Great marketers know who they are, and embrace it.

I didn’t fail at marketing; I failed at understanding my weaknesses- which was worse.

“Enough formal education for the meantime. Now school is over, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

I asked myself this question in 2018.

I’m still not sure I know the answer now.

…

Being an undergraduate of a BSc marketing programme in a private Nigerian university was an experience I enjoyed. I looked forward to my classes every day, I enjoyed reading about promotion and consumer psychology and the BCG matrix. I felt like a queen in all the lectures and once I got the hang of it, I was aiming for nothing less than an A in every class.

A lot of self-confidence here, I know. But I really felt like I was on top. The world assured me that with a degree in marketing in today’s world, I would never be looking for a job. I would be the “hotcake”, so to say, the one whom other firms would be looking out for to hire. And I would have mastered everything I need to know about starting and running my own business. I would be able to push any business idea from strategy to sales.

But why not? I was in marketing, right?

Well, that’s where I went off track.

Totally off track.

Exposing myself to the real world after graduation taught me two major lessons;

· I should have saved more money (heart breaking)

· I knew nothing about marketing in the real world (even more heart breaking)

Now, before you go on guessing about the quality of my education, I have to say here that it was very good. I was taught by the best lecturers I could ask for, in an environment that was conducive, with the best accessible resources. Then what exactly was the problem?

A few months of self-examination would later point out to me that I was the problem. Me. Not the course I studied. Not the books I read. Not my lecturers. Just me.

How did I end up studying a 4 year course and going into the world unprepared for the job of my dreams?

Well, I had been the kind of student who was comfortable with understanding the theoretical aspect of everything. Initially I was the knowledge hoarder, wanting to keep everything I possibly could in my brain. I would read every marketing book, learn every principle, intricately dissect theories, and memorize definitions. I knew all these things. But one thing I didn’t know is that the course I would later graduate with a degree from, was not focused on what I could read or memorize.

It was based on what I could create and do.

And I would later find this out the hard way four years later.

Before graduating, I had started my own small business of selling footwear I made by hand. The process was enlightening and I learned a few lessons from it. For me, it was simple. I made sandals and showed to fellow students, they liked it and paid for it. I got my money, spent it on whatever funny personal wants I had (sadly) then I would start all over again. I began to realize the lack of wisdom in this vicious cycle just three months to graduation.

Frightened by this so called reality, I decided to take a step back and try to find out when exactly I would be ready to become “a true marketer”. I wasted an entire year of my life doing this, waiting till whenever it was I would be ready to practice my knowledge and skill. But I didn’t. Until I finally decided I would.

In late October 2019, I had recently taken up a job as a graduate assistant, and I was forced to clearly draft out my career goals and decide where I wanted to be in the next 5 years. I knew I still wanted to be a marketer, but I didn’t have the “skill” for it. Then I had to go on a self-searching journey for which I realized why I had given up on marketing for a whole year.

I had found out that I would rather be a failure at marketing than a queen at knowing everything but doing nothing. I had been so afraid of truly owning who I was supposed to be, the entrepreneur who would create products that solved problems and delivered value. And the stupidest thing I had done was to wait till I somehow would transform effortlessly into that charismatic marketer, that prospect approaching salesman, that energetic and top notch business owner.

I expected myself to adjust to a more extroverted nature and become comfortable with being the outgoing person, the one who talks to strangers and can immediately close a deal or the one who can effortlessly persuade people to do anything. I was not like that. In fact, I knew I could never be like that (at least not always).

This, right here, was my mistake.

So I took a look around me and asked “does that mean every marketer in the world today is an extrovert? Of course not! So what was stopping me from becoming a true marketer? Simply put, it was fear. I was afraid that I was too shy or just not good enough to be a marketer.

I had discovered just how introverted I was. And my first instinctual response was fear.

I had always known I was an introvert, and the truth is that marketing teaches you to develop qualities that are most familiar to extroverts. So, naturally being the reader and less of the creator, I felt like I had hit a brick wall. But in reality, I was wrong.

I had forgotten that being the salesman was just one out of the many tasks involved in marketing. Turns out, I had let fear overcome me and make me feel like I was not good enough or I had followed the wrong career path. I was wrong again.

So I had just one weakness — I was an introvert

But luckily, I had a strength as well — I was an introvert

Yes, the occasionally shy type, but more observing than shy. More thinking than talking. The type who loves to plan and watch it go as expected or go haywire and then correct it. Whatever way, I was the analyst, the one who thought things through over and over again. Was this a bad thing? Definitely not. I had just been drowning all these qualities by comparing them to the different standards set by the public about what a marketer should look like.

So it turned out I could still be a marketer, hurray!!

But how?

Well, this is where the necessary tools come handy. Today’s world is digital with new and frequent online trends. A marketer follows the flow of trend wherever it goes, if they can’t create their own.

I decided to scout the internet for tools I could use to help myself become a better marketer. In next week’s article, I will extensively discuss five (5) of the major tools that placed me on the path to becoming an awesome marketer as an introvert. These were my building blocks that kept me going. The books I read, the basic skills I had to learn, they all made me believe, day after day, that I can be the kind of marketer I want to be, with consistency and practice.

I’m sure you can learn a thing or two from them as well.

I have come to understand that marketing in today’s context is about creating value. But the world as we know it and the online spaces used for frequent communication are overcrowded. We need to find our feet even in the the crowded spaces. We need to be authentic, determined, and value driven. Who says an introvert can’t be all those things?

Who says I need to be a voracious speaker who can convert all objections to leads on the spot?

Or that I must be the most influential and persuasive person in the room?

The people around me tried to sway me from my direction, time and time again. “Marketing? What is that all about?” “Almost everybody in the world today is a marketer, how can you now say it’s your entire first degree, and not just a side gig?” “You’re a shy person and you don’t talk a lot. You won’t make a good marketer.”

I got tons of these in light and even shadier variations. But I survived, because I had to. I believed there was no way in the world that all the knowledge I had gathered for so long could be rendered useless by people meagre opinions. Today, I am so happy I didn’t give in.

Introversion has made me achieve all I have been able to, with the ability to draw inner strength from solitude and work my ass off whenever I am alone. Yes, I need to be able to charm people or use persuasive tactics from time to time to makes sales. But that’s just one aspect of marketing, and it is one of the few skills I have learned develop and deploy in my own way. The introvert way. What is most important to me is that I always keep my creative eye open, searching for new ideas that can be turned into profitable opportunities.

Turning problems into needs and linking all the infrastructure needed to fill the gaps all through the process.

This is what I do now. I am an introverted marketer.

Not because I am scared to talk to every single person I meet (I still do that from time to time though) or because I cannot speak to large crowds or convince people (I still do this as well). But my point is that these are all elements of the execution phase. And planning is just as important as execution. I just enjoy the intricacies of the planning process more. That way, I feel less tense when I have to approach a prospect or persuade a customer

You can do this too, with the right tools and knowledge. It may take more time to become an expert than you expect, but it will eventually be worth it.

And you will be glad you understood the king of person you are, embrace it, and use it to your advantage as a well-grounded and productive marketer.

Don’t forget to check in next week for the tools needed to become better at marketing while embracing your true personality.