At the end of every semester, I end with "The 3 Rules of Jack" which focus on life lessons. Rule #2 is to consistently practice life-long learning in everything that one does. Maybe that's an advanced degree (60% of my students do this post graduation). Maybe it's an individual work-related course, or perhaps it's pursuing a personal love of painting or sailing, learning another language, or in my wife's case, welding. After watching two generations of students and many, many generations of friends, those individuals that are the most stimulating, those that have the most fun, and those that live the longest are those who stretch themselves to continuously learn.
Nowhere is Continuous Learning better lived than in Marketing today!
For me, there are two critical personal takeaways from teaching Marketing and Sales at The Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
#1 is about seeing my students develop in real time watching them activate solutions in team-based, semester-long projects working directly with senior management. Real life applied learning which is rewarding for the students as they move on to get jobs in the field! Very exciting for me personally to live directly in the vortex of both a digital and non-digital world that changes dramatically every year.
#2 is to have the ability to learn up front and personal from the leading experts in the field. Reading David Meerman Scott's book-The New Rules of Marketing & PR- is a requirement to have finished just to get into the course. The first 20 minutes of the course consist of a stand-up discussion on the details of the book. Students also need to be HubSpot certified in Inbound Marketing, a marketing concept which David and the founders of HubSpot created at the inception of the company.
Listening and actively engaging with David this Wednesday in our class talking about the future of AI in Marketing and fielding questions about tactical applications to the students' projects was an extraordinary example of continuous learning and applied academics at its best. There are lots of marketing gurus and probably tens of thousands of books (I know I own 100+), but no one expresses the real-life combination of personal passion with the exacting clarity of marketing in today's rapidly changing world better than David!
working on your 2025 Marketing Planning!
For a few ideas on your own marketing planning for 2025, click here for our Writing the Winning Sales Plan, and Writing the Winning Marketing Plan, outlining a few ideas on structure, models, process funnels, and productivity tools.
Give me a call and let's discuss having us facilitate your 2025 planning process. I drive a ton of miles every week, and there's nothing better than having a call to talk about your current 2025 thinking as I challenge the wicked end-of-day commute out of Boston.
www.derbymanagement.com
Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
