As career professionals we are entitled to think that we possess a panacea for future decision making. At our fingertips; current labour market information, tools for self assessment and a yellow brick road to gaining fundamental skills for work. Why then might we ask, are our clients not beating a path to our doorstep? Why aren't students and parents alike clamouring to bask in our knowledge?
The truth is that what we are offering, however vital we believe it to be is only ever sought out in times of dire need. Like check-ups with a GP are avoided at all cost and health warnings on cigarettes are ignored. The sensible advice and guidance we offer that can enable clear and considered decision making is often only considered necessary the day before UCAS deadline day, or after the unrealistic aims that a client has set themselves are not realised.
So let us consider this from another perspective. We are the product, our clients the market place.
To paraphrase Seth Godin - traditional attempts to garner consumer support are a waste of time. Let us instead win the right to communicate by giving them something they want. Once this relationship is created we then have an open and constant dialogue available to allow us to dispense our pearls of wisdom to the masses.
Inspired by this article.
That's a really valid point.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of marketing is the idea of educating your customers. Sometimes people don't know that they need something until you draw their attention to it. But in order to guide their attention you have to be saying something they are primed to hear in the first place, which may mean that you have to be educated by them!
Of course, to make people aware of a need, you could try to induce some form of dissatisfaction by heightening their sensitivity to things they are missing out on or falling behind on.
However, ignorance is not the only reason they are not beating a path to our door.
People (especially young people) often engage in short-term, linear thinking, never looking beyond the next goal or challenge. This means that those of us in the long-term decision making trade are not on their radar at all. Maybe we need to tie the longer term stuff to the short term decisions that they are having to make on a daily basis.
Another reason they avoid us is fear. Making long-term decisions is a hard and scary process. There are big risks involved and the danger of messing up is real. It's easier to avoid thinking about it altogether. Perhaps we need to make the first steps as easy and non-threatening as possible as well as thinking about how we show them that they can do what it takes.
Whatever the case, starting where they are is likely to be the most effective policy.