As a baseball mom, I’m always surrounded by players, coaches, and parents from all over the country. I am both my son’s strongest supporter and his harshest critic. I’ve seen that aspiring athletes are urged to specialize in a sport much sooner in their careers. It wasn’t always like this. In the past, young athletes were required to participate in many sports in order to become well-rounded and have fun. Unfortunately, players are opting to concentrate in a single sport and position as a result of increased competition, often before they are physically and intellectually ready to do so. I asked my son, a strong hitter and first baseman, if he thought focusing in a position was enough to set him apart from his peers during a recent chat (Class of 2021 across the US). He said that only playing one position was insufficient. He feels that in order to be a standout player, he must not only be skilled with the “stick” (bat), but also capable of playing many positions. He set goals and devised a strategy to improve his attacking and defensive abilities so that he could become a more powerful and nimble player. He feels that by using this method, he will be able to catch the attention of college coaches in the future.
A “utility player” in sports is a player who can play numerous positions on the field while also holding their own at the plate. While utility players aren’t usually in the spotlight, they are crucial to a team’s success. They can play a variety of positions but only have one roster space. Their adaptability enables them to fill in where needed to help the team win. In Major League Baseball, there are a lot of superstar utility players. The Cubs’ Ben Zobrist, the Pirates’ Josh Harrison, and the Marlins’ Martin Prado are just a few instances.
This got me thinking about how a baseball utility player is comparable to employees who have spent years honing a wide range of industry and functional knowledge. Every business, like baseball, requires utility players. These individuals are brought in to assist firms win and progress their performance to the next level by filling gaps. Recruiters and hiring managers, on the other hand, frequently overlook the utility player’s contribution in favor of the “title” player, who currently fulfills the function and has the identical title of the new post. The premise is that if you now hold that title, your chances of success in that capacity are higher, resulting in lower staff turnover. While this technique may have worked in the past, in today’s rapidly changing, digitally enabled economy, firms may require personnel with a variety of talents and viewpoints, as well as employees who can “pinch hit” or play several roles. Employees are recruited for their specialization in a position, just like in baseball, but it is their capacity to be adaptable and take on new challenges that eventually distinguishes them as superstar performers. Being adaptable and willing to try new things reveals not only the utility employee’s latent potential, but also the employer’s forward-thinking, visionary leadership.
Early in my career, I was urged to take on the position of utility player in order to broaden my knowledge, develop personally and professionally, and clarify who I am and the contributions I can make to employers, clients, and coworkers. While the job of utility player is not for everyone, it has shown to be beneficial to me. I can quickly learn a new industry, be assigned to multiple functions within a wide range of organizations (strategic leadership, finance and operations, business development, sales/marketing, risk management, consulting, and project management), and lead and build high-performing teams to turn around or reposition underperforming organizations.
During a networking lunch with a top executive recently, I inquired about the value of utility players in corporations. Many business leaders, he said, understand the benefit utility players may bring to a company’s bottom line. These personnel are more fluid and adaptable to changing company situations, and they often bring new views to problem-solving. Employees who serve as utility players can draw on a wide range of job experience to provide effective solutions and outcomes. Utility players, according to my lunch companion, are most successful in businesses run by forward-thinking senior executives who understand how to use the utility player to assist the company move forward.
Employees, like baseball players, must develop their talents in order to advance in their careers. Utility players in baseball concentrate on improving their game by learning to play numerous positions and adding value at the plate. Regardless, players are still traded. Employees are not exempt from this. Whether you’re fresh out of college, shifting careers, or re-entering the workforce, developing your career demands focus, nimbleness, re-skilling, and exhibiting an ability to play various positions while gradually specializing.
Strong utility players are always needed by high-performing firms. So, the next time you’re making your case for why you’re the greatest candidate for a position or project, tell them that your contribution as a utility player might mean the difference between the organization winning or losing the World Series. You may not be an all-star, but the role you play could be crucial to the team’s success.
What are the responsibilities of utility players?
A utility player is a player (particularly a hitter in baseball) who accumulates statistics without being assigned to a certain position in fantasy baseball and basketball.
The hitter does not have to be a utility player; he can play any position (for example, if a fantasy manager has two first baseman, he can assign one to the first base position and one to a utility slot).
Similarly, a fantasy basketball utility player does not have to be a tweener or swingman.
What does it mean to be a utility player?
In baseball, a utility player is a player who can play more than one defensive position but does not have the offensive skills to justify a regular starting spot on the club.
Is it beneficial to be a utility player?
Labor Day marks the end of summer for many individuals. To me, the end of summer is marked by the changing seasons, such as the temperature cooling down or the leaves turning color, as well as the football and baseball playoffs. This year’s baseball playoffs begin on September 30th.
In baseball, a “utility” player is someone who can play multiple positions well and is known as a “jack of all trades.” In the major league baseball playoffs, the utility player is critical, if not the most important, to a team’s success.
They are expected to assist the team attain its goal of making the playoffs and winning the World Series, arguably more than any other player. And, when it comes down to it, the utility player is usually the deciding factor in whether or not a team makes the playoffs.
Take Josh Harrison of the Pittsburgh Pirates, for example. He was the lone utility player named for the 2014 MLB All-Star Game, and his versatility and ability to play several positions has allowed the Pirates to compensate for critical injuries to regular players by filling the void left when one of the regular starters went down with an injury. Indeed, with him, Pittsburgh has a decent chance of returning to the playoffs for the second year in a row. They’d have one of the worst records in baseball if he wasn’t there.
Content marketers have a fantastic potential to create exceptional value and serve as the backbone of their company’s workforce.
Revenue growth is a company’s primary goal. To do so, it must produce new business and retain existing business at a faster rate than it churns. Because it can help take a casual visitor through various stages of the buyer’s journey to a customer and across the full customer lifecycle, content marketing is a crucial key to this. Buyers are nurtured to the next stage of the journey by content marketers who get to know them, understand what inspires them, and provide them with the information and tools they need and want to aid them in their work.
They must accompany buyers on their journey through the material they give in order to continually improve their experience.
They are, in essence, a buyer’s tour guide. Internally, Content Marketing serves as the glue that holds the C-suite, Marketing, Sales, Product, Customer Service, and other departments together in order to deliver the experience (cause) that leads to a buyer taking action (effect).
Because content marketing aids in the nurturing and conversion of consumers, it also aids in the development of a consistent voice and message, which expands the brand farther. Furthermore, content marketing’s efforts will be validated by analytics, which will lead to widespread support. The potential of content marketing to be a “jack of all crafts” allows it contribute value to its cause while also increasing the worth of the organization.
Do you recall Josh Harrison, our baseball player? He is not only an excellent utility player, but he also leads the National League in batting average. So, on a diamond or in Content Marketing, contribution is evaluated not by home runs but by continuous, consistent touch with the baseball and the customer.
The way content marketing fits into a company and the skill set of a content marketer are two components of content marketing that serve to boost its value even further.
The Content Marketer’s Function
I’ve been reading some thought leadership articles recently that propose content marketing teams should be organized like news organizations, even advocating that firms should hire journalists to fill content marketing responsibilities.
The notion is that a writer can cut through the marketing jargon to get to the meat of the story. However, this is a naive viewpoint that may not be the best approach.
Journalists may comprehend the story’s parts, but do they comprehend the whys, whats, and whos? Do they understand why the company is doing content marketing in the first place, the corporate strategy, what the product is and how it fits into the plan, who the buyer is, what type of action we want these purchasers to take, and so on?
These are questions that a journalist is ill-equipped to answer. NewsCred’s Head of Strategy, Michael Brenner, agrees. “I’ve seen brands, including SAP, suffer by employing journalists and former editors from media firms, only for them to struggle with the weight of being within a corporate business environment,” he says.
Transitioning from a journalistic atmosphere to a business context necessitates a cultural and cognitive shift. “Long before getting to the how,” Brenner continues, “content marketing needs to start with the why and identify objectives and audience.”
Brenner also feels that being a brilliant writer isn’t everything when it comes to being a content marketer. “I don’t believe you need to be a strong writer to be a content marketer,” he says. Because I believe that writing is like a muscle, I expect everyone on my team to contribute in some way. I didn’t put any writing talents to the test. I suppose I believe in the whole “hire for attitude, not aptitude” thing.”
Being a competent writer is a little piece of the content marketer pie in the grand scheme of things, but it is something that can absolutely be improved while on the job.
The content marketer has so many levels that he or she would be incomplete without them all. This idea explains why a content marketer who serves as a utility player offers significant value to a firm.
Brenner’s new piece, 7 Skills To Look For When Hiring A Content Marketing Strategist, really drives home the point that a content marketer needs to be a lot of things to be effective. It’s one of the first pieces I’ve read that emphasizes the idea that the content marketer’s performance is determined by a variety of factors.
Corporate Strategy is a term used to describe a company’s overall strategy. Content marketers must know what the company is doing, why it is doing it, and who it is doing it for.
Marketing. Content marketers must be familiar with both digital and conventional methods for reaching and engaging audiences. Inbound mechanics, such as the phases of the buyer journey, tools used in lead generation and lead nurturing activities, which content pieces are ideal for each phase of the buyer journey, and how to convert visitors to customers, are also important for content marketers to grasp. They must be adept at crafting targeted communications and familiar with a variety of brand extension efforts. They must also have a basic understanding of SEO.
Sales. Content marketers must understand sales and business development and how they fit into a firm in order to interact with the sales team, which is necessary in order to provide sales enablement tools.
Communications. Because content marketers work with a variety of departments inside a company, they must be able to successfully connect with them.
Content Marketing Strategy Content marketers must first comprehend why they are creating content in the first place. They must then be able to establish the right mix of original and curated content to encourage engagement and action.
Project Management is a term used to describe the management of a project. Content marketers must be able to oversee material projects from beginning to end, including determining when and where to distribute content and ensuring that it is produced on schedule.
Technical. To help them optimize their efforts, content marketers should have a solid knowledge of content management systems, marketing automation, and other tools.
Analytics. To assess KPIs, content marketers must be familiar with Google Analytics and other technologies, as well as know what to test to optimize content.
Public relations and social media Content marketers should be familiar with public relations, as well as individual social media channels and their mechanics, as well as how to leverage social listening and interaction to grow a social media audience.
Experience of the user. Customers’ frustrations, motivators, needs, and wants should be understood by content marketers so they can determine how purchasers connect with the business and how to improve the experience for these buyers.
A content marketing team with the right skill set and the right position in the company will be able to provide significant value and become the firm’s utility players.
What can you do to become a company’s utility player? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below.
Is it beneficial to be a utility player in baseball?
An MLB season consists of 162 games. Over the course of a baseball season, a variety of things might happen, including significant player injuries. A club must have a strong backup to stand in for the injured player when these injuries occur. When several players are injured over the season, a baseball player who can serve multiple roles can be immensely beneficial to a club. To fill in at numerous positions, a utility player must be an exceptional athlete, and he has several vital roles that give value to the team.
What does the word “intility” mean?
1: the quality of being useful or the state of being useful. 2: a company that provides a government-regulated public service (such as electricity or natural gas). utili ty is a word that means “utility.”
What is a synonym for the word “utility”?
noun. 1’a study that looks at the utility of using sled dogs rather than snowmobiles’ usefulness, use, advantage, benefit, value, help, helpfulness, profitability, convenience, practicality, effectiveness, efficacy, avail, service, serviceableness, advantageousness.
What does it mean to be a softball utility player?
A utility player in sports is someone who can competently play multiple positions, akin to a jack of all trades. Association football (soccer), baseball, rugby, rugby league, water polo, and SOFTBALL are all sports where the phrase is commonly used.
Is it beneficial to be a utility player in soccer?
Being a utility player in soccer allows you to play for longer periods of time than you would in another position. You are incredibly important to your team and coach since you are versatile, reliable, and always play hard, especially in unanticipated circumstances such as injuries.