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In the theory of the big five personality traits, extroversion is believed to describe one of the core traits that shape a human being. Extroversion (aka extraversion) in a person is often described as being full of life, highly social, insightful, positive, and open to change.
All of these translate directly into having a high level of emotional intelligence (EQ), which can be a key factor when it comes to team communication inside any company. Similarly to IQ measuring the capabilities of our brain, EQ measures a person’s abilities to stay emotionally stable in different situations, come up with actionable solutions in dire situations (handling crises without panic), and being able to identify any emotional discomfort in team members and help find solutions to those.
Now all of these traits are awesome for a marketer and you might think that extroversion is the way to go when it comes to marketing. But extroverts can also be very annoying to say the least, depending on the team, circumstances, and atmosphere where they work.
For example, imagine being in a room with a person who is always full of energy and never shuts up, not even for a minute. Doesn’t sound very intriguing to me.
Now imagine being with that same person in the same room for 8 hours every day, for a few years.
Yeah, good luck with not going insane.
The key characteristic
Now all these traits of being an extrovert seem to be great for a marketer, despite the fact that in some situations extroverts might really be a pain in the butt. However, none of these characteristics really outline anything really great concerning marketing activities in particular.
Marketing is a very dynamic environment and requires a lot of energy, a pushing-for-the-win type of approach, endless motivation, and a positive mood. But then, you could say that this kind of behavior will be welcome in any career or industry, so why marketing in particular?
The answer is that there is another characteristic, which helps extroverts outshine other personality counterparts heavily when it comes to marketing.
It’s the simple question “Why”.
I’ll tell you why “why” is so important, but we will go over something else first.
The only thing that counts
To make sure we are all on the same page, let’s define something.
There are a number of different definitions for marketing that I have heard and read and seen all over the place. But that’s all for the looks. The real definition of marketing is the following:
“Marketing is about selling more stuff, to more people, more frequently, for more money.” /Tweet this
This is why companies spend millions of dollars on their marketing activities and campaigns each year.
All the trash talk about getting familiar with consumers, establishing healthy relationships, worrying about their user experience, providing the best solutions, thinking from their perspective and so very long on, is all done for a single purpose: to get people to buy more.
Okay, back to the “why”.
Why the “why” is important
In short, the world (as well as the business world) never stops moving forward. More and more information is becoming available to more and more people and based on that information, people, aka buyers, are becoming more and more sophisticated in their buying decisions.
Remember the old times when a salesperson was a god among humans? He would just call random people and tell them about this awesome new product that will instantly solve all the problems for buyers and make them lead a much happier life the moment they buy it.
Well, a simple person had practically no other way than to believe the sales guy on the spot and just buy the product.
Today, a salesperson is that annoying guy who calls and talks about something you most probably already know about and also, knows exactly whether you need it or not.
Why? (Pun alert!) Because of Google.
And as time goes on, information becomes available to more people, so the salespeople are becoming even less relevant.
In order to be able to sell more stuff to more people, a good marketer must be in a constant search of new solutions that will help break through the noise and the cold barrier of regularity and “everybody is doing that same thing” kind of stuff, and offer products/services to buyers in a way, that will seem most appealing and unexpected to them
This is exactly why the “why” is so crucial for a marketer. Since extroverts possess so many social skills, are open to new ideas and change, as well as look for innovations constantly, this makes them an ideal candidate to ask more and more “why”s and find more and more answers to those “why”s.
You can take any example from your marketing career and apply the “why” concept. Any time you were able to improve a process, which ultimately helped improve marketing ROI, (aka sell more to more people) 9 out of 10 (I’d give 10 out of 10, but I think it’s reasonable to leave one out for some extraordinary case) involved finding the answer to a specific “why”. You might not have realized it at first, but if you think about it, it will come together. This ongoing exploration of “why” is like continuously updating a writer’s portfolio–it‘s crucial to document and reflect on these moments to build your professional narrative and showcase your evolving capabilities.
Go on. I’ll wait. When you are done, share your experiences in the comments.
Things to remember
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter whether you are an extrovert or an introvert, or any other kind of vert of that matter. All that matters is the constant search for “why”s and the ability, passion and resolve to find the answers to those “why”s.
Extroverts are simply better fit to fulfill this particular task, due to their open nature and change-welcoming approach toward life.
