5 things no one tells you about building a (marketing) career
Hard won lessons from a decade of startup marketing
These are distillations from a month of thinking about building a marketing career, as opposed to just going from job to job without a plan. And that means I’m basically drawing from mistakes I’ve made, not from what I’ve done well.
So these are really hard won lessons, and one or two have been very expensive to learn. So please read the following with appropriate gravity.
1. It takes time to get good at your job
Want to become a good performer? It will take time to learn that. Want to become a great performer? It will take some more time. Want to be a leader the team automatically looks up to? Get ready to put in even more time.
There is no short cut. But once you have put in the hours, you will enjoy the job even more, and get even better at it. So prepare yourself for the time getting good will take.
Corollary 1: Impatience will be the bane of your working life, but only if you let it. Stay at the crease, the runs will come.
Corollary 2: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You may hate doing something or being in a particular position at work. Well, suck it up. The world isn’t built for you to be comfortable. If you want to grow and learn, I’ll say it again: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
2. You are only as good as your next campaign
Your past work doesn’t matter. No one cares. So before you go to work, shove your entitlement in a mental drawer. The only question worth asking is: What’s next? Keep your mind ticking as to what your next big tactic for your goal is. This will keep you fresh, and also make sure you don’t relax.
Let me rephrase that: 12 years doing this as a career, and I’m still learning that what I have done does not matter. Only what I’m going to do does. Your career is about what is in front of you, and what you are going to achieve. Keep your focus there.
3. There is a lot of boring execution to do
Marketing involves a lot of grunt work. And I mean a lot. So for some reason if you see glamorous podcasts, great blogs, and well produced campaigns, and think: Wow, I get to do cool stuff all day. Then let me break it to you: No, you won’t do cool stuff all day.
Making something happen involves a lot of co-ordination and stakeholder management (even at a startup). You will talk and talk and write and write and create and create, and then will have to make changes until the last minute before whatever you made goes anywhere near fruition.
So prepare for the universe conspiring against you every single day. But you can’t let it tire you. Today maybe, but not tomorrow. You have to get up and do it all again. Just know that the payoffs are worth it, all that boring work will be worth it.
4. You will make a lot of mistakes
You can read a lot of blogs (like this one), you can read entire books on managing your career, and so on. But even then, you will make a bunch of mistakes, and these mistakes will teach you every lesson you will hold dear.
So do not be afraid of making mistakes.
Regret them, sure, make plans to avoid making more, but don’t sit and brood over them. Mistakes are part of your career. You can’t work for 20 - 30 years without having some major bloopers. The idea is to get good at managing them and learning from them, but never getting derailed because of them.
Corollary: Have a set approach for dealing with mistakes and how to talk about them with your manager. This will keep you from delaying the consequences on you and your work. When a mistake happens, just take that list out, and follow it to the T.
5. Imposter syndrome is your friend
If you have some kind of imposter syndrome, you are good. This means you aren’t cocky (yet), to assume that you know everything that needs to be known, and that you are doing everything that needs to be done. The doubt can be channeled into action. And over a period of time, doing just a bit more compounds. Let it.
Corollary: I have written about this before, but one reason why we marketers are more prone to self doubt is the abstract nature of what we do. Marketing is not like engineering, where something just works or doesn’t work. All of this is to say our innate imposter syndrome is fine, and leaning into it may be the best approach.
This is the third essay of four on getting into and building a career in startup marketing.
The first one was about the two books you have to read if you are just starting your career.
The second was about why content is still the easiest way to break into startup marketing.
The final essay, due this weekend, will be about career insurance, something I’ve thought about for a long time.
Just a reminder again: I’ve been planning a quarter-long mentorship programme for early-career marketing professionals in startups. Readers and friends have been encouraging me to create a program, but I have been reticent, mostly because I’ve no time!
But with the response I’ve been getting since I announced this, it’s clear there is demand here.
So if you are interested, and would like to know more, please email me at sairamkrishnan@outlook.com.
A bunch of you have reached out already, thank you, I will get back, and please do include your Linkedin profile in your emails.
A reminder that The CMO Journal is still brought to you by SocialPilot, the social media management tool made specifically for marketers. You can use the code SUPER30 on their website and get the product at 100% discount for 1 month, across all plans.
So go ahead and try it, SocialPilot has certainly helped my team plan and execute our social media plans better.
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