Every now and then I have the good fortune of being asked to spend some time with new college grads or students who are approaching graduation. I love taking time to help them figure out what comes next and I always find the questions they ask about the marketing industry, the business world, and professional development to be really interesting.
Not long ago, I had a student in my office who was trying to better understand how my profession works and what her future would look like. Close to the end of the time we spent together, she asked me, “What is the best advice you could give someone my age who is about to enter the career field?”
Of course, there are a million and one ways this question can be answered, and I’ve definitely been asked this exact question before. When this comes up, I do my best to curate my answer based on what else they’ve asked me and what I think will be most helpful to that individual. Sometimes my response has been about work ethic or perseverance. I’ve talked about learning how to develop a network of people who will support you as you grow in your career. In this case, I considered telling her about being prepared to face failure and how to do that gracefully.
Instead, that day, what I decided to fall right out of my mouth was,
“You know that saying about faking it until you make it? Forget it. Pretend you’ve never heard it. Never, ever be afraid to admit when you don’t know something. Never pretend to have skills you don’t. You are so much better off telling someone that you don’t know, but you will be happy to learn.”
The more I think about that advice, the more I realize that I really wish someone had told me that when I was 18 as opposed to me figuring it out on my own around 22 or 23. I think about how much heartache I would’ve saved myself had I realized then that I didn’t need to know everything, that no one does, and that most sensible people know and accept that fact. I also think about the number of people I know whom I’m not sure have learned that lesson yet. At any age, anyone can use a reminder that while you might not know the right solution to every problem that doesn’t make you less valuable, less intelligent, or less worthy.
Marketing can be a high-pressure profession. It can be grueling if you let it. There’s no need to make it that much harder on yourself by thinking that you always have to know the right answer to every question. Remember, you may be the marketing expert, but your client is the expert in their field, and when it comes right down to it, they will always know something you don’t.
Don’t fake it until you make it. Be genuine, transparent, honest and build your professional relationships on a foundation of trust and integrity. Trying to seem like the smartest person in the room will only build you a shaky foundation waiting for one mishap to make it crumble.
