On August 22, 2010, I published my first blog post.
It was a story about vacuuming memories and was marketing therapy to help me put in writing my feelings, emotions, and curiosities. In that post, I explored how vacuuming goes deeper than cleaning a carpet when you are self-aware and not afraid of rivers of emotions. This initial metaphorical post got me thinking about a more profound way to market products and services by touching an emotional lightning rod.
My dad had passed away in August the prior year and somehow writing about business, marketing and life were healing. I’m not sure why.
I knew that writing served a role in allowing me to connect with what mattered to me and to have a public forum to express it. I also knew that for a long time, I wanted to be a better writer. So, the obvious thing to do was to do more writing.
My dad, Jack Slater was my first business teacher who helps guide my wife and me when we built Rachel’s Brownies from a small, wholesale bakery into a more prominent national brand in the 1980’s. Dad was a Wharton graduate from The University of Pennsylvania and an experienced financial professional. He was the most patient person I ever knew.
I remember sitting at his Springfield, New Jersey dining room table when he explained some business basics like what is a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement. I can feel his calm forty-years later.
Dad taught a couple of twenty-something liberal arts majors a language that was completely foreign to us. He emphasized why being decisive was important and the need to stay focused. I can hear him telling me, it doesn’t matter how many brownies you can bake, it matters if you can sell them and build a brand. This may have been my first true marketing lesson when I was 23 years old.
As I kept writing, my blog became one way to keep my dad’s memory alive and to share some of his business lessons. It was a place to explore my business knowledge. Simply put, the blog was marketing therapy.
Over time, I realize that I blog to share my ideas and the many lessons learned from people who have inspired me during my life. If throughout the years, I helped a few people pick up an inspiring insight, I’m thrilled. If consulting work comes my way, I’m delighted.
But the core benefit of blogging to me is to have a platform to share my inquisitiveness out loud in an odd form of what I think of as marketing therapy. The blog is a platform to think, explore and share and makes me feel helpful.
Today, more than nine years later, I’m publishing my one-thousandth post.
While crafting, crunching and connecting more than a million words over nine years, this form of marketing therapy has helped me learn a few valuable life and business lessons. In part, it honors those who taught and inspired me personally and professionally.
Lessons From My Marketing Therapy
- Persistence: There is a never-ending amount of ways to look at a marketing challenge. Usually, the first few ideas are common, so persistence makes a difference.
- Listening: Marketing requires a keen sense of hearing. Stop talking and let others share their thoughts. The smartest people I know absorb new data and insights because they are open to changing their minds.
- Simplicity: The marketing efforts I’m proudest of are often the simplest ideas. They tend to be easy to explain and usually right in front of us. Like in cooking, the best recipes tend to be fresh, original and simple.
- Happiness: Marketing has so many fun activities that celebrate relationships, human engagement and pure joy. Don’t forget to bring a sense of humor to your work. Allow your marketing to be playful.
- Agility: I believe in planning to outline a path forward, but I also believe in the importance of being agile and flexible to adapt to ever-changing situations. Like a rigid tree, when the wind blows, you are going to break. I try to be like a willow, that can sway and bend while always keeping my roots planted firmly.
- Feelings: Marketing requires empathy. Without it, you can’t understand your customer’s journey, their needs or how you might serve them. The best marketing is always built on deep awareness and connection.
Whether this is the first blog of mine you have read or you have been along for the ride for the last nine years, thank you for being part of my journey.
Now, onto the next thousand blog posts.
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You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Try my new chat feature on my site if you have a quick question.
Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash
