Friday, February 24, 2012

Dating, Marketing...Tomato, Potato

Welcome to the Triple D! I am Featherstone McGee, one of two writers here. You likely know me from the Anti-Austen. I was a guest writer there before they phased out their male authors. My most important pieces on the Anti-Austen were The Perfect Man and The Post Where Featherstone McGee Gets a Little Blasphemous. In lieu of a long introduction, I will let my articles draw you a picture of who Featherstone McGee really is. What I write will tell you more about me than any blurb ever could, so let us begin!

There’s a tool we use quite often in marketing (I’m a marketing student) called a SWOT analysis. It involves analyzing two internal factors, Strengths and Weaknesses, and two external factors, Opportunities and Threats. It looks a little something like this:


Helpful

Harmful

Internal

Strengths

Weaknesses

External

Opportunities

Threats

As I was in my Place of Contemplation (the shower), I had an epiphany. I was pondering how important it is to truly know who you are when I suddenly realized that this marketing tool could prove quite useful in dating. You see, dating is essentially marketing yourself. Relationships are about meeting the needs of others through the unique attributes that you possess. In order to be successful, you need to know your own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Once you know where you stand, you can build your strengths, reduce your weaknesses, take advantage of your opportunities, and minimize your threats. Let me show you what I mean by showing you a shortened version of my own Dating SWOT Analysis.


Helpful

Harmful

Internal

-Funny

-Family oriented

-Romantic

-Sweet

-Dependable

-Faithful

-Worthy Priesthood Holder

-Nerdy (I consider this a strength)

-Good listener

-Hard worker

-Reasonably handsome

-Shy

-Often busy with school

External

-The blog

-Work

-FHE

-Competition

-The Friend Zone

Most likely, your SWOT will not look like mine. It will be as unique as you are. Just to be clear, here’s what goes in each box:

Strengths: These are the good things about who you are. Give this section a lot of thought – you’re better than you think you are and once you have identified your strengths, you will know what to advertise most about yourself.

Weaknesses: These are the things about yourself that you can, and should, improve. Everyone has them. I tend to be shy when first meeting new people.

Opportunities: In the Dating SWOT, these are the methods or places you have a good chance of meeting people to date.

Threats: These are the factors that you do not have control over that are not helpful to your dating life. For example, I often end up in the Friend Zone. If you’re the quintessential nice guy, you likely spend a lot of time there.

I hope that you find this to be useful. In dating, it’s important to know who you are and what you have to offer. My own dating life had been in the dumps (and my self-esteem along with it) until a few very special people helped me realize just how much I had to give. Once again, welcome to the Triple D – dating from the guy’s perspective. We’re still working out the details (design, posting schedule, etc.) so things may be unorganized for a bit. I really like to interact with the readers, so if you have any questions you’d like answered or topics you’d like to one of us to write about, email us at bropinion@gmail.com. Your anonymity is guaranteed.

~Featherstone McGee

5 comments:

  1. dating is "essentially marketing yourself"

    ...*facepalm

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  2. I remember making a SWOT for my OB class. I have a feeling we have at least bumped in to each other in the Tanner, Mr. McGee. Great insight on marketing ourselves for dating. I'm totally going to do a SWOT analysis just because you're worth it!

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  3. I love this SWOT idea. Definitely done it before (and I haven't even taken a real marketing class yet!), but it's very useful. I've been working more on personal branding as I've been easing into the business side of things, and I suppose it is very easily relatable to dating. If I'm going to work on making myself look good to other companies and my peers, might as well extend it a bit more, eh?

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  4. So what if you are horrible at marketing and sales?! Lost cause...drat!

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