So this is sort of weird.

Keith Jennings was a beta reader for my new book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World (coming Feb 2025!). He was so moved and inspired by the book that he’s decided to make radical changes to reimagine his career. And unfortunately, part of that means taking a sabbatical as a co-host of my podcast!

I obviously hate to see Keith take the year off but I’m excited for his future and proud that my book had this profound impact on him.

This prompted us to devote his final episode to a discussion of career transformation. Both of us have reinvented our careers almost continuously, and in this show we consider three questions that enable relevant introspection:

1. Working ON something is very different than working IN it. Are you working on your career or in it?
2. Are you working at the top of your license? Are you so busy that it is keeping you from working at the top of your potential?
3. Are you working at the edge of your abilities? Are you in a trench of career sameness? Just mailing it in? Maybe it is time to unlearn what you’ve learned.

Keith always brings a compassionate, human view to the field of marketing and this episode will definitely challenge you to transform your career. Just click here to listen:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 303

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

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Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Are You Playing Small? Three Questions That Transform Your Career appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve been a faculty member at several different universities since 2009 and have lectured far longer than that. I care about these institutions. They’re part of the American heritage, and in many cases, they’re a gift to the world. But we live in fast-changing times, and universities do not change fast. I’m worried about our colleges. How do we reimagine universities in the Era of AI?

I have some ideas about this, and if you’re currently associated with a college, you will hate them.

To begin with, my thesis is that in the AI Era, universities will fail (and are already failing) to prepare students for many careers. Change isn’t just knocking; it’s kicking down the door, raiding your fridge, and redecorating your living room. There has to be a radical reimagining of the university education that matches the radical disruption of our times.

First, let’s get a few things off the table. If a student attends college for the social aspects or to spend a few years maturing, today’s university system is fine. If a student attends for a purely academic pursuit without any thought of employment, they will thrive in the system we have today.

But I assume most students attend college to launch a career. And that’s where the problems begin.

I’ll break down the problems one by one before offering some solutions.

Organization

I’ve talked to many leading authorities in the tech space — people right in the middle of AI development in Silicon Valley. And I’ve asked them, “How would you prepare young people for a career with the amount of disruption occurring?” Without exception, the answer is, “I don’t know.”

This presents an existential problem because universities are generally organized by career choice: engineering, teaching, art, journalism, etc. But if nobody knows what future careers look like, how can you organize based on jobs that won’t exist as they do today? Except forestry. That might be safe for awhile. But you get my point. Many job categories are rapidly evolving and fluid right now (especially marketing).

The future of education isn’t about preparing for a specific job. It’s about preparing for anything and everything. It’s about teaching students to surf the waves of change rather than trying to build sandcastles on a beach that’s shifting before our eyes.

Speed

A university professor friend of mine recently lamented that it has taken two years to get a new class approved. The glacial pace of change at universities is legendary and … stupid. The bureaucratic lunacy of universities is so well-known that I don’t have to explain further why this culture is a death sentence in an AI world.

Economics

Universities are proud of their park-like campuses and ancient limestone buildings bolted to the center of the earth. While taking selfies in front of Old Main might enchant the alumni, the fact is, you can get a superior education today without that legacy overhead.

If you had to bet on disruptive innovation coming from somebody in a co-working space versus a person who has to spend part of their time fundraising for the Psychology Building renovation … well, it’s not even a race.

The economics for students is even worse. The average four-year education in the U.S. is $160,000 (tuition only). Why does every major need to be completed in four years? Well, somebody has to pay for those limestone buildings. If you step back and look at it, it’s a ridiculous model. No matter the major or career aspiration, it’s four years. Huh?

Any new vision for universities must include significant cost and time reductions enabled by technology.

Faculty

The purpose of the university faculty has been to dispense information. However, universities are no longer the gatekeepers of information. When information is free and abundant, colleges have to reinvent themselves in the context of a new job to be done — eternal relevance. This is a radical idea, but in my estimation, it is the key to the future of colleges.

And the tenure system … don’t get me started. Let’s just say there is almost no incentive for tenured faculty to change and stay current. The stories of lazy, irrelevant faculty I could tell you are shocking, but I won’t embarrass anyone.

At this point, I think all of my university friends could use a photo of a puppy.

No need to thank me. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Solutions

I’ve covered some of the problems facing a university in a short and simple way because this is a short and simple blog post. I recognize there are many nuances, layers, and complexities that I’m blowing right past. However, not many people care about those, especially young people preparing for a career … in something less than four years, please.

My advice to universities is to start over. There is just no way your Reinvention Committee will twist your bureaucracy into something functional. Take that giant endowment fund and create an entirely new form of education that is fluid enough to meet the needs of today’s teens.

Education in the past assumed there is a logical endpoint. Once you learned A, B, and C, you had enough under your belt to be an engineer, to be an accountant, or a journalist. But today, there is no endpoint. The endpoint keeps moving. What was true for a career yesterday may not be true today. Education needs to be a journey of lifetime learning. So we need something radically new.

No more degrees

Here is my vision: Instead of enrolling in college, students subscribe to one. Students would enter a lifetime learning program accredited by the university of their choice. The program would be designed to get students into the workforce and keep them there through learning modules that adapt to changing times.

The subscription price should be very affordable. However, over a student’s career in the workplace, the financial return to the university would far exceed $160,000 because the relationship with the student would last decades.

Each student would need to pass a battery of tests to ensure they’re ready to join a learning cohort. Some might start with remedial work to get them on the right track. I’ve seen too many university marketing students who can’t write a coherent sentence. Sorry. Fix that first.

Instead of degrees, students would earn accreditation on a topic, sort of like earning a series of merit badges. For example, it would mean much more to a marketing employer to see that a student earned accreditation in digital media production from a university, rather than just knowing they received an A in French and a C in geology during their sophomore year.

No more curriculum

The idea of a standard curriculum that changes every few years, littered with nonsensical, soul-stealing electives, is pathetic. This anachronistic system was created when a gentleman needed a well-rounded education in the classics. And I do mean gentleman.

Instead, my view is that a curriculum committee would create new learning modules every year, or even every few months, depending on the major. The major role of university employees would be overseeing the design of a continuous and ever-changing learning experience.

And by the way, we need a learning path that addresses both the hard skill and soft skills required in the modern workplace. Students need to learn to lead, but also how to be an effective follower and team player.

The lifetime university experience might include guest lectures, field trips, demonstrations — anything to keep the students relevant in their careers.

AI teaching agents

In the short term, we will still need a human faculty. Topical experts (not tenured) would share their views of the current state. And hey, instead of repairing Old Main and installing that new landscaping, let’s pay those teachers a decent salary, huh?

In the next two years, human-like AI learning agents will often make better teachers. This might sound like the Jetsons but it’s already here. Have you had a conversation with the mobile version of ChatGPT? This will only get better.

AI agents enable the creation of personalized learning pathways tailored to each student’s needs, performance, and goals. This approach can accommodate different learning speeds, styles, and even disabilities, leading to better outcomes than traditional classroom education. And, these teachers would cost far less and know … well, everything.

I do think there is a human role in the new learning environment as mentors and guides. Humans still need a human touch. Especially young students.

A learning cohort

I recently declared about the RISE marketing community: “This is my university.”

We have no curriculum or classes there. But we have each other — people from around the world teaching each other as we navigate this confusing world. Why couldn’t a real university be the same way? It can be, and needs to be.

That’s why I recommend a lifelong cohort of people (the subscribers) who become friends and support each other in a community. Today, education simply cannot end with a piece of paper. It’s a never-ending process, and we need each other.

A cohort could meet on campus once a year for some special programs but keep in touch constantly through an online platform. And the cohort should be multidisciplinary. It will be that way whether it’s designed that way or not. How many people are still working in a field related to their original major? Diverse views make the cohort more interesting and valuable.

The cohort would stay together for decades. I think it makes sense to add new people now and then, just as it benefits a community to have new members with new perspectives. A virtual community format allows people from many nations to be included.

Real learning happens in conversations, not classrooms.

Finally …

Did this post come across as mean? I hope it’s seen as tough love. I love so much about colleges and what they stand for. A university is hope. It’s a dream. It is the future.

But most career academics who read this will think: “We could never do this. It would screw up our US News and World Report rankings. This obsessive focus on rankings does not serve your students. Besides, Malcolm Gladwell and others have shown how the rankings are about as meaningful as a participation trophy in your kid’s soccer league. Yet, here we are, still doing the rankings rumba.

The world is changing faster than a chameleon in a Skittles factory. AI is rewriting the rules of education, work, and probably your department’s parking policy. And you’re obsessing about a made-up number in a magazine? University friends, it’s time to carve a new path that breaks the ranking shackles. Universities spent centuries building ivory towers. I’m proposing we build meaningful bridges to students and their real needs instead.

I know dramatic change seems daunting. And what I’ve proposed here can be poked and prodded and questioned. Here’s what I know. Imagine the most far-out scenario for our AI future. The reality will be much more insane than that.

Change has to start somewhere or universities risk becoming the academic equivalent of a typewriter repair shop. Disrupt or be disrupted.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post How to Reimagine Universities for the AI Era appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’m a fan of Steven Wilson (he’s been described as the best UK musician that nobody has heard of!). He recently posted a lament about the AI threat to human creativity, a sentiment surely on the minds of many reading this post today.

I thought I would post his heartfelt concern and add my own commentary about the future of human creativity in the AI Era. Here is Steven’s post:

Steven Wilson

“For the last few years, when I’ve been asked in interviews about the future of music, I’ve talked about a scenario I fully expect to happen whereby musicians wouldn’t be needed anymore, and neither would pre-recorded tracks.

“Music will be made in real-time for listeners by artificial intelligence depending on their requirements at that moment. You will choose the singer that you want to sing the song for you (Freddie Mercury, Aretha Franklin, John Lennon, whoever), the subject matter you want them to sing about, and the musical genre. And it will generate that piece of music for you in real time, at which point you can choose to save it away for a future listen, share it with your friends, or erase it.

“For me, things just took a big step further in that direction with several artificial intelligence-created Steven Wilson tracks that have been brought to my attention. I don’t know who created them or what their motivation was, but even I really struggle to hear that it’s not me singing these songs.

“No matter what I might think about the quality of the music, this is uncanny, almost surreal. We’re in the midst of a seismic change in the way music is made and how people engage with it. Do the majority even care that they aren’t listening to a human being? The future bites indeed.”

Does the future bite?

Of course, Steven Wilson is correct, and this on-demand custom content will be here sooner rather than later. What does this imply for the future of human creativity?

I recently went hiking with an AI / innovation expert, and we had an intense conversation about this topic.

We observed that everything we cherish most in life comes from a human. Every book. Every album. Every letter. Every crayon picture from our kids. A piece of furniture only becomes an heirloom if it’s attached to the story of a person.

Sure, I’m curious to hear an AI song that sounds like Steven Wilson. But that would be little more than a carnival sideshow, even if I like the song.

Nothing will replace my excitement when I discover a new (true) Steven Wilson album. I will listen to that album over and over. The best tracks will go on my “liked” list to become part of my forever playlist. I’ve never seen him in concert, but I look forward to that day because I have an emotional connection to him as a human being and his art.

Connecting this to you

This point about the durability of human creativity also holds true for the business world. AI will replace many skills and many jobs, no question. But the emotional connection to actual people will endure. In fact, it might be the only defense we have.

In the 1980s, about half the professional musicians in America lost their jobs once we could reproduce almost any kind of music on a computer (I’m sure Steven uses computers to compose, record, and edit his music!).

And yet, Steven still has a job because he’s put in the work to hone his craft and form an emotional connection with people who support his career. He is relevant because he is known, trusted and loved.

Even in a music industry completely overturned by technology, thousands of people still have thriving careers if they mean something to others.

The only defense he has against AI is that he is known. The only defense YOU have is whether you are known. You can’t be a commodity and survive the future.

I face the same threat as Steven. AI can write blog posts and books in my voice. But who cares? It’s not me. People care about me. They look forward to what I produce because it comes from my human mind and my heart, just like Steven’s music.

This is the crossroad for you. Are you known? Does your human contribution matter, or will you be like the half of musicians who lost their jobs in the 1980s because they were a replaceable commodity?

Being competent means almost nothing right now. Competent is a commodity. You must be great, and you must be known.

This means working on your personal brand. More than working on it … committing to it. It’s not a project — it’s a lifestyle.

A new eco-system for human creativity

Before AI, the closest thing we had to mysterious non-human music was Daft Punk, the French techno band. They appear and perform in robot costumes. Are they real? Do humans really make the music? I don’t care. I like their music.

The same will go for AI productions. AI-created songs, films, and art movements will Daft-Punk their way onto our playlists. But Mick Jagger, Taylor Swift, and the relatively unknown but beloved Steven Wilson won’t be replaced because they mean something to us.

Even more exciting, new artists will carry the creative flag forward, passionately and uniquely explaining their human experience through art. No AI bot is going to growl, “Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run,” and make me care about it.

AI and humans will co-exist in the artistic space because all beauty can find an audience.

Throughout history, every creative has had to rise above the noise and become known. Same today. There’s just more noise to overcome.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Top and bottom illustrations courtesy MidJourney

Photo of Steven Wilson appeared, unattributed, on his Instagram account. 

The post A singular view of human creativity as AI encroaches appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Somebody in my community asked me, in the coming year, what are your plans to grow your business?

This question stopped me in my tracks for a moment because this year, I have no plans to grow my business. Isn’t that a strange and unexpected answer?

Might make a good story. So here it is.

A different view of success

I used to be a corporate pig-dog, climbing the corporate ladder. I was a high-flying executive being groomed for an executive position. And that meant quite a bit of stress along the way.

One time, I was in a corporate training program. We were out in a lodge in the middle of the woods, and we were supposed to talk about our feelings. But all I could think about was stress at the office. I didn’t want to talk about feelings.

The program trainer (who later became an important mentor and friend) sat beside me and said, “Mark, I can see you’re struggling with this. What would you say is the feeling you experience most of the time?”

That was easy. I answered, “Anxiety.” And I was certainly feeling it at that moment!

I decided to be a smart ass and ask him, “Well, what’s the feeling you have most of the time?” Without missing a beat, he said with twinkling eyes, “joy.” I knew he was right. He had a constant serenity about him.

This moment changed my life forever because I was ashamed to be living a life ruled by anxiety. From that moment on, I vowed to make more decisions based on joy, rather than career opportunities or money.

If you ever see me at my desk in a video or Zoom call, you’ll see big silver letters that say JOY right above my head. That’s why.

Starting my own thing

That was also the moment I started stepping down from the corporate ladder and more toward a life that would help me be a better husband and father. Eventually, I decided to go out on my own and start my own business.

I want to emphasize that I had a fantastic corporate career. I always had an entrepreneurial bent, but I was very happy in the corporate environment, where I benefited from great leaders and friendships. But I got to a point where I couldn’t keep growing down the joyful path on the corporate track.

From the start, when I went out on my own, I made choices for joy. I wanted to keep it small and focus on meaningful work instead of managing employees. I found great people to work with who became like family to me. Personal chemistry can increase joy or destroy it faster than anything.

I don’t look at the books

I did not have a master plan to grow my personal brand into what it is today. I just made smart decisions along the way, and it led to business growth. That’s a story for another day. I want to stick to the theme of joy.

I’ve now had my own business for 15 years. About seven years ago, I made another unusual decision. I stopped looking at QuickBooks, the program I use to track sales. I was becoming too obsessed with beating the numbers, and this was making me unhappy. So I stopped.

To this day, I only look at the accounting statements one time — at the end of the year — to see how we did. I know the rhythm of the business. I know how the money is flowing without obsessing over it. I make decisions to work with people I love on rewarding projects.

My keyword

Here is word I dwell on a lot, especially since the pandemic: Contentment.

When the pandemic hit, my business went to zero, as did a lot of vacation plans! I was miserable, but I still had so much to be grateful for.

I thought a lot about my grandfather, a plumber. He never had a new car or a color TV. As far as I know, he only went on one vacation in his life, to the beach — which he hated. And yet, he was one of the happiest men I’ve ever known. He loved a good bowl of soup. His rose garden. Having a beer with friends.

He never complained, even in the hard times, and always smiled. He was content. He is still my role model in that way. It’s a way to infuse joy into daily life.

The zero growth strategy

This brings us to today when I no longer care how much my business is growing.

Here is one of the worst quotes in all of business: “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”

Man, we’re all dying. I think a lot of people are probably dying faster than the rest because they’re focused on growing a business instead of growing a life.

People come to me with new business opportunities all the time, I usually say no. While I am grateful, new levels of activity will probably also lead away from contentment. I leave a lot of money on the table. I’m not bothered. I’m OK.

Reality check

I don’t want you to think I’m some Zen Master who stares into candles all day. I work hard on my business, but I love every minute of it. I have fun every day.

There’s really no work-life balance. It’s all life. You just pick and choose your priorities.

I also want to emphasize that I am in a phase of life that might be different for you. In fact, I’m probably the oldest person in the room. I had to save for my kid’s college, I had to pay off the mortgage, and healthcare bills.

I didn’t arrive at this place all at once. Remember, I started as a corporate pig-dog. It was a trajectory based on a decision to choose joy. I’m still evolving.

If you’d like to hear more about this journey, please listen to my podcast conversation with the amazing Keith Jennings. Together, we dissect the five stages of careers and how it has applied to our lives. Every conversation with Keith is a gift and you’ll learn a lot from this!

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion episode 279!

Please support our sponsors who bring you this amazing episode!

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

The post From Paycheck to Purpose: Why I Stopped Growing My Business appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I am getting this question A LOT: What are the skills every marketer needs today? Of course there is a lot of interest in that! The world is changing at an incredible pace. How do we stay relevant?

I had a great opportunity to gain insight into this issue from Denis Sison.

Denis Sison has more than 30 years of experience as a global marketing executive for iconic companies such as P&G, Coca-Cola, Sprite, Blackberry, The Hershey Company, and, most recently, Johnson & Johnson. In his most recent role, Sison was responsible for leading the global marketing excellence team with the goal of reimagining and driving the J&J worldwide marketing capability agenda, including the development of the New Modern Marketing Playbook: The Next Generation of Brand Building.

Sison has been chair of the Association of National Advertisers’ Talent Forward Alliance from 2017-2019 and co-chair of the Talent Reskilling Committee of the ANA.

When I asked him about the essential needs today, he provided a wonderful and concise answer. Here is wisdom from Denis in his own words:

The S Skills Every Marketer Needs

From my interview with Denis Sison, edited for style and brevity:

Denis Sison

For many years, I’ve advocated that marketers should have four basic skills — The four S’s of modern marketing.

Number one, everybody has to be a socializer. This is an ability to be able to share your ideas, communicate effectively both offline and online, grow an audience, and build communities for the brands you’re advocating. These fundamental communication skills are super important.

The second S Skill is “scientist.” In this digital world, you must move as quickly and as accurately as possible. You must have the ability to understand and appreciate what data means, interpret trends, and apply data-based insights to the business. You have to be able to respond to results and changes decisively. Like a scientist, your job is to test a hypothesis about the world around you. It also means you must have a methodical and data-based approach to learning.

Third, you need to be a solid storyteller. It’s critically important to establish the narrative of your brand as well as your point of view. Being an effective storyteller also means you know how to engage with your audience in a way that is relevant, compelling and meaningful.

The fourth one is strategist. Unfortunately, this is often overlooked today because we are too busy reacting. We forget our responsibility to determine impactful goals that create customers and grow our business. Too often, marketers become obsessed with the creative and lose sight of the impact we’re trying to make.

A new S Skill

These are the four skills I’ve been teaching for years, but I am adding a fifth S to the skills every marketer needs today: synthesizer.

I think one of the problems in marketing — where we’ve really gotten it wrong — is that we put ourselves in silos. You’re the storyteller, you’re the data guy, you handle the social media piece, you’re the person in charge of ads, etc. And nobody is talking to each other and nobody is integrating the activities.

So I’m a firm believer that for the marketer of today, especially as we move into the world of AI, we need to effectively and efficiently bring everything under one roof and synthesize activities to drive outcomes.

The marketer also needs to synthesize market research and feedback to be the voice of the customer to all departments within the company. Almost every function touches the customer in some way so everyone needs to be part of the strategy.

Final thoughts

(This is Mark again!)

I’ve struggled to articulate this skill set as well as Denis did here. I think this is a complete overview that was helpful to me.

If I had to add anything, it might be the “soft skills” I would look for in an employee:

• Curiosity
• Enthusiasm
• Empathy
• Ability to work on a team
• Leadership

Anything we’re missing?

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post The five key skills every marketer needs today appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve been around long enough to know that at one point or another, all of us will face marketing budget cuts. In a downturn, marketing and marketers are often on the chopping block.

When leaders and companies start to worry about demand, they might think, “If there’s less demand to get, we’ll spend less to try to get it.” It’s a consistent behavior and phenomenon we see across industries.

I know a lot of blog posts might claim this view is dumb, and advise that you need to double down on marketing in the face of hard times, but let’s deal with the hard, cold reality today. At some point in the life of any business, marketing budget cuts are inevitable.

If you’re not facing a cutback in this current budget season, you will someday, so let’s look at some timeless advice to hold things together when the axe comes down.

Are you creating customers?

When people ask me what marketing is about, I have a simple answer: Marketing creates customers.

Now, the execution of that ideal is insanely complex, but at its essence, marketers should work every day to create customers. You can’t have a business without them, which is why marketing is so important.

If you are focused on that goal, in a time of marketing budget cuts, you can forthrightly ask your boss, “how many fewer customers do you want?”

So the first step in our effort to keep the axe away is to reflect on how well we are creating customers.

Often, it’s challenging to specifically attribute the impact of blog posts or an email campaign on customer acquisition, but in general, you should be able to track your current marketing budget, divide it by the number of new customers you’ve brought in, and determine your customer acquisition cost.

We now have the starting point for a budget cut discussion because we can frame the debate in terms of risk.

• What do we cut, and what is the risk to customer acquisition? Can the business afford to slow down customer acquisition?
• Have we found tactics that aren’t working? Can we offer them up for the chopping block without losing our jobs?
• If we’re facing a recession, is there a way to lower our customer acquisition cost but spend even more to take advantage of lower ad and marketing costs in the market?

Many case studies show increasing the marketing budget in recessionary times can change a company’s fortunes for years to come.

Brand marketing versus performance marketing

There are two different kinds of marketing expenditures, and budget discussions get cloudy if we don’t clearly differentiate our marketing spend and the goals.

The goal of performance marketing is a short-term impact on sales through tactics such as:

• SEO
• Coupons
• Targeted advertising aimed at immediate customer needs
• End-of-aisle displays
• Contests
• Sampling
• Email and direct mail appeals

Performance marketing is normally easy to measure as you track sales progress to clicks, redemption codes, and the timing of campaigns.

The goal of brand marketing is to establish a long-lasting emotional connection with customers that distances you from competitors. Brand marketing is essential as you try to stand out from a pack of intense competitors. Tactics can include:

• Sponsorships
• Advertising aimed at brand awareness
• Focus on brand messaging, design, and personality
• Brand communities
• Social responsibility
• Social media and content marketing
• Influencers (this can also reap short-term gains)
• Word-of-mouth marketing

In a recession, you may need to place your emphasis on performance marketing that drives short-term revenue. Performance marketing is easier to measure, and you’ll be under a lot of pressure to show the numbers in a downturn.

If you have the time, prepare for a downturn by establishing demonstrable gains from brand-building, like match market testing, to show the difference in results over two months between spending in one city versus not spending in another city. It’s a way to prove that your spending truly does matter to the company, but you just can’t measure it immediately. If you’re lucky, enlightened CMOs and CFOs who understand branding will have patience and understand they need both types of marketing in the mix.

A downturn could be the best time to take advantage of lower media and advertising rates to grow your brand. Be sensitive to the strategic needs of the business and be prepared to pivot.

Speak the language of your business

Inexperienced marketers, especially on the social media side, live and breathe “likes” and engagement. But these are not necessarily drivers for a business. In fact, they rarely are.

In a downturn, listen to the language of your business. Marketers need to apply a different level of rigor—a kind of chief financial officer or investor mindset to marketing. Regardless of what budget they have—high, low, or the same as last year — how do you show that your budget is working as hard as possible?

Do your best to be part of the solution if your business is suffering. What can you say to senior leaders to signal that marketing is actually a critical part of the recovery and long-term resilience? How do you tie your efforts to the language of the business (something we should do whether there is a recession or not!).

Use marketing budget cuts as a prompt to “look up”

Perhaps the most common problem I see in any marketing department is that they are stuck in the past. A department gets in a groove and stays there, like this:

• Roles are assigned but never updated for the times — people hate to change!
• “Best practices” from five years ago are probably obsolete
• Historic agency partner relationships and long-term contracts may be a scaffolding that props obstacles to change.
• Budgets are maintained year after year as a source of pride and power. But is the money truly applied effectively? Do you race to spend the budget at the end of the year to maintain the next budget level?
• Are there opportunities to use AI tools to drive massive new creativity and efficiency?

While a cutback can be scary, it can also be a time for renewal. You might even be able to make a case to re-distribute funds to achieve more effectiveness instead of simply cutting jobs.

The advantage of desperation

I present to you one of the greatest lessons of my career:

I used to work for a Fortune 100 company, and an early career assignment was at a manufacturing location that was the oldest and least efficient in the system. The plant was located in a small town — it was the primary source of employment for miles around.

These people needed those jobs. They were fighting for their community and their families. There was no corporate money to invest in the plant. But they ended up saving their jobs because desperation forged the most dedicated, hard-working, and creative group of people I’ve experienced in my life. Desperation can be fuel for radical innovation.

By contrast, in my next job, I worked for the most successful and profitable plant location. The amount of waste I observed was sickening. Management simply threw money at every problem.

I was so glad I experienced a desperate situation early in my career. It changed my view of creativity and leadership forever. Money can actually thwart creativity! Maybe a desperate moment can work for you, too.

Please build your personal brand

The best way to keep your job — or acquire the next one — is to be the most valuable human asset you can possibly be. Sure, you need to keep your skills up to speed and network, but it’s also vital to work on your personal brand.

If you’re known in your industry, you’ll be more likely to land on your feet, get more opportunities, and attract better pay.

Your personal brand is the only sustainable competitive advantage you can take with you from place to place. Working on your personal brand is like making a monthly deposit in an insurance policy for your career.

Resources to help you:

A free collection of blog posts on personal branding

The best-selling book on personal branding (it works!)

My live, online class on personal branding

A time for leadership

One of the most stressful times of my career was a complete organizational overhaul. This was one of those times when a consulting company is hired to come in and bring down the hatchet.

I had a friend who said, “I’m hiding. I am going to go underground and become invisible so I can survive this cut.”

I thought he was crazy. This was a time to show up even more … to embrace the change and be part of the solution. I took the opposite approach. Instead of cowering in fear, I signed on for whatever was coming next and made sure the consulting team could see my value.

I’ve been giving a popular new speech about how to remain relentlessly relevant. One of the main ideas is that in any crisis, any fracture in the status quo, there is a new business opportunity.

Surviving, and even thriving, in a time of marketing budget cuts involves applying the power of your personal brand to the new opportunities presented in a new reality.

Think of your personal brand as the surfboard that helps you navigate waves of change in the world. To be successful, you don’t necessarily need a new surfboard. You need a new wave.

The scariest changes in my career always led to big new doors opening. Don’t duck change. Embrace it, lead it, and show how your talents can be part of a brighter future for your company.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

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One of the highlights of my career was meeting Walter Isaacson. Walter has had a remarkable career as an academic, civic leader, and publisher, but he’s best known for authoring bestselling books on geniuses like Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, and Leonardo DaVinci. There’s no better person who would know what it takes to become a genius.

So … I asked him.

His answer was surprisingly simple.

How to become a genius

Walter explained to me that there are two common characteristics to the geniuses he studied for decades:

1. They have an insatiable curiosity
2. They see patterns and “connect the dots” in a new way

See, I told you it was simple! The Isaacson Genius Formula. But can anybody learn to become a genius? I love questions like that, so today, I’ll connect my own dots and help you think through that puzzle.

Let’s start with step one: Curiosity …

Can you learn to be curious?

“The important thing is not to stop questioning … Never lose a holy curiosity.”

Albert Einstein

Curiosity is more than an element of genius. I regard it as one of the best marketing skills you can have! Curiosity leads to competitive advantage.

I am a naturally curious person. For example, I drive my wife crazy on hikes. I’m always stopping to take photos and look up names of rocks, trees, and plants. If you drive people crazy with your curiosity, you’re good to go. Skip to the next section!

But what if you’re not curious? Can you train yourself to become more curious? When I researched this subject, I came across a great surprise: there is almost no research on this subject! Could be an idea for you. No need to thank me.

The best resource I could find was a Psychology Today article called “Cultivating Curiosity” from way back in 2006. Here’s what the author Elizabeth Svoboda recommended:

1. Reframe “boring” situations.

If you’ve got an inquiring mind, it’s possible to turn even mundane events, like waiting in line at the DMV, into something meaningful. Look for details others might miss, and seek to learn more about them. For instance, try turning to another customer in line and saying, “I noticed the Purple Heart pinned to your jacket. What war did you serve in?”

I practice this all the time. I might be in a meeting room, and I’ll look carefully for clues about a person or a company based on what is in the room.

2. Don’t let fear stop you from trying something new.

If you’re curious about something, it acts as a positive counterweight to anxiety and fear. Exercising your curiosity won’t wipe out doubt, but it may help you focus on the likely positive consequences of a new venture (learning to execute a perfect swan dive) rather than the negative ones (doing a belly flop and surfacing to the sound of laughter).

3. Let your true passions shine.

A key component of curiosity is what Boston College psychologist Ellen Winner calls a “rage to master”—whether that involves accumulating rejection slips from The New Yorker or spending hours in the basement learning banjo fingerings. An intense focus on specific interests or goals invites the state of mental immersion called “flow,” which in turn elicits feelings of accomplishment and well-being.

I’ll add a tip of my own:

4. Ask “why” continuously

Explore the “why” behind things: Rather than accepting things at face value, delve into the underlying reasons and explanations behind phenomena, events, or decisions. This analytical approach encourages curiosity and the search for deeper understanding.

When I was in the corporate world, I was trained in the Toyota Production System. There was a technique called the “seven why’s.” It’s not hard. You just ask “why” seven times in a row to get to the root of a problem. Somebody probably made a million bucks off that. But it really does work.

I think these are good tips. Anybody could focus on these ideas and probably make curiosity more of a habit.

Let’s explore the second part of the Isaacson Genious Formula. To become a genius, you also need to see patterns and connect dots in a new way.

Patterns and Dots

“I became a genius because I see patterns in new ways.” Steve Jobs

I totally made that quote up.

Here’s another word to describe making sense of patterns / connecting dots — insight. That is a key to genius — providing insight instead of information. This is one of my favorite things to write about. Insight is the key to professional career success these days, and I know of three ways to do that.

1. Connect the past.

One of my favorite ways of creating insights is to apply an experience from the past to a situation in the present.

Here is a universal truth. If you’re reading this post, you have a past and you have a present … so you should be able to do this!

An example of how to do this comes from my Marketing Rebellion book. I wanted to make a point in the book that cultural change in a company has to come from the top of the organization — there’s no such thing as a grassroots cultural change.

I thought back to points in my career and remembered a very dramatic cultural change that occurred through the visionary CEO of our company. I explained how he made a change in the safety culture through his entire company presence and led by example in dramatic ways.

Instead of merely stating, “culture change comes from the top,” I illustrated this point through a personal example, connecting the dots to my past. This is among the most popular stories in the book.

Statements are boring. Stories deliver insights.

2. Connect the people

I firmly believe you can’t “think out of the box.” By the time we’re 15 years old, we’re wired with a mental framework that essentially persists throughout our life.

Creating insights comes through combining boxes — mashing together mental frameworks. Simply put, go talk to people and build on ideas together.

A person who can create insight consistently this way is Andy Crestodina. If you don’t follow Andy, you should. He is a thought leader because he’s constantly looking at things in a new way.

Every time I see Andy, he’ll start a conversation like this: “Mark, have you ever thought about how content marketing is like a pyramid …” and then we’ll riff on whatever crazy idea he has that day until we have plenty of new ideas (that eventually show up in his blog posts!).

My go-to person for insight-building is Keith Reynold Jennings, one of my co-hosts of The Marketing Companion podcast. Keith will call me up and say, “I have a wild idea for you …” And an hour later, my head will be stuffed with possibilities and new dots that have been connected.

Creativity and insight come through connection, not thinking by yourself in an office.

3. Connect the experiences

My friend Liz Fessenden reminded me of the Japanese kaizen principle of “going to gemba.”

Gemba (also less commonly as genba) is a Japanese term meaning “the real place.” In business, gemba refers to the place where value is created. The most common use of the term is in manufacturing, where the gemba is the factory floor, but gemba can really be anywhere you can achieve customer insight.

This is probably my number one source of insight — seeing the world. For example, I never miss the annual SXSW conference in Austin because it is a festival of ideas and thought leadership. My brain is tossed around and shaken like a James Bond martini. I’ll have a whole year of dots to connect from the people I meet there.

How to become a genius? One more thing …

I hope you’re happy now and ready to become a genius any moment now.

However.

I think something is missing from the Isaacson Genius Formula. If you want to become a genius, there’s one more thing to master, and it’s not easy.

I’ve known several true geniuses in my life, and the greatest of these was Peter Drucker, considered the father of modern management and marketing. He was my teacher and mentor in graduate school for three years.

Dr. Drucker had a magical capability: He could distill complexity to its essence. When something seemed overwhelming, he could filter it down into easy-to-understand components. His lessons were so profound they inform my life today, decades later.

Look at DaVinci’s drawings — they distill complexity into simplicity. Jobs, Einstein, and Franklin did this too. That’s what makes them all so quotable! They look at an insanely complex world and provide a pearl of insight that inspires our minds and hearts.

I don’t think this is easy. Perhaps this is the true gift that makes it rare to become a genius.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post How to Become a Genius appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

My friend Tim Peter posed an interesting and timely question on his Think Out Loud podcast — Should a student still pursue a career in marketing? Should anyone? It got me thinking.

The answer to this question is certainly not as reliable or intuitive as it was a few years ago. Specifically, it has been projected that AI will nip at the heels of many white-collar skillsets and even eliminate the jobs of some entry-level and mid-career marketing professionals. A big part of marketing is detecting patterns and responding with answers that are patterns and AI does patterns well.

Would I still advise a young person to pursue a career in marketing?

I’ll address that today, but to alleviate your suspense, the answer is, “MAYBE.”

Let’s get into it.

The threat of AI and marketing careers

To understand my view of AI and its existential threat to marketing careers, let me explain how I dealt with a previous threat — the internet and content marketing.

Before the web, marketers held secrets, and that’s how we often made money. In fact, that’s how almost every business made money — holding information tightly and getting people to pay for our expertise and secrets.

Can you imagine how disruptive it was when everybody was suddenly publishing everything they knew on the web? As I described in my book Marketing Rebellion, this was the second of three existential threats to marketers. There simply were no secrets any more. If you tried to keep your best practices a secret, there was somebody else down the street willing to spill the beans for free.

How was I going to make money as a marketing consultant when I literally gave away all my best ideas through my books, blog, and podcast?

Well, I gave away all my best ideas … and it worked. In fact, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The more information I gave away, the more people wanted to work with me.

Let’s connect that to what’s happening now. Within the next few months, there will be another existential threat to my career: A ChatBot that will BE ME. I’ll upload all my writing, speeches, and books into a large language model and people will be able to converse with a MarkBot to get their marketing questions answered.

Why would somebody hire me as a consultant if they can get the next best thing for free through the MarkBot? I’ll have to figure that out, and I will. We have to embrace the technology and make it work for us.

So if you’re pursuing a career in marketing, you can’t go into it scared. If a marketing career is your dream, you have to embrace all the change and incorporate that change into your work life.

For the love of marketing

Let’s go back to that last sentence. There’s an important word there linked to marketing career success: “dream.”

I’ve been a guest lecturer before hundreds of university marketing students. And I’ve only encountered a few students who have truly impressed me … The ones who are frantically taking notes. The ones who will stay long after class to ask questions. The ones who stay in touch with me on LinkedIn or become part of my community because they want to keep learning.

I guarantee that these students will have great marketing careers because they are following a dream. Most students only have a vague idea of what marketing is about. Their college major is a placeholder while they figure their lives out. But the ones with the marketing dream … they’ll be fine no matter what comes down the line.

There will always be marketing jobs and we’ll need the best people to fill them. If you’re a student with a dream and a marketing fire burning in your belly, you have nothing to worry about. You’ll have a great career.

Embracing chaos

There is no business profession that changes as much as marketing. If you want a calm life and a linear career path, forget about marketing. To excel in this world, you have to be a change junkie.

I can already tell who will be out of a job among my current marketing friends — those who feel overwhelmed and intimidated by the rate of change.

And the ones who are going to transcend the threat? They’re saying, Bring. It. On.

Embrace the chaos. Make it work for you!

A massive part of marketing going forward will be understanding and integrating what is possible with AI and other technologies. If that excites you, this is the career for you. You’re needed more than ever!

Would I pursue a career in marketing?

What a career I’ve had!

The early days of my marketing career touched on the very end of the “Mad Men” days of private clubs and three martini lunches (for real). I eventually became an internet pioneer at my company, taught the world’s first college credit course in social media marketing, and wrote many books that helped guide marketers into the future.

And I’m just starting. It’s so much fun!

Marketing is the all-time best career choice in the business world. We’re on the front lines of commerce, imagining products, creating customers, changing the world.

We are the creators. We’re innovators. We’re beacons for positive change.

We’re sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and sometimes even therapists for our clients! But through it all, we solve problems, make things grow, move, and change the world for the better.

At the end of the podcast episode that prompted this essay, Tim had this advice for aspiring marketers: “Don’t make plans, have goals.”

I agree. In marketing, there is no such thing as a five-year career plan. But you can have a career goal and adjust to whatever comes your way to meet that goal.

Would I recommend that a young person pursue a career in marketing? As my spoiler alert indicated, the answer is, “maybe.”

If you’re just checking a box when you declare your major and you’re not ready to commit to a career of, well … chaos … then you’re going to fall out. But if you want to command that chaos to change the world, let’s go.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration: This is a photo of me with Jasmine Branca, who was then a student at Bournemouth University.

The post Should you still pursue a career in marketing? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

This year I’m trying to get a little more personal on this blog and peel back the curtain on some things going on in my business and life that might be relevant to you. A few weeks ago, I talked about the biggest success of my career. Today I’ll balance that out with five mistakes I’ve made as an entrepreneur.

I fail a lot. Everybody does. But the failures I’m highlighting today are special because I should have known better. Today I present to you my five dumbest mistakes.

Setting the stage

First, a little background.

I’ve had two distinct careers. For the first half of my career, I was a marketing executive for a Fortune 100 company. But more likely, you know me as an entrepreneur, speaker, consultant, teacher, and author — and that career started about 15 years ago.

As I look back on my life, the biggest flubs I made in my corporate career were probably political. Sometimes I had difficulty following corporate norms when it led to waste and non-productive work. I guess that was the entrepreneur in me trying to get out. That drive also led to my biggest successes in the corporate world, by the way!

The biggest mistakes I’ve made as an entrepreneur come from straying from my core competence. Here they are:

1. Doing work that I despise

In 2015, I wrote a book called The Content Code, which provided a map on how to create content that was actually seen and shared (most corporate content just sits on a website and is never even viewed … a big waste of money!). By the way, this book still holds up today. I would change very little.

By cobbling together research, systems, and content patterns I described in the book, I developed an algorithm that could predict the viral potential of content. By applying this assessment to your content and your competitors, you could devise a framework for content marketing success and a leading indicator for sales.

I pulled together a team to support a new company that would bring this idea to the world. We beta-tested this algorithm with IBM, a London media company, a boutique wealth management firm, and a massive data processing company.

The darn thing worked. We were ready to take the system to the world.

An entrepreneur wears many hats, and the hat I hate most of all is sales. I’m terrible at sales because I’m impatient.

Literally, every company that saw our demonstration was interested in the product. But the sales process exhausted me. For example, the day I was going to sign a contract with Oracle, I was informed that the procurement manager had left the company and I needed to start the process all over again. At every account, I faced an endless string of delays …

• Unexpected budget cuts
• Departments being disbanded
• Bosses getting fired

This was not bad luck. This is simply the typical B2B sales process, which requires endless patience! And I hated it. Every minute I spent time spinning my wheels on sales, I thought about everything I would prefer to be doing … which was pretty much anything other than this big waste of time.

So after about a year and a half, I pulled the plug. I lost a ton of money on this experiment and learned the painful lesson that when it came to selling, I sucked. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made as an entrepreneur was pinning my success on an activity that I didn’t enjoy. I’ll never put myself in that position again. Don’t do the work you despise.

2. Marketing to the wrong audience

Early in my “second career,” I was known as a go-to guy for social media tips and tactics. I wrote bestselling books on Twitter, blogging, and social media strategy, for example.

But I grew out of this. After a few years, I was making most of my money from consulting about strategy, teaching about marketing, and public speaking.

I had outgrown my audience but only realized this when I read Evelyn Starr’s book Teenage Waste Brand. This book examines the lull that occurs in brand adolescence, and that is exactly what had happened to me.

I had to re-align my message with a different audience, and that is still a work in progress!

3. Complacency

The first quarter of 2020 was the most successful of my career. And then, we all know that happened in March of that year. When the pandemic hit, my entire business crashed to zero in about 48 hours.

I was lamenting to a friend how sad I was that this rewarding and profitable career so easily went “poof!” and he asked me, “when you were having that great success, were you innovating?”

The answer was “no.” Business was coming in to me so easily that almost every phase of my business had stagnated. I wasn’t building new products, my website was outdated, and I overlooked basic marketing fundamentals like an email strategy.

I had failed to look up from my entrenched practices and adjust to the changing world. Success had made me complacent.

I’m still rebuilding and moving forward, but about one-third of my income now derives from revenue streams that did not exist before the pandemic.

4. Following my heart instead of my head

Several years ago, I invested time and resources in a start-up. This relationship had more red flags than a parade in Moscow. I knew deep down that success was unlikely, but I liked this entrepreneurial partner so much that I followed my heart.

I ignored the accumulated wisdom of my life and wasted a lot of energy on a venture that was probably doomed from the start.

Sometimes, it’s OK in business to follow your heart. At least for me, that’s where the fun and creativity occur. But it’s not OK to ignore your own intellect and take your business down the wrong path. This was a gigantic waste of time that should have been avoided.

5. Becoming undisciplined

This is my most recent challenge.

From the outside, many people marvel at how much I accomplish. I’m speaking, teaching, consulting, and I just published my tenth book.

The key to this success is discipline. I have three core activities in my business, and if I’m asked to stray outside those boundaries, I either say no or find a way to delegate it to somebody.

Over the past year or so, I’ve been crushed by not following this practice.

Part of this is because I’m a nice guy, and I want to personally say yes to every request for help. But it’s just become too much, and I’ve been dragged into activities that have zero benefits for me or the business.

An example: I receive several books each week from an author wanting me to promote it for them. The book comes with a sweet personal note and an appeal for help. I’m sympathetic because not long ago, I was a new author looking for support. But just the act of creating and posting videos is a distraction, and I can’t delegate to somebody until there is a Mark Bot ™.

Stress doesn’t come from being busy. Stress comes from devoting too much time to activities that don’t make you come alive.

The next biggest mistakes!

I suppose five years from now, I’ll be writing a new post with five more mistakes I’ve made as an entrepreneur!

My teacher and mentor Peter Drucker used to say that it’s OK to make mistakes as long as you don’t dig yourself into a hole so big that you can’t get out.

So far, I’ve succeeded in following Dr. Drucker’s advice! I’ve been able to recover from every mistake.

As I reflect on the biggest mistakes I’ve made as an entrepreneur (so far), it’s disappointing that they all could have been avoided if I had just used common sense. Perhaps part of the entrepreneurial journey is discovering your own common sense!

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustrations courtesy MidJourney. 

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