The Four P's

Marketing a good is very similar to marketing yourself, whether you class yourself as the newest can of beans in the competitive home brand market or a one-off piece that must be experienced to be pleasured. You must know, understand and utilise marketing's golden 'Four P's': Product, Placement, Price and Promotion.

Product: The product is what you are selling: You

Step one, is to define what you are selling. Think of yourself as a tool. You must become an asset (something that represents efficiency and effectiveness) to the business when it utilizes that tool - after all, a screwdriver can physically and somewhat effectively (albeit not very effective) be used as a hammer, but it is not an efficient way to hammer nails. An asset must improve a business, or it will lose credit, both financially and humanly. It must prove itself more effective and efficient than the current means.

As a tool, you are offering yourself, something unique, with a unique mix of education, skills and experience. This is knowledge that you and you alone have, hence it is an asset to yourself. To turn this into an asset for a company, you must place yourself in a position that targets the appropriate audience and is priced accordingly. This leads to step two.

Placement: Where will you place your skills?

Obviously if you sell yourself as a 'hairdresser to the stars', you will not succeed by placing yourself in the employment market for car sales. While you may be perfectly capable of doing both, a car sales manager will ignore you.

Write down on paper your experiences in the field you wish to work, why you are unique, how your experiences are superior to those of other competitors. This is your resume and without going into resume presentation here, your resume must answer these questions.

Price: How do you value your 'product'?

When a marketing manager is given perfumes to market, he or she will price them accordingly to their placement. If it is a Christian Dior scent, then the price will be in the upper echelons of the perfume market and if this scent were to be placed in the local drug and chain stores; it would not sell as much as it could. Alternatively, if the scent is medium priced, but does not come with any backing - say Liz Taylor - it probably will not sell in Rodeo Drive's Perfumery.

So, in making your case for salary, make one that represents your capabilities and the company's affordability's; one that is competitive in the current market environment.

Do not overprice yourself unless you are in such demand, that you have to hire a bodyguard to keep the offers away and do not under price yourself, or you will find yourself becoming overused and under-paid.

All assets in a company have a relative price; you must decide what compensation is relative to the service you provide.

Promotion: The final step to landing the job you really want is to promote all of the above.

When a new product comes on the market, it can be promoted by brochure, TV or radio advertising, billboard etc, depending upon the audience a company chooses to sell to and their marketing budget.

Obviously, a billboard is catchy, but chances are it will not catch the roving eye of the HR Personnel in another city.

So, instead of using such materials, define your target audience. If you are an accounts clerk with experience in law firms, (and you wish to stay in this industry,) then you should not simply target all firms with accounting departments, but spend your resources (time, money and energy) on those that specialize in law.

• Have a resume that explains in a concise manner what you provide and how you are unique: Product.
  
• How the company best places you as an asset: Placement.
  
• What salary is commensurate with your skills and experience according to current market trends: Price.
  
• Then promote all this in the form of a resume with a covering letter along with your polite and confident phone manner, elegant personal presentation and effective communication skills at interviews: Promotion. You should also promote yourself via networking.

Case Study

Facts

John is an office manager in a medium firm (25 employees). At the age of 34, John is facing the risk of being unemployed as the firm he works for is being taken over by a larger company who is hinting at using their own current staff to run the business.

Product

Himself - a unique individual with a unique set of experiences.
Education: Diploma Accounting, Certificate in Office Management.
Relevant life and work experiences: 8 years at ABC firm as Office Manager
3 years at DEF as Office Manager
4 years at GHI as Accounts clerk
Experience in those work environments: (General job descriptions, responsibilities, changes made, sales figures etc)
A list of John's abilities, needs, ambitions short and long term goals and how these fit in with the hiring companies short and long term goals, mission and strategies.

Placement

All this information is transferred into John's resume and covering letter to the company of relevant application.

Price

John is earning 32K with full benefits and is happy with this level of entitlements. Therefore, he prices himself as worth around this mark.

Promotion

" Post resume with short introduction on relevant web sites
" Post resume and introduction / covering letter to relevant employment agencies
" Post resume and introduction letter to relevant companies - cold calling
" Post resume and covering letter as requested to advertised vacancies
" Network - use word of mouth to friends and acquaintances in the industry

Return to Home Page or Read part 1