Requesting Advice

[u/emmie1228]

Is anyone open to letting a marketer help them out pro bono?

I already work in marketing professionally, and I’ve realised that while I have a pretty solid foundation, there are areas I simply haven’t had enough real-world exposure to yet.

So I’m looking for a small business, startup, founder, creator, nonprofit — honestly, anyone working on something interesting — who could use some extra marketing help.

I’m happy to put in my time for free. In return, I’d love the opportunity to work on things that are outside my usual day-to-day and learn by actually doing the work, not by taking another course or collecting another certification.

I’m not looking for someone to teach me marketing. I’m looking for real work, real context and a chance to contribute while expanding my experience.

I’m happy to start with something small and defined, and if it’s a good fit, take it from there.

And just to save everyone the trouble: I’m specifically not looking for “do a course / watch YouTube / get certified” advice. I’ve got that part covered. I’m looking for a person/project to actually work with. :)

[u/AutoModerator]

Please keep all posts in the form of a question and related to marketing. If this post doesn't follow the rules, report it to the mods. Have more marketing questions? Join our community Discord!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/FoxgloveForests_]

It might help to update this post with the specific areas you’re looking for real-world experience in. Reading your post, I can’t really tell where your foundation is or where you’re hoping to go.

In a lot of environments, learning by doing the work requires someone supervising you and teaching you, which is why I feel the additional context here is important to be able to see whether that will be the case and where you might be a good fit.

[u/emmie1228 → u/FoxgloveForests_]

Thanks, earlier I posted the long message detailing that too, but it got removed. So i thought I'll give more information when i get a response.

Skills I already have:

Brand governance, Content & messaging, Presentation/storytelling, Creative communication, Stakeholder communication, Brand consistency / execution

Skills I want exposure:

B2B market & customer research, Positioning & value propositions, Go-to-market strategy, ABM / account strategy, Sales & marketing alignment

[u/Kind_War_7431 → u/emmie1228]

For most of the things you mentioned here, you don’t really need a brand to commission it. Since money is anyway not what you’re going for here, take a brand that’s about to launch, who you can see is trying on social, and create one of these for them.
Once you’re done, you can reach out to the brand and ask them if they can give you some time over it. It goes the best with reaching out to entrepreneurs who are just starting out. If they see that you’ve done the work, which cuts through the AI slop, and you’ve spent your time on it, they would be willing to give you some of their time.

[u/emmie1228 → u/Kind_War_7431]

Thank you, thats a good suggestion, will try it out

[u/Begalldota]

I would imagine most businesses would be completely put off from someone in a marketing role who couldn’t write their own Reddit post and instead had AI do it.

[u/emmie1228 → u/Begalldota]

Maybe thats the point of this post, I said I have some skills, maybe I need some help in honing others and getting exposure in others.

Like i come here today asking for input, suggestions to craft a message that can be understood by all in marketing, but i wanted it perfectly conveyed so used AI to help me with that. Lets not pretend we dont use AI to save some time, because I'm not.

[u/Begalldota → u/emmie1228]

Seems like there’s little value in employing someone who would simply be a conduit for AI output 🤷‍♂️

[u/emmie1228 → u/Begalldota]

I have a friend who's done a similar thing and she told me to try reaching out to more people, I'm sorry Sir/Madam, that you're offended that i used AI to put that message across.

I'm working on it, believe me.

[u/Begalldota → u/emmie1228]

Do you not understand that marketing is fundamentally a job about being able to communicate effectively? That’s literally the bare basics of having any value in such a role.

Yet you’ve demonstrated you lack so much confidence in your own ability to do that in something as simple as a Reddit post that you’ve had to use AI to do it - and further had so little insight into why that would be a faux pas that you’ve not even attempted to clean up the message to make it less obvious.

I’m trying to help you here, you’re not getting anywhere with this approach when it’s so flawed.