Unemployment Sucks

If you're not building your business, you're already unemployed.

Yesterday I was reminded of the fact that the job market has not improved much in the past few years. While I was able to get our of unemployment a few times (the most recent case by creating a position for myself) there are those who still struggle, either unemployed or underemployed. Here is a post that I wrote back in 2009 after I was laid-off from a company that isn’t even in business anymore (at least not in the form it was when I worked there).

These days there is a lot of talk about unemployment and there should be. With national unemployment at it’s highest since I was born a lot of people are worried about how secure their job is and what they would do if they were told their services were no longer needed. Now, you are probably asking yourself what this has to do with marketing. Someone told me once, if you own your own business or are responsible for a business, you are unemployed everyday… until you do something that benefits the business.

Business owners wear many hats, from stockboy to CEO. Marketing is often not something they are necessarily good at, at least in my experience. My agency has worked for many small businesses and start-ups and have come across many types. There are people who know (or think they know) all about marketing and what needs to be done for their company, the business owners who know their business really well, but understand they are not marketers and ask for our suggestions and help. Then there are the people who think they know all about marketing but are spinning their wheels trying too hard at things that aren’t effective for their business.

Those who do their own marketing well, or who hire marketers such as myself are not unemployed because they are doing something to grow their business and reach their customers. Those people who think they know all about marketing and are really not doing anything for their business are (marketing-wise) unemployed. Their business is not benefiting from meaningful marketing activities. They might as well be playing games on Facebook. I hope that everyone can see which of these groups that you or your clients fit into. Don’t be unemployed, it sucks.

I bring this subject up because in addition to freelance marketing and advertising consulting and writing for this blog I have spent the last 4 months working full-time for a decent sized national corporation doing corporate communications. Friday morning the VP-Marketing came to my office and informed me that due to budget cutbacks they would be cutting my position. Now I am back to being on my own in business and I find that I have gotten too relaxed. I have not been marketing my own business because I was busy working on some else’s business. There is nothing wrong with working for someone else, but now I am in search of more clients.

Update: Since this was originally posted on FryThoseEggs.com, I have spent time building my agency business and spent some time in corporate marketing as well. I am happy to say that from both sides of the industry I have found some great people to work with and yes, I am always still looking for new challenges and companies to work with.