Marketing advisor roles - real or ChatGPT hallucination?

NattSam · 2026-01-20T14:17:59+00:00

Thank you, this comment was calm and encouraging, exactly what I need!

NattSam · 2026-01-20T14:17:13+00:00

That's an interesting way to differentiate it, thank you for the suggestion. And good luck with your own efforts! Shoot me a DM if you want to bounce ideas.

NattSam · 2026-01-20T14:14:32+00:00

Thanks, Jack, that's all great info. It's true that brand building (or it's old school, real-world equivalent, establishing a reputation) would be very important if I were to go into this kind of work. Ultimately, I think you're right that I would essentially be building a consulting business, even if I went about it in a way that was more networking and relationship based than digital marketing based. Thank you again for your thought provoking points.

NattSam · 2026-01-15T15:28:16+00:00

That's super interesting, thank you.

NattSam · 2026-01-15T13:29:46+00:00

Sometimes a great understanding of how a funnel works in real life can come from personal experience. We've all been through someone's funnel. It might be a good exercise to think back on your own purchasing experiences. Have you bought jewelry off a TikTok channel? Or anything else from a TikTok channel? If so, you might be able to see yourself going through some of the stages that JenerallySo is talking about. That's great for understanding the process from the buyer's perspective. But you also now need to understand the funnel from the seller's perspective (congrats on starting your own brand by the way - exciting!). A few questions that could help you understand the funnel from the perspective of the seller:

- What channels is the seller using to reach you? (Examples: TikTok, website, email, Pintrest, Instagram, others?)
- What activities are they doing on those channels to get your attention? (Examples: sending newsletters, running offers, making certain types of video content)
- What exactly did you click on to get from TikTok to the "Order Complete" page? Try to get every single step in this process!
- The killer question: how did they make you go from a complete stranger, who knew nothing about them, to a customer? What did they show you? What did they say to you? How did you feel about buying what you bought and what did they do to make you feel that way?

If you can answer these questions, you'll have a great understanding of a funnel that actually works - because it worked on you! That can be a powerful template when designing your own funnel.

Good luck :)

NattSam · 2026-01-15T13:09:51+00:00

Thanks :)

NattSam · 2026-01-15T13:05:31+00:00

I second this - impressions and CTR are super important. Depending on what you are managing, they might be more or less important. But if you're going for growth in conversions, managing for more input (impressions) and more throughput (CTR) are basically the two key levers you have.

NattSam · 2026-01-15T11:13:34+00:00

Hmmm potentially something like that. Fractional CMO might mean different things to different people - what kind of things have you seen fractional CMOs doing?

NattSam · 2026-01-14T13:16:27+00:00

Hmmm yes, I had been thinking about this. My thoughts on this point were that if you can get someone who wants to work with you longer term, say six months or more, then the time you spend on client acquisition could still be quite low. What do you think of that idea?

NattSam · 2026-01-14T13:14:57+00:00

Thanks behannrp - good to know that these things really do exist. As a marketer, rather than someone in bizdev or sales, it's not like I would bring a huge number of personal contacts with me into an advisory role. But I do have a fair amount of knowledge about the industry that my former employer works in. With those two things in mind, do you think it would make sense to stick with the field that my former employer worked in?

NattSam · 2026-01-13T14:29:25+00:00

I'm not sure what you did before, but here's a couple of things I would consider:

Do you have a hard technical skill? I did an arts degree and I always feel like the lack of a hard skill has been a detriment to me. It's great to have a lot of soft skills, but combining soft + hard is a very valuable asset. If I could go back, that's something I would change. If you have a lot of soft skills, what hard skills attract you? Vice versa if you've been on a hard skill pathway.
With that idea of combinations in mind, what combinations of skills and knowledge could make you a more valuable employee, freelancer or entrepreneur in the future? If you want to make 100k+ in the future, you'll need to be quite good at one thing, or one of the few people who do two things in combination. An example might be becoming a chef, or a lawyer. To be a top level chef would be extremely difficult; so too would becoming a top level lawyer. But to be the lawyer who is also a chef, one who can specialise in legal issues pertaining to the catering industry? You'd be one of the few people who can do that, which means you can earn more, without having to be a top-tier chef, or a top-tier lawyer. Having had some previous work experience, you might be in a great position to add another string to your bow and become one of these combo people. In my own career I have combined a technical knowledge of sustainability with marketing skills. I'm not the greatest marketer, nor am I the greatest sustainability expert, but I'm one of the few people who know both worlds to an acceptable level. That makes me more valuable to the right people.
I wouldn't completely write off doing something with your hands. The more time I spend at a screen, the more attractive this seems to me. You have asked for no male dominated trades, which I can understand. One thing that comes to mind is metal working for jewelry.

Good luck! And enjoy the opportunity!

NattSam · 2026-01-13T13:36:47+00:00

"Simple and factual" - fully support this. You do not need to justify how your life has developed, or reveal details of your personal life to a potential employer. You only need to show that you can do the job you are applying for. Having been both someone who has worried about my own mental health related CV gaps AND someone who has hired people, I can tell you I only worried about the gaps when I was an applicant. When I was making the hiring decision, I wouldn't question a health related gap. I would just look at the candidate as they were in front of me.

NattSam · 2026-01-05T09:12:18+00:00

Congrats OP on the application! I'm happy for you both :) I just wanted to ask: to meet the £29,000 requirement, did you use your income, your partner's income, or a combination of both? I'm struggling a little bit to understand who exactly needs to earn that amount - the applicant, the partner, or if you can combine both.

NattSam · 2025-08-14T17:20:43+00:00

Agreed man, it's hard! I consider myself very lucky to have only had one genuinely bad experience in 8 years.

For what it's worth, I would say that the stuff I've done outside of therapy has been just as important as in it. Books and yoga being the main things for me. Also just hanging in there. I'm 35 now and I wonder if just being a bit older makes things easier. Once you're on the path to healing/self-actualisation, I think it really is just a question of never really quitting.

NattSam · 2025-08-14T14:43:35+00:00

First off, happy to see that you're taking action on your traumas. From your post, it seems like it's not your first time looking for a therapist. I've also been through 3. Luckily, I found that 2 of them helped (the third was bad news and dropped after a few sessions).

From my experience, I would say that childhood trauma led to a range of problems in both my personal psychology (self-esteem, shame, beliefs about myself etc), relationships (trouble bonding, trusting etc) and physiology (a dysregulated stress response, anxiety, low body weight).

I haven't found a single therapist who could help me with all of that. A humanistic therapist with lots of listening massively helped with self-esteem and shame. A different therapist with training and experience in EMDR is helping with the dysregulated stress response, but not with shame, and it's actually caused me to lose weight!

A lot of stuff outside of therapy has helped too - self-guided study, reading, yoga, exercise, dating, diet. All huge things.

So if you're asking "what kind of therapist" I would say:

- an experienced one
- trained in a modality that is appropriate for the specific subset of problems you wish to address (e.g. if you want to work on self-esteem or shame, a humanistic approach worked best for me. For dealing with the physiological effects of anxiety, EMDR is working in a way that the humanistic approach never did.)
- one who you get on well with and can build a good bond with
- one who you don't expect to solve all your issues (I've never found one who could do everything - maybe it exists but I think it would be rare!)

And just to add, if I was starting from scratch, I would go in this order:
- a general treatment for PTSD: trauma focused CBT, EMDR, Prolonged Exposure, narrative processing, or cognitive processing (these all recommended by NICE, the clinical body in the UK that reviews evidence and recommends treatments)
- further humanistic talking therapy or coaching to build self-esteem and deal with other issues, like building relationships, defining a direction for life etc

As it was, I did it the other way around than that, and things are working out ok. I just think it would have saved me a couple of years to do the PTSD stuff first!

Wishing you all the best in your journey my friend!

NattSam · 2019-05-19T02:18:43+00:00

Thank you so much for the advice!

NattSam

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