This is a simple epiphany I had when I was out with my friend Z who specialises in Copywriting for spiritual products.

In the past, I used to believe that in order to be a good marketer, you need to be a good salesman because digital marketing is basically sales, but through a screen instead of face to face.

I still do see the overlaps in knowledge & skillset between sales and marketing that will be mutually beneficial to each other, but right now my perspective is starting to shift.

A Marketer doesn’t need to be good at Sales to be a Good Marketer.

Most marketing agencies that I’ve noticed when they’ve started off, it’s always 2 guys.

The Sales Guy and the Operations Guy

There are skills overlaps between the 2, but generally the Operations guy tends to be a nerdy be-spectacled tech savvy dude and the Sales guy is defined as “The Star” who is great at building connections and talking to people.

One line my friend said was, “My Media Buyer is a very talented guy, but for some reason he can’t seem to do sales for nuts.”

Which roughly translates to, this guy is great at marketing and technical execution for digital marketing, he can get people to do things he wants online, but for some reason suck at face 2 face sales, which is the choke point of his business.

My partner from Zalfion Media Pte. Ltd. and I also recently joined a business mastermind coaching course, the 2 partners who own the coaching business is also the same. A technical, be-spectacled guy, and a “The Star” type personality guy, they both can do sales, but most people would park the person with “The Star” type personality as possibly the 1 with the better sales & persuasion skills.

Another example is another fellow marketer I’ve met who’s more towards the technical side, I’ll call him Mr. B, his partner is too the kind of person that likes connecting with people, his IG page is filled with selfies with different people and his clients.

Another trend I’ve noticed is those people with “The Star” type personality tends to not want to do execution and technical related work aswell which is pretty interesting.

No moral of the story today, just wanted to share what I personally think, is an interesting trend amongst marketing agency partnerships.

So when you’re thinking of engaging a marketing agency, if the salesman is super great and persuasive, try to pry and ask who’s the execution guy, and see if he’s a nerdy be-spectacled dude who seems like he’s terrible at sales.

Maybe that is the secret to finding a good marketing agency, one that possess both the Yin and the Yang.