This article was first published to displayadsdeepdive.com
Whenever we are thinking of hiring a PPC, there’s always a lot of things to consider, and a very important one is how well our PPC fits with our companies. But today we are going to dig even deeper on this subject, and we’ll dive into the question of whether we should hire someone based on their personality (and how much we like it) or just base our decisions on the skills they have or lack.
So we’ve seen many times the comparison between a work-relationship and a marriage (I don’t mean this literally, otherwise I’d just love to dive into a certain couple that we thought would last and work together forever), and how both have some similarities that make them easier to understand. A marriage is a decision that builds up a team that, hopefully, will work together forever. Either on raising children, or buying a house, or figuring out their conflicts, or any other situation that life brings up, they’ll face it as a couple. And why would you want to share your whole life with someone you don’t like?
And we could totally transfer this into the work environment. The team you work with will kind of be like your family for a couple of hours every day of your life (or your life in that company), and there will be times where you’ll even spend more time with them than with your actual family. Your PPC specialist, along with the many other Marketing experts of your team, will be the people you’ll be surrounded by every day. Designing a new campaign? There’s your team to help you out. Facing a difficult client? Hey, you have your team to have your back. Having trouble figuring out a strategy or the right wording for your Display Ad? No worries, you have all these qualified experts ready to solve it for you.
So in order to make sure all of that happens, there is this tiny but actually huge requirement that we need to fulfill: Having a team that relies on each other and works in an environment that encourages them to improve themselves and trust each other. And no matter how qualified a PPC specialist is, sometimes they just can’t handle the human part of the work-life.
However, all of these aspects will grow in importance whenever you figure out what your organizational culture will be like. If you are happy with having solo workers who just handle their stuff, do what they have to do, create a fine Display Ad, launch it, and then leave, then maybe the personality of your employee won’t be a top #1 priority. So if your organization promotes a workspace where people are just there to do their jobs, regardless of the rest of their colleagues’ performance, then the answer to this article’s headline will be a full-on “No”.
But now, let’s take a minute to think this through. So we have a team of solo workers devoted to launching a Display Ad campaign. And the designer is awesome, the copywriter is just great, the PPC specialist is fantastic, but neither of them took the time to figure out the concept with the rest of the people working. So the final product is just a bunch of random stuff that worked for everyone on their own, but all together looks like a complete mess. And of course, communication here was key, but it’s not just about that. It’s about the actual fact of having a team where people just don’t relate to each other, and they don’t take the time to make sure their ship is going in the same direction.
So actually it appears that teamwork is really important when it comes to being a company that works cohesively and achieves the expected results. When we have a team that thinks together, develops together, and even creates together, not only they are happier and more productive, but also they maximize the results. And, this doesn’t require much explanation, the better the results, the happier the clients.
An important note to make here is that, of course, our PPC specialist must be able to identify the moments where they need to be a team player and figure out a strategy along with the other members of the team and the ones where they’ll have to do it on their own. This is fundamental because, if they are not capable of doing so, then you’ll have a much bigger problem to deal with: An employee who can’t ever be autonomous and always requires someone looking after them. Avoiding this issue is actually pretty simple, all you’ll have to do is make sure you keep a healthy balance on what’s done along with everyone, and what each specialist needs to do on their own.
Another important aspect to consider is the separation between the PPC specialist that we’d like to have a beer with and talk about life, and the ones that are actually prepared to do the job. Although we’d love to hire people only based on how much we like them, we should never leave aside the process of making sure that they are qualified for the job and have the skills that we need.
But, when it comes to the bottom line, there’s one that highlights: Skills can be learned, personality traits can not. So if you have a PPC specialist that knows absolutely everything there is to know about the advertising world but refuses to be a part of a work process that involves other people, then probably that’s not the right call to make. Being an expert that does not enjoy the “company” lifestyle might be an amazing fit if you are running an affiliate PPC program, but not a great addition to a team that hopefully will work, create, and achieve goals together.
Just think about it this way: Maybe your wife/husband/partner is a mastermind of everything regarding the institution of marriage and life as a couple, but will simply never laugh at your jokes nor be able to support your decisions. Would you like to spend the rest of your life with that person?
