Takeaways from Marketing Management

This is my favorite class I have taken as a college student thus far.

I know – that is a pretty big statement as a senior who has only one semester left of college – but it is one hundred percent true. Don’t get me wrong, I originally thought that this would be a simple Marketing elective that I could breeze through the semester without worrying about, but if you've been around me you know this was the class I spent the most time working on and it was all worth it. The lessons we learned and the assignments we completed were purposeful. From store walks to guest speakers, this class gives you the guidance, creativity, and confidence to transition into the workplace after graduation.

Professor Molly Rapert has done an amazing job of also having meaningful discussions with us while still having fun. She is devoted to teaching and pouring into her students and I have taken so much out of this class with me already into job interviews and my everyday life. I had never even posted on LinkedIn before this class and now I am submitting my final article about the five biggest takeaways from this Marketing Management class.

It's bittersweet to think about the semester coming to an end but here are a few takeaways the I will keep with me including investing in relationships, finding your purpose, the importance of time management, discovering your personal brand, and how to see a powerful outcome.

Investing in relationships

I think investing in relationships is universal advice. One of our guest speakers Jesse Lane was passionate about this. His advice was that investing in the people around you increases trust. From a job standpoint, if you make as many friends as you can in your first thirty days then it will minimize a weird disconnect in the future. It helps build a community of supporters and create a healthy environment for innovating ideas. It'll also increase your overall enjoyment! Lane mentioned diving down deeper and continuing to be a positive light in a team culture setting. “Negativity spreads like a wildfire.” When collaborating with others, there can be frustrating problems or rejection that come your way. The best thing to do for the everyone’s sake is to continue to stay uplifting. It benefits everyone’s work flow and peace of mind. I have built so many intentional relationships through Molly and her class and it makes me optimistic to create new ones after graduation too.

Finding your purpose

In the first couple weeks of school, we had Amanda Bailey, Jeff Metzner, Hannah Brunner, and Ashley Huffman come to discuss purpose, how to find it and how to incorporate it into our routines. By knowing your purpose, you know exactly what you want and how to put your best foot forward. This goes in any situation whether you are looking for a job, at home, or working in a group setting. Your purpose reveals how you solve problems and how you go about them. To get to our purpose we used a brand equity pyramid to organize a list or qualities we have. We started by assessing our core values, thinking of what we are passionate about along with the help of our friends and family. Then from our core values, we discovered our essential points of difference. This distinguishes how we are set apart from each other by defining how we use our values. Taking it a step further, we then turned the points of difference into iconic assets or needs that we focus on. Finally, we came up with our purpose. Because of this discussion and project, I feel like I have gained confidence when meeting new people and have a deeper sense of myself.

The importance of time management

This class definitely kept me on my toes and time management is something I am always trying to improve on. Molly did a great job of keeping us up to date with any changes regarding assignments and deadlines including a weekly check list to make sure we stayed on track. But ultimately, it comes down to ourselves to complete everything so that we could come to class the next day or week fully ready. Because of our class' engagement, it encouraged me to come extremely prepared with every article that we discussed. This went with projects too. I love to incorporate creativity in everything that I do so I took extra time to make sure no detail was left behind. This helped me to also stay on track with my other class too. Everyone knows how it feels to cram an assignment the night before and it is not fun, but keeping up to date everyday with this class helped me to stay focused and consistent with my work.

Discovering your personal brand

This was something we discussed often in class. Your personal brand has an impact on how you work, how you buy as a consumer, and what values you live your life with. One of my favorite things that we did this semester was discovering our personal brand by creating our user manual. While you already can assume some of your own strengths, the user manual lets you lay everything down on one piece of paper. It can be used to give to anyone at any time. It helped to affirm what we bring to the table as individuals and how we are all unique. The user manual was also exciting to take all of the different personality tests to discover more about yourself. Something I didn’t know before is that my spirit animal is a Shiba Inu! But in all seriousness, this project has allowed me to grow as a student and as a person. Knowing my personal brand is something I will always have with me even after I graduate.

How to see a powerful outcome

We worked a lot with Andy Murray this semester and it has been such an amazing opportunity to learn for him. He has transformed the way that marketing is approached and gave us excellent life advice. One of those pieces of advice was how to find a powerful outcome. He told us to begin with a problem that is worth solving. There will be more dissatisfiers before finding a solution but to be curious on how to move from point A to point B. He mentioned in class that 85% of decisions are based on the heart and that it can be a powerful tool to use. “If you want change, sometimes you have to be that change.” Murray discussed that you have to acknowledge the biggest barrier to even turn your idea into a solution. This allows you to test out the strength of the idea and come up with alternative methods if it will fall through. Discovering what drives us to success also opens up your mind for innovation and ideas. Other factors include consistency and motivation, without those two the creativity will stop. This method elevates the outcome to your problem because every step of the way you are checking on the quality of your idea and the impact it has.

Thank you

I am thankful to have learned so much from just one marketing class. Molly is the perfect example of a passionate teacher and has shown us what it is to love your job. She is determined to help us thrive and has given us so many networking and job opportunities too. Our class was filled with numerous discussions that kept us curiously thinking. Thank you to all of the executives and #RapertMKTG family that have given us additional insight and knowledge throughout the semester. I have learned so much from this course and am excited to see what the future brings as a now former #RapertMTKG student.?