More on Getting into Marketing-

To`The students of MSc Marketing, Strathclyde 2009-010! Relax! Floss...

I think I will take a bit of a radical departure from my previous advice on maybe taking (or needing to take) a sales job as an entry level to a larger or interesting company.

In outset you have the education in front of you which will equip you to work at a strategic level or at least understand much of what is going on around you in terms of this. You lack some of the practical, functional skills and much of the negotiating, presenting and convincing soft skills which can only come with life experience.

What you do not need is to sit in a car and drive about somewhat dissinterested potential customers all day, and what you may learn from a sales job can be in fact condensed into a very short period of ’placement’ for a month or two or even just work shadowing a rep in the field.

Rather than selling, it is a far better prospect for you with the MSc to get into a marketing department which has a decent budget ( spend of more than 300 000 € for b2b or over a million for consumer goods) Even if you start at the photocopier.

Why ? Well it is just use of time and brain cells, in context of all the others without any marketing education who can slug it out in sales. In many sales jobs 90% of your time is wasted in mundane travel, fluttering eyelids, wining and dining or offering big cash discounts for volume upsales and bring-forwards. The best sellers almost without exception in my own experience, have the biggest potential customers and use discount to get more out of them and make their targets on the top line.

The fact that the customer knows of their company through media channels, and furthermore has a product suited their needs to a reasonable starting price is all the hard and fascinating work that marketing do. The sales rep ”only” closes the deal if you ask me, in any form of a large market of customers.

Marketing in most respects, talks ”one to many” but more importantly ”listens many to one”- so anecdotal crap from sales reps about a new product or what customers really need must be taken in context of the many thousand customers you may have and the prospects out there.

However if your research and networking into a given company you would love to market for shows up that most everyone has to go through sales, find out the average time. Find out if there are temporary placements in sales on a larger graduate intake scheme. If everyone is in sales five years then do you really want to work in that kind of department (NO!) ??

With intakes to sales, the perspective to take is not to make yourself the worlds best seller within 2 years then try to get into marketing. The stand point is, from day one I am here to get asap into marketing! There are three ways-

One: flirt, network, suck up and be all over marketing if you are attractive, likeable and fun to be with! Make sure your new wee pals or flattered manager drop you a line when there is a marketing department job on the way. Get in early before the other reps.

Two; get some ’quick wins from the low hanging fruit’ ie ignore all the crappy customers and identify the biggest potential to grow or get in a new. Spend your time on them and forget those which are just small or intransigent. Sales managers will soon like your style, despite their wish you ”get round all the customers” as a newbie. When you have a couple of quick wins, flag them round a bit and blow your trumpet high up, then ask for a transfer into marketing there and then!

Thirdly, keep on looking for a marketing job, and when you even get an interview, start talking to personnel about your move into marketing in a casual manner. At six months in the job either threaten to leave, say you would much rather work in marketing or just use your company car to get round job interviews and land a job! Then either take that job or ask for an immediate move to marketign otherwise you will take that job. If you have a particularily valuable ’technical’¨background, then just threaten to leave if you donøt have a clear path to marketing within a year!

There will be a que of other sellers after jobs, but many will have the problem of being mortgaged or childrened up out in the sticks and not want the upheaval, not to say the probable drop in salary, in moving to an HQ marketing assistant, APM etc role.

In all three cases it is best to take a sales job near head office- you will have more meetings there, more excuses to drop in and more social possibilities with marketeers. Second best is being a ”commando seller” or covering a territory for a maternity leave person. There you maybe have an upper hand in being quicly available and not lost to the company. Companies ”like” to promote internally but usually marketing jobs, even photocopying, are roundly tied up as soon as they appear by networkers.

Having said ”start at the photocopier” I don’t mean being taken for a fool. Ensure you have secured some interesting and meanigful work- that is to say both some form of project work where you sit on a team and get tasks to do, and some departmental work such as helping with dataentry, analyses etc.

When you come into a department, or an ad agency, there will be plenty of first and second rung managers there who will feel a bit threatened by your MSc because in fact they have no actual education or are in the long slow book chase aka the CIM! So they will take this chance to dump on you a bit! Make sure you have real tasks to do and don’t let yourself get landed with crap all the time! If someone wants a pile of folders put together late one night, instead of just saying ”ok I’m the over willing little intern, thank you for shitting on my hair”, turn and say, ”well that would be a bit outside the usual, is there something a little more in it for me if I do a good job? Maybe some work in your brand groups?” If you get shat on, then at least you know to say you are too busy with that guya gain.

Avoid ambushes where you get called into your bosses office with the offending dumper being there smugly levering you into some mundaneity using the boss. Tacitally say you will think about it, and ask for a word with the boss when they rise up to leave, then complain like hell about being used for some shite like this and ask for payback or no way! Use it as an excuse to ask for more demanding, higher value work and say that the non educated interns can do some more donkey work while they learn marketing from the first step!!

The modern world of employment opportunities....

I still have not quite got my head around the "modern world" of how vacancies are filled.

I mean that advertised positions for most people are fast becoming a thing of the past. You either get blind dated to an employer through the necessary evil of recruiters, or bliss oh bliss! You marry yourself to your perfect partner ...the girl you think is prettiest and least likely to divorce you in the post nuptual period.

This was probably a status that evolved in the early 90s- a boom of graduates delivered on the job market in 1989-95 with far fewer traditional graduate vacancies available ! Advertising meant nothing- nepotism was rife and for second jobbers it was easy play to move using the slimy recruitment snake- there being so few yearlings in the big FMCG companies to go around suddenly yet no one interested in training new 'milk rounders'

Now the milk round must have set many an unsuspecting 1970s graduate off on a career of 'blamange development' or 'consumer strategy' from having studied medieval icelandic history as a major. Many intellectual soles got wed and familied up and were soon in middle management i P&G or kraft, or GE wondering what the fuck they had done with their imaginations. In the 80s it became marketing which was the big draw, no longer a wet kind of lunch at the ad agency, but a power dressed focus for driving the top line. ...to lead many of us to study marketing and seek it's nicer company car with AC and leather....and promptly dump us on the reject side, worse giving kid on job creations ...non graduate pay, shite, salesy, DMey crap.

So what began in the 90s carried on...big companies got used to nepotism and down sizing was rife anyway, and the internet boom was yet to happen. SMEs showed some promise but already recruitment consultants were used heavily to just dump the work load of piling through tons of CVs for jobs in call centres, field sales, retail management trainee etc..all the shite a self respecting graduate should avoid.

Then come the internet boom and the marriage of bliss was born. I just love what you are doing at AP, P and P internet.....eager beavers and savey industry insiders could present them selves to the yahoos, googles, ISPs and amazons of this world...or the start up 'lifestyle' companies not to mention all the agency-boutiques.

So on the one hand the networker could find his perfect partner, while on the other the experienced account manager would be on a blind date to some new internet start up, just standing with it's back to the prepasice and it's mouth blazing all guns on it's own meteoric, unstoppable growth in equity!

It is not just a skill set, but a very deep ingrained mind set which I need to change. My generation grew up in the blissful ignorance of the milk round expectation- some graduating in the mid eighties being lucky, most everyone else I know graduating in non professions in the later or 1990 being lost into shite or some of their own special interest but hole financially speaking. We went out thinking the world needed us and would with only a little bit of prompting, beat a path to our door wiht an application form merely a formality before blue-chip doors opened and took us to the bosom of heirarchical glossy towers.

Unlike the jim bob or swag man of days gone by, we don't like turning up at the factory gates or the down town street corner and asking for work. God we may get told to stuff our five year university education up our ass. We may get some gate keeper, jaded of being stuck a loser, just sneer at our attempt to marry ourselves to the lovely bride behind the port cullis of mediocre " little " people.

Then we actually have to influence people...in person, no longer just on paper. In other words those who are going to succeed most in changing jobs or from being unemployed, or of course fresh out of uni are those who can sell !

They can sniff the opportunity, network to the decision maker, get their elevator pitch time and sell them on themselves!

All the things I hate about sales and sales people. The presumption they are gonna win, the smugness,

What about Life Goals???

I have just been scribbling down some goals for sailing, which will help me decide if 2010 is a go, or no year. Shall I take "T" with sailing for a year, or maybe longer?

Anyways, it got me thinking about what actual life goals I have now.

I seem to have been on a way big family time period, which is part of one of my goals- acheived! Right location for family and me right now, absolutely. Affordable housing comes at of course, a price- fewer jobs and economic opportunities locally. We are down the road so to speak!

What about career though?

Well I have just had to grab the helm and trim the sails and set a new course based on my own abilities in this weather! So now it is to be back burner to my previous career and front ho for purchasing and log's. I think there are both challenges in this, a career path, valuable experience with people and systems and at the end of the day a stable nine to fiver which has enough structure and team work for me to thrive in.

My long term line to marketing director are somewhat dented by the fact I just dont kiss ass enough! I think this is however, quite possible and extermely likely if I go down the invest-managers type firms like Forrinova was, popping out with a spin out.

This would also be my means of doing financial momentum- over and beyond the establishment of house and home. I think I need to be in several share holding pies, and end up being a mini forrinova myself.

(this is a nicely ranting thread) ...which leads me to the fact that at some point I need the opportunity to build teams up around myself. In both sailing and work life! ( one important goal I should have set for long term in sailing, oops)

How to get there? Well, it is a case that I need to consolidate and move into a new, more administrative role which takes me into management. After this I need to move into a forrinova situation quickly, or a new start. I then need to build a PR profile with some quick wins and use that as a springboard to getting on the share-pay wagon.

I think the route is just as important as the eventual goals, ----wiat up , in fact more so! The route has to be defined with clear goals along the way

1. establish a 'bread and butter' job to pay the mortgage

2. get into some "gravy" - innovation norway, cvntre, birkeland

3. maybe get an on line MBA, or some kind of entrepreneurship, new shaping, spin out diploma

4. Get into a new start , recent start or management company for such

5. get into a position to take some glory and PR it!

6: ride the wave a little

7. Build a team around me

8. buy that team's asses.

9. use the team to get forward.


The eventual goals would be

short term life style: Mortgage, stability for the kids, local sailing, some better OD dinghy sailing, fitness

longer term- team, shares, capital, innovation


meeting the two is the challenge- there seems no easy bridge between the above short and long term unless I take a huge risk in about 3 or four years. Why not take the plunge now? Well frankly moving into semi-soft-VC is not cool with the banks right now. Get mortgaged first.

But an observation on myself now is that I am finally willing to look much further into the future than before. I am planning out 3 to four years for my even beginning to consider the next swing instead of my 1999 happy with a company car and pay at the end of the month. Back then I had no real plan and followed the path of least resistance which in fact was the absolute highest stress route for me- agency land was hell post KMP for me personally and I should have moved client side after McCanns. I guess I had ambitions, but I seem to remember just being happy to be back in Scotchlandshire.

I still remember the night in Edinburgh on which I knew my whole life would change for ever and short term, self centredness would have to give way to being a parent.

][edit= ]Finally I notice another thing on looking back on this blogg- there is no mention of money per se. No mention of which boat or car i will have. This marks a big change in me- placing value and the eventual building of a team around me before actual fast financial goals. Money is the noise of the engine!

Small Town Hues and Blues

Well the thing is about small towns that they are good and bad. Without a high ceiling they are claustrophobic and when the clique start to close in a little, then it becomes hard to not feel squeezed out.

On the one side it was a joy to walk down the street and take time to talk to someone - if I want- to see people with their newborns out for a tour, to feel the wind on the seaside down and see the boats in the harbour.

But on the other side there is the pigeon holing and tall poppy thing which is happening now to me. Best to get the head down a while. I never have really learnt this lesson, but often it pays to keep the head out of the way and not say much. Less is more...as with small towns!

Fallacy of Networking

Everyone recommends networking as the way forward to finding both your first job or your eventual dream job. From the employers perspective it appears to save time and money in being passive in the job market and fielding speculative approaches or networked contacts. However there are weaknesses in this approach.


The principle is of course that you recruit the best possible person available (actively seeking) for the position or failing that actually head hunt them out of a job! A priori to this is actually that the would be recruiter has cast a wide net to include as many 'best possibles'. This is where the debate begins- finding the best person or letting them find you.

In letting them find you there are many dangers. The positive side is that they appear to be motivated to work specifically for your company and present a plausible, focused case in theri application and discussions with you. This flatters the company and leads them into what may be a false sense of security. Most all job seeker courses now focus on networking and open applications and so candidates are better at SEEMING to be really interested, motivated, and experienced.

As with Police service and becoming a politician, a strong desire to actually enter these careers should be automatic grounds for exclusion. We get the wrong personality profile too often in both these careers (although not seemingly in my adopted country now!) . People who come to you may be actually over enthusiastic and blind you with one the one side charm while on the otherside they present a strong case in appearance which actually lacks the depth of experience which is to be found out in the market. That is to say in other words, they can press the right button by focusing their communication message better than the generic CVs which land on the desk.

The other down side is even more personality profile related- you tend to attract more extravert and driving personalities. Fine for sales jobs, but you may need someone who is more controlled, detail oriented and not in fact very good at speculative applications. Immediately you choose to only consider specualtive applications and your network, so can your company become filled with clever opportunists rather than stable, hard working and pedantic types you maybe actually need.

Go getters are on a career programme, and rightly so. Resultingly you have to view them with some scepticism. Is this position actually something the candidate is going to go the full mile in or just a foot in the door? Worse is it a stepping stone to work in a competitor!?

My point is that in being passive you don't get :

1) the best possible performer 'in the market'
2) You bias a personality profile over actual necessary skills for the job

Futher is the whole issue of nepotism and other personal favouritism. This is an area which was rife before the explosion of the recruitment industry in the 1980s who managed to sell companies towards the right stuff- use of databases and wide trawling to be able to select from the very best in the market. Now to my chagrin it is rife again. Networking starts at home, just like all those idiots who begin in insurance sales. You start with family and move on to freinds and people who either owe-you-one, or worse you have a family lever over. For example your dad may be a suppliers biggest customer and can more or less demand a place for you there. Total conflict of interest! Never should be ethical! Happens all the fucking time!

One clear problem is that recruitment consultants have actually moved away from offering a diverse and bountiful shelf ware selection. They feel it is unproductive to have people sitting in a database and have to actually hunt them down, check they may be interested and get an updated CV out of them. Now most all jobs I have talked about with recruitment consultants are set out on the web and the candidates self select them. Even, or dare i say Especially in high skill demand areas- the advertised job gets those people in the market and not those who would like to bounce a salary rise around after having had a call out of the blue. In part this is because one key goal recruitment consultants have is cost and inflation control for their customers.

In my experience , recruitment consultants have become a lot less useful for candidates- you must be active in applying for positions that are advertised- this means you are competing against a larger amount of available candidates than you would have been in the 80s and 90s when database was king. I unashamably work around recruitment consultants- they avoid risk taking so won't stretch you into a job compared to someone sitting in that type of job already -so I find out who the employer is and say no thank you to them presenting me. I then pop up as one of these highly motivated candidates specifically interested in them with my nice open application and phone call!

Why do companies rely so much on networking and speculative applications? Well it comes down to time and emotions. Personnel departments are now bogged down with HMS legislation and trying to reduce sick leave, turn over etc while flying their own projects in training and development. There is a certain feel good factor all round when someone is either an eager beaver focused on your company or part of the family already so to speak. The flattery, the reduction in hours to getting a candidate with a good story, and the feeling of doing someone a favour all play to the positive emotions and over come , quite ungrounded the fear of the unknown and recruiting the wrong stuff.

Personnel will recruit - advertised - when prodded by senior management, but a lot of the time they are simply bypassed and end up rubber stamping candidates who have been wise and gone to the actual departmental decision maker by networking. The papers and web sites are therefore crammed with the following- jobs in mostly the public sector, where they must advertise despite the position being already sewn up for the sitting temp or promotee; jobs that are unnattractive- telesales, care work with antisocial hours, part time work and so on; jobs where skills are so scarce and tied up that they don't get enough applications or anyat all; senior ledership jobs where the company really has to be seen to be recruting the best- visibility to stock and other share holders is important as is actually coaxing someone good out of a position!

There in lies the rub - companies will jump through all the right hoops when it is a MUST for a senior enough job that questions can be posed as to how good the person actually was aligned for the role. Whereas the hum drum jobs which actually make the company function are subject to networking and the open application. My conclusion is that companies should spend a lot more energy on being active recruiters- it avoids the risks of bias from networking and passivity while also actually being a source of excellent benchmarking and market intelligence. Your candidates have experience and knowledge you can use- is your competitor offering better terms and more effective training? What is the new buzz in ISO 14000 about? Is your biggest supplier about to go bankrupt?

I recommend that managers use at least 8 hours a month on reviewing and interviewing candidates to acheive:

A more objective review of candidates presenting them selves 'on spec'
A move away from the networking and nepotism bias
Being able to actively 'head dump' ie recruit better people before you sack lower performers
Getting free consultancy!

The interview.......

Interviews are conducted very badly all over the western world

They tend to be too much of a monolgue from either one side or the other and lack dialogue.

In sales and marketing especially, they can become quite literally beauty parades- would you want to work for an employer who chose you on your looks and legs rather than your abilities and personalities?


It is important to establish dialogue- as candidate you are every bit as much interviewing THEM to find out if you can really do the job and if the job is actually going to be satisfying for you. If you are bombarded with a corporate strategy presentation which is obviously going to go on more than 5 mins more from a single persons mouth, then make an excuse for a "comfort " break and come back in having destroyed their flow- as you sit down pose an open question to one of the others on the panel, or if one-one just smile and pose some more postiion oriented questions.

Conversely learn to summarise your experience and stop talking having given a summary- let them question further- don't presume on what they want to hear- they may be more interested in personality, motivation and team-fit than your practical experience. Let them explore areas with further questioning. However if you do have a USP in an area , a real trump card relative to the job, make sure you play it at the right point in the flow of information.


It is best to avoid repeating your CV as a monologous ulogy! Summarise the most relevant areas. In fact given an interview is running late, you can ask to focus more on your recent experience and most related qualifications for the job. This means you can lay your best hand of cards on the table while maybe glossing over those shitty jobs in macdonalds. To this end ORGANISE YOUR CV IN DESCENDING CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. Give a lot of detail on your current and last job. You can even diagregate out those jobs of most relevance- leaving others to a simple listing of 'other work experience'.

-INTERVIEWERS SEEM VERY TAKEN UP WITH SOME CONTINUITY AND FLOW IN YOUR CAREER AS AN ENTIRE HISTORY, WHEREAS IN FACT RECRUITMENT PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE SHOWN THAT THE BEST PREDICTOR OF PERFORMANCE IN A NEW JOB IS THAT IN THE LAST OR MOST RECENT COUPLE OF JOBS -

Be though expecially prepared to answer on why you left a job and any gaps you have. You can for example leave out post uni or mid in uni period of travel and temp jobbing by neglecting to put on the year of your graduation. Or like me getting a little long inthe tooth, I leave out all the pishy marketing executive jobs and have a 'career, the last ten years' .

10 Tips to Decoding the Interview

While you won't truly know until you get "the call," there are many signs throughout the process that can help you determine whether or not you'll make the first cut. The following are questions and clues to help you decode the interview.

1. What is the interviewer doing? "If I am interested in what a candidate is saying, I will nod my head, smile and probably jot down a few notes," says inside sales manager Karen Nance. "I may also ask questions to probe further about what the applicant is talking about or share some thoughts on how this topic relates to the open position."Nancy Kim-Phillips, owner of NKP Consulting in Chicago, says that candidates should observe the interviewer's body language for positive signs, "I find myself leaning forward when I'm interested in what someone has to say. I would expect the candidate to match my body language and lean in too." Watch for negative signals as well. If the interviewer seems distracted, is checking her watch, shuffling papers or looking at his Blackberry, you're probably not captivating your audience. "I'll often put down my pen if I'm not feeling good about what the candidate is saying," she adds.

2. Were you engaged in dialogue? "An interview is going well when there is a dialogue," Kim-Phillips says. "If I don't have to refer to a list of questions, and the conversation flows smoothly, it means there's a natural exchange of information we are both interested in. This can begin from the very first question, which is usually, 'So, tell me about yourself.'"

3. Did you hear positive verbal clues? Lynn Hazan, owner of Chicago-based recruitment firm Lynn Hazan and Associates, says some interviewers may urge you on with positive words like, "Yes, go on...," "This is good..." or even "That’s interesting, tell me more..." These are all clear indicators that it's going well.

4. Were you reciting a monologue?"A turn-off for me is if I ask a question and it becomes a monologue with a five-minute answer," Kim-Phillips says. In preparing candidates for interviews, Hazan suggests they put together a concise 30-second and 60-second spiel. "This, in a nutshell, is the ideal response to questions like, 'Why should we employ you?'" she discloses. "I encourage candidates to practise in front of a mirror. There's no better way to judge how others see you than by seeing yourself," Hazan notes.

5. Did the interviewer interrupt you? If the interviewer interrupts you or starts to look bored, it's time to change gears. Hazan suggests that candidates stop at the first sign of disinterest from the interviewer and ask a question like, "Am I answering your question?" Or "Would you like to hear more about this or would you like another example?" This may save the day and gives the interviewer a choice on where to proceed.

6. Did you ask questions?As the conversation comes to a close, interviewers inevitably ask candidates if they have any questions. Kim-Phillips says that, "When I would ask, 'What questions do you have?' and there were none... that would wrap things up pretty quickly."When interviewers give you the opportunity to ask questions, this is your cue to gain a better understanding of anything discussed during the interview. Questions like, "You said you want someone with a sales background; what else does an ideal candidate need to succeed in this position?" This is also a chance for you to demonstrate that you have done your homework on the company.

7. Were you asked about timing?It's a good sign if you're asked about your availability. "I may start talking about the timeframe for making a decision, and ask 'How does this sound to you?' and 'How soon can you start?'" Kim-Phillips says. "If I'm interested in someone, I want to know who my competition is," Nance adds. "I will ask, 'Where else have you been for interviews?' and 'Do you have any other firm offers?'"

8. Were you a good fit?The more the interviewer talks about what is going on in their company and how you will fit in, the better. Kim-Phillips says she never quite comes right out and says, 'I don't think this is a good match,' but might say 'We're really looking for the right match for this position.'

9. Were you invited to meet others in the company?Nance and Kim-Phillips both say that if it is going well they'll mention that there are some other people they would like you to meet. They may even introduce you on the spot.

10. How long was the interview?Most opinions about candidates are formed within the first few minutes. The rest of the time is spent validating these opinions. If an interview is less than half an hour, it's generally not a good sign. If you reach the one hour mark and the conversation is flowing enthusiastically and evenly between you and the interviewer, you may have hit the jackpot!

Talkin about this genn er ashun.....

Todays spoilt audi estate , Sports pack full turbo, generasjon is spoilt and credited to heck. Good times will but only continue...buy that house you gotta stretch to.....take that extra credit card.,...our house will go up 30 percent ad infinitum....

In other words, there is a whole generation which has not been “adversity tested”.

Robbins says that to cope with the current level of change on a personal level, and to help us stay focussed on opportunity rather than fear of loss we should train ourselves emotionally – to build our “emotional fitness”. He states that we all have emotional patterns, or habits which will play out at times of great stress – angry people will get angry, fearful people will become even more fearful and so on.

So his strategy is firstly to identify what our habitual emotional patterns are, and then to consciously condition the emotions which are more helpful to us in terms of our response to crisis (for example, creativity or determination).

Robbins also encourages us to look outwards rather than inwards – to find a way to get outside of ourselves and realise that no matter how hard things are, there is always someone who has it harder. As he says, “If you help someone else, it changes you too.”

To Suceed....Fall Flat on Your Face; Repeat.

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success?....

It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure ..."

Thomas J. Watson – Founder of IBM

cont.... " You're thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all... you can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you'll find success. On the far side.” –

Albert Einstein was by many accounts or rather interpretations of his intellect, a failure.

His language was late in developing. In fact he made no attempt to talk until he was more than three years old. His teachers' considered him mentally retarded because of his strange behavior and his failure to learn by memorizing. He had been home taught to the age of seven and didnt fit into the germanic, regimented and learn-by-rote ways of the education system. That his intelligence and inquisitiveness was evident from the many hours he spent experimenting with a pocket compass at age 5 was maybe however not lost on his father who gave him that probably fateful gift.....

In 1894 his father Hermann's business venture fails again. The family then relocates out over the Alps to Milan, Italy. After two months on his own, Albert obtains a doctor's certificate saying that he is suffering a nervous breakdown. The school authorities dismissed him. From there he spends a year in Italy. But again the business fails and the family moves to Pavia. Where again the business fails. Without a diploma he is not able to enter a University.

There are numerous examples in the world today of highly successful men and women who had to overcome many failures and setbacks along the way, but who also had the perseverance, determination and self belief to keep on trying.

For example, in his early career the actor Harrison Ford was told by the Vice President of the “New Talent” program for Columbia Pictures that he didn’t have what it took to make it in the movie business.

The VP said that in the first movie Tony Curtis ever appeared in he had just a 10 second shot delivering a bag of groceries, “but you could tell just by looking at him that he was a movie star”.

Ford replied that he thought the point was to look like a grocery delivery boy, however the VP didn’t find this funny and fired him. But with the true mindset of a winner, Ford simply said that was fine, as he didn’t want to work under those circumstances anyway.

He was also initially rejected by George Lucas to play Hans Solo in the first Star Wars movie, and was not the first (or second) choice to play Indiana Jones either, but the rest, as they say is history.

Another example is Basketball legend Michael Jordon, where at High School he tried out for the varsity basketball team during his sophomore year. However, at 5 feet 11 inches he was deemed too short to play …….

If either of the above examples had succumbed to the false belief that their failure in each case was final (as so many people do), how differently would their careers and lives have turned out?

The difference is that these individuals, and all individuals with a winning mindset learn to view failure as a positive thing rather than negative.

They understand that in order to be successful it is inevitable that failure will occur along the way and they learn to embrace failure rather than fear it, as the vast majority of us have been conditioned to do.

As Jordon says, “I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me… Failure always made me try harder next time.”

Roflmao

- det nye språket ved SMS!

Samtidig som "rubrikkannonse-språket" blir mer og mer utrydningstruet, har det oppstått et langt mer avansert språk. mange tiår, om ikke lengre, har man daglig kunnet lese forkortelser i avisene, som for eksempel: "Volvo 240, blå met. p.brukt. s.v.hjul, h.o.b. 50.000".

Inntil internett revolusjonerte kjøp og salg mellom privatpersoner, gjaldt det å spare penger når man annonserte - man betalte ofte for antall bokstaver eller linjer. Dette språket har nå mer eller mindre forsvunnet - men det har i samme periode oppstått et annet språk. Formålet er ikke å spare penger - men tid.

Språket(om man kan kalle det et språk) består i hovedsak av forkortelser og fungerer som et internasjonalt språk som brukes over hele verden. Under er en ordbok vi har samlet sammen på nett. Hjelp gjerne oss å lage denne komplett ved å foreslå ord i kommentarfeltet under.

A
AAK Asleep at the keyboard
AAR8 At any rate
ADAD another day, another dollar
AFAIC As far as I?m concerned
AFK Away from computer keyboard
ASAP As soon as possible
A/S/L Age/Sex/Location
ATM At the moment
ATW Around the web

B
B Back
B4N Bye for now
BBS Be back soon
BC Because
BCNU Be seein' you
BFN/B4N Bye for now
BG Big grind
BIL Boss is listening
BITD Back in the day
BMG Be my guest
BOTOH But on the other hand
BRB Be right back
BTDT Been there, done that
BTDTGTTSAWIO Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and wore it out
BTW By the way
BYKT But you knew that

C
CD9 Code 9: Parents nearby
CID Consider it done
CSL Can't stop laughing
COZ Because
CU See you
CUL eller CUL8R See you later
CULALIG8R See you later aligator

D
DQMOT Don't quote me on this
DMC Deep meaningful conversation

E
EOM End of message
EZ Easy
EG Evil Grin

F
F2F Face to face
F2T Free to talk
FAQ Frequently asked questions
FUGLY Fucking ugly
FWIW For what it's worth
FYI For your information

G
G2G Got to go
GAL Get a life
GF Girlfriend
GGN Gotta go now
GID Glad I deg
GJ Good job
GL Good luck
GOL Giggle out loud
GR8 Great
GRT Great
GTG Got to go
GW Good work

H
H8 Hate
HAK Hugs and kisses
HAND Have a nice day
Hax Hacking/ Jukse

I
IAC In any case
IAE In any event
IC I see
IDC I don't care
IDK I don't know
ILY I love you
IMHO In my humble opinion
IMNERHO In my never even remotely humble opinion
IMNSHO In my not so humble opinion
IMO In my opinion
IMPOV In my point of view
IOW In other words
IRL In real life

J
JIC Just in case
JK Just kidding
JTLYK Just to let you know

K
K Okay
Kewl Cool
Kgid Kjempe glad i deg
KIS Keep it simple
KIT Keep in touch

L
L8 Late
L8R Later
LBH Let's be honest
LOL Laughing out loud
LO2 Lotto (flaks)
L02K5 Ekstrem flaks
LØV Love

M
MIRL Meet in real life
MILF Mother I?d like (to) fuck
MORF Male or Female
MOS Mom over shoulder
MTFBWU May the force be with you
MYOB Mind your own business

N
NE Any
NBD No big deal
NILF Nerd I?d like to fuck
NMU Not much, you?
NP No problem
NRN No response necessary
Noob "Newbie" ? en nybegynner

O
OIC Oh, I see
OMG Oh my god
OTP On the phone
OWTTE Or words to that effect

P
P911 Parent emergency
PAW Parents are watching
PCM Please call me
PIR Parent in room
PILF Professor I?d like (to) fuck
PLS Please
PLZ Please
POC Point of contact
POS Parent over shoulder
POV Point of view
PRW Parents are watching
PWNED Owned/ Å bli eid i feks, data spill.

Q
Q Question
QLT Kult

R
ROFL Rolling on floor laughing
ROFLMAO Rolling on floor laughing my ass off
ROTFL Rolling on the floor laughing
RL Real life
RSN Real soon now
RUOK Are you okay?

S
SFETE Smiling from ear to ear
SIT Stay in touch
SNX Snakkes
SOZ Sorry
STFU Shut the fuck up
SYS See you soon
S2R Send to receive

T
TAFN That's all for now
TBA To be announced
TBH To be honest
THX Thanks
TIA Thanks in advance
TMB Text me back
TOY Thinking of you
TER Ta en Rune/ Drite seg ut offentlig
TTFN Ta ta for now
TTYL Talk to you later
TY Thank you

U
U You
U2 You too

W
WB Welcome back
W/E Whatever
WFM Works for me
WTF What the fuck
WTG Way to go
WTH What the hell?
WU What's up?
WYGOWM Will you go out with me?

X
XOXO Kyss og klemmer

Y
Y Why
YT You there?
YW You are welcome

Z
ZZZ Sliten eller trett

condensed bullet points for short talk

• positives in the recession- less experienced people in work seeking jobs; Risk Aversion
  
• USP - Your own unique selling point - for that company !
  
• MMO - Motivation is king , opportunity is in your favour
  
• Go South
  
• Open Applications - Quality, and get on the phone
• Networking- market research and getting your face known in marketing depts.
  
• Have a personal visiting card or make an MSc course card!
• Go direct to the Decision makers
  
• Use the career office for interview technique and preparation
• 5 interviews to get on your career path - the first rung
• With knock back for jobs or ANY delay of more than say five workign days it is VITAL to GET FEEDBACK on anything you could improve on in application and interview.
  
• You don't need to stick a job a whole year if it is off track or just a foot in the door
• Be demanding in what you want to do when offering your time free through work placement, LEC graduate schemes or just voluntary marketing for charities- get onto some juicy experience. Work shadowing is more productive than photocopying or tele "marketing".
• Bend a sales job in an SME into a marketing job.
• Get a sales job located near the HQ of the company

Tasks or Projects

1. make a class business card and buy the print
   
2. make a class flyer or web site- build the brand
3. Locate all the marketing departments you can in Scotland and say Bristol or somewhere a bit nice to live. DO the same for all the agencies- ad agencies, internet, PR etc etc.As a class, phone them all ! get the key decision makers and find out if they are expanding or just possibly recruiting soon.
   
4. Locate any recruitment consultants who actually help graduates into their first job or decent temporary work
5. Find out about work placement schemes with the LECs, the uni here
6. FInd as many local potential places to work as you can near where you live or may live back with your parents!
   

Your First Marketing Career Move in the Recession

Following on to "Job Hunting for the Marketing Graduate in 2008-09


Let's be positive! Companies need marketing in a recession, some are desperate to survive by reaching new customers. Also companies can be more demanding in who they recruit into marketing because they will expect those few to have a high retention and develop their careers with them. Maybe they will specify marketing education for these first positions whereas before they percieved a more open "best person"- they will be facing many more applications from graduates so they may use this as a filter.

Take another angle as presented in the last blogging, there will be fewer applications from experienced candidates in work because they will be keeping their heads down. Only a handful of marketing managers or even assitants will lose their job, so the competition from them is far less. Further to this, people will not want to leave a secure job to work in a start up or higher risk profession. Sales people will stay out in their cars, and marketing assistants will not move into advertising agencies for example.

The down side is that many, many more graduates will be seeking work and applying to advertised vacancies. It is therefore your task to save companies money by going direct before they advertise or go to the expense of comitting to recruitment firms. You are going to

Going south to the London area becomes more attractive because there will be lots and lots of rental properties and other northerners won't want to risk moving there. COnversely people in marketing jobs in london who own their houses or have a cheap place rented will not want to move due to the whole negative equity thing for the former. So some jobs in the provincial counties ie Up North, out West etc may be more available.

So once again- my key advice: do many, good quality spec' applicaitions, network to markeitng managers to find out how they got there and maybe get your name known, and move south. Get involved with new spin outs and start ups and any LEC or Scottish Enterprise support for small companies or placements for graduates.

The Size and Shape of Your First Job

Being in a job makes it a lot easier to get another job. It puts a value on your head for the recruitment constultants and a percieved "pinch" from another firm of someone who is willing to get out of bed early and work hard. Also YOU are showing your mMO for the job at this other firm OVER that job you have already.

SAYING IT ONCE AGAIN: last time I promise : YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT NEED ONE YEAR IN YOUR FIRST JOB to be able to move to a better job.

This puts a new complexion on things- you can take a job any time after your exams and either stuff doing the MSc project, or run it as a project in your job which is a lot better than struggling on in the evenings with it and will get all round brownie points AND probably move you more in to a marketing stream in the company rather than say just sales-

Once in this job you do need to keep it relevant to be able to sell your self out or indeed to just hold on to it and your sanity if nothing else really turns up by the time a year has gone by.

How do you do this? Well you may get taken on a very vague premise as a graduate trainee or just a placement by a LEC and it is easy to get side lined into what becomes largely a telesales job. Turn this on it's head by doing the MSc project there and doing some good quality market research. Demand some marketing responsibility - PR is free, web pages cheap as chips; or actually ask for a defined, ring fenced communications budget. Use my SBM techniques to mopve your job as far away from being a dull direct markeitng, telesales follow up or just endless presentations to potential "partner" ie punters.

Small or Large?

When looking at the above, LEC and spinout/ start ups then these are mostly small or smallish companies. If you land a "marketing assistant" job at a big company it can actually be harder to move out without first moving UP and that can take time - meanwhile you are the marketing dogsbody with your MSc the butt of jokes!

When coming into a small company you have more levarage over your job title. Be cheeky- try and get somethign like product manager, brand manager or even marketing manager ! Avoid being landed with "marketing assistant" or the vague "executive" and ask if you could be at least an Assistant brand/product or marketing manager. I have been offered brand manager and declined out of embaressment for their measily budget after a LEC placement came to be a job.

Small companies don't have the time to waste going back to recruit new or take someone else on a placement so use this leverage and the power of your MSc to win a decent job title in order to spring you out when you want to move into a proper budget company!! Having at least "APM" as job title will make you much more sellable by other people- and on paper, but especially when networking and doubley especially when now contacting those once disinteressted parties, the recruitment companies. Michael Page Marketing will now be calling YOU quite frequently.

When workign for large companies, at entry "assistant" level, you need to make sure that you aren't walking into two years of photocopying or if there are unexpected surprises- try and talk to the person last int he job and push the line manager as to what tasks you will get andwhat the likely career progression would be given hard work! (phrase it as much as what is in it for THEM as ME!) For example there are several jobs in Scotland I have been to which were marketing assistant to begin with and progressed to being a sales or account manager - with few positions ever becoming vacant beyond that. A large company may expect you to serve your time in sales to ever get a brand manager job, and this pretty much reigned in the whisky and beer marketing jobs when I was graduating- a long slog flogg!

Using an Outside Job Offer as an Internal Springboard where you are!

In a recession, complaining about your job when it is clearly as it was in outset is a bad idea.... and even if the "maybe get to do's" talked about don't come to fruition, complaining can put your head on the block when it comes to cut backs or when a bosses niece wants a marketing job! ( i was sacked for this very reason and very nepotistic replacement as the bread winner in a family with children by some fukkking norwegians last year!)


BUT if you aren't getting to do juicy marketing then there is something wrong. You should have looked the gift horse in the mouth and outlined a couple of concrete projects to utilise your skills before you even sign up..... but all that can go wrong and petty jealousys from those already employed can soon see you side lined in an "assistant" role. Trying to get onto projects is good, but you will quite likely end up the dogs body !

IN big companies then you do have to be aware that the best route may be a short time in sales rather than as a marketing dogs body, or alternatively to work in smaller companies as say an APM and come over quickly into such a role in a blue chipper. Ask carefully how for example a brand manager has got into their position.




Ad Agency Versus Client Side in a Recession

Advertising agencies and all the other marketing and related IT business services have a tough time in recessions BUT recover very quickly because they are lean and mean!

The economics of nearly all agencies is simple in a recession- lose a client, lose your job! Big or small, loss of a major client, several smaller or just big budget cuts from them means the company is "right sized" over night.

This is all a very known fact amongst experienced marketers and it is known as a high pressure, long hour job. Agencies of all sorts may be very open to a trial period, free project period or placement because they don't incurr costs. Also you can maybe get in as a dispensible graduat account executive on a low salary. A perfect spring board to other agencies! keep on lookign for a job elsewhere !

Under a recession while in the ad' agency you may find that you have more responsibility earlier than in any client side job, and also it can diversify more quickly as agencies struggle to win "through the line" business from existing clients rather than doing too much pitch work (they have right sized and often just don't commit resources to more than defending current clients as In agency.) So you may start in account planning and end up running a big internet site for a customer!

You will as always get very hands on experience int he mechanics of producing all that is visible in marketing. ALso you will get exposure to doing this profitably with lower budgets! This makes you ideal as a marketing manager in a company needing to cut budgets when you leave the agency world for "client side"


Sales

As I stated above, many marketing positions demand that you have worked in sales wihtin that company or at least industry. I would say in b2b marketing, 90% of product manager have worked in sales. Also there are some plumb foot int he doors at big companies as sales people leave or fight for promotion to an office job which may be percieved as safer. Take overs and down sizing are rife and it is often the cream who leave at the first wiff of redundancies. So there is space often in good territories (worked well by the last guy and with enough potential customers in a small enough geography to maximise your time in creaitng any growth figures)

I would extend whisky and beer sales for PM entry to probably financial marketing- the biggest two employers of marketers for nine years agho when I was a lad!

As a graduate sales trainee you are actually more sheltered fromt he recession than the marketing asssitant. Also you are not expected to be truely performing until 12 months are up, so you may well have moved on before you need to slog those 12 hour days in the mondeo to get a sales track record as a springboard- both strategies in one scentence! Work hard, get results, threaten to leave or just leave to a competitor as a marketing person armed with invaluable information !

Some elements of sales are related to your degree and you should exploit this so as to show prospective employers in marketing how you are apllying your knowledge in not just the usual sales day. Business analysis, customer segmentation, analysing market research reports, business planning, sales conversion analysis, consumer behaviour, real world versus internal blah-blah claims for products. Crucially, marketing communications at the coal face- what works and what doesn't hold water right there and then from the customers response.

As long as you have a nice manager and fun team to work with at training and conferences on Tenerife, sales is fully tolerable and indeed an alternative career in itself. TO move on you will need to get results, which means finding buyers and listening to them over a period of time and winning their trust enough to really find out what will be decisive. Simple as that. wiht a lot of tyre wear and shoe leather using up your grey matters time on this planet. With an arrogant, overbearing and dominatn boss and managemetn structure it can be a nightmare and you should be getting out into their marketing dept asap.

CIM Dip Marketing in 2009-10?

If you are not in a sexy, hands on marketing job but rather at assistant level, in sales or in shitty job, a CIM course wiht attendance at meetings can:

1. keep you sane
   
2. use your brain
3. case study is good for personal development
   
4. network with potential managers who may employ you
5. find out who sales reps work for and beat them into their own marketing departments before they qualify in CIM!!!

Armed with the Dip CIM you can always go down further career development plans with them, and also you can hunt down employers who prefer CIM (only ever met one small company, but LECS maybe like accreditation for consultancies)

Getting A job in Marketing in the 2008/2009 recession

Job Hunting in 2009 for the Strathclyde University / business school MSc Marketing Graduate.

Okay there is going to be a recession ….in many business sectors at least this means slow growth, and in some areas downsizing. It means less recruitment and less marketing budget.

This is going to be a big recession in some sectors- housing for example and recruitment consultancy luxury ‘capital items’ (yachts, holiday homes, camper homes, flash cars) and premium mass consumer items because joe mortgage punter has been using his capital as leverage on loans. Now him, the bank and any given company which did the same based on it’s stock value are in the same boat. Fubar.

Given even a recession as bad as the early 80s, it is still vital that companies recruit competence in marketing at this time to capture share, retain customers and in fact use the opportunity to make their marketing even more cost effective.

For you people at Strathclyde's MSc Marketing course, it is going to be even tougher to get on the career ladder because the competition for jobs will get worse- fewer general graduate traineeships (milk-round), fewer people risking to change job, fewer people starting on their own, fewer people retiring early... and so on, the career ladder or tree is more locked internally and at its roots of entry level.

On the last point this means that there are in fact fewer experienced people out there applying for jobs FROM within a good job, but this doesn’t really help you against the masses of applications for advertised jobs. However it does mean that many companies with needs to recruit or expand in marketing, and other 'foot in the door' jobs of interest to you, do not get many open applications from experienced candidates . Also higher risk jobs, mainly in establishing new businesses, divisions, regional/country S&M attract less interest.

So now you will get the feeling that scouring the S&M pages and searches on your usual web sites will no longer be your prioritized, time weighted job searching activity. Instead you will turn the usual system on it’s head and utilize open approaches to companies, networking and new shaping.

First of All let’s talk about the most attractive market sectors and job types:

Attractive Market Sectors in a Recession

This is for your personal job market and not just by product / industry category. When I was graduating in the early nineties I would say most marketing graduates or oxbridgers looked upon the demigods in FMCG as being their future womb for APM to brand manager career.

Now I suspect there is a different attitude amongst you, post the dot com boom and “reboom” when google, yahoo etc sold out, and the years of down sizing and “euro marketing” which have ravaged the blue chip companies. Also there is far more public focus on the SME sector than in the early 90s.

In a recession, or economic slow down, there are actually companies which grow their top line, or just bottom line. These broadly split into:

· Gazelles

· Recession Opportunists


Gazelle companies are those young enterprises who have exhibited the highest growth in a given geographical area ( and to given top line targets in maybe achieving 100k GBP or euros or what ever in year 1 and growing more than 10% or twice the general company or GNP figure. ( see gazelle awards / competition from Scottish enterprise, the Scottish office or for other areas in uk or feks. Dagensnæringliv dn.no/gaseller)

Many of them have such sound business propositions and strong, hard working teams that they continue to grow in recessions. However many are very related to those areas hardest hit in the recession- retail, travel and housing/ building. Those that live outside a housing, consumer or IT bubble may well continue to out-grow the market and actually perform relatively much better, thus attracting more investment from the stock markets or hungry private investors starved for decent ROI.

Gazelle companies are always upsizing at the time you catch them as a gazelle!

Since the IT and internet revolution there is no longer the expectation that gazelles simply fall prey to acquisition by the big entrenched players. Often they move so fast and give such firm ROI that shareholders or VC do not see the need to sell out to the big companies and float on the stock market! Or they are better than that- privately held by entrepreneurs like bill gates or the yahoo / google boys until they float out as multi millionaires while retaining heavy interests and salaries!


Recession Opportunists:

There are of course ‘vultures’ out there or rather canny entrepreneurs or flexible divisions in larger companies who spot a new market sector or know that an area is going to be attractive.

For my money in 2009-2011 as we ride out the housing finance crisis, the best of these will be in rental accommodation. “loan sharking” be that illegal or barely legal may also grow but as a marketer working in rental property can be a very good career start for working in this hole area or just getting a portfolio or web pages, flyers, database marketing, customer/client handling, sales and administration behind you.

The building boom around Europe has left a lot of new properties unsold, and first time buyers have been locked out by the ‘ladder leverage earnings’ most people enjoyed over 2001-2007 or over a longer term. Now there is a new dynamic in the market and first time buyers will be a sought after quantity when credit stabilizes around the key western economies.


There may also be a return to ‘bucket’ supermarkets or other products or even services being sold at a premium. More people may travel by bus and rail or buy the super-budget Kia type cars. All areas fighting for peoples lower dollar. Of course in the EU and EØS lands so many people work in public sector or in unionised industries that they will be in a bit of a bonus time- finally affordable houses and a safer than most job! Recessions at their worst mean that two out of three people of working age are in work.

Personal services such as babysitting or stress counseling may well also show growth in 2009-11 as people work longer hours to make up for negative equity or just to keep their jobs. As things pick up, home improvements become attractive (DIY as it used to be) because people want to sell up while they can in a busy buyers market.

Other areas attractive under a recession can include management consultancy and venture capital- well known vultures in recession. VC an do quite well out of recessions because people have money and their ROI is much less on the “street” ( wall street) Shares are devalued and dividends slashed. The safe havens of bonds, secuirities etc are low ROI so any signs of recovery mean the “money” wants to jump ahead of the game – get high ROI and then go back to the stock market. Also in any VC fund there is a spread betting across industries or even competing emerging companies and so they act like a high growth hedge fund, defending at least in part one area by having investment in either complimentary areas or other sectors where the lead indicators and, erm bullshit is looking in double figures ( now an entrenched view of ROI / Top line and profit growth for it to be worth VC going into)

VC and management consultancies act like true vultures in terms of mergers and acquisitions- many of these are more attractive on paper than they turn out to be in reality. Talk of ‘reduced redundancy’, shared overhead and market-access are actually little proven in reality, but in the short term, firing a lot of people is good on the balance book. Eventually customers get pissed with crappy service and enough of the good former employees go out and compete in one form or another that the merged company looses share.

Recession opportunists also like to work cheap- fees are down, and they don’t want to pay 100K a year for people with a good CV from the city but no work in the last 6 months! See new shaping. So you are in with a shout. Many fresh MBA graduates go there without much work experience.

However recessions are good for real-world capitalists, if not bankers and stock brokers – dead wood can be cut out, some sectors can be exploited.



Job Seeking in A Recession

Networking, Open Approaches and New Shaping

These are all actually well trodden paths in the job seeking market, especially in a recession or downsizing time. However I want to give you a new spin on these. They relate to paths fought out by you, the individual, and should be the focus of your job “shaping” activity out over the next year.

Networking

I’ve written fairly extensively about this in a previous Freddie blogg. But now there is a new spin:

Your friends and family now have a far better excuse for unashamed nepotistic acts!

It’s a tough time, she’s really struggling to get work that is going to take her anywhere….anything you could do…......I want to pull in that favour you owe me Jim…do you know of anyone taking people on..….

To recap there are two things important in 2009:

1) Degrees of separation- there need only be one or two – everybody knows somebody who can at some point get you a job.

2) Plead desperation: use any family emotional levers, or favours owed to your family!

3) Personal branding- clever, hard working, reliable and fits in the team are enough for now.

4) Avoid the word ‘marketing’ necessarily ( more on that soon)


Snowballing will be less effective in the now “bear market” because you lose any emotional blackmail by being too many degrees of separation away! Combine any tenuous links now (and not in the good times as presented earlier) with open approaches.

Open Approaches

I choose to say ‘approaches’ very consciously over ‘applications’. Open applications are too easy to be lazy over. You can just fire them out.

If you aren’t really skilled at DM writing and execution then in a recession you will get no where, even locked out when they do recruit because you were so generic and blasé with your first letter.

Your objective in an open approach is to be a good marketer – listen to the needs in the market and adapt your communication to meet the customer expectation and close the deal.

Also another big door slammer if you like, is to approach a firm’s personnel division or for an SME their director or general manager and mention the word “marketing” in the first sentence. Why ? well for the larger companies they are inundated with people wanting to work in marketing while they only have maybe one graduate position a year. For SMEs they equate marketing with spending money and not making it - not good in a recession! -and may have had their fingers burnt with young, naive over spending marketing graduates before.

So don’t mention marketing, at least at first.

In fact be very coy. Go so far as to introduce yourself as a mere "business graduate". The focus is firmly not on you but on them! Take time to research who you approach and flatter them by showing interest in their company, then ask what areas they may need to recruit in over the next six months.

Okay, so now you have noticed I am moving you into the area of getting on the dreaded telephone and talking to people. I am myself very, very skilled at writing well targeted letters selling myself and have had good jobs on the back of this, they contacted me back in fact. But in a recession you have to work harder and raise your game to get the best hidden opportunities or even to get a job as a stepping stone out of shitty student jobs.

What you are doing is a classic open consultancy sale. You are flattering the person or corporate adoptive personality, and then establishing their needs. After establishing their needs you can match some of your competence to those in a well targeted open application. Management consultants get paid to define problems and needs and then of course are experts overnight in any given industry and market.

Your Approach > Be to the Point, Polite and Prepared to Walk Away and Come back later.

Foot in the Door Jobs

In a recession it can be the best thing to get into a company and spring board internally, because there are many factors in favour of internal promotion. Of course you may end up going down a completely different and rewarding career path: project management, customer services management, sales/Key account, etc But if you are able to be enthusiastic and motivated to work for a company which really interests you then getting in the door is better than sitting in a BS marketing assistant “gofer” job elsewhere getting demotivated in the company selling washers or washing powder or whatever.

BE thee the extrovert networker, the quiet hard working type or the assertive pedantic one - working in an entry level job can lead to a rewarding next move into marketing - that move being from a job in customer services, purchasing & logistics, business analysis, book keeping, IT (database and web can be integrated to marketing) delivery or last but not least of course sales or sales support.





What’s in it for the employer in Open Approaches?
As with any time, you save them money by avoiding recruitment costs in going direct. In a recession companies know that they will be inundated by applications and calls if they advertise and are pretty happy to get someone quick while the bosses\investors are willing to allocate that head count (people are dreadful empire builders and like more toy soldiers on their floors!) Also recruitment consultants can milk them under recessions just to survive on current customers.

It is well worth while contacting lots of local companies to where you live/ this saves them relocation costs or worries at least, you too, and in a recession you be offered less to get in the door. Don’t oversell yourself- in recession some rich parents were paying firms so that their law graduates to get their years practice instead of being unemployed!!!

In relation to getting a foot in the door job, there are other costs which are avoided because you have been there a while! For example general corporate H&S training, data system courses and learning curve, company wide quality initiatives etc.
Not in the least is that as far as personality, reliability and ability to work hard and affectivity goes they have had maybe six months to a year of test driving you while you have been avoiding the dole queue. Not to mention a graduate who can't egt out of their bed in the a of m.


Account Mapping and the DMU

Using a very open approach with personnel departments, in order to enquiring about future recruiting is the very best foot in the door to a company. After all it is their job to hire good people and do that quickly. Even if they have no jobs now, they may be interested in taking in an open letter and CV or if you have sent a letter (don't send a CV ever in the first place!) they will maybe remember you.

But in fact especially as far as marketing goes, quite often they are either blind or reluctant to tell about the forthcoming positions. Marketers by nature are ambitious and competitive and compared to say accountants or personnel people they change jobs far more often, either internally or by moving on to pastures green(er). So it is important to get in touch with the marketing manager or director to uncover any un mentioned acctual forthcoming percieved needs at least which personnel may not be savez to.

Furthermore, personnel are merely gate keepers for marketing recruitment. It is the marketing director or line manager who selects candidates for interview once need arises to employ. They then have the final decision or most influence if it is just rubber stamped by the CEO. Hence define your DMU/ decision making unit in terms of an actual job or potential.

• This can be more torturous than you may think and there are often hidden agendas and nepotism along the way. But at the end of the day they will consider several people for any position most often. You just have to be in there and keen by that very presence.
  
  In contacting the decision maker, or strong influencer, once again the approach is the same> research, flattery, interest in the company either now or in their future and when with they may be recruiting.
  
  When the two doors of personnel and key marketing manager have for now shut with no fruit, then it's the time to put them on the back burner for a wee while. BUT if you really, really wanted to work for them or within that industry or job position then, now go and find someone else in marketingthere. Say at product manager or marketing comms level who is prepared to speak to you at a meeting to find out more about the job, company or industry.
  
  Now if you are working at this level we can move on to making your own luck so to speak, in talking about new-shaping.
  
  To summarise so far>
  
  · You have identified desirable companies you want to work for
  o Hand picked from gazelle companies
  o Near home for working cheap!
  o Relevant to your first degree
  o Relevant to your motivations and career goals
  § Pre/requisite that they have a positive view on marketing communications and maybe market research
  
  · You have made an initial approach expressing interest by letter or phone
  
  · At this point, or at the next, you have established ANY recruiting going on
  
  · You have found the key decision maker in marketing recruitment
  
  · You have built an open application and CV around THEIR current recruitment need
• 
  o or if they are not recruiting at all, you present your MOTIVATION and any USP in relation to their marketing department
• 
  · You have sent this targeted appplication and followed it up
• 
  o Focusing on getting a foot in the door, forget marketing if they aren\t hiring there.
• 
  o Ask if you can have a first brief interview for a specific job or recruiting area.
• 
  o Focused on working for them, that industry, that chance to work now!
• 
  o maybe asking for an opportunity to present yourself for their future reference
  
  
  New Shaping
  
  Now as a class you could just do a very basic thing to ring around the top 100 employers in Scotland and the top 20 gazelle companies in your home area to ask if they are recruiting into marketing. The productivity of even generating leads would be quite low and then you would be 30 or 40 people applying wouldn’t you!?
  
  Far better, as an extension to your open approaches, to really think about what motivates you and where you want to go.
  
  Marketing in terms of defining customer needs, shaping product and communicating benefits to those ends is a business fundamental. The world\s first marketing manager was probably a cave man pimp. At some stage all companies need to do marketing of some form.
  
  So your objective is to present yourself to companies, entrepreneurs, investors, technology transfer/new start agencies and find out what they are up to and then turn it all around to the basic need for marketing.
  
  For an SME, market communication is far more cost effective than sales, but it’s hard to pull off because people who can do it, like to have more budget. However todays SME is tomorrows Microsoft or Apple. Often their greatest need for marketing is market research at the very outset of what I call “decision to commercialise” a term taken out of just tech transfer.
  
  Many companies fail because of bad market research and a proposition to a niche which had no market size in it. In high tech arenas they are often ahead of the time when consumers or businesses will be comfortable to use the product and the technology would be better being sold into R&D boffins than people\s homes.
  
  In many cases what the new start entrepreneur believes is a totally unique spin in the market is just that to consumers/ a spin, a bluff, bullshit and not truly a unique differentiator. Often a new service, technology or style just doesn\t actual perform that much better in getting the consumer from A to B, so to speak. There are many pitfalls which can be avoided in start ups by having good market research and an awe inspiring, insightful and actionable bit of research can not only lead to success for the company but allow you to build a whole marketing empire!
  
  As a new masters graduate I was lucky to have some quality work experience in a graduate professional sales position prior to coming here. But it did trap me in the belief that some nice corporate in Scotland was going open it’s doors with a fan faire for the marketer with a sales track record. I would go into the womb of a major FMCG or medical marketing department and be born again a shining brand manager. I hope this belief is somewhat more balanced in your minds by working in gazelles, in the emerging industries and in new start ups.
  
  That’s not to say don’t apply to Guiness Distillers PLC or Baxters soups or the likes. Just be aware that you can often shape your own future more fruitfully and more satisfactorily by looking at alternative approaches to what creating a job and career step means.
  
  Everyone is unique, has a USP to say it in an acronymous way, and often the most rewarding job is one which is uniquely shaped by that individual.
  
  In intellectual businesses, like advertising or many internet bureaus, often new business development focuses on shaping something the customer has never even thought of. In going to customers locked into other agencies with fresh ideas or actually sources of marketing funding!
  
  Now I happen to have some examples of new shaping in my own career> firstly a very good demonstration of why the response to advertised jobs fails and secondly in working around the recruitment chain to get an open application to the key decision maker. I was able to present my USPs and what I could do, and had jobs either made for me specifically or had then matched around me and faced no real competition in landing the roles, all of them key in my career incidentally.
  
  Back in the early nineties I didn\t feel much like a new shaping, entrepreneurial type with a silver tongue and a nose for potential. I felt more like an expectant spoilt middle class kid who didn\t feel they should have to try to hard. At first in November 93 it went well for me with a little bit more than a practice place in RFM consulting on an interesting project. But through lack of savey and grasping all that I could maybe, I left behind that potential springboard to flounder for basically the next two and half years!
  
  I feel that new shaping is a likely consequence of my own need for control, variety and the impatience to move on to the next project. Also that until now I have had no choice in my relationships at work and now want to create those which are most positive and find those under workers whom most support the team and my visions. I do continue to feel that I need “one more meaty marketing job” and I have the luxury of piles of experience to make applications on. However do I really have the motivation beyond that usual, hee I am getting a pay cheque 30 november for this??
  
  In ten years time from today, some of the SMEs you will work in will be blue chips or remain very dynamic and stimulating companies to work for anyway! Conversely, many of today’s blue chips will have merged, some gone bust and yet others centralized European marketing to somewhere in Belgium!

A lot of you aren't going to get lucky on the blue chip marketing career chain and if you do struggle either there or in boring SMEs then please reconsider what you are doing...........> >> If after a couple of less than fully satisfactory years go by, find out who, where or what type of company culture you want to work for and try to shape your own position and future within that.

The last comment on new shaping is the obvious one in this topic- start your own company. I think this should be the practical experience unit of ANY business course. As soon as you take the initiative and start going to all these LEC and SE meetings and the universities initiatives you find sources of money to do most things like feasibility/ (read market research). Even if you don't get anywhere after a few months of establishing contacts with potential funders, grant & course providers and not in the least customers then you will be doing an apprenticeship in hard knocks and it will pay you in good stead later if you see the opportunity to start something good.

As a parting comment, think of this-

like an athelete you set your own goals, your own milestones to achieve and shape yourself to get there. No one else is going to jog five miles a day for your heart, and no one else is going to make your career happen and shape it into a stimulating and rewarding journey in those many working hours you have before you.

Well the wee man cam to the world of light and wonder almost exactly a week ago.

18:53 on the 14th. With a fairly sunny evening underway in arndl maternity wards.

The birth was only remakrable by it's speed. Waters had gone on the wee hours of friday 2.30 about. Thereafter it was clearly needing to happen within three days. We hoped for a voiding the terrible 13th and did so. They told us to come in early sunday, we obliged and they stripped and induced at 12 ish. Everything came in motion quite literally after that where 2cm as soon opend to 4 then 8 then 10 and out. We had nice, matter of fact and caring jordmor this time. I got to sit with him a long time looking at him with the eyes of an exoperienced 40 year old father! Maturity. A little distance and understanding for him being just a wee flekk right now with only routine and the usual things to avert or pander to his crying.

This time was more of a regular daddy visit than with evamo. Then we had our own wee womb of hospital for several days with the smell of new baby with me 24 hours. Now big sister is of an age to be just out of all things baby- she walks most places now and we are only giving her dummy as a kind of tuller thing. So it's a good distance between births to walk.

Big sis' needed quite a lot of time but was good as gold in the car helped along byt casper og jesper og jonotan. In total we did a trip thursday, friday saturday then in for the birth and then back again tuesday and finally home quite early on wednesday. I was sick of the road but to add a sting in the tail an accident in fortn of us made for a long way round along the horrid twisty coast road in the car we had loaned.

So felix came home in the end in the rather cramped three up back seat of a citroen zsara we had loaned amd saw the back end of Tvedstrand and a fair few corners in the 410 before coming down the swings to our new found home town.

Arendal actually is very tempting- a feel of life about it with boat commuting seemingly populatr across the Tomøy sound. Our wander lust again. The grass does seem greener when you are helt new to a place.

Nayway this is the wee man blogg, so we are on the way home and there is an accient...yep. we got home and I am on a camp bed in the south land house with it's chamring ans certainly not king size built in box beds. The wee man likes feeding at night, maybe a primeval instinct. mum hunts and gathers in daylight, he reaps the profits in milk dividends at night-

He is both quite simialr to his sister and different. Temperament is quiter but grumpy as heck when he is hungry...hmm womnder where he gets that from. He can almost hold up his own head as well. lovely new born smell of soap and warm skin perisists though as does the endless orang bæsj.

we are home and all is in it's place. His wee bed and day cot. The stella table and the patented nappy bin. The wee glimpses of personality and the peaceful sleeping outwieighing any actual crying.

Getting the flat tidied out and washed must have been the biggest anticlimax in my life.

From the monday night through saturday 1pm I must have doen 16 hour days to get it done, and all this after 22 hour stint on sunday with the van.

The main problem was just the confusion and the unknown. Eventually I plnned my work and worked my plan. It didn' get too scary until about midnight friday. Then I was knackered and needing coffee and pizza and beers. I managed to get the hall and the bog done, just leaving the kitchen and the balcony along with the final once over the thoroughfayres.

The main stress point was the stuff to chuck. Eventually like a lull in the gale, and after failures with various attempts to rid me of cooker, desks and chairs, I got Nikolai to help me up the stairs and then arne and me took the stuff away. Fretex refused it, but as if the sun had now come out after the storm, the recycling dump was almost void of people because it was shuttign on the 30th not for the 30th.

Arne was lured by further cash payment and so came to do the balcony. Proff job while I stressed over te kitchen and even final 'sergeant majors' on the bathroom and windows.

Done and almost dusted so Arrived the owner with daughters on a lovely dry sunny day, perfect for moving. She was veryt pleased with the cleaning. With the car stuffed for the tour I just had to take off down the road....

the sense of anticlimax was enourmous. As if I ran a marathon to discover the finish line had been cancelled due to lack of interest.

So the new life and family focus came upon me with the amazing Risør energy. Fills the soul with peace.


That is where life should be now.