What’s the Conversion Rate On Your Life?

only change will bring
you out of the darkness
in this moment everything is born again
reach up for the sunrise
put your hands into the big sky
you can touch the sunrise
feel the new day enter your life

So, here we are – in the dog days of summer and getting ready for the race to the end of the year.    Quick side note – did you know that the origins of the “Dog Days” are from the Greeks? They associated the hottest time of year with Sirius (the “dog star”) – the brightest star in the sky.

Anyway, if you’re at all like me – and you’re about to contemplate work and life-type things at the beach, or on that flight to grandma’s house, or while you’re waiting on line for the Rockin Roller Coaster at Disney – ask yourself this:

Am I Measuring What I Care About Most?

This year is one of “change” for many of us.  Fundamental change.  Here are just a few observations I’ve had over the past month or so:

• Marketing is becoming more, not less, important. It’s a good time to be in the marketing, social media, engagement and/or analytics business.  According to SimplyHired, the number of marketing jobs being placed have increased 38% in the last 18 months.   Jobs with “social media” attached to them have increased 238%.   And jobs with “engagement” or “analytics” in the listing have increased 70% and 118% respectively.

• Our colleagues are changing. No matter how old you are, there are fundamental shifts going on in with whom we’ll be working.  Over the next few years, millions of our Boomer colleagues will be leaving the “full-time” employed workforce.  But they won’t necessarily be retiring.  Many will start their own businesses.  And, they’ll be replaced by waves of Millenials who want very different things out of careers than either Boomers or Gen X’ers.

  Remember, the new grads entering the workforce this year, started college in 2006 with 5 years of huge economic expansion in their sails.  Disposable income was up, corporate earnings were up and the unemployment rate hovered right around 5%.   Then, while these kids learned how to learn, they watched the bottom fall out from underneath them.  They spent their time in college watching the worst recession in our lifetimes come and now (hopefully) go.  When they get back in the Fall from backpacking in Europe – they’re going to hit our marketing teams with a significant impact.  We will need new skills to manage them well.

• Marketing and brand management are shifting.   We’re all becoming aware of the fundamental shifts in marketing of course.  Brands are growing out of being “status” driven and are becoming “experiences” and “beliefs” (some would argue this is as it should always be).   And, we’re all learning about the importance of balancing engagement and measurement.   In today’s environment – the question isn’t; should we measure?  No, the question is: “are we measuring what matters?”

But what about us?  Are we measuring what matters about us?

Our Career Isn’t Our Marketing Dashboard

As we come out of the dog days of Summer, and the recession ends – and before we hit the sprint that is the third and fourth quarter, it’s a good time for a little reflection.

Sometimes, we get so lost in managing the marketing dashboards for our company’s performance – that we lose perspective on where we are as individuals.   We start looking at the historical performance of those dashboards as an indicator of OUR value.   How productive were we?  How influential are we?  How much incremental value have wegenerated?

Here’s the thing.  If we’re going to change with the times – those methods of measurement have to change too.

The level playing field we’re all on is that no one really knows where all these shifts are taking us.  We all know our marketing strategies are changing – and over time we want to make those changes to improve them.   But we’re all going to fail as much as we succeed.  And as we learn we will, indeed, create new measuring techniques to manage it.

But while you’re doing this, don’t forget to make your own changes as well.   Your ultimate value as a marketer in whatever organization your work for, isn’t producing 10 more leads per month, 35% more traffic, or a 25% reduction in cost-per-acquisition.

Your value is in the unique “you” that you bring to the marketing organization.  You create value through the human connections you forge through personal relationships.  Your value is the compelling content you create – telling the story of the organization.   Your value is the Big Idea you generate to make that brand immersive. Experiential.  A Belief.

And that value isn’t measured in a dashboard, or bullet points on a resume.  It’s measured inyour Experience.  Your Story. Your Beliefs.

So, as the year progresses, watch for the Dog Star – the brightest star – to get higher and higher in the sky.   To find it, just follow Orion’s belt (easy to find) about 20 degrees southeast.  If you hold your fist up at arm’s length – that covers about 10 degrees of sky.

So, two fists to the southeast and you should find it.  It’ll get higher and higher in your sky as we get into Fall and Winter (unless you live south of the equator). And, let’s use that star rising as time to get our own, new, measuring devices in order.

In the immortal words of Duran Duran let’s put our hands into the big sky, touch the sunrise and feel the new day enter our lives.