A question often comes up when talking with others outside of advertising and marketing about the kind of person that succeeds in an agency role (or any in marketing for that matter). Answers traditionally circle around the predictable: People who succeed are creative, empathetic to how others see the world (by way of a product or service) and of course, the overused ‘outside the box’ thinker.
Fortunately, the world is awash in people with such skills. Often the only difference is that some recognize these traits in themselves and others do not.
But what really drives success is something that is too often discounted or is often elusive to spot: Grit.
Grit is the ability to fight through. To see endless barriers and blow them up. To not be discouraged by feedback that’s not always positive. To see the shore on the other side of a river and figure out how to make your way across, even when the waves are high and the alligators are plenty.
Unlike many businesses, there are rarely any right answers in this business. Things don’t frequently ‘add up,’ so intuition and insights are the driving factors of how things are done, coupled with deep data and user feedback. But at the end of the day, you’re trying to discover things and discovery is often a product of failing fast and frequently in order to reach the end destination.
Grit is what powers successful people through and gets them to the rewards that are on the other side. And often, grit is a compounding trait … Succeeding in the face of difficult challenges builds bigger reserves of the drive that will lead to solving even bigger challenges downstream.