Marketing is How You Show Others How You Can Help Them

If You're Too Pure to Take the Final Step, Why Even Begin the
Journey?

"Marketing" is How You Show Others How You Can Help Them,
Including Selling Yourself for Jobs and Promotions

by Richard Stooker

Many people, especially including techies, look upon
sales and marketing as disgustingly selfish.

Having been taught to be good girls and boys who take turns
and do things because they're right, we don't want others to
think of us as so nakedly self-interested. At best, some of us
realize that sales and marketing are evils necessary to
the functioning of a capitalistic system.

So when we hear that if we're seeking a job or a promotion
we must "sell ourselves," we inwardly rebel. Few of us
actually do a good job selling ourselves. Those who do
get more and better jobs, more and better promotions and
make more money.

And the rest of us consciously or unconsciously
sneer at them for being "selfish."

I say, the opposite is true.

"Selling ourselves" to others is the unselfish reaching
out to other people, to show them how we can help them.

Because to simply *assume* that employers should be
able to understand from our resumes how great we are is
the true selfishness.

Let me explain.

Good marketing brings the benefits of good products and
services to the attention of people who need or want those
products or services.

When you truly don't want to buy a new car, a car ad on TV
is a signal to fix a snack.

When you want to buy a new car, you watch. You want to know
which make and model best fills your needs and desires.

Assuming that a business is selling a good or
service which is of true value to somebody, it is their
DUTY to bring it to the attention of the people they
can help.

Good sales and marketing is UNselfish, because to be
effective it must center on the needs and desires of
the people who want that product or service.

Bad (ineffective) marketing says, "We're a wonderful
company and you should buy our product because
it is so wonderful."

Good marketing (and by "good" I mean *effective*) says,
"Our product is wonderful because it will help you do
this, solve that problem and feel good."

See the difference? Good marketing is centered on the
customer and helping the customer solve a problem or
meet a need or desire. Bad marketing is centered on
the company and product.

Now, the product in bad marketing may actually be of
high quality, maybe as much or more so than the
competing product being sold through good marketing.

But bad marketing forces consumers to make the connection
between the wonderful qualities of the product and
how those qualities can help the consumer.

Many companies who market this way believe that it's
the "job" of consumers to make the connections,
to understand just why and how that wonderful
product will help the consumer.Therefore, they're
not only selfish, they're lazy.

They're not taking the final step to see things from
the viewpoint of their potential customers.

Good marketing does as much as possible to show
consumers that the product is wonderful because of
how and why it can help consumers.

How does this apply to someone seeking a job?

When you want a job or promotion you're "selling" your
skills and experience. Your resume is your ad.

Your "customer" is the Human Resources manager assigned
to fill that job.

Most job seekers, whether techies or anybody else, think
that their only duty is to provide a resume which shows
they're qualified and to show up for the interview.

The manager in charge of hiring is supposed to read the
resume, realize how wonderful the applicant is and hire
them.

Most people write their resumes as bad marketing. They
write how wonderful they are without explaining how
they can help the company they're applying to.

They may well have wonderful degrees, wonderful
certifications and wonderful experience.

Many techies have the attitude that their technical
education, skills and experience should be enough.

But if they'd write something that the Human Resources
manager wants to read about how they will help the
company, that's taking a step most people unconsciously
sneer at it.

Because it's "sales and marketing." Sales and marketing
is selfish -- everybody knows that without
questioning it.

So they write only about themselves and not how they
can help that potential employer.

So it's the "selfish" person who takes the extra
effort to use "sales and marketing" to explain how
they can help the company who actually gets the
job.

So everybody else can sneer at them.

And send their resumes to the next employer.

Copyright 2002 by Info Ring Press

I hereby grant permission to all website owners
and ezine publishers to reprint the above article
as long as long as it is reprinted as is in full,
including this contact information.
Email Richard Stooker: mailto:rick@inforingpress.com