What are the qualities of a successful marketer?

Quality marketing staff members complement their business development partners. Great marketers are:

• Organized— a good proposal is, above all, well organized. Similar to baseball pitching, in which body control equals ball control, an organized process often leads to an organized document. It steps the reader through the persuasive argument for selecting the proposed firm. An organized marketer provides a foundation of smoothly stacking the building blocks of the document to build a logical and persuasive argument for the selection committee. The competitive proposal arena is all about communicating to potential clients—often with an overwhelming amount of information. The number one responsibility of the marketing staff is to tend the data with the same care as a farmer tends a thousand acres of corn.
• Parallel Processors— a good marketer will always be involved in numerous pursuits simultaneously, all at different levels of gestation. The ability to push forward each assignment a little at a time, while maintaining a cool head, is an important characteristic for anyone; in the marketing department of a busy technical services office, it’s the engine that drives the bus. A firm has to be able to efficiently crank out enough proposals to cover their share of the market. That’s a lot of paper. A team of well organized, efficient and effective marketing coordinators is critical to success. 
• Clear Thinking— marketing staff are bombarded by demands from all directions. At the same time, there are multiple tiers of issues to be resolved, ranging from the mundane (how do I get a proposal delivered on time during a snow storm?) to the profound (we are well-positioned to win a pending major opportunity, but our team recently ran over budget on an assignment with the same client). The ability to sort through and prioritize the myriad of thoughts in a clear, level-headed way is highly valued in marketing staff. Not everyone can do it, even fewer are accomplished at it. Many individuals have a knack for seeing through the trees to find the forest in a world of multiple, competing challenges, then thinking of the right thing to do-- and doing it.
• Cool demeanor— there’s no doubt that marketing for a technical professional services firm is a pressure-filled job. Any project performed under a deadline, with a variety of people, and with limited control, is a recipe for conflict. A marketer who can navigate through this process, while maintaining emotional equilibrium, is priceless. You cannot underestimate how the emotional highs and lows of a marketer affects the mood of the team.