Good article in a recent edition of Marketing News by Michael Krauss who interviewed Sally Blount, dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.
A nice observation by Blount who began her tenure by focusing on listening and learning — something we should all be doing with customers and prospects. She observed, “one of the biggest challenges in our marketplace is there is so much data available and you have to figure out which data you need.”
This is true when we are conducting research as it is when we are developing KPIs.
Blount’s advice for young marketing seeking to advance their careers, which we can all heed:
- Get exposed to different environments early. It gives you more range for solving complex problems later in life. I’ve found that most companies, and non-marketing executives, undervalue the transferable skills and knowledge marketers from other vertical industries can bring to their vertical.
- Seek feedback constantly and learn how to take negative feedback. It’s a rare skill. If people are not comfortable giving you feedback, you will not know in what areas you need to improve. Not unlike getting criticism from customers.
- Think systematically about what kind of education you need to make yourself more effective. More education is always better. This is especially true with how marketing has changed with the explosive growth of social media.
- Education isn’t always about vocation. It’s about giving you a stronger, more resilient brain so you can contribute and make the world a better place.
What are you doing to contribute and make the world a better place?
