Inbound Marketing Inbound

Hey pilgrims,
For anyone that doesn’t already know, I’m looking for a “change in careers.” Whatever that means.

In the interviews I’ve done, they used that exacting and peculiar wording—"a change in careers”—as though working hospitality in the music industry was a career I’d been earnestly seeking up to this point. Inevitably, those interviews have ended with an email detailing why they’ve decided to go with a candidate with “experience that more closely aligns with the position.”

All I really want is a job that pays me fairly for my time, then lets me go home to resume “the work”—the true work that happens long after everyone else has gone to find their own dreams and I can finally start transmuting all my tangled up feelings. I’m not even that picky. I have so many skills and affinities that the idea that I would ever “specialize” feels foreign to me (maybe that’s what given them reason for pause? like they get the ick from my willingness to step away from a career ladder to try something new?).

I’m sure some of you pilgrims can relate to that feeling: being able to adapt to new environments like a fish in water—or maybe more like a multi-tool in a toolbox? A presence that’s useful yet paradoxically irrelevant. A tool that plays the understudy to every other fixture present; I can’t seem to escape this box and find my way to someone’s cluttered pocket.

I can’t help but feel like I’d be more appreciated in a pocket such as that; one that’s full of half-finished notes scribbled on receipts, loose change, and old blackened pencil shavings. A pocket where desperate hands for help from something hidden and deeply necessary.

But I wouldn’t really see that as a career change. I’ve always considered art to be my career—with my daylight hours occupied by necessary detours from that route. I didn’t spend my years in school memorizing facts. I learned how to learn. I learned how to do things well and with an eye for the many small details that differentiate one outcome from another. I learned how to internalize a system and make it my own—bending it to my will and coaxing out every hidden emotion; I believe this is the secret sauce to every successful artistic career.

Little did I know, the world isn’t organized for us to live this way. There are unwritten rules dictating our dependence on the free-market to outsource any skills not necessary for the daily millstone’s repetitive grind. And yet I can’t help but learn and adapt. It’s the only way I can survive at this point.

So, after failing—time and time again—to win approval from the noble lords of Human Resources, I set out on a new journey.

Gallery Operations and Communications Manager. That’s my new title.
I used the little favor I’ve saved to create a position for myself at the gallery—and in this tiny plot, I’m doing everything in my power to coax fertile fruit from the land. It’s a title I found through hours of research, desperate petition, a willingness to cast aside any thought of payment, and a secret I learned from a few kind souls.

The strategy I learned from talking to successful artists around me—artists who leaned in close and whispered the answer like a sermon from the devil’s sacrament: it’s all about creation.

Create the role you want. Write it into being and then make the most of the opportunity while you have it.

That’s precisely what I did. I researched what jobs exist at the crossroads of graphic design, gallery management, and marketing: and what I found was gallery operations and communications. It feels like a good place to stake a claim and branch out in new directions when opportunities arise—and upon further review, I realized it was a position that was wholly unfulfilled at the gallery. So now, I’m here to figure out how to keep the doors open at regular hours, improve our presence in the community through marketing and outreach, and ultimately increase footfall and sales in the space.

I’ve been doing it for a few weeks now, and seem to be finding my footing, but I can’t let myself forget that the goal is to inevitably find a job. A successful interview more than just having the title—it also requires relevant experiences that can serve as reference points for hiring managers.

It requires that the title be actualized. It’s not just an illusion or a story—it’s a position that’s now been created, and occupied. It’s a position that demands accountability. It’s something that needs to be rend into being with a level of fidelity that can translate elsewhere.

That’s an intimidating feeling, but also kind of invigorating. It gives me license to learn new things and try new endeavors.


And so, to finally reach the point of this blog post—I started taking an online course to learn about inbound marketing. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do forever, but I finally have a good excuse. And it’s been surprisingly interesting—piquing interests and touching on ideas that I’d long pondered but had never dared to attempt before. I’m starting a newsletter. And I think it’s opened me up to the idea of working on a blog here—on my own site.

I created the blog page over a year ago and it’s sat in utter obscurity since. The blank white page was imposing and I couldn’t imagine what to write or why.

But I can at least intellectualize it now by laundering the concept through the 3 stages of marketing: attract, engage, and delight.
I need to make more than the occasional project if I want to create an active space to sell my work—I need an attractive and engaging space where my voice, knowledge, and interests can be heard. I need to become the sage guiding each pilgrim toward their destination.

And along the way, there will be CRMs, and Martech Stacks, and Customer Personas (oh my), but I know I can manage those somehow.

The hardest part has been finding a reason to begin.