B2B marketing can be a tough grind, sometimes. We’re big believers in Jim Collins’ findings from his Good to Great research (and book), and one of the keys to the success of high growth businesses is about getting the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus.
‘Wrong’ in this context is not about good or bad, but about ‘fit’ for the team, values, work style, work rate, focus on the customer and other factors at a given point in time.
If you buy the logic of what Collins calls “first who, then what” (get the right team on the bus, then work out where to drive it), the consequences are scary. It occasionally means losing good people, if they are wrong for the bus (or you can’t get them into the right seat on the bus); even for a business where all the members are working hard and can ill afford to lose good people.
On the flip side, it also means hiring great people if they clearly belong on the bus, even if you have to manufacture a seat to make room for them. We’ve seen both ends of this at align.me: exiting team members we could ill-afford to lose on some occasions because they didn’t ‘fit’; hiring a ‘gun’ when we couldn’t afford it.
Right now, we’re busy recruiting for three great people who deserve to be on the bus. We’re looking for two graduate writers, and a product manager with internal project management responsibilities.
