Career Advice: "Stability through Versatility"

SEATTLE, WA - Odds are maybe 0.02% that you're a drummer, and only slightly higher that you're a musician.  No matter!  Marketing careerists, watch this video.  There's great career advice here.

Rod Morgenstein is one of the world's greatest rock drummers.

With the Dixie Dregs in the late 70's and early 80's, Mr. Morgenstein became well known for his playing on songs like Take It Off the Top.  The Dreg's Grammy-nominated sound was like a southern boogie version of the Jeff Beck Group -- and as band's popularity grew by leaps and bounds, it never occurred to Mr. Morgenstein that it could all end.

Then the Dregs broke up, and after knocking around for several years as a session player, Mr. Morgenstein learned to simplify his playing -- and then became really famous with the often-parodied hair band, Winger.  Talk about humility.  He was totally amazing, but he had to DE-volve in order to succeed anew.  Now he's 55, and he's more relevant and vital than ever.  He's on to a new iteration, this time as a percussion educator at Berklee -- the Harvard of music.

As you watch the video, please make the following word substitutions:

• Band = Company or special department /team
• Rolling Stones = Apple or Google
• Guitar, keyboards = Alternative marketing medium
• Musician = Business man/woman
• Music = Marketing
• Tarantella = Direct mail

Lessons for marketers:

1. Prepare for the day when you are no longer cool -- or when you are looking for work.  I can relate to Mr. Morgenstein, who says "When the band was doing great and we had been nominated for a Grammy, it never occurred to me to promote myself as an individual."  Gentle reader, please embrace the idea that YOU are your own product.  YOU are a free agent.
2. Learn to diversify your skills.  The more you can diversify your marketing knowledge, the more career stability you will enjoy.  It's a paradox:  Be a passionate specialist, but learn other marketing media so that you can borrow them and adapt them to your own work.  I love Mr. Morgenstein's comment: "Anytime you think something is beneath you -- you just don't get it."  Beautiful.  How many marketing heroes do you have?  For 2009, your goal should be to DOUBLE that number and really pick apart your new heroes' body of work.  Get granular -- just like John Moore has done with his amazing IDB Project.  It's true: If you really want to learn something, TEACH IT to others.
3. Be open to new opportunities.  From a survival perspective, if your goal is to always do what you love (as opposed to flipping burgers), then be open to new opportunities.  24/7.  You never know where a part-time, interim, or consulting project can lead.  If an acquaintance asks you to work on a project outside of your regular day job, go for it!  Diversify.  Experiment.  Push yourself.
4. Always bring your A-game.  These part-time, interim, or consulting opportunities are not always about the money.  Use them to broaden your horizons and build your following.
5. Challenge yourself.  I like Mr. Morgenstein's advice to "Until your last dying breath, dig deeper to find another part of who you are.  It will keep your career exciting."

Looking at these five tips, there's nothing new here.

What I love about GREAT musicians (both the famous and obscure) is that they grow up dreaming about being musicians, practicing long hours and hardening their commitment to their instrument.  Then after they turn pro, they spend the rest of their lives evolving and perfecting their craft -- both mentally and physically.

It never seriously occurs to great musicians to do anything else for a living.  There's a kind of "marital bond" with their instrument, where the musician marries his childhood sweetheart (an oboe or whatever) and dies in her presence 70 years later.  Talk about passionate commitment.

How many marketers do you know like that?  (Besides Seth Godin and John Moore and Hugh MacLeod!)