Ok, I’m bias. I’m a marketing learning guy who has dedicated countless hours and sleepless nights to build the School of Marketing and all that we offer to help up-skill marketers.
But from my vantage point, I have also seen over 5,000 people learn new marketing skills, got new jobs, got that promotion, increased the top and bottom line for their organisations, all of which has sparred on growth.
I want to double down on that last word for a moment; growth. You see it fits in perfectly with the job of a marketer, or indeed a manager or business owner – since we all aspire to achieve growth for our companies and in doing so enjoy the benefits of our own personal growth.
They really go hand in hand, after all how can we grow our companies if we can’t grow our own knowledge and skills which help us to learn new techniques of growth?
In 2023, if there is one thing that I do know is we are in for a bumpy ride, a ‘permacrisis’, if you will being the buzz word of the day.
In this sort of environment, the only thing we can all do is to keep moving, keep evolving, keep learning and in doing so growth will come in its pockets – you have to find them.
Today, you really only have two choices:
Option 1: you can either curl up and be territorial hoping to hold onto something that may or may not be there.
Option 2: Embrace the ambiguity and know that each bump is an opportunity to bounce back faster and higher.
Ofcourse, none of us would willingly choose the former over the latter and yet most will ironically.
Why? Because it feels like the safe thing to do.
In these times, it’s easier to hunker down rather than be willing to be vulnerable but in doing so you miss opportunities since they are likely to come from lateral over linear thinking.
And how do you achieve lateral thinking? You need to go outside of your everyday and be willing to embrace new concepts, new learning and new experiences which you can mix together in the melting pot of your mind in order to develop them into new opportunities.
Let me pause for a minute and just say that last sentence again, ‘in order to develop them into new opportunities’. Yep, you see in times like these opportunities are increasingly becoming scarce. You would have no doubt heard of many cliches quotes around how opportunities emerge in adversity and all that. However, that’s not actually true.
Opportunities at these times don’t ‘emerge’
The reality is opportunities at these times (and probably not any time) don’t ‘emerge’ rather its people like you and me who ‘develop’ them.
We join the dots based on lateral thinking, combine it with the current situation and put ourselves on a new track (and trajectory). That’s how it happens. And how does this ‘joining the dots’ happen, it’s through spatial awareness and our ability to learn new things which we can combine to turn it into an opportunity.
Now, the best news is that learning is truly all around us and in fact it’s never been easier to learn new skills. Take a look at our guide on the key Marketing Skills required in 2023.
I would like to call out three specific ways that we at the School of Marketing can help on your journey.
1. Join us on The Giants Marketing Masterclass:
A 12 week experience, where you learn about the 6 most important marketing areas; Customer, Commercial, Brand, Creative, Channel and Data, through podcasts, learning resources and incredible live sessions.
You get to learn from over 25 CEOs and CMOs of some incredible companies, including:
Being up-front with you, its a paid for programme but I believe its the best programme to learn the key technical skills you need to be a solid, effective and innovative marketer at this time. If you would like to compare it to other training programmes, check out this article.
2. Join our Mentoring Programme where each week we have a new Industry Giant join us to give you advice and guidance on anything you want to know about our industry. Its a real no-brainer to sign up.
Take a look at the schedule here and sign up, its absolutely free:
3. We host one of the leading marketing podcasts, The Places We’ll Go show, where we have a new guest each week. Make it part of your weekly routine.
Make your 2023 a year of learning new skills.
