It’s absolutely throwing it down here in Sydney. I was wondering if it was my fault, because it’s just like home – but no, it’s been like this all summer.
Do you ever realise you’ve said something stupid, but it’s too late to call it back? I do, all the time. And one surefire vehicle for that kind of stupidity is a blog. This format positively encourages sloppy thinking and writing. You just bang out the first thing that pops into your head, whereas I normally revise everything seven or eight times.
So the other day, I said, apropos of Rick the Builder turned List Broker, that “the worst possible preparation for a career in marketing is an education in marketing”. Like a lot of slick remarks that please the writer this is misleading.
What I should have said is, “An education in marketing is not the best preparation for a career in marketing. You need experience in other things, the more varied the better.”
However, even a marketing education is better than nothing, a fact of which many in marketing seem sublimely unaware.
It helps if you can write decent English, also a vanishing skill. I read this piece of clotted drivel the other day from someone trying to sell me something by e-mail:
“Rules-based triggered email messaging is an inexpensive, automated way to deliver highly relevant content to your audience at specific time intervals. The concept takes a best marketing practice-personal communications based on known customer or prospect preferences, needs or other triggers-and replicates it in your email communications process, providing a timely digital version of the labor-intensive direct personal contact. When used properly, it can yield high customer satisfaction dividends with a minimal investment in both time and money.”
Idiots. If that’s how they write, imagine the sheer horror of having to meet them. Why do people imagine such pompous tripe makes them seem intelligent. As Churchill said, “Use simple words everyone knows, then everyone will understand.”
Mind you, like calls unto like in this world. People who are impressed by such garbage will buy it – and get their just desserts.
Tomorrow I have the pleasure of speaking to 352 marketers at breakfast here in Sydney. Why that number? No idea. We just can’t fit any more in the room.
Ref. people who speak bollocks to cover up their deficiencies, I got this help card from a friend in Australia….
Subject: Meeting Notes
Some tips for those of us who attend a lot of meetings!
1. Before (or during) your next meeting, seminar, or conference call, prepare yourself by drawing a square. I find that 5″x 5″ is a good size.
Divide the card into columns, five across and five down. That will give you 25 one inch blocks.
2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block:
o synergy
o strategic fit
o core competencies
o best practice
o bottom line
o revisit
o take that off-line
o 24/7
o out of the loop
o benchmark
o value-added
o pro-active
o win-win
o think outside the box
o fast track
o result-driven
o empower (or empowerment)
o knowledge base
o at the end of the day
o touch base
o mind-set
o client focus(ed)
o paradigm
o game plan
o leverage
o moving forward
o blue sky
o viral marketing
o turnkey
o go live
o lean
3. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.
4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout, “BULLSH*T!”
Testimonials from satisfied “BullSh*t Bingo” players:
“I had been in the meeting for only five minutes when I won.”
(Paul D., Caloundra)
“My attention span at meetings has improved dramatically.”
(David D, Rockhampton)
“The atmosphere was tense in the last process meeting as 14 of us waited for the fifth box.”
(Ben G., Sydney)
“The speaker was stunned as eight of us screamed ‘BULLSH*T!’ for the third time in two hours.”
(Kathleen L., Canberra)
You said ” ‘the worst possible preparation for a career in marketing is an education in marketing’. Like a lot of slick remarks that please the writer this is misleading.
What I should have said is, ‘An education in marketing is not the best preparation for a career in marketing. You need experience in other things, the more varied the better.’ “
I think another point is to be able to actually think clearly and Think things through rather than being an “Ivory Tower Genius”
Today to many institutes of higher learning teach nothing but politically correct behavior; to obey commands from authorities and don’t question anything just obey; and some wacked out theory with no actual proof it works in the real world.
Give me a “Street smart” person over a degreed person any day. The street smart person will kick the others a**
Nowadays people who claim to be ‘degree educated’ are actually only educated to a degree.
this is the best blog from you in a while. I have read marketing e-mails like this, well when i say read, i mean i get nearly to the end of the first sentence and then delete it.
why oh why do people write in such a horrid, uninspiring way.
your blog on the other hand is great!
As a marketeer who came to the business, after gaining my marketing degree at 32, i strongly believe that you have to have life experience first.
Ginny
Northampton
Hi everyone!
Thanks for your comments – really appreciated- (this is Drayton by the way, in case this wretched server says I’m “anonymous”).
Like the one about meetings, which I hate, and will post my views later.
From a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society’s material requirements and its economic patterns of response. Marketing satisfies these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long term relationships. It is the process of communicating the value of a product or service through positioning to customers.;”^-
My personal blog
<http://healthmedicinejournal.com/index.php/
Sounds very academic to me. As far as I’m concerned marketing is the businese of finding out what people need and making a living by giving it to them