A Letter To My Younger Self The Marketing Career Advice I Wish I’d Had

Edited from Chapter 4 of 'Brands, Bandwagons & Bullshit' by Harry Lang

Find the paperback & ebook here:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brands-Bandwagons-Bullshit-professional-understanding/dp/B09MYTK1VG

When does middle age officially start these days? Is 60 the new 30? Are

Millennials really fast-tracking towards knitting and Ugg boots, bypassing

the joyous indiscretions of youth in favour of gluten-free, spinning-class,

Guardian-tutting, ‘lights out by 9pm’ sensibility – all fuelled by probiotic,

Bullet-blended, curly kale smoothies and a thousand grains of muesli?

As I creak towards yet another landmark birthday it’s getting increasingly hard to tell

what colour-coded stage of life I’ve reached. I may have no certainty

on when I can finally sign out of Skype for good but 17 years into a career

in marketing I reckon I’ve earned the benefit of hindsight and can make

a (somewhat) informed assessment as to whether the decisions of my

formative years were ultimately for the best. Or whether youthful

exuberance and naivety did, in fact, lead me down some avoidable

rabbit holes.

If I could email myself as I strutted cockishly towards Golden Square in

the summer of ’99, here’s what I’d have to say.

Don’t burn your bridges

We’ve all been there – a few times at least. The leaving drinks, the final

client meeting, the last email before handing back the BlackBerry.

You’ve written a parting shot to all staff and luckily had the presence of

mind to employ ‘the 12-hour rule’ and park it in drafts overnight. But what

about now? You’re leaving and it would feel so damn good to empty an

Uzi of colourful language into their rapidly deflating egos.

But wait. Once the enter button is pressed, how good will you really feel?

Let me save you the risk and ensuing trouble: no good comes of it, ever,

in my opinion. I only lit the touchpaper once – an early client, total asshat,

not qualified to manipulate Play-Doh let alone multiple drinks brands. I

emailed him on my final day in an agency role pointing out his (many

and varied) flaws. I spoke of burning bridges and how, if I ever had the

misfortune to work with him again my career was already over, and I’d

have to become a Hare Krishna instead.

He never replied (probably couldn’t work out how to send an email) but

that didn’t matter. I felt no better – in fact I felt sordid. I’d been paid to

do a job, which included managing tough clients, and by sending that

one single email I’d fallen at the last fence. I wandered home that night

feeling hollow, and very much like I’d let myself down. Take note.

Find an impressive, enthusiastic mentor

Several the most successful people I know across the marketing and

gaming worlds, and beyond, have a couple of things in common –

they’re extremely bright and incredibly hardworking. They’ve also often

had various doses of good fortune sprinkled over their career along the

way. If I were to define an element of how this luck is consistently

manifested, it would be the presence of a mentor figure in their early

careers.

In most cases it was a boss who guided their development and decision

making – and in some cases their first progression to a new firm – whilst

embedding solid behaviours that take the rest of us a number of jobs and

numerous mistakes to embrace. Find that mentor and follow their lead.

Ask more questions

My big bugbears were contact reports and budgets. Contact reports

were skull crushingly boring and apparently pointless tasks that required

me to take notes rather than engage with the meetings themselves. As

for budgets, well, numbers just left me cold.

As far as Achilles heels go, it’s quite a big one if you want to move up the

marketing ladder.

However, I was lucky in that I faced up to my initial gremlins, removed my

crumbling ego from the equation and asked for help from my then

account director. She not only facilitated my practical development but

also, in a piece of Schadenfreude yet to be bested, gave me a leaving

present I still use to this day – process management skills in the form of

ISO9001 auditor training.

The cream rises (and trash gravitates towards its natural home near the

bottom)

I wish I could forewarn the younger me about the dreadful people I

would come across over a career spanning 13 companies, 10 job titles,

six countries and four industries. However, the bright side is that the

darkness was ultimately outshone by the light emitting from many terrific,

talented, fun, and engaging people.

The truth is dickheads are like coffee stains – every company has them

and they’re a nightmare to get rid of – but they eventually fade away to

nothing.

Don’t knee-jerk: if your heart tells you to leave, wait three months before

you jump

In your early career especially, the temptation to run back to university

and take an eight-year master’s degree in kite flying can sometimes feel

like a no-brainer. The endless dreary meetings, pitiful salary, late nights

working on unwinnable pitches and absurd rent bill to live within an hour

of the office simply don’t add up. But then you get a glimmer.

The rat race is very much a marathon, so a steady pace with occasional

bursts of speed will serve you well.

I remember one low ebb in particular - in my late agency days and

inherently unhappy at work I managed to pitch, win, and deliver a tiny

viral project for Sony with the help of a couple of creatives and a

developer, all working after hours. There was a general fug of negativity

around the pitch and on a couple of occasions one of the senior agency

figures tried to get me to cease work entirely, on the suggestion that I

was soon to be made redundant anyway, but I persevered.

The beer we shared the day of the win was the sweetest validation and

an immensely enjoyable (if ultimately hollow) ‘screw you’ against the

agency. I was paid-off and farmed out soon after, but left feeling that at

least I’d taken the chance to lead something myself and exit, if not on

my own terms, at least with my head held a little higher.

If you can see the bandwagon, you’ve probably missed it

So. Many. Ideas.

One of the most fun things in a marketing career is the

opportunity to open the creative gun cabinet and start taking pot shots.

I’ve got a few gigabytes of hard drive storage with everything from

dotcom start-up ideas to app concepts, culminating in a fair number of

business plans. I even tried to get a few of them off the ground, but if

there was one poison arrow that killed more of them than anything else

(even more than the stagnating fear of failure) it was that I was

replicating – even if subconsciously – ideas, campaigns or businesses that

had already been brought to life in another earlier, better-funded guise.

Originality is an elusive maiden but those ideas that stand the inevitable

self-doubt and criticism are the ones worth pouring your heart, soul (and

most likely savings account) into.

They’re as rare as hen’s teeth but totally worth the wait.

Managing people well will be your highest priority

When I took on my first account manager role at 25 my father, proud

though I’m sure he was at the time, did ask with a certain amount of

trepidation whether I’d ever been trained to manage actual people.

In fact, I believe he was more expressive than that.

Back then in agency land, you learned on the hoof – by emulating your

boss (if they were decent), collaborating, and trial and error. Mistakes

were made – many, many quite cringe-worthy mistakes if memory serves.

Things might have changed – training in management skills may now

come as marketing industry standards alongside pointy shoes and a

snazzy haircut – but what’s certain is your ability to nurture direct reports

only gets more important as you progress in seniority. The ever-useful

Google is a start point, as are the plethora of books on Amazon. I’d add

to that a recommendation to constantly ask questions of managers you

respect (remember the mentor); the ones who always seem to get the

best from their team and run a tight yet motivated ship.

A product of personal development is that the job you chose as a

graduate becomes less about the practical work and more about how

you brief, advise, cajole, rein in, and ultimately motivate those who work

for you. It pays to take the time required to get it right.

If the offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Sometimes opportunity smacks you round the head when you least

expect it – a piece of professional good fortune like a bolt of lightning

from the depths of LinkedIn. It might be a random start-up offer with a

chunk of equity which they swear is worth half a mil already. Or it could

be the promotion with a flashy job title that will make colleagues seethe

and your friends envious.

Hold fire, champ – time to pause for thought.

Has anything that’s been offered to you been guaranteed? Will it be in

the contract? Even if so, will the company be around long enough to

honour said contract (I can name three examples of firms going belly up

around me just as I was due to be paid out).

Sadly, real ‘golden ticket’ moments are few and far between. What

tends to breed ongoing success are the pillars of solid marketing skills

twinned with a strong work ethic and a ‘get on with everyone’

personality. Focus on those and you’ll find you’ll start to make your own

luck.

Measure twice, cut once

It’s highly recommended to apply the ‘more haste, less speed’ axiom to

almost anything you meddle in. From PowerPoint to public speaking,

take your time and focus on quality over quantity; it’s a sure-fire way to

appear more professional, competent, and able than your peers.

The grass looks greener – but isn’t always

No matter how difficult your working life becomes at times, if you have a

job in any area of marketing or professional services it’s likely you’re

considerably better off than the majority. Statistically speaking, you’ve

probably got a university degree, you’re able to cover rent (perhaps

even a mortgage after a while if you’re lucky) and you work among the

young and the beautiful in an ever-changing, lively industry.

Be grateful for what you’ve got and what you’ve achieved.

It doesn’t get any easier as you earn greater responsibility, but it does pay better.

Work in what you love – and if you can’t afford to do that, do it on the side

There’s a utopian dream that we can all achieve nirvana by simply doing

what we love for a career. But what if you love painting? Or writing? Or

baking? And then you find you lack the talent, determination,

confidence, drive, bankroll, or pure luck to make it pay enough of a living

wage while you find your feet? If that’s the case, then never fear – as

that’s what evenings and weekends are for.

Time management comes more naturally to some than others but once

you have a passion project, it’s amazing how easy it is to get up that little

bit earlier, to ignore the TV or go out less. You can shave time off pretty

much everything else in order to reclaim those lost hours and commit

them to something that brings you genuine joy.

It’s no surprise or secret than many of those that ‘make it’ claim that work

doesn’t feel like work – it’s recreational fun that can have the added

benefit of payment. Investing time in a beloved hobby outside work is

hugely rewarding and a balance to the stresses and strains of your

career, so invest in yourself, recapture your passion, and see what

amazing things could come of it. It’s free to try, and totally in your

capacity to have a go.

I wish I’d done it sooner myself.

p.s. - 7 years on, I could probably wrote a whole new letter, but as a brief addendum, I'd suggest diving into A.I. with both feet. So many areas of marketing will be augmented with this technology, those who adapt and adopt it wholesale will come out on top.