*Typing*

I wouldn’t trust marketers who only talk about marketing. Marketing is incredibly nuanced. It can’t be summed up in terms metrics, formulas, hacks and tactics. To be a decent marketer, you must be a decent, empathetic human being.

At the end of the day, you are exchanging a good or service for somebody’s hard-earned money. Which is to say you’re exchanging a good or service for somebody’s time. Time away from their kids. Time away from their spouse.Time away from their loved ones.

Those who don’t take this responsibility seriously, should be sent to bed early with no dinner (and perhaps even a slap on the rump). Your job as a marketer is to find and sell something that provides more value than the money it costs.

I’m sorry, but this requires more “feeling” than “thinking”. Metrics, formulas, hacks and tactics are solid guardrails. But, they won’t get you all the way there. Intuition just may. If you’re considering hiring a marketer or a marketing agency, I would focus less on what they know about marketing and more on what they know about people. They should be well read in fiction, as there is no better look into the human psyche. They should be insatiably curious, as finding the answers require a determination of a truffle pig.

Above all, they should care about helping people. No, they don’t have to be Mother Theresa. But, they can’t be in it strictly to make a fast buck to buy a boat.

I once had this idea for Y-Combinator: The Amazon of church supplies. All those pews, alters and candles aren’t gifts from God. Somebody here on Earth makes them. And they cost a lot of money. Well, I began looking into this church supplies business and I saw the market was enormous. So, I put a pitch deck together and sent it to Paul Graham. This was before he retired to the woods in England to write.

Well, Paul was a busy man. Trying to get an appointment with him was like trying to get ahold of God while he was creating Earth. Just impossible. So, I got clever and started sending him bibles. Every day, I’d send Paul a bible. Each bigger than the day prior. What began as a bible no bigger than a matchbox grew to a behemoth that required a fork lift driven by a ham fisted man named Larry to deliver.

One day, buried up to his ears in bibles, Paul relented. He had his secratary get in touch with me. When I walked into Paul’s office, his frustration was palpable. Hundreds of bibles were stacked in every corner of his office and the elephant of a bible that Larry delivered had been converted into a makeshift coffee table. I immediately dove into my pitch. To my surprise, Paul seemed genuinely interested. He nodded along. Reading the deck with a pair of Eagle eyes. Licking his fingers, from time to time, to turn a page.

In the end, he had just one question… “What are you going to call this thing, Cole?”

I said… “Holy shit.”

Picasso didn’t always sign his paintings Picasso. Early on in his career, he signed them Pablo Ruiz Picasso. Ruiz was his father’s last name. Picasso was his mother’s maiden name. When he dropped Ruiz and began signing his paintings strictly as Picasso, a lot of folks thought it was to spite his father. They had a tumultuous relationship. Picasso surpassed his father’s artistic abilities at a very young age and it’s believed this caused resentment on both sides to form.

However, his choice to drop “Pablo” and “Ruiz” from his signature was just a brilliant branding maneuver. In other words, it was strictly business. It was less of a mouthful. It was far easier to remember. And, it was unique. There were a ton of artists at the time with the last name “Ruiz” but very few with the last name “Picasso”. What we choose to call ourselves and our work possesses a tremendous amount of power. Choose wisely.

You don’t want to do work that is easy to achieve. Nor work that is impossible. You want to do work that is difficult. Work that is just out-of-reach. You want to do work that requires a degree of ingenuity: a hanger duct taped to a broom stick, a stepstool, your tiptoes and a stretch that makes you hold your breath. This kind of work requires you to grow, to expand and to become, while at the same time remaining incredibly fun. Easy work is boring. Impossible work is brutal. Difficult work is beautiful. Do difficult work.

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If you want to do great work, you have to invite constructive criticism. Unfortunately, we as humans aren’t particularly gifted at being constructive with our criticism. We’re far better at pointing out problems than we are at coming up with solutions.

Critiques must be accompanied by suggestions. If you are going to do the easy work of pointing out something that isn’t working, you are expected to do the hard work of coming up with a way to fix it. During your next feedback session, ask this simple question to facilitate constructive criticism… “How can this be better?” Not only will the feedback be less personal, everyone will become invested in finding a solution.