My "WHY?"

Have you ever been told that in order to progress in your career you need to develop or acquire new skills, gain new knowledge, take this training course, participate in innovative project…? However it is never enough to make the big leap, isn’t it?  Sure, it happened. And to very big extend that is true. Taking course or certification is not the only thing you have to do. What is missing in that perfect picture is what nobody is telling you. But let me first start with my story. I am a marketing and CX professional with experience of over 25 years already. I got my high school education, then I landed in University. An what did I discovered? I realised that there are so many things I don’t know…. Ok? "Do not worry", I said to myself.  "This is the purpose of education - to understand and learn what you need in order to become successful in your life." And once being in University, the highest (almost) level of educational system, it meant I was close to the finish line.  Thanks, but no thanks. This was not at all the situation. What rarely someone in the conventional education system is telling you (at least at the territory I am leaving my life) is that University is not last point but the start, actually, in your learning curve and and what really matters is not the theory but how you manage to apply this theory in the real life. However this part is fully missing and no one spent even a moment to show me how to do that. And marketing, believe me, is quite complex and different for products which you may touch or services that you may possibly feel and from one industry to another there is huge specifics. And what “common theory” is telling about key components of the discipline made sense in practice but after years of trial and failure….  So, I got my diploma in marketing and started looking for opportunities to apply my knowledge. I got lucky as I found companies which were willing to invest in me and utilise my “theory” experience to up-skill me and show me how the things happens in reality.  You know, marketing is all about customers. However, in theory customers are seen as segments, as users, as personas. Marketing is also product design and management, price, communications, distribution, etc…… So, for many years I kept learning on the job and trying to develop my skills with different trainings in order to become successful. However “connecting the dots” was my responsibility and very often making link between one course and another was really impossible.  Finally I realised that from customer point of view (which always should be the starting point) marketing is a journey which customer is experiencing with brand, products and/or services, communications, employees, channels, website, apps, …. and so on. It goes this way, not vice-versa. But in companies I got experience it was rarely that perspective. In the course of my career I met many people and many of them had exactly the same problem. Investing in themselves with trainings and experience on the job and progressing but slowly and after many years of hard work… Realising that, I started to think how I would be able to help (young but not only) professionals who are struggling to advance in their career. Then everything I acquired as experience, knowledge, practice in my career made perfect sense.  This is how I developed my Customer experience training program. This program is designed in a way to give you practical framework (I believe theory you already know) which once applied leads to concrete results.  You may decide how to apply it your way but if you stick to the framework itself results will be visible. It will also give you sense how to promote customer culture within entire organisation in order to utilise efforts for the customer’s benefit. Holding the knowledge and tools in your hands you would demonstrate that you can approach Customer experience subject strategically and would contribute to your company growth. And this would be really powerful for your position in the company and your career in general. Even not targeting board seat your voice would be powerful. If I knew earlier what I know now it would be much easier for me to navigate my career. However, no one helped me. It was me, myself and I. And now, my customer experience program is here to support YOU in your journey.