by Nikki Devereux, Director of Account Management
Our next zodiac sign is Scorpio: birthdays between October 23 – November 21.
Scorpio is a water sign with the strengths: resourceful, brave, and passionate. Scorpio weaknesses are distrustfulness and jealousy. We’ll explore ways these positive and negative traits can be applied or avoided in marketing and business practices.
Resourcefulness in Marketing
Being resourceful is beneficial in any occupation, but let’s look at it from the marketer’s perspective. In marketing there are a lot of problems to solve, a multitude of creative and technical projects to execute. There are also many ways to tackle these projects, many types of software to choose from, and a host ways to organize and communicate during the process. Marketing changes with the wind; as quickly as new technology is released, marketing changes. A resourceful marketer keeps up with technology, but doesn’t have Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). This is when you try so hard to keep up with EVERYTHING (it’s impossible these days), that you end up spreading yourself thin and being a generalist at all of it rather than an expert at a few things. Make sure to be well-versed and keep up with cutting edge tech and software, but adopt only those that are essential to your business. You’ll get to know these quickly over time – ever-changing technology requires a rubric for assessment, and you’ll streamline this process according to your business’ needs. This is, itself, resourcefulness; being able to quickly assess whether or not a new gadget is going to benefit your business.
Bravery in Marketing
Creativity almost always involves bravery. When you’re presenting a new set of logo sketches to a client, you have to put on your brave cap, because you are attempting to define a business’ entire personality and mission/vision with a single mark and perhaps some words. Be bold, be brave, be confident! This is no time to have self-doubt or second guess yourself. Your client needs to feel your confidence. For some clients this is a huge decision in their business, so they really need you to be brave for them. Likewise, in any business, there are times when the stakes are high and you have to put on the brave face so that your clients can have confidence in you and thus their choice to hire you.
Passion in Marketing
Is your business thriving? If the answer is yes, chances are you are passionate about what you do. Even if you are not the business owner, being a passionate employee of a company means you take ownership of the company and your work. Make no mistake, passion is palpable and contagious. If you are pitching a new client, a project to your boss or even a logo like I mentioned above, your passion will infect the people to whom you are speaking. People will catch your excitement! If you are not exactly passionate about what you do or your company, find some element of your work to be passionate about. Not only will you be happier, so will your coworkers, your boss, and your clients.
Avoid: Distrust in Marketing
Now, we may have been burned a couple times in business and relationships, but let’s keep an open mind for our clients and colleagues. Distrust is such a negative state that it may affect many aspects of your life and business. For example, I was about to start a new project with a client who has proven to be slightly difficult in the past; I didn’t trust that they were going to be respectful of me or my team. Going into the project, I predicted all the ways the client would be difficult and kept practicing in my mind all the responses I would have to their negativity. It was so bad that I lost sleep the night before a big meeting and felt anxious the next morning. Well, we had our meeting that morning, and it went so smoothly that I had to kick myself for all the negative energy that I suffered through for the 24 hours leading up to the meeting. That was self-inflicted, and thankfully no one felt my negativity. Don’t make my mistake – try to give people the benefit of the doubt. It will be more pleasant for you.
Avoid: Jealousy in Marketing
Jealousy is such an unpleasant emotion and can stem from self-doubt. Steer clear of this one in all aspects of life, but I’ll tell you why it’s especially important in business. Jealousy can turn you into a petty person, and this will ward off clients, recruits, and even friends. No one wants to be around or work with a petty person. Find your niche, find your passion, and do the best you can in that. If someone is doing it better, study how they do what they do, and seek to improve. The only way to overcome jealousy and self-doubt is to work harder at what you do and when you’re on the path to be the best, you won’t have time to be jealous.
Have you ever experienced any of the above traits in your marketing campaigns or business? We’d love to hear your stories, the good, the bad, and the ugly!
