A senior marketing manager, wearing under-eye patches, lists four reasons why a job in marketing might not be a good fit for someone. She covers the need for analytical skills (math, logic, Excel), comfort with ambiguity (no single 'right' answer), the necessity of being organized, and the fact that it's not a 'clock in, clock out' job requiring constant learning. She concludes by reframing marketing as a valuable skill, especially for future entrepreneurs.
Transcript
You're thinking of working in marketing and are any of these, maybe think again. This is my most heartfelt advice. I'm a senior marketing manager. I pivoted into marketing with no formal marketing education or training. I learned a couple things. If there could be an entry exam for a marketing job, math, logic, and Excel would most definitely be on it. You'll be analyzing data. You'll be building forecast. You'll be setting budgets. Like, I cannot tell you how many times I've had to forecast an entire model or build a budget starting from a blank spreadsheet. Nail these three. If you are somebody that needs a right answer in what you're doing, like you really like math, you like going through the problem and arriving at the one singular answer, you might find marketing a little bit frustrating. In marketing, there really are not right ways and wrong ways to do things. You just kind of test and iterate and test again and find what worse. And then sometimes you realize that something changes and what works now may not work six months better, and then you have to test all over again. If you're the friend that is always coming back home with one less article of clothing on than you left the house with or you often show up to appointments on the wrong day or you're a worst its around the house kinda girly no you remember to actually do your rank, there may be a role that's better suited to your strengths. And if you are just looking for, like, a clock in, clock out, never think about it again kind of job, like, zero judgment, honestly, respect, it's not that. So much of marketing is trying something, seeing how it works, and then trying something again. And that means you have to constantly stay up to date with tools and trends and strategies and just keep a pulse on all of the things that are changing constantly. I think it's fun. It may not be fun for everybody. All of that said, I think marketing is an amazing skill to learn, especially if you have any interest in working for yourself or becoming an entrepreneur someday. Like it is the fuel on the fire that helps any company good. And if you can master it, if you can become really good at it, it can open so many doors.