You might think that pattern recognition is an unusual subject for a B2B marketing guy to be discussing in his blog post. But stay with me and you will see that I have a very important point to make.
In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell states that it takes about ten thousand hours of practice to reach mastery in a field. This figure is frequently mentioned to demonstrate that real expertise often requires a significant investment. However, there is a lot of differences in how long it takes people to perfect their skills, if they ever achieve mastery at all.
For instance, consider two people. The first person goes to a well-known culinary school and then does an apprenticeship at a five-star restaurant. Their aim is to learn from the best and rise to the top of their field quickly. In contrast, the second person took a few cooking classes at a community college and then started working at a diner, where they have been a short-order cook for several years. Both have spent the same amount of time, but their results and skill levels are quite different.
Every professional must go through a process of learning and experience to get to be recognized as an industry leader. And if they have completed the process effectively, they are worth more because they know what works and does not work in a particular scenario. For example, in the B2B marketing arena, my team and I have experienced lots of lead generation campaigns, lots of sales models, lots of branding exercises and lots of website optimization projects. We understand what it takes to drive awareness, leads and revenue.
This is what I mean by “pattern recognition.” It’s not just education or raw talent that counts, but the fact that you have been in the arena, made mistakes, taken the blows and delivered a few of your own. This real-world experience — assuming you learn from your mistakes – gives you the ability to recognize the pattern in a given scenario and make the right decision about whether and/or how to proceed. This ability to perform accurate pattern recognition doesn’t mean you will always get it right, but your chances of doing so are much greater. And employers or clients are almost always willing to pay for someone who can spot the patterns and guide decisions accordingly.
To sum up – to increase your value in B2B marketing (or any other endeavor), learn to master the art of pattern recognition.