Eric Siu went from a $32k intern to six figures by becoming a T-shaped marketer with deep expertise in one area like SEO plus broad knowledge of paid media, email, and copywriting. He built his Dream 100 list of target companies, sent personalized video audits using Loom, and offered free help to land high-paying roles. Digital marketing skills take about three months to acquire if you stay hungry and current on blogs, podcasts, and sites like HubSpot.
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Today we're going to talk about how you can get a high-paying marketing job for 2021. So, you know, we know last year was a little bit of a, you know, we're still kind of getting through it, right? You know, we're going into better news, we're going to go to better times. And so the question now is, how do you get ready, especially if you are in transition right now? Maybe you learned some new marketing skills, or maybe you're just coming out of school. And so the good news is with marketing, And especially even digital marketing, a lot of the skills that you need, I would argue you can pick up in 3 months, right? You can go from literally skillless to becoming job ready in 3 months. And I believe there are a lot of resources to do that. So the first thing to do if you want a high-paying marketing salary for 2021 or high-paying marketing job is in general, you have to be hungry to learn, right? So you have to be checking out, there's a lot of There's a lot of blogs out there where you can just stay up to date in terms of information. There's the podcast that we have called Marketing School. There's marketingland.com and then there's socialmediaexaminer.com, hubspot.com. You got a lot of great resources that are available. So you have to make sure that you are, let's say you really enjoy SEO, you can go in depth on SEO. You have to become a T-shaped marketer, right? So you go in depth, but also you have, you kind of understand the other areas such as paid media, email marketing, copywriting. You know, conversion rate optimization and those types of things. So a T-shaped marketer is gonna go a lot further than someone that just specializes, especially for the long term, because you don't know what jobs are gonna be stable, what might go away, what might not, right? Because right now we're still in the midst of, you know, uncertainty with the economy. So you want to make sure that you are insulated from any type of event and you are very much in control of what you can do, right? So in the very beginning of my career, I started out as SEO first and then I started branching out into other areas. So, I would try to branch out as quickly as possible because like I mentioned earlier, after I got my internship for maybe a month or 2 months, I immediately got a digital marketing job and I started learning a lot of different things quickly. And I was able to maneuver quickly and, you know, within that year, I went from literally making $32,000 a year to jumping up, basically up to $100,000 in salary. So, you know, $32,000 a year to 6 figures. And, you know, that's, that's when I was about 24 years old going to 25 years old, right? So very quickly I moved up. And with 2 years after that, I became a VP of marketing and then very quickly transitioned over into taking over one of the companies that I now own called Single Grain, which is an ad agency, right? So that all transitioned, that transition happened very quickly because I made sure I had a growth mindset and I became a T-shaped marketer. And I kept chasing the opportunity, right? So a lot of people say you should stay at a job to, you know, gain seniority, gain pension and all that. And that's certainly what my parents wanted me to do. But I just realized that it's important if I feel like I'm stagnating, if I'm not growing anymore, I got to take matters into my own hands, right? So that's how you ultimately get better to the point where you start getting paid the big bucks, right? Because I will tell you that, you know, in the past I've gotten job offers that would offer me You know, $250,000, $300,000 a year with a 5% profit share, which is great. And in some cases, I'd be offered even $1 million a year and, you know, with like an 8-figure signing bonus. So let's say $10 million and then $1 million a year salary, right? And that's just not something that for me doesn't work out for me because I'm not interested in that, right? Because I'm more interested in having control over, you know, my own freedom and that type of stuff. So that's why I have different businesses. But if you want a very high-paying salary, that's how you get there. That's how you get to that point where I think the most high-powered executives, especially in marketing, like a top-tier CMO, you might be making a couple million bucks a year. Let's say, you know, $2, $3, $4, $5 million a year if you're super, super top tier, right? But just keep in mind that you have to, again, insulate yourself from outside forces, right? So the average tenure for a CMO, a chief marketing officer right now, is actually less than 2 years. So, how do you insulate yourself from that? Just make sure that you pick up enough skills and I would highly recommend that you start side hustles at your jobs too because you learn a lot from your side hustles that can transition into, you know, the day job that you have. And that's actually something that I encourage over at Single Grain where we tell our team, we say, hey, you know what? You should have a side gig. As long as it's not competitive to our company, you can have your side gig, do your thing, you're gonna learn a lot. And by the way, if it becomes something really great, you You should go off and take advantage of that and do your own thing, right? Because, you know, I'd be hypocritical if I said that's not a good thing to do, right? You know, it depends on the game that you want to play. So in terms of doing this, look, if you say, oh, Eric, I don't have any experience right now, what do I do? There are a lot of people you can reach out to right now. Let's say you make a dream 100, a top 100 of companies that you want to be working for, and you just reach out to a couple. Maybe you can use a video like a screen recording service like Loom. Go to loom.com, L-O-O-M, and just point out, hey, these are the 2 to 3 things that are wrong with your website. Reach out to all the CEOs saying, hey, look, I'm hungry, I'm humble, I'm smart, I'm ready to work. Here's 3 things I pointed out. I'd love to help you with that. And, you know, from there, they should forward you to the— a couple people should at least respond and forward you to the right people. But if you do that and you offer to work for free and you continue to remain a go-getter and you stay patient, You know, you should be fine, right? So, you know, people like— people notice who the go-getters are. Like, I can tell when people are emailing me when they're a go-getter because they'll point out the problems, they'll come up with a solution, and they'll volunteer for that, right? So, that's how you can virtually guarantee yourself a high-paying marketing job for the long term. Maybe it doesn't happen immediately, but like I said earlier, you know, spend time learning. Like I said, specialize in one area. It'll probably take you a couple months to get there. Then, you know, make a couple videos, make a dream 100 list of people that you want to reach out to, and then offer to help for free. And then from there, you should, you should very quickly rise up the ranks to the point where you're making, you know, a healthy 6 figures a year, maybe even up to 7 figures a year, right? So that's how you ultimately get a high-paying marketing job for 2021. There's going to be a lot of people looking for this type of help. They need talent like you. And I'm telling you, this digital marketing stuff, it's not that hard to learn because we've hired people That don't even have a college diploma, that graduated out of high school. You don't need to be— you don't need to have all the credentials. As long as you're humble, hungry, and smart, you're gonna be good to go. So, that is it for today. Go to levelingup.com, get a free chapter of the book. Look, I've been working on this book for the last 5 years, really important to me, and just trying to get the message out that, you know, life is just— it's just a game. It's meant to be played, and I'll show you how to master it, alright? So, that's it for today, and we'll catch you later. Bye.
