Dan Kelsall

A lot of people ask me, “Dan, you’re such a successful business legend, what did it take for you to get to where you are now?”

I lie. No one asks me that. But if they did, I’m not sure I want to tell them how I got here, because it’s been a weird journey.

A journey that most people would look at and go, “What the fuck was he thinking?”

But, as it’s December and we all need cheering up after party boy Boris waddled into our lives with his confusing rules again, I thought I’d tell the story of my many failed business attempts so you can all laugh at my expense.

Bon appetit.

Most days, I’m not really sure what I’m doing. I’m not that bright, or a particularly fast learner. I’m to Steve Jobs what a slug is to a unicorn.

But, over the last few months, as Offended.marketing has grown and gradually penetrated everything from small startups to the upper echelons of enterprises, like some sort of lube-less, content strap-on, I have come to learn one universal business truth:


ᑎO OᑎE, ᗩᑎᗪ I ᗰEᗩᑎ ᑎO OᑎE, ᕼᗩᔕ ᗩ ᖴųᑕKIᑎG ᑕᒪᑌE ᗯᕼᗩT TᕼEY’ᖇE ᗪOIᑎG.


So, if I can give you anything from my business journey so far, it’s that lesson right there.

As you were.

DK.

If you’re tossing yourself or your business off at the minute about how well you’re doing ‘despite the pandemic’, stop it.

It’s not that you don’t deserve to be proud of your achievements. It’s not that it’s not great that your business is doing well.

It’s that when you’re spouting off about your new car, or the fact your company's growing whilst your competitors sink all around you, or flicking your bean over the fact you’ve managed to adapt your model to the pandemic because you’re smarter than the rest of us, whilst we’re in the middle of the biggest shitshow most of us will ever experience, when tons of people are, and will be, out of jobs, and where our futures (yes, even yours) are more uncertain than ever before, you’re being a bit of a, well…

...an insensitive c...

(Was going to use the C bomb then but pretty sure that’d be my one way ticket to a LinkedIn ban.)

Sure, tell us when good things happen.

Just do it with a bit of empathy please, knobheads.

Cheers.

My tips on getting into marketing or creative roles when you don’t have any experience.

1. Don’t bother. There’s more money in accountancy. Or coding. Or renting out pedalos. Most things, really.

2. Stop waiting to learn shit. Marketing isn’t aeronautical engineering. You don’t need CIM after your name or a 1st class hons in Advertising Psychology. Want to write? Write. Design? Get yourself an Adobe subscription and learn from Youtube. Tenner bet, anyone who disagrees with this is marketing qual’d up to the eyeballs.

3. Focus some of your time on coming up with ideas. There are shed-loads of people who can make stuff look shiny. But not a lot of good ideas about. Coming up with creative ideas, like anything else, is a skill. Funnily enough, you get better at it the more you do it.

4. Build your own profile up. You don’t need to do free work for shady brands who can’t be arsed paying for stuff. Use that time to create good content for your own channel. Build up a following. (Doesn’t have to be massive.) Opportunities will come.

5. Make sure your application matches the job you’re after. If you apply for a copywriting role and your cover letter is about as titillating as a tour round Stockport’s Hat Museum, you’re not getting a carrot. If you fancy a junior design role but you have no portfolio and your CV looks like it’s been designed by David Blunkett on ketamine, it’s not happening.

6. If you want to get into marketing, show people you can market yourself. Applying to be a social media exec when you can only manage 2 likes on your own posts, one from you, one from your mum, doesn’t really scream, “I’m worth a shot.”

7. Show you understand the need for results. I meet people all the time (some who already work in the industry) who want to design pretty pictures but don’t really give a shit who it’s for or where it goes. That’s not marketing, that’s called being an artist, and whilst there’s not much money in marketing, there’s absolutely fuck all in being an artist.

8. Make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into, and you’re not just doing it because it sounds ‘fun’. Even though there’s a low barrier to entry in this industry, if you’re crap, or a coaster, you’ll get found out quickly. Oh, and people will tell other people about you. Ain’t nothing quite as bitchy as the marketing industry.


End note: Young, glossy-eyed, ambitious job seekers, whilst this advice might seem much harsher than that peddled by the influencers and gurus on here, it’s also important to remember that they’re full of shit.

Cheers.

Dan