I was talking to a clown the other day, and there’s one thing you need to do when talking to a clown:
Take good notes.
Within five seconds of her talking about the art of clown — and it is an art form — my gears were turning.
The clown, Lindsay, asked me, “You know what’s the First Rule of Clown?”
I can’t remember the last time I was this intrigued.
I’m paraphrasing here, as I was too excited to capture it all verbatim, but Lindsay said the First Rule of Clown goes something like this:
To be a clown, you need to take on an impossible task and try to complete it.
Attempt to complete an impossible task.
Wow. Clowns are… deep.
Four points are inherent in this:
1) Since the task is impossible, the clown is always failing.
2) The more impossible the task, the funnier it is to watch.
3) The more effort that the clown puts into completing the task, the more entertaining it gets.
4) The failure is public.
Put that together, and here’s how a clown fulfills their potential:
The First Rule of Clown is that you must publicly attempt to complete the most impossible task with the most possible effort.
As soon as Lindsay told me about this, I had that look I sometimes get when clowns talk to me. I started composing a column draft in my head.
I was thinking, “Who does this sound like?”
I knew the answer right away. Entrepreneurs. Founders. Anyone attempting to achieve what seems like the impossible.
The difference between a prodigy and a clown is that a prodigy is what you get when someone tries to be a clown — and fails.
Prodigies look like clowns. They attempt something ambitious. They put ideas out there. They build in public.
Most of the time, they fail. And people think they’re clowns.
They should be proud to be clowns.
It means they’re doing something no one in their right mind would dare to do.
They’re brave enough to have others watch them attempt the impossible.
They seem to have fun doing it. They don’t want to be doing anything else.
And they know full well, whether in their hearts or minds or both, that the odds are that they will fail.
But once in a while, the clown fails to be a clown.
They take on the impossible, and they succeed.
It’s not so funny anymore. It’s not as entertaining.
They did what they set out to do.
They’re no longer clowns. They’re prodigies!
They’re cheered and revered and sometimes still jeered.
But they’re not as fun to watch anymore.
At least, until they take on the impossible again, and fail.
So how are you going to be a clown this year?
How can I help you up the odds that you’ll be considered a prodigy when you’re through?
More importantly, how can the Serial Marketers community help you?
How can we all help each other in all of our clowning, just in the off chance that we fail at fulfilling our clown potential?
That’s what I want to know as we start the year.
There’s no way to have a happier New Year though than to embrace all the ways you will be clowning in the year ahead.
Succeed or fail at clownhood, the community and I are here for you.
Happy New Year.
David
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- Mediaocean Appoints David Berkowitz As SVP Corporate Marketing And Communications
- Serial Marketers End of Year Celebration by Joseph Jaffe and Serial Marketers (video)
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EVENTS
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January 16-18
“No matter what the world has thrown at us, NRF has been there to unite, guide and provide critical insights to the retail industry. We’re excited to bring Retail’s Big Show back to NYC in 2022, not just to help retail move forward, but speed ahead.”
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ASCENT SAAS: SPOTLIGHT ON MARKETING
January 19
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VON3 SUMMIT
January 24-26
Via Jeff Pulver
Catch David speaking here on January 25. Via Jeff Pulver: “Historically my VON conferences helped accelerate the global growth of the Voice on the Net and Video on the Net worlds. VON helped usher in a new era in global communications. I envision similar opportunities at VON3. While elements of Web3 have been around for a few years, I believe now is the time to start pushing forward and explore the brave new opportunities available because of Web3.”
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JOBS
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Keep checking out the #jobs channel in Serial Marketers for more. Better yet, subscribe to get updates from our job listing board. Here are some great opportunities shared in these places or sent to me directly.
GEOSPARK ANALYTICS
Head of Marketing
Remote
“Geospark Analytics is looking for a global growth-focused marketer to build and execute on our brand and marketing strategy. Building on our innovative foundations, we are after a leader who can build a strategic program to execute our category creation and digital marketing ambitions.”
Apply
THE SYNDICATE
National Publicist
“The Syndicate is expanding its publicity department and is seeking an experienced and motivated national publicist to join our team. We’re looking for someone with extensive relationships within the entertainment and media worlds, who will bring their passion to our diverse roster of clients.”
Apply
JUST GLOBAL
Manager, Marketing Communications
England-based
Via Meagan in the community
“This role is highly complex in nature as it functions across all departments within the agency and a successful candidate must be a dynamic learner with the ability to orchestrate and complete projects across teams and regions. You have high standards for your work. You’re not afraid to ask questions. You’re adept at delivering strategic, creative and effective marketing communications through multiple formats. You are constantly pushing to build and expand relationships, produce creative and effective communications and find ways to offer strategic value to the marketplace that will generate more opportunities for Just Global.”
Apply
COMPSTAK
VP Marketing
NY
Via Yuval in the community
“CompStak envisions a commercial real estate industry in which accurate and transparent data leads to better, faster deals for everyone. We gather critical information that is hard to access, then make it instantly and seamlessly available to our platform members. We are seeking a motivated, experienced and proven marketing leader to join CompStak as the VP, Marketing. In this position you will be responsible for the strategic planning, coordinating, and execution of Marketing efforts while leading the Marketing team.”
Apply
SENTIENT DECISION SCIENCE
Several roles
Boston or NYC
Via Todd in the community:
“If you or someone you know have an interest in joining a team using the best data-based behavioral science tech in the MRX industry, we are hiring at Sentient Decision Science on our #Advertising #Creative evaluation product team for several roles.”
Apply
Find more open roles via Candidate.co. Refer yourself or your friends, and get rewarded for supporting your network.
Also, check out the Serial Marketers job board.
Other job resources:
- Advisable: Get instant access to top marketing freelancers
- AMA Job Board: Listings from the American Marketing Association (maybe you can also ask them anything)
- Beeler.Tech: Job listings for ad operations, programmatic account management, sales operations, and more.
- Before: A talent matching platform with the mission to end bias in the hiring process.
- Braintrust: A new freelance platform where you are the owner and where freelance talent keeps 100% of the bill rate.
- Built in NYC: Jobs at a range of levels and functions, as long as you’re okay working in this quaint, backwater hamlet.
- CareerList: Here’s a form for companies hiring and a form for job seekers; here’s the public list with tabs for both
- Content Writing Jobs: Content marketers, enjoy
- Creative Women of Color: List yourself in the database and find talent, via Women Who Create
- Demand Curve: Growth and marketing jobs
- DiscoverTheTalent: An initiative designed to build partnerships with businesses to advocate, train, and hire military spouses
- ExecThread: Senior roles spanning a range of verticals and cities; membership is free but fully vetted (this uses my referral ID to get you in faster)
- Ex-Equinox Media Talent: A spreadsheet of available talent (permission given by those listed) who are recent ex-Equinox media folks.
- Gently Ventures: Helps scale businesses by finding the right talent
- GLG: Get paid to share your topical expertise; it can lead to some interesting conversations at a potentially decent hourly rate
- Growth Collective: Apply to join this network of notable freelance marketers
- Grace Blue Transitions: A portal for hirers and seekers with resources from this exec recruiting firm
- The Hired Guns: An array of jobs in marketing and related fields at brands, agencies, and media companies
- Hue: Amplifying voices of people in color working in marketing
- Hunterz: A way for connectors to get paid to introduce startups to large enterprises
- Lead5: A paid service for executive roles, plus intel on changes with companies and PE investments; you can try a risk-free weeklong trial to see if it’s any good for your needs
- Lunch Club: Match 1:1 around predetermined goals with accomplished professionals (free)
- NYC Ad Jobs & Networking: A popular Facebook group
- One Club for Creativity: COVID-19 jobs Board
- #OpenToWork: There’s a channel in Serial Marketers where you can share what you’re looking for
- Pangea: Where you can hire college freelancers (and college students can get gigs)
- Pocit: A platform connecting people of color with jobs in the tech industry
- Questions to Ask for a Marketing Role: What questions should you ask when starting a new marketing role or job?
- Remotists: Remote startup jobs, chronicled weekly
- Sales Hustle Stack: Find platform-based gigs and other creative ways to earn some extra cash
- Serial Marketers Job Board: Post regular and featured listings and subscribe for updates.
- Startup.Jobs: There’s a section for marketing jobs
- Teal: One place to organize and manage your job search.
- TechNY Daily: While more technical, there are also some sales and marketing jobs at NY startups.
- VC Job Boards: Aleph, Eniac Ventures, Pear, Sequoia, Union Square Ventures
- VentureLoop: Free startup job listings; their paid option is $15/month and might surface more leads (but it might not).
- Venwise: Submit your job interests here and get in front of their roster of hiring leads; select “Serial Marketers” under “How did you find us”
- Wanted: Wanted helps top talent in tech and marketing find a job at your desired pay.
Do you run or enjoy other job listing sites? Let me know, and I’ll share them.
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OFFERS
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Below are offers extended to the Serial Marketers community. To share your own or access the Premium member discounts, review membership options here.
GPO: Generate at least 20% more organic traffic. Doing a strong job in SEO but wonder if more traffic can be had? GPO will custom-build an AWS instance that will become a subdomain of your site, and generate at least 20% more traffic the first year. Contact Cory Cox in the community to redeem.
ContactSmarter: ContactSmarter is an AI tool that generates over 40% call booking rates without requiring human intervention. More details.
Markman Speaker Management: Get 15% off the half-day customized virtual training session “Get Speaking Engagements” for individuals or corporate staff through Sept. 30, 2021. Contact Steve Markman to redeem.
Thece: Get 10% off their Getting Started Kit — just let them know Serial Marketers sent you.
FocusedFounder
Get 5% back on any bookings of the Focus, Growth, and ReFocus plan. To receive your rebate, please contact me after you book the course.
My Software Tutor
My Software Tutor is offering all Excel and PPT courses through December 2021 at 50% off listed price. Learn the practical skills you need to succeed. Use promo code: SERIAL50. This code can be shared with friends and family. Register today on the MST website.
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Get 10% discounts on campaigns. ReverseAds reverses the search ad process, outperforming Google at a fraction of the cost. To redeem, contact Thom Feltz by email.
Northarc Media
Marc Lefton is offering brands a free one-hour consultation on your media mix to show how you can integrate programmatic. For agencies, you can get a free one-hour consultation on how to add programmatic to your service offerings. To redeem, contact Marc by email.
Secret
Sign up and use the promo code SERIALMARKETERS to get 20% off on any membership plan. Membership enables you to access all deals with unlimited usage. One deal should more than pay for itself.
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Create an account and start a 7-day free trial for $125 in ad spend credit toward your first experiment with this multivariate testing platform. Redeem here. (Premium members get $175 in credit with a custom code)
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Following a 7-day trial of this AI-powered marketing tool to generate ads, product descriptions, and more, use code SERIALMARKETERS for 35% off any plan for 3 months (premium subscribers get 50% off for 4 months).
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