You and I are incredibly lucky

Imagine what it was like to be a marketer a few decades ago?
- Marketing meant advertising and those with the biggest budgets won.

Imagine being in Public Relations in the 1980s & 1990s?
- Your Rolodex was critically important and you needed a great fax machine to get those pitches out.

How about finding a job 20 years ago?
- You had to obsess over your printed CV and continually "network" - cold call friends of friends or some random person you met once to see if they could help you land a job.

Getting attention a few decades ago was nearly impossible.
- I know because I started in sales and marketing in the mid-1980s. It was expensive and I had no budget. And to be honest, it wasn't so much fun.

- Don't even get me started on looking for a job in the ‘90s. Ugh. What a downer.

You and I are incredibly lucky

We're living in a time when we can reach the world directly, without having to spend enormous amounts of money on advertising and without investing in huge public relations efforts to convince the media to write (or broadcast) about our products and services.

Today, you can show potential employers what you know and what you can do so they will find you!

There is a tremendous opportunity right now to reach people by publishing great stuff that brands us as leaders. Now we can create videos, tell stories, interact with people and develop interesting information that people want to consume and that they are eager to share.

Hey, we can have fun!

It's incredibly rewarding to create a video or a blog post that's seen by thousands.

How amazing is it to have people contacting you every day to learn more about your offerings?

Isn't it cool that potential employers reach out to you?

There's a new world – are you part of it?

Are you earning the attention of your potential customers? Or is your marketing and PR program the same as 1994?

Are you developing a social network and publishing the information that will make you a must hire employee? Or are you still sorting out what color beige is the best paper to print your CV on?

If not now, then when?

Now is a terrific time to start. It is not too late. If you've got something to say, then say it.

We're looking to hear from your company. We're searching Google for what you have to offer. We want to hear from you.

If you create something interesting, we're eager to share it with our friends, colleagues, and family.

What are you waiting for?

You are in charge of your own success.

Top image: Shutterstock / filip323
Bottom image: Shutterstock / Tetiana Savitska aka Solaie

Comments

[Mason Tolman]

I don't know Dave, we had a pretty damned good time in the Agency biz in the 80s. Some fond recollections in No Bad Ads blog

http://nobadads-mason.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=1

[Ivanwalsh]

Hi David,

The playing field has been leveled and to that I'm very grateful.

Ivan

[David Meerman Scott]

Ivan -- Indeed. I am grateful too!

Mason -- True. But you were at an agency during a go-go time. I was a marketer at a B2B company with very little budget.

[Mason Tolman]

We didn't make any money (living with Whitey and Tim Rogers was a little tight) , but the work was interesting and the parties were epic... the beginning of winning. And after all $100,000,000 budget doesn't go that far these days.

[Demian Farnworth]

Yeah, being a freelancer writer pre-Internet would've been a huge pain in the neck...

I'd have to walk door to door at the brick and mortars [or send a letter] and say, hire me, all of which is resource suck.

I think about advice Claude Hopkins gave to a young copywriter out of work [circa 1930s?]: gesturing toward all of NYC, he said, "There are people out there who need what you do."

Now we can wave our hand at the four corners of the world.

Lucky, indeed, David. Thanks for reminding me.

[Stephen Adams]

I think that we are now seeing a lot of unemployed marketing and PR people. If everyone can now do it themselves, then why do we need a top level person to run our marketing effort. Marketing people have now become production people. Tweet 5 times a day. Post on the Facebook Fan Page once a day, send out a press release to PRWeb once a month, send out an email newsletter once a month. The CMO of most small and medium sized businesses these days are now fresh out of college and they are lower paid. Is this better?

[David Meerman Scott]

Demian -- Exactly. I don't think I would have gone out own my own in pre-Web days.

Stephen - No, it is not better. It is a problem. Marketing Strategy is still essential. Tweeting or blogging is just the tactic. But it is essential that the tactics chosen support the company goals. Firing marketing strategists in favor of people who understand social media is not a good thing to do.

[Kneale Mann]

David, as always, I love your enthusiasm. But as an early adopter, we need you to stick around a bit longer than you would had this been a new shiny thing back in 1994. The royal we (anyone who has been immersed in the online, digital, social, marketing, mobile, human marketing world) for more than a week are sill WAY ahead of most people. I don't say/type that with arrogance, I make that claim because of people, colleagues, friends and prospects I meet daily.

They want instant answers, they don't know where to start, they think it will happen without hard work, they hear that Twitter will save their career. We have to stop selling the incredible opportunities that you write about - and live every day - without reminding people there is work and responsibility that comes with the unicorns and leprechauns.

[David Meerman Scott]

Kneale -- Yes, you are correct. Thanks. Here is a post I did that addresses that )somewhat)

The secret to getting 50,000 followers on Twitter
http://www.webinknow.com/2011/02/the-secret-to-getting-50000-followers-on-twitter.html

[hobby]

No doubt,technology has bring a lot of changes in our life and way of living.Nowdays it is up to the use of technolgy,the one who uitilize it well will be the winner.Suerly we are lucky

[Carolyn Winter]

David - I couldn't agree more and on many levels that we are so very lucky. Most find it difficult to grasp that the power of being is in each one of us, now enabled by the internet/digital age or are overwhelmed when they do. The training started in our first year of school. Releasing our shackles to convention or the old way of doing things I think is really the biggest challenge. It's not just a business decision, it is a new way of living and thinking. But for many who have been trained to think in the old models, it is a painful to shift. The days of just having a simple website, allowed the timid to get online and show people what they wanted them to see and stay in control. Interactive ways of being online, to a degree weeds out those that have no stomach for authenticity. I would guess that these are the groups who find social media demanding and expensive as the price tag entails an inner transformation of ego that in previous generations took a lifetime to achieve - if at all.

Carolyn

[David Meerman Scott]

Well said Carolyn. Many thanks.

[Joseph Ratliff]

It's funny that you write this post David.

We are incredibly lucky to have the Internet and the connection it allows to the rest of the world without leaving your home office.

Think about that...

We don't even have to walk outside our front door any longer and we can get a project or assignment as a freelancer (I just landed one on Skype a few minutes before posting this).

Didn't even have to leave my home office...the power of that is just simply amazing to me.

But it's REALLY amazing to people who haven't discovered the power of the digital age yet themselves.

And I don't think we give that enough credit.

What seems "basic" to those who have discovered the power, or who've made it a career as I and many others have, is absolutely revolutionary to those that haven't discovered the true power and "playing field leveling" that the Internet provides.

The current, public version of the Internet is really only graduating High-School folks...and digital social media is only a teenager...there is a TON more development to come.

Yes, David, we are INCREDIBLY lucky. :)

[David Meerman Scott]

Joseph -- you're absolutely right. I sometimes wonder where we are on the development curve. Compared to TV, are we in the "I Love Lucy" B&W stage? If so, imaging what the next decade will bring?!

[Joseph Ratliff]

Yeah, the "full-color" version of the Internet will be cool for sure. :)

And...I think because the Internet is a "connection-medium"...it accelerates the growth curve you're talking about...so we could see quite a bit of development fairly soon.

"The Internet killed the TV star...the Internet killed the TV star..." LOL. :)

[Anthony DiMaio, NYC]

I loved the 80's and 90's... they were the Golden Years... when you didn't have to twitter your own tuba... but our todays are tomorrows Golden Days... so Forward March, or in our case: Forward June! :)

[Peter St Onge]

Amen, David. An amazing time to be a marketer.