Last week Kathy Sierra wrote a post, Marketing Should Be Education, Education Should Be Marketing, that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. In the post, Kathy does a nice job explain what she thinks marketing and education could to learn from each other.
…in my perfect world, marketers and teachers exchange research and techniques, and by applying marketing to teaching and teaching to marketing, everyone benefits.
Kathy goes on to suggest that marketers could learn ‘honesty and integrity’ from teachers, while teachers could learn ‘what turns the brain on.’ Very interesting ideas. The post is a nice read. I certainly suggest it.
But helping teachers ‘turn on the brain’ wasn’t what I’ve been thinking about. What I have been mulling over is what I do for a living. Sure, on the surface I’m a website developer. If you go a little deeper, I’m actually a business developer, coach, mentor and consultant who helps build and grow small businesses through their websites. So really I work with life, business and spiritual coaches; consultants of all types; marketers; and other types of service providers.
Yet, at my own core, I don’t really think of myself as a website developer. Nor as a business coach or marketing consultant. Really, I think of myself as an educator. A teacher. Someone who evaluates what my clients need to learn in order to grow a successful business and then teaches it to them.
So while I use terms like coach, consultant or web developer to describe what I do, none of them really give people the full spectrum of what I offer. So I’m putting my stake in the ground today – I’m a teacher. Not just a teacher, of course. But I am a teacher.
That makes me wonder how many of us are actually teachers – even though we call ourselves something else!
Many bloggers seem like educators me. When I read Ben Yoskovitz, Mike Sansone, The Blog Squad, or any number of bloggers who focus on business blogging, they seem as much like teachers as consultants. That’s why I’m lead to ask this question…
Are you really a marketer, consultant, coach, blogger, etc? Or are you a teacher?
I haven´t thought of myself this way, but I might be both a student and a teacher, well, I might as well be a marketer, a blogger and a consultant and so on.
I think that it all depends. Some of my posts are questions to things I just don´t know anything about, and I hope somebody will stop by and give me some answers. Other posts are more ideas that I have and want to share with others and sometimes I promote some of the stuff that will earn me some money.
So, I guess I consider myself all of the above 🙂
I’ve found that the best teachers always consider themselves students as well. I know I feel like a student as much as a teacher. And I remember that I know more about some things than others. My job, then, becomes about sharing what I know.
Interesting correlation between the two . . . teaching and marketing. I’ve always thought teachers have the toughest sales job in the world!
Ed
http://www.CarolinaEventPlanning.com
Carolina Event Planning,
I would agree – in school. In this context, I see a teacher as someone who educates business owners on how to…whatever. They’re different than an consultant or a coach in that they offer a bit of a classroom setting for learning.
this business advisory site is very helpful! All the articles are timely and newsworthy keep up the good work!
marketing consulting is very important because online investors must hear from you constantly.
I really like were you talked about teaching and marketing..Just like it says above i also believe that teachers have the hardest sales job..
Tattoo,
Thanks. What drew you to this one?
hotels,
Perhaps. But could you clarify your point?
Repair,
They do. And a good teacher sells without trying to sell. When you teach someone about something they need in a way they understand they need it, the selling is mostly done.
Thoughts?