Looking to Engage with a Great Marketer For My New Job

Job specific questions? Probably not - it's YOUR job. You can ask marketing questions and might have some good answers or might have to sort through and decide what is worth listening to.



Honestly, I doubt you will find anyone to donate time for your career growth....don't mean to be rude, just realistic. There is a tremendous amount of info already on this forum about marketing and promotional practices, etc that might be of help to you...you also might want to read through the offline marketing section.

Definitely..shoot your shot .I think you should join Linked as well and join other like minded professionals in your field.

Jeffrey,

What you want to do is conduct some information interviews.

Do not look for mentorship straight out of the gate. That kind of relationship takes time to develop if the situation is going to be a good one.

I've been using information interviews to find out about jobs, functions, cultures and all other kinds of things about organizations -- you might be surprised just how different two jobs with the same title can be at two different companies, because of the cultures -- for over two decades and I've run into two kinds of people.

The first kind are too busy and don't want to help.

The second kind want to a) show off, or b) genuinely want to help. Sometimes they're a combo of both: I certainly am.

With an information interview, you ask for 20 minutes and you stick to it. If they want to go on, that's good, but when you hit the 20 minutes you stop and say, "Oh, we've reached the time limit I asked you for."

Lots of people will give you an information interview if you ask. I've had people give me time inside their companies, with the employers' blessing. And there's nothing special about me. I was in my early 20s when I started doing these. Age has nothing to do with it. "Student attitude" and asking for a brief time are important.

Another option you have is to do the interviews as a podcast. I do this myself and it has been the gateway to the space and defense industry. I have gotten academics, subject matter experts, and company owners as guests that it's unlikely I would have connected with any other way. I get an education straight from the PhD, company founder, engineering expert or whoever. On my show you'll see military, high level government and other guests who I reached and started a relationship with because I'm the host of a show and reached out. Understand that after (and sometimes before, as in the case of Col. Felt) just about every one of these guests and I have 30 - 60 minutes of further off-camera conversation.

Many of my guests have never been interviewed before. It is a "sale" to get them to appear, and that's fine with me. Some are old hands at it. But the common denominator of all of them is that they * want * to educate. They want to impact someone else's life.

Get in FB and LI industry groups. Look at the members. See who posts a lot. Sure, there's a ton of junk and "buy my stuff" posts. But who is sharing advice?

You needn't limit yourself to those who are talking the loudest, either. Pick people who have been where you are in your career. Connect with them and ask for an information interview. Do NOT say "pick your brain"--that's an absolute turn-off.

If you want to do the podcast thing, it's a valuable bit of marketing material for yourself and your future career.

Finally, I recommend you ask your question down in the Offline subforum. There are more brick and mortar people there, and they might be more open to the idea than the online marketers up here.

You must know something about it or they wouldn't have
contacted you, right? Most people in these positions have
a college degree in business, marketing, or management.

Whatever you do, don't let the people who hired you get
any inkling that you don't know what you are doing.
Here's a tip - DON'T post to forums with your real name
since they can search you out.

Try to enroll in some sort of management course or get
busy reading some management books. I suggest that
you get some kindles so that you can start learning right
away. In the meanwhile, fake it until you make it.

Simply post your questions in the forum and I'm sure you will get some good answers

You can ask and probably will get some answers, but you should consider that it could not work for your specific job.
Better source of information will be your colleagues