"Great teachers instinctively understand that teaching and marketing are essentially the same thing," said Mike Connor, President of Connor Associates.
I've been reading a lot about my profession online and a common consensus comes about perceptions as teachers: teachers are marketers. Teachers have to sell the content they teach in a way students find compelling, establish trust with students, and satisfy their bosses and administrators.
Teachers always try to improve what they're doing and grow. I certainly know I am. And it's not just in a better understanding of content, but also in the ability to grow relationships with students and parents. A good teacher knows how to incorporate the support networks of students, and even if a student lacks parental involvement in their lives, teachers need to keep trying to reach their kids.
I am very lucky and privileged to have the job I do. As a special educator, I don't have too many students, and the ones I do have, I can devote everything I have to. I have to convince and sell the kids on the fact that there are better options out there than the street. A big part of that comes from relationships, and in marketing, relationships are the most important thing, too.
I will do favors all the time for kids who are my kids. Like for lawyers, the client always coming first or in customer service, the customer always coming first, a good teacher will always put his or her kids first. I don't care what anyone has to say about squeegee kids in Baltimore, but when I see a student I've taught before, I'll give $10 or $20 and a quick 10-second conversation.
In marketing, it is the same: the product will always come first. It doesn't matter what the product is, but the fact remains that it's your product. As much as quality matters, the people I've respected the most are the ones who always stood by their own.
When the Titanic went down, a band of eight musicians went down with it. Led by violinist Wallace Hartley, the band played until the ship sank, in the freezing cold, to comfort passengers boarding lifeboats, to comfort passengers who couldn't reasonably make it off the ship in time. A lot of people died on that ship. A lot of people died constructing the ship. But the image of the ship going down with the orchestra still playing on the deck was beautiful because it showed loyalty and service even to the point of death. And that legacy stood tall even until James Cameron's iconic 1997 film of the Titanic's legend.
Teachers are marketers because not only do they work hard for their jobs, but the job is always spiritual and transcendent in a way, for both marketers and teachers. We have a perception of marketers as strictly bourgeois businesspeople who remain emotionally detached and disconnected from their jobs. But I believe that perception is false: how can you sell something if it's not something you're emotionally attached to, something you've internalized as yours? And even if you acquire short-term success, how are you going to sell something you don't actually believe in in the long-term if you're not emotionally attached to that product?
I teach in an environment where I have to convince some of my students all the time that what they learn in school is more advantageous and better for them than what they can gain on the street. Yes, the short-term gain of the street can help some of my kids survive.
But that's now. And for their long-term futures and well-beings, they need to take into account basic economics, like whether the benefits outweigh the risks. They're their own people. As much as I care for them, I can't make decisions for them.
And there are a lot of times I fail at delivering a lesson, expectations, or a message. And marketers fail all the time at selling their products. The important thing isn't to avoid failure, but to steer positively and see failure as a learning experience. See failure as a way to see what doesn't work for your individualized students, kids, or customer. Take failure in stride. Take a moment of reflection. Then come back the next day and adapt.
Good teachers and marketers understand that there is no such thing as wasting time: even time spent disastrously and unproductively has value. It has value in reflection, in adjustment, and in learning.
In education, differentiation is one of the most useful tools and skills, defined as "providing students within their diverse classroom community of learners a range of different avenues for understanding new information." That means personalizing education to the diverse interests and skillsets of your students. That means connecting a seemingly irrelevant text with the life experiences and cultures of your students in a culturally responsive manner.
In marketing, it's the same. If you don't know your customer, how are you going to sell your product to them? How is your customer going to see what a product can do for them if, well, you don't know your customer, if you don't know your audience?
So teaching is a lot like marketing because both teachers and markets always have to sell their product, constantly improve, be loyal to their customers and students, and tailor their presentations to their audience. The two professions may be worlds apart, with different missions, but the reality is that teaching and marketing are very similar in practice.