Hats off to Tenacity5 Media for having the most creative cover letter request I’ve seen. Instead of the boring, routine cover letter highlighting what I’ve done in the past and how it can help them with their mission statement, they’re asking applicants to to tweet them why they should be hired. For the record, I hate cover letters so much, so seeing a company ask for something other than a typical CL, I had to throw my hat into the ring.
So, here’s what’s up. After some quick research, I noticed Tenacity5 prides itself on five unique principles that form the core of the company’s marketing campaigns. Those five maxims are: Courage, Resilience, Attentiveness, Fluidity, and Mindfulness. Now, I will take these five maxims and apply them to myself, work I’ve done, and what I could bring to the table.
1) Courage: Content creation scares a lot of people. I read somewhere that public speaking/presenting is the world’s second largest fear (I want to say number one was the dark, but death would make a lot of sense, too). I’m scared of many things, much more than the average person, but being exposed and vulnerable has never scared me. I’ve always taken a lot of pride in expressing how I feel through creative mediums. At age 20, I started doing stand-up comedy as something to do for fun. I didn’t want to be ‘safe’ or exist in a comfort zone, I wanted to showcase my thoughts in as many ways as I could, without being scared of how people would judge me. I feel that same kind of approach can be applied in marketing.
2) Resilience: Success takes time. There’s little you can do to control that. What I can control, is what I do to make the success come sooner, or even, to be better prepared when the opportunity comes knocking. Instead of sitting, waiting, wishing for opportunities to present themselves for me to showcase my creativity and passion for video production I made a strong effort to work on my craft. I wasn’t happy with my past job in news because, I felt, it was really constrictive on my creativity. I found it difficult to do the kind of writing I wanted to do in news. So, rather than get frustrated and dwell on it, I created a web series, Campus Chowdown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T74DloQlcjY) where I could do the kind of content creation that I wanted to do–that I could take pride in. There’s no money or immediate reward in all of the work I put into the Chowdown, but I’m working and finding new ways to get better and improve my craft.
3) Attentiveness: In a way, I treat Campus Chowdown like it’s my company. I have to plan and coordinate the project, assemble a production team, do post-production, promote the product and handle relations with the owner/restaurant to make sure they’re happy. It’s important that I keep communication with them throughout the whole process, because they’re essentially my client. We both have a lot to gain out of the product, so being attentive to the “client” is critical.
4) Fluidity: It is very important for a business to not only keep up with the times, but to stay ahead. As a digital development intern at Comedy Central, finding new ways to make our content assessable to the audience on emerging/new platforms and media was a hot subject. That’s why it’s important to be tri-medial in these times (video, radio, and written). Technology shouldn’t be viewed as an obstacle, it’s giving business new ways to reach the audience (and with that comes new advertising possibilities etc.)
5) Mindfulness: Like I was saying earlier with the Campus Chowdown example, when assembling a team for a project like this it’s vital to keep everyone happy, to give everyone a purpose. They spent a lot of time helping, and they deserve to be recognized and appreciated for their work. Like LeBron said in his recent return to Cleveland, “it’s bigger than basketball.” We have fun showcasing the restaurants and its eats and we want that to show in our work. Our goal is always to be proud in what we created, have the restaurant appreciate what we did and have it help their business, and have the audience enjoy the video and be entertained.
Cort Freeman 