Episode #9: Building a Career in Inbound Marketing

The theme of today's episode is graduation. Today, our daughter graduated from high school and we spent the morning at the ceremony. This got us thinking about what the future has in store for today's graduates and specifically, what types of skills a college graduate interested in a career in marketing should possess.
In today's graduation ceremony, the head of her school's Board of Trustees made a statement that had a big impact on us. He said that in four years, when these high school graduates complete college, 50% of them will be in careers that do not exist today. He then went into some of the things that have changed in the last ten years. Ten years ago:

There was no iPhone
Tweeting was a sound that birds made
"Skype" was a typographical error

Whoa!
This got us thinking even farther back to when we were in college and the internet didn't exist for most people. Now, it lies at the core of how we live.
Advice for graduates
Given the accelerating pace of technological change, what advice should we give our children and what advice would we give to a recent grad regarding the skills that they should focus on as they enter into the job market? There is, of course, no right answer to this question. But in our opinion, some of the key basic skills new graduates need to develop if they want to work in the field of inbound marketing include:

Writing 
Great communication skills
Listening
Analytics

If these graduates are going to fill positions that don't exist today, they can't focus on mastering tasks like blogging, using Facebook, or email marketing. Instead, they need to master their understanding of what the objective of a particular engagement, project or position is. They can do this by asking great "why" questions, as opposed to "how" questions. This will really help get to what the buyer is trying to accomplish. From there, they can determine the best way to achieve that objective. Maybe it will be through blogging - or maybe it will be an entirely new solution that hasn't even been created yet.
In this context, the key to success is really to be a good listener. When you ask good questions and really listen to peoples' answers, you can learn so much more than you can by talking. 
In addition to listening and asking good questions, what makes the best inbound marketers successful is the ability to establish an authentic connection with an audience and build a relationship based on trust. A great way to do this is to be really honest, not only about your strengths (which is easy for people), but about your weaknesses as well.
We're living in an age when the internet allows us to portray an image of ourselves that is idealized. For example, on Facebook, most people only post the positives (think vacations, birthdays, great looking selfies, etc.). For this reason, Kathleen always calls it "Fakebook."
When you couple our ability to portray an idealized version of ourselves through social media with the increasing popularity of texting, it can result in very superficial relationships and make it quiite difficult to establish a really authentic connection.
Where are the inbound marketers?
We've had a few opportunities over the course of the last year to talk with college students about careers in marketing. What's very interesting is that you almost never talk to a new graduate who says "I want to be an inbound marketer." This is suprising given the recent study by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs that indicates that nine out of ten companies are practicing content marketing. Given the increasing number of organizations that are using content marketing, why isn't there a full pipeline of new graduates who want to fill those positions? It will be interesting to see whether - and how - this changes in the next five to ten years.
What would you do differently?
All this talk about graduation got us thinking about what we would do differently if we could wind the clock back and return to college. Here's what we came up with:
John: If I could start over again, I would do it knowing that there are many different paths to success and that it is okay to diverge from what you majored in or originally thought you would do with your career. I started out working in a staffing company and now I run an inbound marketing agency. That is a big change and not an easy move to make. The key when confronting new career opportunities is to believe in yourself and be confident that you have an important perspective to share, regardless of the industry you're working in or the title you hold.
Kathleen: When I was in school, I spent a lot of time developing my writing skills. I really took that for granted at the time, but now appreciate how useful a skill writing is. In addition, I don't think I appreciated enough what a bright group of women I had in my college sorority. Many people think of sororities as a bunch of flighty cheerleaders, but in my experience, sorority life exposed me to different ways of thinking and people who challenged my assumptions. Together, we debated a lot of hot topics and while we didn't always agree, we did always respect each others' opinions and beliefs. This taught me that the most dangerous thing of all - whether in life or in inbound marketing - is to think that you know it all and to close yourself off from the opinions of others. I miss those debates and have found it increasingly difficult to find people that are willing to have those kinds of debates and disagreements without being offended or taking it personally. Far too often, we seek out people who share our beliefs and opinions. When you take the time to seek out those who have differing opinions, and take the time to really listen with the intent of hearing them, you become a better person and a better marketer.
A plug for certification
We can't talk about education and careers without putting a quick plug in for HubSpot's certification programs. Whether you are a HubSpot user or not, we strongly recommend checking out HubSpot's inbound marketing certification program. They've just released an updated version of the program and it is packed with great information about the inbound marketing methodology and the tactics and strategies you can use to attract and convert visitors into leads and leads into customers. The best part about it is that it is completely free and available to anyone, whether a HubSpot customer or not.
A favor to ask...
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