Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

As far as "a good website where you can get these information", you're looking at it.

Also try MindValley.com.

Where you study and what you study is up to you. Do your research, carry out all due diligence, CYA, then make a decision based on facts and based on your gut instinct.

That said, and I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you've got to hear it from someone and it might as well be from me ... if you're thinking of doing a Masters in marketing and you can't find a simple website from which to pull information on the field you want to work in, I'd suggest that there's something wrong with your methodology.

I know that might be a tough nut to swallow, but you need to know that you come across as a bit helpless.

That's a trait you might want to work on. Just saying ...

As for getting a few letters after your name, the truth is this: Really? NO ONE CARES!

You might care, your Mum and Dad might care, and your Grandma, and your Uncle Bill, but really, in terms of you getting more qualifications, what are you qualifying yourself FOR?

To what ends? For who's benefit?

If I'm hiring (and I'm NOT) and two twenty-somethings come to me, one with an MBA and NO real world experience and with with NO masters or MBA and FIVE years of solid, on the streets, nose to toes selling experience, the kid with NO advanced degree gets the gig.

Why?

Because they know how to position BENEFITS, because they know how to telegraph an OFFER, and because they know about people.

Joe Schmoe, as your customer? He doesn't give a crap about Porter's Five or a SWOT analysis, or cost benefit analysis figures. He needs his problems solved TODAY.

It's NOT the qualification you clock up, it's the VALUE you add to other people's lives.

Before you sign up for lots of student debt and to fritter away two years or so of your life, you've GOT to answer the question "How will I add value to other people's businesses, and to their bottom lines?"

If you cannot or will not answer that simple yet oh so complex question, you might as well go home. Sorry, but that's the truth—at least, it's the way I see it.

I've alluded to this before, here it is again:

I have NO background in marketing, no degree, no masters, no MBA, and I've never attended a marketing class in my life ... and yet ... and yet ...

I'm a top five contributor to THIS FORUM, one of the top ten marketing forums online and for a multi million dollar business.

How can that be?

At the moment, I'm writing a sales letter for one of
the TOP online information products people around ... someone who's sold over $10 million dollars worth of products, goods, and services in the last eight years.

How can that be?

At the moment, I'm being courted by a major online publishing company that's done over $5 million in sales in just one niche in the last six months (with the economy going to hell in a hand basket) ... and a company with well over $30 million in sales over the last four years.

How can that be?

And then just six months ago, just 15 hours of research on my part unearthed 37 new verticals for a private client in the South West ... for a new product.

Estimated 3 to 5 year sales for this product BEFORE my research?

Between $25 million and $50 million.

Estimated 3 to 5 year sales for this product AFTER my research?

Between $250 million and $500 million ... TEN TIMES THEIR ORIGINAL ESTIMATE.

AGAIN ... and with my LACK of an academic, classically trained background in marketing ... how can that be?

It's up and coming hotshots like YOU that ought to be doing these things, not old, uneducated farts like me.

It's bright young minds like YOURS that ought to be adding solid content to forums like this one.

But I'm not seeing it.

WHY THE HELL NOT?

Value, see?

You either create and coax it, and you nourish it as if it were kin ... or you burn through it as if it's going out of fashion.

Value is about taking ingredients and mixing them and turning them into fine wine. To succeed in creating value you must become like yeast ... you must EAT sugar and you must SHIT alcohol!

Sorry to be so blunt about it but you must pump out value like there's no tomorrow ... OTHERWISE, you are TOAST!

Why OH why students in marketing art NOT taught this is BEYOND ME, really it is. What the college tutors and professors reading this are teaching the bright young minds of tomorrow's world of marketing is anyone's guess ... but it sure as hell isn't anything like the free thinking, problem solving, value creating, benefit driving content that ought to be showing itself, that's for sure.

You asked what it is to work in marketing ... is it about analyzing data or is it about being creative?

It's both ... each one is the other and vice versa. Why? How? Because in marketing, creativity and data MUST both add value.

You must add value consistently, frequently, and powerfully.

You'll find the better part of TWO MILLION WORDS of my content ON THIS SITE ALONE ... and the same is true for EVERY top 10 contributor to this forum.

Value, see? Start creating it. Live it, breathe it, sleep, eat drink, and poop it! What are you waiting for? Hop to it! Chop, chop!