Marketing 101

What will you have for dinner tonight? For most of us, asking this in the morning is like asking us the ‘Theory of Relativity’, and the importance of this question will only matter later, when it’s relative. Well, we will get hungry and if we do not plan it right, dinner will not be ready. For many of us who did not plan our careers, it evolved over a period of time, we sometimes look at our career and wonder what is for dinner.

On Dec. 30, we ate at Sophia’s Ristorante in Caldwell and my daughter Brittany ordered this great garden variety appetizer which we all shared. When it arrived it not only looked good but it was simply fantastic! In a way, we were not surprised as the food there is excellent as Sophia’s is one of our favorite restaurants.

The point is sometimes we get lucky but not every time. This is especially true when it comes to career choices. We all have this certain airline hopefulness when we start a career. Our perception is that to some degree that our career will somehow take off and eventually come back down, but on our terms. Life is not always like that, especially when it comes to a career.

So given the options, are you happy with what you do? Are you unemployed, underemployed or underpaid and yes we all seem to be underpaid. First rule of business is never sit still. Many years ago I wanted to get involved with marketing but did not have experience. I was a sales guy. ‘Sales’ is not marketing. I wanted to get away from the ‘box pusher’ mentality that goes with the monthly sales push and get more involved with positioning, planning, promoting, and creating awareness and so on and so on. But how? How can I align myself properly, how can I learn the lingo, the language needed to make the right impression during an interview? How can I show that I belonged? What happened is that I joined a marketing association and, I did not just join, I got involved, big time.

When I first joined the New Jersey Chapter of the American Marketing Association, I was very energetic and a little awkward. I was totally out of my element. This was the largest stand-alone marketing association in the state and is world-wide. This is what it really was – a group of business professionals that for one reason or another were involved for a variety of reasons. One person there was to accumulate contacts and yes, what a surprise. Another was a young lady who was our generations’ version of a ‘Girl Friday’ as she needed credits for her Masters degree. Another was there to give back. She loved her profession – was very good at her job and just wanted to promote the ‘marketing brand’. Another person really needed the association’s name to provide market acceptability. In other words, I was not alone, everyone had a legitimate reason.

But like any other volunteer organization I had to make a decision if I was going to get involved or not. I did. Soon I was editing and helping to produce the monthly newsletter, working with the press on our meeting announcements. Then I was asked to run a program. Then asked to run another and then another. Soon I was all of the programs and became a Vice President of the association. Coupled with that I was spending time with marketing people who cared about their craft, the conversations were always relative. What all these conversations came down to was about your own personal engineering, your design, which should be as a precision machine tool, start on time, and proceeding briskly through your daily agenda, go through your day unfazed if something does not go your way. Know the basics and work on getting depth in an area or multiple areas of interest.

The key component of success here for me was the ability to network with a group of professional peers. This enabled me to see first hand the people behind the job titles. That alone was worth the price of admission. 

Eventually I started getting interviews for marketing positions. Eventually I got a marketing job. Eventually I became the President of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Marketing Association. My expertise in certain fields, including public relations - the press – serves me to this day. In fact, it was my background in marketing that helped me cultivate relationships with the local press – including becoming friendly with Mr. Nesi – the Verona-Cedar Grove Patch editor -

That has provided me with an opportunity to have this BLOG each week and to create awareness of the volunteer group I head.

My expertise became more important than the standard job search. It also serves me well as I run a support group and am involved all aspects of the group. From planning programs to creating awareness to producing a quarterly newsletter, all of these tools come into play for a very important role as there people with real needs who are dependant upon our monthly get-togethers to help themselves move on.

Another may be to get involved with a small group for volunteering, if for nothing else than just to get out of the house and clear your head. Change your element. My parish, St Catherine’s (Cedar Grove) runs this SOS (Stewardship of Service) program where they assign one specific volunteering task to one person. It offers many tasks and may help broaden your perspective on what you really want to do. It may make you think.

Obviously this is not the only way but this was one option; one where if you remain vigilant in your approach your days of shuffle boarding from one job description to the next may be a thing of the past.