In this article with Inc, Seth Godin talks about the importance of obtaining soft skills

"Marketers around the globe face challenges of constant adaptation to buyers needs, an ever-changing economy .. This is so much to tackle that even experts have difficulties making adjustments and staying updated."

It starts off by saying

How very true.  Here at DLA Ignite, we focus totally on social media and transforming businesses with social and it it's difficult enough innovating, experimenting and keeping up with the changes in the world of social.  It amazes me how a business like a "full service marketing agency" can keep up with all of the changes in web, SEO, ABM, social, etc. It must be pretty much impossible.

Sethdigital skills today and his answer was

was asked why people should stay up-to-date with

"It begins with a question: Is this important to you? Does telling a more effective story and earning the trust of better clients even matter?

Skills can be learned. And the skill of engaging with empathy, on finding ways to help your clients do remarkable work -- that's learnable."

He was then asked

"For someone who has already developed their marketing strategy, is there anything else they can do to push themselves further, in the marketing space and beyond?"

His answer being ...

"Marketing effectively is about finding the smallest viable audience and not only earning their trust, but showing up in a way that's worth talking about -- not because you want them to talk about you and your work, but because they do.

If you are executing well on your marketing strategy, then the result is growth. Better clients and better work.

It's not about hustling people. No one wants to be hustled."

I'm guessing that puts an end to interruption marketing tactic such as cold calling (tele-marketing), advertising and email marketing.  These are all marketing options that requires the biggest audience and requires you to hustle people. 

Seth goes onto say "It's worth focusing on what "marketing" means. It's not about hype and promotion. It's about finding work that matters and choosing to stand for it."

 More from Seth, most businesses .. "have an unspoken motto, "You can pick anyone, and we're anyone." If that's what you do, a jack-of-all-trades, then of course you have to hustle.

The alternative is to be specific. To charge a lot and be worth more than you charge."

Oops, I wouldn't want to be a "full service marketing agency" right now.  As Seth says, as a business you need to focus on what you do. 

From the author of "Permission Marketing", Seth understand that the old marketing ways of throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks have long gone.  Hope is not a strategy.  It's time to get digital skills and move to where our clients are, which is on social media.

But the trick is that its social media.  Just moving your "throwing shit at the wall and hope it sticks" tactics to social will get you little results.

Social

is different

Imagine, I can drive you to a networking event where all the people are your prospects, you arrive, grab a coffee and start having conversations.  It's as simple as that.  You can stay as long as you want. The only limitation is how many conversations can you have in a day.

This is what Seth is talking about; focused, prospecting.  No banging on doors or calling people up or emailing people wasting your time and energy with inefficient and ineffective demand generation processes.   

No hustle, business conversations, solving business problems. 

That's why you need to get digital skills today.