Lockdown has been tough for many; financial pressures, health and safety concerns, feelings of loneliness. I think I went through all of those at some point but I still couldn’t quite put my finger on why some days, I just felt a bit crap.
It was only when I was writing a project proposal for a strategic marketing project that I started to understand why. Sure, as a previous Marketing Director for a successful visitor attraction and with a 15 year career in marketing, I knew how to create a marketing strategy – and for the purposes of the proposal, how to write about creating one – but I couldn’t help feeling that lockdown meant I was out of practice at the ‘doing’ bit. That feeling which I can only describe as ‘de-skillment’ (yes, my incessant lockdown online scrabble playing has turned me into a lexiconnoisseur – thanks Urban Dictionary), was, on some level, the cause of my general crapness.
So, I decided to click on one of the several thousand ‘free online course’ ads that were populating my Facebook feed on a daily basis (apparently they knew me to be crappy before I did – there’s some good targeted marketing for you!). And like that I was a member of Hubspot Academy who, according to their Google page description are ‘the worldwide leader in inbound marketing, sales and customer service/support training’ (Kudos on their meta descriptions – all good evidence that they might know what they’re talking about!)
It may have only been a six hour course, primarily formed of video content with some good industry input and examples and a few quiz questions here and there but by the time I’d completed the course and sat the one hour exam at the end, I can honestly say that I felt re-skilled in social media marketing again. Not only that, I feel better than I did before because now I have a certificate to say I can do it!
Thanks Hubspot, I’ve already started searching for my next area of ‘re-skillment’!