Top Producers Revealed…Kind Of

So, I had a thought today.  Some days, I have good ones and today is one of those days.  This is a little longer than my usual post, but I couldn’t be anymore succinct. 

I started thinking to myself, “Why are the top-producers so successful?”  For the most part, the Jonathan Budds and Mike Dillards of the world have no extensive FORMAL training in marketing or advertising to do what they do.  Then, how on earth can they effectively and efficiently reach so many targeted people.

Budweiser, Coke, McDonald’s and any other big company that comes to mind have marketing budgets in the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars and hire the top agencies in the world.  Of course they can reach people.  It makes NO sense that a guy like Jonathan Budd can start with nothing and in a very short period of time make 7 figures.  He is playing on the same marketing field as the big boys, so how can he compete? 

After some thoughtful reflection, I had an epiphany and think I figured it out.  I’ll try to explain it to you like I explained it to myself.

First, they don’t teach this stuff in school.  The systems and strategies are that advanced that you’re not going to learn this from a professor in college.  In fact, the technology moves so fast, it’s probably not even feasible for a university to offer these classes because of all the red tape surrounding new class approval.   

The point being that these top Ad, PR and Marketing firms have a pipeline of students from the elite college programs who have never learned the cutting edge techniques.  For the most part, students learn a lot of great theory and science behind human behavior and what is most appealing to us, but not the practical use of the science. 

Second, and the comparison I think is most akin to this is that of a web designer.  The best and most innovative designers in the world are not those who graduated at the top of their class at Harvard, it’s the guys in their basements spending hours and hours of their own time perfecting and inventing new technologies because it’s their passion.

For example, I have a buddy that spent two years in school, got bored and went to program for one of the online poker sites.  By the end of the first year, he was making $20,000 a month.  The knowledge that he used was all self taught. 

Just for the record, I’m not totally anti-higher education.  But for the purposes of this post and to stay on topic, I’ll save that debate for a later date.  What I will say is that from personal experience, I didn’t go to college because I had a passion for Management Information Systems; I went to get that little piece of paper so I could get a “good” job.

The top producers in online marketing are just like the best web designers plugging away until the wee hours of the morning in their parents’ basement because they have a passion and love what they do.  Lucky for the basement dwellers, the world pays a lot of money for that knowledge and you end up with a house on the beach.

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