Life as a Marketing and Strategy Consultant in Marketing Consulting
Initially, Athena enjoyed the "feeling of having a lot of knowledge" and being a sought-after expert in marketing. However, deeper industry experience exposed Athena to "shady tactics" and unethical practices, creating internal conflict between their love for marketing and concerns about its inherent challenges; this experience ultimately lessened their initial enjoyment of the field.
Ethical Dilemmas, Industry Realities, Workplace Challenges, Hard Truths, Honest Opinions
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Athena Liao
Mktg. & Strategy Consultant, Entrepreneur
Independent Consulting Firm
Yale, 2012
UCLA Anderson School of Management, MBA
Psychology
Consulting & Related Professional Services
Entrepreneurship and Business Owner
Scholarship Recipient, Student Athlete
Video Highlights
1. Being a subject matter expert and helping others is very rewarding.
2. The industry has ethical challenges; some marketing tactics may be considered shady or unethical.
3. There's a conflict between the desire for ethical marketing and the profit motive in the industry; reconciling this conflict is a key challenge for those in the field.
Transcript
What do you enjoy most about being in your industry?
That's a really hard question. I think, kind of like what I said earlier about being the subject matter expert, it definitely feels good to be good at something. I enjoy the feeling of having a lot of knowledge about something that people would come to me and ask for help.
But interestingly, the more I learned about the industry and the more experience I got, my passion for it started waning a little. There are certain things you learn, like marketing tactics, that are a little bit shady or maybe not ethical.
You don't think about that kind of thing when you're just starting off and are super new. But the deeper you go, the more you learn about shady tactics and things like that. It was something I had never crossed my mind or been exposed to.
I know there are people who say marketing is just a scam and everyone's just trying to sell you something, and a lot of it is true. So, internally, I do wrestle with liking being a marketer, but I think the industry still has a lot of ways to improve.
My hope would be that everyone in the world would want to do marketing ethically and not try to do sneaky things to get more sales. But unfortunately, just because money makes the world go round and a lot of companies want to put profits before everything, that's just the reality we're in.
Coming to terms with certain things like that sort of shook my enjoyment for marketing a bit. I'm trying to find ways to reconcile with that.