The hardest marketing skill

As a person who lives and breathes marketing I can safely say that one of the most difficult skill is marketing oneself.

One of the things I simply cannot get is when I hear of marketing consultants, advertising agencies, PR firms and any other professional in the marketing field who cannot get new business because of poor strategy and promotional skills.

Yes, we’ve all heard of the shoeless shoemaker’s children but I think it’s no excuse. How can these marketing professionals help others if they cannot themselves? And it’s not that they are incompetent!

Most marketing agencies would be out of business if they amounted to nothing. But somehow, they lack self-promotional skills.

Before I start coming across as finger pointer, I will admit that I am not immune to this either. When I started out, had no idea where to start. I was confused as too much marketing knowledge was blinding me doing more harm than good.

I decided that I needed some objectivity in my life.

There are two ways to become objective while marketing yourself

1) Get a third-party’s perspective
2) Consider yourself like a product

If you have colleagues whose judgments you trust and who seem to share the same marketing principles, then you might want to consider asking for their help. They should not tell you what you want to hear. They should tell you how you make yourself different and communicate that difference to prospective clients.

If you want to do it yourself, you can simply look at yourself as a product. Somehow, when I started looking at my options, I looked at my “secret marketing rule book” and looked at the options that there were in promoting a product called Jean Biri.

Then a miracle happened. Objectivity kicked in and after doing my market assessment, finding my point of difference and determining my best promotional vehicle, I laid out my strategic plan that I applied with results that I am pretty happy with.

If you are a marketing professional use your expertise to market yourself. After all, it’s a pretty powerful credential that will make the prospect say: “He or She did for him or herself. I want the same results too!” Being your own testimonial can be a simple yet powerful way to prove whatever claims you make to the marketplace.

That’s why professionals who are doing well in the personal development, weight loss and fitness fields are the ones who can show the before and after case studies involving their own experiences.

In activism movements, that’s why it takes someone to go through a tragedy to gain more attention from the media, governments and the public.

My message to marketing professionals: if you cannot promote yourself using the methods you preach and recommend to your clients, you have not yet mastered your discipline and you have a serious credibility problem.