Graduates of Generation Ghana Cohort 17 have been urged to complement their digital marketing skills with strong communication, presentation and client management abilities.
Godfred Obeng, founder of Top Tier Digital Consult, gave the advice during the final capstone session of the programme, which ended on Friday, September 4, 2026.
He told the newly trained digital marketers that technical knowledge alone would not guarantee employment or business opportunities.
“If there’s anything I would tell you, it’s that your technical skills are important, but your soft skills are extremely important too,” Obeng said.
He urged the graduates to learn how to present themselves, communicate their value and position their services before potential clients.
“All of you have technical skills. But we don’t know how well you’re going to perform until we actually hire you,” he said.
His message was simple: graduates must learn to pitch themselves instead of waiting for employers or clients to discover what they can do.
A campus side hustle became a business
Obeng said his own entry into digital marketing began while he was studying Landscape Design and Management at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
He started managing a few social media pages while on campus. When he needed money urgently, he decided to approach people who might require his services.
That effort led him to Christian Boakye Yiadom, now known as the founder of Pizzaman, who became his first client. “From there, it just kept growing,” Obeng said.
The journey was not without setbacks. When the COVID 19 pandemic forced many businesses to close, Obeng said he was left with almost no clients.
He was then compelled to rethink how he could earn from his existing skills.
Freelancing opened international markets
Rather than abandon digital marketing, Obeng began learning how to offer his services to clients outside Ghana.
“That was when I decided to learn how to take the skills I had and sell them to clients in other countries,” he said.
That decision marked the beginning of his freelancing career. From 2020 through 2023 and into 2024, freelancing became the main driver of his business.
He later established Top Tier Digital Consult, which has since worked with more than 250 brands and is approaching 300 clients.
Obeng, however, cautioned the graduates against assuming that business growth comes easily.
“Honestly, it doesn’t sound as glamorous as it is. It has been a lot of hard work,” he said.
Graduates encouraged to sell their value
Obeng’s advice comes as Generation Ghana’s latest cohort prepares to move from structured training into the competitive digital marketing industry.
He encouraged the graduates to see communication and self presentation as part of their professional toolkit, not as optional additions to their technical abilities.
For him, knowing how to run campaigns, create content or manage digital platforms is only one part of the equation. The other is convincing a client that the skill can solve a real business problem.
The graduates, he said, must be ready to explain what they offer, demonstrate their results and make a clear case for why they should be hired.
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