread knowledge back into the community.

This isn’t to say that experienced marketers are entirely to blame. Fears of replacement and tech-first marketing (which is a skill set that younger generations have more access to simply through generational differences) are tangible, and some businesses are quick to replace higher salaried workers with experience with “go-getters” with lower salary demands. It’s a real problem. But businesses and experienced marketing leaders need to work together to find a solution. Marketing skill stagnation is at an all-time high, and the overall lack of mentorship is slowly draining core skills out of our wonderful industry.

Because, here’s the big secret: the core of marketing never changes. Yes. Technology, processes, and strategies change. But telling stories, creating human interactions, pleasing people, and crafting messages will always remain. Experienced marketers possess these skills. And they’re much harder to train than simply executing an A/B test or automated marketing campaign.

Escaping the Skill Gap With Mentor-driven Velocity

Every business can benefit from marketing mentorship programs. Sixty-three percent of Millennials admit that their leadership skills aren’t being developed (P.S. sticking “CMO” on a job title does not count as leadership skilling). Twenty-eight percent of Millennials will quit their job due to a lack of learning and development opportunities, and 79 percent of Millennials see “mentoring” as a crucial component of their long-term career success. Not convinced? Let’s look at some business-centric statistics:

• Fifty-five percent of businesses with mentorship programs say it’s positively impacted their profits.
• Ninety-four percent of people would stay at their organization longer if they had more learning opportunities.
• Sixty-seven percent of businesses admit that mentorship has a tangible impact on their productivity levels.
• People with mentors are promoted 5x more often, and mentors are promoted 6x more often.

Still not convinced? Here’s the stick. Millennials will comprise 75% of the workforce in 4 years. And ~50% would quit their job today if they could. But, and here’s the crazy part. Those with mentors stay, on average, 5 years longer than those who aren’t mentored. In short, mentoring works. It works really well. Even if you ignore the benefits to the community, marketing industry, and people. Mentorship programs provide measurable returns for your business and help you escape the ever-growing skills gap.

Where Do You Start?

There are thousands of articles that drill down into the details of mentorship programs. This won’t be one of them. Instead, I’m going to take this time to discuss one very important component of mentorship programs: experienced professionals. Mentorship programs won’t work unless you get your senior marketing professionals involved. You need to build out the right KPIs that judge and reward senior marketing professionals on their ability to transfer knowledge to the next generation. There are thousands of ways to do this, but I generally recommend KPIs that are both qualitative and quantitative. You still want human feedback from mentees to discuss any flaws in their mentorship program.

Don’t hire by experience. Build experience. Hire by culture fit, engagement, and drive. The truth is: marketing can be learned fairly quickly by the right people. But it can’t always be learned in a classroom setting or on blogs. Sure! Younger generations have innate social media skills. That’s not marketing. That’s a marketing strategy. Experience marketers have knowledge about the single most important component of the marketing paradigm: people. Let the knowledge flow.

Are you looking to execute growth-driven strategies like mentorship? We can help. At Brand Syntax, we partner with niche B2B software brands to deliver a boutique agency experience grounded in meaningful collaboration and wholly transformative marketing. We aren’t here to give you a few strategies and help you onboard another Salesforce module. Our team strives to make tangible differences in the way your organization runs: today and in the future. Contact us to learn more.