Pushing Your Marketing/Advertising Comfort

Don't be afraid to push yourself. If you've been offered two campaigns, one you know is easy and another that you know will take extra effort and give a greater reward, take the extra work. It will feel much better when you are done.

Getting out of your comfort zone is of course easier said than done, nobody likes to dance on the razor's edge all the time, but a little push never hurt anyone. If all you do is take on projects you know you can do, you will never get anywhere, and probably burn out much faster than someone who is constantly pushing to take on more projects and better their abilities.

If you find yourself as a big fish in a small pond, the step you will be taking will be different if you were the small fish in the big pond. Being the small fish makes it much easier to have to fight for advancement and for projects that are out of your general reach. If you prefer to be the big fish, so be it, have fun staying where you are at. The small fish will continue to take on projects and gain more experience and more knowledge will know that once they become the big fish, that it is time to find another pond.

Take Advantage Of What You Have

With so many advances coming so quickly these days, there is way too much emphasis on keeping up with EVERYTHING. The thing is, not everyone can do that. Not everyone will ever do that. Of course continuous education is very important, but you cannot forget what you learned before. You cannot forget where you came from.

You may not like where you were, but that's the foundation that where you are was built upon. Keep track of what you know, so you can take advantage of it. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, you cannot afford having more weaknesses than strengths, especially in the business world. You can't make it to the top of the mountain without climbing...just remember what got you up each successive steep face, because if you forget something, you just might fall.

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The Importance Of Being First

In athletics and in other kinds of competitions, when something is first, it is generally declared "best". Gold Medal winners, Super Bowl Champions, World Series Champions, etc. They did what they do better than anyone else, came in first, and were declared best.

The business world is nothing like that. First does not automatically mean best. Honestly, it rarely means best. Being first can get you the notoriety, but it won't necessarily be because you are the best. In our world, first and best are mutually exclusive. In fact, since people have no attention span anymore, the best is constantly changing, and needs to be quantified any number of ways at any given time.

I'm not even sure that marketers or advertisers really care about being "first". R&D or Product Management obviously has a different idea, and in the mind of positions like that, first on the market (possibly even ONLY) can automatically determine "best". Marketing strategy rarely takes into account being "first" unless the person creating the strategy is instructed that they must do so. This is really more relevant in packaging design, in my opinion.

Why not publicize or be proud of being first. When I interned for the head of Corporate Sales for a Clear Channel concert venue, one of the things she was responsible for was coming up with new ideas for advertising space in or around the venue. When she/I/we/anyone came up with a new idea, we were proud of that idea, even if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Why aren't the first people to come up with a new way of marketing or advertising something blatantly proud of that? Why don't I know the name of the guy who perfected banner ads...or the guy at Google who perfected googleads...or something like that. If I wanted to, I could probably find the first person to do just about anything, and maybe even the person who is best at that same activity. Why not marketing or advertising?

Thanks for listening...