Come with me if you will, for just a moment, to the small shtetl of Anatevka, in Tsarist Russia, the year is 1905, and we are in the barn of Tevye, a dairyman.

In his reality, he is poor. But in his imagination, ah in his imagination, he is a rich man.

I thought of that famous musical number when I read this lesson in a recent podcast guest application – “Never forget the independence of your imagination.”

A perfect explanation of Tevye. And hopefully, of you and I as well, after we listen to my latest guest…Jeffery Keilholtz, SVP of Marketing, Broadway Licensing Global [https://broadwaylicensing.com/].

Tune in to the full episode using this embedded player or by clicking through to your preferred audio streaming service using the links below it.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

• Win the day – how daily focus leads to campaign success
• Stay nimble
• Stay cool under pressure
• “Never forget the independence of your imagination"
• Execution sets people apart
• Endurance is essential

Discussed in this episode

Get Productive With AI [https://meclabsai.com/GetProductive] – January 8th at Noon EST. There is no cost.

Enterprise Solutions Marketing: You can make a big career, and still stay human (podcast episode #99) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/enterprise]

Product Management & Marketing: Surround yourself with the right people (podcast episode #38) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/product]

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Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

When this CMO's team proved her wrong about their ebook program, she didn't just accept it – she made them broadcast their victory to everyone. 

Hear that lesson – “let your team take a chance on testing it and prove you wrong” – and many more lesson-filled stories in my in-depth discussion with Susanne Rodriguez, Chief Marketing Officer, Auvik [https://www.auvik.com/].

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

• Be an uncertainty killer 
• Don't always trust your gut
• Clear is kind
• Lean in and listen on Zoom to connect and build deep relationships remotely
• Bring your best, most efficient self to the office every day to keep it moving
• Prioritize by business impact
• Let your team take a chance on testing it and prove you wrong

Discussed in this episode

Get Productive With AI [https://meclabsai.com/GetProductive] – January 8th at Noon EST. There is no cost.

Not Enough Lobster In The Ocean: Trusting their gut leads to 90,000% revenue growth at Mint Mobile (Podcast Episode #11) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/revenue-growth-podcast]

Team Building: Loyalty, relationships, pre-selling, and other keys to marketing management success (Podcast Episode #16) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/team-building]

A/B Testing Prioritization: The surprising ROI impact of test order [https://marketingexperiments.com/a-b-testing/surprising-roi-from-test-order]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“Writing is never done, it is just due.”

This is a common sentiment from anyone who has ever worked in a deadline-driven field like journalism or academia.

And it certainly holds true right here in the marketing industry as well, made all the more difficult in my career personally when I transitioned from print to digital…which could be changed an infinite number of times.

Or as my next guest puts it – ‘Don’t let perfection get in the way of completion.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Kelly Cutler, Lecturer and Associate Director of the Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern University [https://www.northwestern.edu/].

Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and has an annual operating budget of $3 billion. Cutler has published five papers on topics including ChatGPT and Web3. She recently published her first book, called ‘Search Marketing: A strategic approach to SEO and SEM’ [https://www.koganpage.com/marketing-communications/search-marketing-9781398612808].

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

• “If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.”
• Don’t let perfection get in the way of completion
• Good work has to speak for itself
• Reach for the stars
• Delegate
• Don’t give up

Discussed in this episode

In this interview, Cutler and I discuss strategic marketing ideation and refinement. So I started a conversation with MeclabsAI to help you get personalized strategy development, overcome challenges, explore creative boundaries, and get evidence-based suggestions. Just click here to interact with this shared conversation [https://meclabsai.com/share/6qq1fggvdn25TtF] and brainstorm your next marketing breakthrough (MeclabsAI is the parent company of MarketingSherpa)

Marketing Promotion Strategies: These 3 message levers moved people to click, link, and refer [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing-promotion]

Enterprise Solutions Marketing: You can make a big career, and still stay human (podcast episode #99) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/enterprise]

Copywriting for Marketing Leaders: Why you should never delegate the marketing message (and how to get it right) [https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting-2/copywriting-for-marketing-leaders-dont-delegate-the-message]

Don’t Give Clients What They Want (podcast episode #6) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/client-management]

How I Made It In Marketing podcast [https://marketingsherpa.com/podcast]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

 “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer,” Flint McGlaughlin taught in Landing Page Creation and Optimization: 6 key questions to prepare the marketer (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/landing-page-creation-and-optimization/). 

My latest guest made a hugely transformative change, rebranding her company from General Electric. Imagine having to rebrand from one of the most legendary brands of all time – Thomas Edison, Menlo Park, the light bulb, the Carousel of Progress at Tomorrowland, “We Bring Good Things to Life,” and on and on.

So I had to ask her – what did you have to transform in yourself to make this major marketing transformation possible?

Hear that story, and so much more, in my discussion with Meghan Gainer, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, DSD Renewables (https://dsdrenewables.com/).

DSD was formerly known as GE Solar and is now owned by BlackRock Real Assets. Gainer has managed budgets from $1 million to $10 million and teams from three to 15 people.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

• Put stock in your own brand
• When no one is raising their hand for something that can make an impact, raise your hand
• Customer experience and feedback are vital to success
• Your company is not your advocate, you need to advocate for yourself
• Appreciate your employees – let them challenge themselves, provide feedback and grow…even if it means you’re going to lose them.
• When you find people you work well with, stick together and you’ll always enjoy what you do.

Related content mentioned in this episode
 
Customer-First Marketing: The customer is always right … but not always right for your company (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/b2c-marketing-2/customer-is-always-right-but-not-always/)

The Indefensible Blog Post: Forget Charlie Sheen, here are 5 marketing lessons from marketers (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/marketing-lessons-peers/)

 Data Poetry in Marketing, PR & Corporate Communications (Podcast Episode #17) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/data-poetry)

14 Strategies for Hiring and Retaining Marketing Professionals (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing-hiring)

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Get more episodes

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“Beware of going wide with your marketing before going deep with your thinking,” Flint McGlauglin taught  in What is the most important question to ask before creating a high-converting landing page? (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/high-converting-landing-page/)

This episode's guest told our host a story about launching an ecommerce store that was the perfect illustration of Flint’s teaching. He put it this way – “Get scalable fulfillment in place before you generate demand.” In other words, go deep before you go wide.

That's just one of the lesson-filled stories you’ll hear in this episode from Chad Brown, CMO, JC Hospitality – owner/property manager of Virgin Hotels Las Vegas (https://virginhotelslv.com/).

The hotel is part of the Curio Collection by Hilton and has a Mohegan Sun Casino. JC Hospitality is a joint venture between Bosworth Hospitality Partners LLC & Juniper Capital Partners. Brown manages a marketing budget of about $7 million dollars with 10 direct reports & 5 agencies.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Some lessons from Brown that emerged in our discussion:

• Understand the “why” behind any current program, process, or structure before you make significant changes
• Get scalable fulfillment in place before you generate demand
• Allow for customization while maintaining brand standards & services
• Have a Gumby attitude during launch
• Marketing decisions have a ripple effect on the entire organization
• Be self-aware of how others perceive you, or more importantly, your delivery of information.
•  A positive attitude can be viral in any setting

Related content mentioned in this episode

 Customer-First Marketing: A conversation with Wharton, MarketingSherpa, and MECLABS Institute (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/consumer-marketing/wharton-interview-customer-first-marketing/)

 Scaling to a $15 million company in 18 months by transparently serving an ideal customer (and saying “no” to other business) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/scaling-podcast)

 What is the most important question to ask before creating a high-converting landing page? (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/high-converting-landing-page/)

 World-Class Consumer & Retail Brands: What right do we have as a brand to be in that business? (https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/consumer-retail-brands)

Not Enough Lobster In The Ocean: Trusting their gut leads to 90,000% revenue growth at Mint Mobile (Podcast Episode #11) (https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/revenue-growth-podcast)

 About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Get mo

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“People don't buy from websites; people buy from people.”

That quote is from Flint McGlaughlin in Website Wireframes: 8 psychological elements that impact marketing conversion rates (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/website-wireframes/).

And it’s true of your advertising and marketing as well. Which is what stuck out to me in the podcast guest application from our latest guest. He said, “if you don’t like it, nobody else will.” 

I hear that as bringing humanity to your marketing, and not taking a “we’ll fool them” approach to your brand’s relationship with its customers. I hear it as, “If you don’t put some element of yourself in your work, nobody else will really engage with it on a human level.”

It got me thinking – musicians, novelists, comedians, and other artists pour themselves into their work. Why shouldn’t marketing and advertising creatives?

That is just one of the insights our guest latest guest sparked in me. Listen now and see what ideas he will spark in you. Carlo Cavallone is the Global Chief Creative Officer and Partner at 72andSunny (https://www.72andsunny.com/), an agency owned by Stagwell. As part of the agency’s leadership team, Cavallone helps manage the agency’s global team of 400 employees.

Some lessons from Cavallone that emerged from our discussion:

• Never, ever, ever go on a shoot without a fully approved concept.
• “Better is temporary.”
• If your client is not as ambitious as you are, you’re not going to do anything great.
• Does it all make sense?
• If you don’t like it, nobody else will.
•  Finish what you started.
•  If it’s not great, it’s probably bad.

Related content mentioned in this episode
 
Not Enough Lobster In The Ocean: Trusting their gut leads to 90,000% revenue growth at Mint Mobile (https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/revenue-growth-podcast)

99 Problem Ideas: “Harvey Gabor (art director on Coke’s iconic campaign) burned my ad concept with a lighter” (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/99-problem-ideas-harvey-gabor-art-director-on-coke-s-iconic-campaign-burned-my-ad-concept-with-a-lighter)

Transparent Marketing: Do your campaigns sound like North Korean propaganda? (https://marketingexperiments.com/e-commerce-marketing/transparent-marketing-campaigns)

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Get more episodes

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“Remember the prospect is a person. Do not talk AT them; talk TO them.” This quote comes from Flint McGlaughlin in Above-the-Fold Psychology: How to optimize the top 4 inches of your webpage (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/above-the-fold-psychology/).

 And it exemplified the conversation with our latest guest, who literally went into people’s homes and looked in their closets to better understand and communicate to her brand’s customers. Lindsey Lindemulder is the Brand Marketing Director for Merrell (https://www.merrell.com/US/en/home), where she manages a team of five. The hiking footwear and outdoor gear company is a wholly owned subsidiary of shoe industry giant Wolverine World Wide.

 Some lessons from Lindemulder that emerged from our discussion:

• “There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.”
• Strong customer insights are the foundation of great creative.
• Look in people’s closets.
• Mindfulness at work is essential.
• Woman can and should be in leadership positions.
•  Work hard, do cool shit, and be humble.

 Related content mentioned in this episode
 
Corporate Creativity: Managing your marketing team (and career) to balance innovation and execution (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/corporate-creativity-jeff-stibel-lisa-nirell/)

Not Enough Lobster In The Ocean: Trusting their gut leads to 90,000% revenue growth at Mint Mobile (Podcast Episode #11) (https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/revenue-growth-podcast)

The Hidden Side of Email Marketing: The once-and-done option, A/B testing and a supersmart kind of dumb (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/consumer-marketing/challenge-marketing-status-quo/)

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Join us for our next interactive session from the course on Wednesday, June 1st, 2022 – How to Craft Your Value Proposition: A live, working session with Flint McGlaughlin (https://meclabs.com/course/how-to-craft-your-value-proposition/).

Get more episodes

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“Trust yourself.” That is a key lesson shared by our latest guest, an academic leader. And really, that is the goal of education, right? To build your capacity, so you can trust yourself to effectively execute.

 We also believe in the importance of capacity building for entrepreneurs and marketing professionals. For example, we provide free marketing thought tools (https://meclabs.com/course/tools/) – simplified frameworks to help spark your next great marketing campaign. We call them “thought tools” because they help spark your ideas and insights, so you can trust yourself instead of trusting some tools’ secret AI to magically provide the answer.

 “Trust yourself” is just one of the lessons shared by Michael Diamond (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldiamond/), Academic Director and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Integrated Marketing and Communications Department (https://www.sps.nyu.edu/homepage/academics/divisions-and-departments/division-of-programs-in-business/integrated-marketing.html), New York University School of Professional Studies, in our latest podcast episode. Diamond supports over 1,000 graduate students and more than 200 faculty members at NYU.

Some lessons from Diamond that emerged from our discussion:

• Build capabilities that endure, and not just quick fixes to near-term problems.
• Tackle problems with integrity, self-reflection, and some humor.
• Trust yourself and your instincts, especially when you feel passionate about something.
• Speak truth to power.
•  Trust yourself.
• “We hired you because you are smart, you have our support, and we expect you can figure it out.”
•  “It’s not just the how and what of marketing and PR, but often ‘who’ is in the room.”

Related content mentioned in this episode

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal (https://marketingexperiments.com/journals/1st%20Quarter%20(2011)%20-%20MEx%20Research%20Journal.pdf)

Executive Master's in Marketing and Strategic Communications (https://www.sps.nyu.edu/homepage/academics/masters-degrees/executive-masters-in-marketing-and-strategic-communications.html)

Value Proposition Workshop (https://meclabs.com/services/value-proposition)

Franchising and Marketing: In a world of chicken dinners, be a lobster dinner (Podcast Episode #14) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/franchising-and-marketing)

Not Enough Lobster In The Ocean: Trusting their gut leads to 90,000% revenue growth at Mint Mobile (Podcast Episode #11) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/revenue-growth-podcast)

 Marketing Wisdom: In the end, it’s all about… (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/social-networking-evangelism-community/marketing-wisdom-last-post/)

Get more episodes

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

When managing a marketing team, success is not necessarily a straight line. No instant inputs and outputs. After all, your team isn’t just filled with employees, it’s filled with human beings.

Complex, fallible, emotional, confusing, questioning human beings. All of us, together, experiencing the human condition while trying to be productive, together, working in an organization.

I say this because, if you’re not careful you might just fast forward to ramming your way through to the goal. The real challenge is to coax fellow humans along to that goal. Enabling them. Preparing them.

In our free digital marketing course, we describe it this way – Website Strategies: 4 ways to prepare your marketing team to increase conversion rates (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/website-strategies/). Not just, how to get higher conversion rates. No. Ways to prepare your team.

 And our latest guest manages with the same philosophy. “Pre-sell key ideas internally,” she says. “Build strong CFO relationships,” she says. Don’t just charge ahead with gusto. Lay the groundwork for success.

Those are just some of the lessons Jeanne Hopkins, Chief Revenue Officer, OneScreen.ai (https://www.onescreen.ai/), shared with Daniel Burstein in our latest podcast episode.

 Hopkins was the Chief Marketing Officer of MarketingSherpa (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/) and sister publication MarketingExperiments (https://marketingexperiments.com/) before this podcast's host even started here, and he's  been here 13 years. She’s had 11 C-level or VP-level marketing roles in her career. And today Hopkins leads a team of 19 (with three more hires slated for this quarter) and manages a $6.2 million budget. In other words, she has a wealth of experience that I thought you could learn a lot from. 

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Some lessons from Hopkins that emerged in this discussion:

• Build strong CFO relationships.
• Pre-sell key ideas internally.
• Allow your team to shine.
• Loyalty first. 
• Hire in batches.
• Remember your interns.

Related content mentioned in this episode

The Long-Term-Growth Product Launch: Cuisinart has been selling the same food processor since the ‘70s (Podcast Episode #13) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/long-term-growth-business)

Table Fries (Hopkins’ podcast) (https://tablefries.com/)

How to Sell Your Marketing and Advertising Ideas to Your Boss and Clients (with free template) (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/how-to-sell-to-your-boss/)

Customer Loyalty Chart: Just how big of an effect does customer satisfaction have on loyalty? (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/loyalty-effect-customer-satisfaction)

Get more episodes

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is abou

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“Replace the claim with the reason” – that lesson comes courtesy of Website Wireframes: See real webpages optimized for marketing conversion (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/website-wireframes-application-session/).

 It’s far easier to make empty claims than provide true reasons for customers to buy. Especially if you’re a copywriter, designer, or junior-level brand marketer who doesn’t know a compelling reason the customer should buy.

But customers are far more likely to act if you provide them compelling reasons instead of empty claims.

So, our latest podcast discussion did my heart some good, as Derek Detenber, Chief Marketing & Merchandising Officer, Batteries Plus (https://www.batteriesplus.com/), discussed specific stories of how he helped shape brand positioning and define the purpose of a business – leadership that can help the marketing team and supporting agencies clearly communicate a reason for customers to buy.

You can listen using the embedded player below or click through to your preferred audio streaming service.  

 First, a little background… Batteries Plus is a consumer electronic retailer with more than 700 locations.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Some lessons from Detenber that emerged in our discussion:

• A quality product isn’t enough, you need to craft experiences.
• Understand the economics of the business.
• Don’t just focus on your direct competitors.
•  Sweat the details.
•  Be strategically consistent and tactically agile
• Understand the purpose of the business.
• Leadership requires talent and passion.

Related content mentioned in this episode

Marketing Budget Charts: B2B customer experience investments (plus 4 budgeting tips) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/marketing-budget-charts-b2b-customer-experience-investments)

Market Competition 101: The 3 types of competitors to keep an eye on (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/competition-types-to-watch/)

My Five Greatest Mistakes as A Leader: 30 years of painful data (that might help you) (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/leadership/5-leadership-mistakes/)

Get more episodes

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

When our latest guest told me the story of how she learned, “exclamation points are for lazy people,” it reminded me of “foster conclusions with specific, quantifiable facts” ...a lesson from Above-the-Fold Energy: How to engage the prospect’s mind with a carefully crafted opening (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/above-the-fold-energy/).

 Take a look at your headlines, sub-headlines, opening paragraphs and other writing you use to communicate about your business. Are you trying to force potential customers to believe it with (literal or figurative) exclamation points? Or are you helping foster conclusions by presenting information?

That is an opportunity for marketing optimization Nicole Salla sparked in me during our discussion. Listen now to discover what ideas the Chief Marketing Officer of Kiddie Academy (https://kiddieacademy.com/) will spark in you.

But first, a little background… Kiddie Academy has 300 locations in 33 states and DC, with 30 new locations opening this year,  and Salla manages a marketing team of 20, plus agency partners.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Some lessons from Salla that emerged in our discussion:

• Nothing is created alone. Make others part of the discussion.
• To be successful in marketing, it is critical to be a skilled salesperson.
• LISTEN (with your ears, your eyes, and your gut).
• Exclamation points are for lazy people.
•  In a world of chicken dinners, be a lobster dinner.
• When there is a philosopher in the room, you need to diffuse “idea grenades.” 

Related content mentioned in this episode

Marketing Career: How to become an indispensable asset to your company (even in a bad economy) (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-career)

99 Problem Ideas: “Harvey Gabor (art director on Coke’s iconic campaign) burned my ad concept with a lighter” (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/99-problem-ideas-harvey-gabor-art-director-on-coke-s-iconic-campaign-burned-my-ad-concept-with-a-lighter)

Headline Formulas: A step-by-step process for radically transforming your copywriting (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/headline-formulas/)

Search the MarketingSherpa Library (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/library) – 8,788 articles, videos, and podcasts (including 1,726 case studies)

Get more episodes

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/)

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Before you optimize your marketing, you must optimize yourself. Which is why we have offered free digital marketing course sessions like The Marketer’s Self Image: Three distorted concepts that are robbing your conversion results (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/the-marketers-self-image/). This approach to self-optimization was top-of-mind as we heard lessons from our latest guest. Lessons like “you must remain wet clay” and “find intellectual inspiration.”

Listen now to hear Mary Rodgers, Head of Marketing Communications, Cuisinart (https://www.cuisinart.com/), discuss the importance of a long-term approach to product and marketing strategy, along with the need to stay flexible and fresh in your approach to your brand and its customers (hence the need for self-optimization).

Rodgers manages a $30 million annual budget with a staff of 20 marketing professionals. In her 26 years leading the brand’s marketing, she has helped position Cuisinart as the #1 high-end housewares brand in a highly competitive industry. The brand holds the first market share position in 13 of 15 product categories, according to NPD syndicated research.

Some lessons from Rodgers that emerged in our discussion:

• A never-give-up attitude, resourcefulness, and tenacity are some of the personal characteristics that serve you well no matter what field you are practicing in
• Always focus on the needs of consumers
• Look for long-term growth
• You must remain wet clay
• Find intellectual inspiration
• Get education through mentorship

Related content mentioned in this episode

Customer-First Marketing: The customer is always right … but not always right for your company (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/b2c-marketing-2/customer-is-always-right-but-not-always/)

Client Pitch Call from the Maternity Ward: “That sound? Oh, you know, the sounds of Brooklyn” – Podcast Episode #8 (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/client-pitch-call)

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About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

You don’t just start with an amazing website. Or product. Or marketing campaign. As discussed in Session #9 of MECABS free digital marketing course – Website Strategies: 4 ways to prepare your marketing team to increase conversion rates (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/website-strategies/)– you start by preparing your team.

Listen now to hear Jonathan Murrell, Co-Founder & CMO, The Escape Game (https://theescapegame.com/), discuss how his company decided on a strategy of long-term quality, prepared the team to executive on this strategy by hiring smart people and empowering them, and many more lesson-filled stories.

The Escape Game has 23 locations across the United States and has served 3.8 million guests so far.

Some lessons from Murrell that emerged in his discussion with Daniel Burstein:

• Quality is critical to the long term
• Hire smart people and empower them
• Learn how to pivot your value proposition
• Think big and fast
• Details matter
• All creative processes start as ugly babies

Related content mentioned in this episode

Landing Page Optimization: Goodbye stock photos and Happy Man, hello social media (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/website-and-landing-page-design/lpo-photo-social-media/)

Why You Should Consider Customer Service to be 1-to-1 Marketing (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/customer-service-one-to-one/)

Email Marketing: Why don’t you want to hear from your customers? (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/email-marketing/no-reply-email-marketing-mistake/)

99 Problem Ideas: “Harvey Gabor (art director on Coke’s iconic campaign) burned my ad concept with a lighter” – Podcast Episode #11 (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/99-problem-ideas-harvey-gabor-art-director-on-coke-s-iconic-campaign-burned-my-ad-concept-with-a-lighter)

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About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

My latest guest represents the perfect dichotomy of what it takes to make it in marketing.

On the one hand, the word rockstar is half the name of her company, which connotes to me, Mick Jagger strutting around on-stage crooning “I’m a man of wealth and taste.” Or perhaps for a newer generation, Adam Levine in the spotlight belting out “I got the moves like Jagger.”

But then when I went through her podcast guest application, it was filled with humble lessons like, “Be a Horse Whisperer,” “Always Gain Alignment Behind the Scenes,” and “Be the Woman Behind the Woman.”

To help us figure out how to be horse-whispering rock star marketers, I sat down with Rachel Minion, Cofounder and CEO, Rockstarr and Moon [https://rockstarrandmoon.com/].

Rockstarr and Moon is a privately held company with $1 million in annual revenue. Minion manages a team of 10.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

• Silence can be deafening – so, take action 
• Live loud. Be authentic.
• Firefighters are heroes, but you don’t have to be
• Be a horse whisperer
• Always gain alignment behind the scenes
• Be the woman behind the woman

Discussed in this episode

AI Guild [https://join.meclabsai.com/]

Content and Communications: Tenacity, keep it simple, authenticity works (podcast episode #33) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/content]

Clarity Trumps Persuasion: 5 examples where clarity soundly beat out persuasion tactics [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/content]

Internet Marketing: Landing page optimization for beginners [https://marketingexperiments.com/conversion-marketing/internet-marketing-for-beginners]

Innovation Leadership and Coaching: You should almost always do less than you think (podcast episode #46) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/innovation]

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Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“We run the scientific method. Hypothesis. Experimentation. Observation. Analysis. Optimization,” Aron North told Daniel Burstein in our latest podcast episode. Great minds think alike. North’s approach is almost identical to Step #6 of the Landing Page Blueprint (https://meclabs.com/course/blueprint/).

Listen now to hear Aron North, Chief Marketing Officer and Commercial Owner, Mint Mobile (https://www.mintmobile.com/), discuss allowing for failure (when you follow the scientific method), trusting your gut, conducting a job interview with every single person coming into the marketing department, and more.

Some ideas from the stories North told in this episode:
– If you aren’t failing, then you aren’t trying hard enough
– Trust your gut
– Creative > Production
– All great creative begins with a strong consumer insight
– F.B.N.A (Free Beer No Assholes)
– Fastertizing

Related content mentioned in this episode

Headline Writing: How a junior marketer beat the CEO’s headline by 92% (https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting/headline-testing)

How Marketing Skills Are Helping Employee Recruitment and Satisfaction: 3 quick case studies (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing-skills-employee-hiring)

500 Mangled, Stretchy Rubber Guys: Make sure you have the right marketing partner for your super creative plan – Podcast Episode #3 (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/direct-mail-podcast)

Creative Inspiration: 9 mini case studies of marketing campaigns and business ideas sparked by unorthodox inspiration (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/9-mini-case-studies-of-creative-marketing)

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About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Customer-first objectives (https://meclabs.com/course/lessons/customer-first-objectives/). You may think of these three words when you hear our latest guest describe his role in the creation of the first internet banner ad (which had a clickthrough rate of … wait for it… 44%!). 

He described the objective behind the ad this way – create a form of advertising that is at once a gift to the consumer, and a doorway to a universe of possibility.

That was one of the lessons from the stories our guest shared with host Daniel Burstein in Episode #10 of the How I Made It in Marketing podcast. Listen now to hear Joe McCambley, Chief Marketing Officer, Saatva (https://www.saatva.com/), share lesson-filled stories from his work with AT&T, Sports Illustrated, Boston Edison, Saatva, and many more brands.

Lessons from this episode

• One of the most important lessons he learned as a creative person came as a result of things he DID NOT make
• There is someone to delight at the other end of every ad
• Create a form of advertising that is at once a gift to the consumer, and a doorway to a universe of possibility
• If you always keep your promises, you will be the kind of person people want to do business with
• Focus makes an ad great 
• If you want to create and innovate, you should surround yourself with creative and innovative people 

Related content mentioned in this episode

MECLABS Institute Research Library (https://meclabs.com/research)

Marketing 101: What is baking in? (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/marketing-101-what-is-baking-in/)

Marketing 101: What are microsites? (plus 3 successful microsite examples and 2 missteps) (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/marketing-101-what-are-microsites/)

Content Marketing and SEO: The world doesn’t need another blog post (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/search-marketing/customer-focused-content-marketing/)

Informed Dissent: The best marketing campaigns come from the best ideas (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/online-marketing/marketing-dissent-campaigns/)

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course (https://meclabs.com/course/).

Get more episodes

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

The marketer is central to the success of any organization. Which is why the very first section of the Landing Page Blueprint (https://meclabs.com/course/blueprint/), before there is any mention of anything on the landing page, is about The Marketer.

Our latest guest described it this way – the five most important things in a startup or any creative process are people, people, people, market, and product.

That is just one of the lessons from the stories Paul Krasinski, CEO and Founder, Epicenter Experience (https://www.epicenterexp.com/), shared with Daniel Burstein in Episode #9.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Some lessons from Krasinski that emerged in their discussion:

• 5 most important things in a startup or any creative process – people, people, people, market, and product
•  Collaboration – there is no place for top-down management when creating something new.
• Stand back and let the magic happen

Stories (with lessons) about the people he made it with

Krasinski also shared lessons he learned from the people he collaborated with in his career:

• Don’t take things personally
• Humility and curiosity
• Power of relationships
• Don’t act like a rock star

Articles, podcasts, and a book mentioned in this episode:

Content Marketing: How to help subject matter experts come up with blog topics (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/content-marketing-2/content-marketing-how-to-blog-topics/)

Marketing Careers: 6 reasons to embrace a career in marketing (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing)

Forensic Reporting on Marketing Campaigns: Dig deep to replicate your successes (and learn from your failures) with marketing and sales enablement case studies (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/replicate-your-successes-with-case-studies/)

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/217649/the-second-mountain-by-david-brooks/) by David Brooks

Don’t Give Clients What They Want: “That’s also the name of a convention for adults who dress as toddlers” – Podcast Episode #6 (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/client-management)

The Psychology of Blue Jeans: What marketers can learn from 150 years of Levi Strauss customer letters – Podcast Episode #4 (https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/customer-psychology)

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About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher free digital marketing cours

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Empathy is not just the human choice, it’s the right choice for business. The power that your own stories have to connect more effectively with others.

These are a few of the lessons from the stories Nasya Kamrat, CEO and co-founder, FACULTY (https://www.wearefaculty.com/), shared with Daniel Burstein in Episode #8 of the How I Made It in Marketing podcast.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Some lessons from Kamrat that emerged in our discussion:

Know when to ask for help

While in the maternity ward, Kamrat led a big pitch via video conference. In the middle of the meeting, the woman in the room next to her went into labor – alarms blaring, hospital machines beeping, people shouting and lights flashing. Of course, she couldn’t mute fast enough. Everyone on the call stopped and looked at her. She responded, “oh, you know, the sounds of Brooklyn.” They all nodded like that was a totally acceptable answer and went on with the meeting.
 
 Empathy is not just the human choice, it’s the right choice for business.

In the early days of Covid, Kamrat had a Zoom call with a prospective client. She went into pitch mode instead of having empathy. Her agency did not get a second call.

Supporting other underrepresented founders, lifting as we climb

When she started her business 12 years ago, Kamrat and her founding partner had to make a decision – were they going to get certified as a woman-owned or a minority-owned agency? Much to their surprise, they couldn’t be both. 

Stories (with lessons) about the people she made that marketing with

Kamrat also shared lessons she learned from the people she collaborated with in her career:

Bill Prince, SVP of Entertainment, Holland America Line: An example of how to be authentic

The cruise line is a current and long-standing client of Kamrat’s agency. Early on, Prince would get incredibly annoyed with her. She’d come up with a fancy deck in her fancy clothes and spout all the expected marketing speak. And he’d immediately tune out. The minute she started talking to him as a real person and not a client, they not only became friends but also very effective partners.

Aaron Wolfe, Chief Creative Officer, Faculty: The power that your own stories have to connect more effectively with others

Hearing her co-worker’s story of moving out of New York City inspired Kumrat to move her family out of the city as well.

Lori Spielberger Klein, Consultant, LSK Creative Connect: How to embrace empathy and humor in leadership

Kamrat worked with Klein at Havas Health, when Klein was an EVP and the Director of Creative Strategy. Klein created an environment that made the creative work fun, exemplified by a New Yorker cartoon she had on her door of a bunch of brain surgeons with the caption, “hey, at least it’s not advertising.”

A free tool mentioned in this episode:

Customer Theory: How to leverage empathy in your marketing (with free tool) (https://marketingexperiments.com/conversion-marketing/customer-theory-leverage-empathy-free-tool)

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About

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the

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Keep it simple. You are nothing without the people around you.

These are a few of the lessons from the stories Maja Frølunde Sand-Grimnitz, Director of Global Marketing for Consumer Gaming, EPOS (formerly Sennheiser Communications)(https://www.eposaudio.com/) shared with Daniel Burstein in Episode #7.

Some lessons from Sand-Grimnitz that emerged in their discussion:

– Keep it simple…both in defining the problem/need of the consumer and developing the solution and communication to meet that need

 Sand-Grimnitz led sales and marketing for Denmark’s hosting of the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship (which has an estimated global viewership of 1.3 billion people). But Danes don’t know ice hockey. Instead of a campaign explaining ice hockey, she kept it simple by focusing on the entertainment/leisure budgets of potential attendees, and focused on the entertainment aspect – adrenaline, action, competition. In the end, the campaign sold 525K tickets and generated 130M+ Danish krone in revenue (116% of the target).
 
– You are nothing without the people around you

Sand-Grimnitz was part of building the sports media brand, ONE Championship. She was in her hotel room working late to prepare for the mixed martial arts brand’s first Pan-Asian Summit. She rushed down to the first floor where she saw the entire team working on packing gift bags for the hundreds of guests. She went in, got what she needed and went back to her room thinking, “good, they are on that, and I am on the rest.” However, in the eyes of her team, they saw a leader that didn’t pitch in.

 – Positioning marketing as a commercial discipline

Going into her 1st budget meeting with C-level management at EPOS, Sand-Grimnitz thought it was enough to put the marketing plan, KPIs & needed budget in front of them. But that didn’t cut it. She went back & restructured the presentation to communicate a more holistic plan.

 Sand-Grimnitz also shared lessons she learned from people she collaborated with:

– Keld Strudahl, Founder, BrandActivators & Sports Marketing Strategies: If you master stakeholder management and getting people to buy into your plan/idea, the sky is the limit. 

 While Strudahl & Sand-Grimnitz were at Carlsberg Group, she briefed the top 3 men & women from the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup about a brand activation. She used marketing industry terms &just told them what to do. Strudahl gently pulled her aside & told her she needed to speak their language

– Victor Cui, President & CEO, Edmonton Elks: The power of being a humble leader when called for

This story place after the gift bag incident (mentioned earlier) when Cui & Sand-Grimnitz were at ONE Championship. Cui informed her that he would scold her publicly at the upcoming team meeting for not pitching in when the team needed her.

 – Iris Isabella Engelund, CEO & Founder, Play Your Talent: If you have dreams, pursue them or let them go

Sand-Grimnitz called Engelund saying she was feeling restless & not motivated but didn’t understand why – her job was good & interesting, career path was moving in the right direction, etc. Engelund helped her map out a 5-year plan for professional ambitions, but also the dreams beyond that.

A podcast episode and free toolkit mentioned in this episode:

How to Model Your Customer’s Mind (https://meclabs.com/about/research-partnerships)

500 Mangled,

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Don’t give clients whatever they ask for. The most fatal blind spot lies in audience knowledge.

These are a few of the lessons from the stories Liz Harr, Partner, Hinge (https://hingemarketing.com/), shared with Daniel Burstein in Episode #6 of the How I Made It in Marketing podcast.

Some lessons from Harr that emerged in our discussion:

• Don’t give clients whatever they ask for: When a tech client wanted to name its conference CapCon, Harr’s team did some competitive research and discovered that it was the name of an annual convention for age players – also known as adults who dress up like toddlers and tykes.
  
  
• The most fatal blind spot lies in audience knowledge: Harr worked with a client whose website messaging centered on the fact that everyone on the team came from a Big Four accounting firm. While the messaging was designed to reassure prospects, Harr’s team interviewed executives from deals the firm lost and discovered this messaging communicated something else…A-team rates for basic administrative tasks. 
  
  
•  Keep friends close and your enemies closer…because enemies can make great partners: When Harr owned a VAR (value added reseller), collaborating with and ultimately merging with a competitor ended up saving both companies during the financial collapse of 2008…and it all began by networking with one of their biggest competitors.

Harr also shared lessons she learned from the people she collaborated with in her career:

•  Junya Sugimoto of the Ministry of Education at Yao Shi Precinct in Osaka taught her to just be. Her first job right out of college was at the Japanese Ministry of Education. One day her boss sat her down for a heart-to-heart talk about how to make a bigger impact by bringing more of her real self to work – the part of her that enjoyed listening to people, making connections with them, and working as part of a team with the same goals.
  
  
•  Shams Zaman, CFO, Technologist taught her the power that your own stories have to connect more effectively with others: Harr was asked to help run a side business, a car dealership. It didn’t work out, and she was fired. Her boss (Zaman) told her, “Sometimes, the worst moments in life are the launch pads for getting us to where we’re really meant to be.” She has used this story and moment of vulnerability to connect with people reporting to her throughout her career.
  
  
•  Lee Frederiksen, Managing Partner, Hinge taught her that our peers play a key role in our development as leaders and experts in our field: Frederiksen coached and advised her through business and personal crises when she ran a startup, and Harr went on to work with him at Hinge.

Articles (and a keynote video) mentioned in this episode:

The Marketer’s Blind Spot: 3 ways to overcome the marketer’s greatest obstacle to effective messaging (https://meclabs.com/research/lecture/marketing-blindspots-flint-mcglaughlin)

Customer-First Marketing: A conversation with Wharton, MarketingSherpa, and MECLABS Institute (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/consumer-marketing/wharton-interview-customer-first-marketing/)

Why You Should Thank Your Competitors (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/why-tha

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

In Episode #5, Daniel Burstein, Senior Director of Content & Marketing, MarketingSherpa, interviewed  Jonathan Fashbaugh, President, Pro Impressions Marketing (https://www.proimpressionsgroup.com/).

Some lessons from Fashbaugh that emerged in the discussion:

• Popular content isn't always the best content for the client. His team blogged on a dentist’s website about the vampire fang effect that was used in the TV show “True Blood.” The post explained how people could get porcelain veneers that looked like fangs…only problems was, the dentist did not offer that service. 
• Well-written content put together by someone who understands the business can go a very long way toward the client's success. Fashbaugh went to seminars with a dentist, shared a hotel with him, and was his hands-on patient for the courses they attended together. He used this course as experience to help inform the website he was building for the dentist. 
• Attention to detail in a niche pays dividends. Dentists have taught Fashbaugh to be very picky. There was a stock photo floating around that many design companies were using. But if you looked closely, the model was missing one of her teeth toward the back of her mouth. 

Fashbaugh also shared lessons he learned from the people he collaborated with in his career:

• Robin Schmachtenberger, Owner, idolum – Don't go around your supervisor, and you don't throw your weight around as the new person. 
•  Bill Fukui, Senior Director of Business Development, MedShark Digital – Always get the client or prospect on the phone before you give up the goods. 
•  Jeff Haddad, Owner and Dentist, Rochester Advanced Dentistry – Communicating with consumers in their language. 

Articles (and a course) mentioned in this episode:

Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/)– free digital marketing course from MECLABS Institute, MarketingSherpa’s parent organization

Banner Blindness: Why your marketing messages are hiding in plain sight (https://marketingexperiments.com/digital-advertising/banner-blindness-messages-hiding)

Ask MarketingSherpa: Copywriting for non-native English speakers (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/copywriting/non-native-english-speakers/)

Quick Win Intensive (https://meclabs.com/QuickWinIntensive) – from MECLABS

Value Proposition Workshop (https://meclabs.com/services/value-proposition) – from MECLABS

Marketing 101: What is a Design Brief? (with 2 examples) (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/design-2/marketing-101-what-is-a-design-brief-with-2-examples/)

Customer Centricity: How to use transparency to generate customer trust (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/video/transparency-to-generate-customer-trust) – featured session from Michael Norton, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School

500 Mangled, Stretchy Ru

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Daniel Burstein spoke to Dr. Michael Solomon, Professor of Marketing, Saint Joseph’s University (https://www.sju.edu/) in Episode #4.

Some lessons that emerged in the discussion:

•  Don’t overlook unconventional sources of data. When Dr. Solomon worked with Levi Strauss on the psychology of blue jeans, he learned a lot by poring through letters customers had written to the company over 150 years. 
•  Interact as much as possible with real consumers when you’re developing a new product. Dr. Solomon’s team observed how users struggled with a popular cleaning product from Black & Decker. By making a simple design change that didn’t occur to the engineers, this brand became the market leader in its category.
•  Get frequent reality checks from customers. As an author of several marketing textbooks, Dr. Solomon discovered that his frame of reference is not the same as his readers (typically college students). For example, when he discussed cultural events like 9/11, he had to remind himself that his readers were infants when this occurred.

Dr. Solomon also shared lessons he gained from the people he collaborated with in his career:

•  John Greco, Chair and CEO, Marketing IMPACT Council taught him about the strength of weak ties. Networking with associates of a colleague can be very effective. John reinforced the value of maintaining strong networks and partnerships where members possess complementary skills.
• Dr. Malaika Brengman, Associate Professor of Marketing, Vrije Universiteit Brussel taught him about finding collaborators with complementary skillsets. Collaborating on research about robotic service providers, he has seen how valuable it can be to team up with a colleague who has a different frame of reference and background.
• Jacqueline Lew, Executive Director / Global Head of Consumer & Brand Health Practice, CI Product Leadership, NielsenIQ taught him to always be vigilant about updating assumptions. Jacqueline’s frame of reference is global (she is based in Malaysia) and her perspective has been useful to him as he checks his assumptions about consumer behavior in other parts of the world.

Dr. Solomon’s parting words of advice: “Always start at least with the assumption that your frame of reference is not the same as your customers”

Articles (and a book) mentioned in this episode:

The New Chameleons: How to Connect with Consumers Who Defy Categorization (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-new-chameleons-the-new-chameleons-michael-r-solomon/1136940991) – his book

Mobile Marketing: 4 takeaways on how to improve your mobile shopping experience beyond just responsive design (https://marketingexperiments.com/conversion-marketing/mobile-marketing-four-takeaways-on-how-to-improve-your-mobile-shopping-experience-beyond-just-responsive-design)– eBags used customer anthropology to discover how customers shop for handbags online

Customer Theory: How to leverage empathy in your marketing (with free tool) (https://marketingexperiments.com/conversion-marketing/customer-theory-leverage-empathy-free-tool)

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Trust your gut – always, especially in regard to hiring and retention decisions. Negotiate – and know your worth.

These are a few of the lessons Michelle Burrows, CMO, Splashtop (https://www.splashtop.com/), shared with Daniel Burstein in Episode #3 of the How I Made It In Marketing podcast.

We discussed:

• Make sure you have the right partner for what you want to do: Why a test direct marketing campaign of 500 dimensional mailers went awry
• Trust your gut always…especially regarding hiring and retention decisions: The chief marketing officer shares what she learned from leading teams ranging in size from three to 130, including the hiring decision that she realized was a mistake after only three weeks. “What you’ll tolerate speaks volumes to the rest of the organization,” she said.
• Negotiate, and know your worth: A tactic she overlooked for the first 10 years of her career

Burrows also shared lessons she gained from the people she collaborated with in her career:

• Dick Schulte, Executive Coach, Services, Optiv Security: how to work in a different country, when a move to Europe that was supposed to last six weeks to three months (max) turned into a five-year stay
• Denise Persson, CMO, Snowflake: humility from a leader who went on to help launch one of the most successful IPOs ever
• Mariann McDonagh, CMO, WorkFusion: heart-centered leadership

Articles (and a webinar replay) mentioned in this episode:

B2B Social Media Marketing: DocuSign's targeted LinkedIn InMail strategy creates 3 large pipeline opportunities (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/video/webinar/successful-b2b-linkedin-inmail-strategy) – interview with Meagen Eisenberg

What are the most valuable marketing skills? (with free resources to improve those skills) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/career-climber/the-5-essential-marketing-skills-you-need-to-be-successful) – includes advice on an interview question to discover how well the candidate understood customers in their previous role

14 Strategies for Hiring and Retaining Marketing Professionals (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing-hiring) – discusses some ways to attract employees beyond salary, such as sabbaticals, four-day workweeks, extra paid time off, and more

The De-Branding Campaign: When customers make fun of your new product launch (Episode #2) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/debranding) – Everyone in the organization has an opinion on marketing

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher free digital marketing course –  https://meclabs.com/course/

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

In Episode #2, Daniel Burstein talks to Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth and Operations, Navattic (https://www.navattic.com/).

Natalie shares key lessons from what she’s made (and in her case, unmade) – ranging from a de-branding campaign to a redesigned website – in her career where she often was the sole marketer in the company. We discussed:

• A de-branding campaign and the importance of being agile when things go so wrong
• Building, writing, and designing three ad campaigns per month as a solo marketer – why that is too much, quality must trump quantity, and how a marketing calendar helped 
• “Unless you’re doing research, you’re not going to do effective marketing” – she gets up from her desk, goes for a walk, and listens in to sales calls to learn from customer reactions
• Redesigning the website based on a shift in the ideal customer profile. In the redesign, she put prospects experience above all else. The results – 40% conversion rates from any lead who fills out a form on the website to booking a meeting with the sales team. They also have a nearly 50% win rate, showing the quality of the leads.

Natalie also shares lessons she gained from influential mentors and managers in her career:

•  Matthew Sniff, Chief Product Officer, Map My Customers – blocking off learning time 
•  Andrea Kayal, CMO, Electric – sticking up for brand strategy in leadership sessions
•  Chris Walker, CEO, Refine Labs – putting your buyer above what may be best for your bottom line

Articles (plus a book and a course) mentioned in this episode:

Product Development Chart: A “minimum viable product” is not enough to satisfy customers (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/minimum-viable-vs-minimum-awesome)

The Marketer as Philosopher: 40 Brief Reflections on the Power of Your Value Proposition book by Flint McGlaughlin, CEO, MarketingSherpa & MECLABS (https://meclabs.com/course/the-marketer-as-philosopher/)

Scaling to a $15 million company in 18 months by transparently serving an ideal customer (and saying “no” to other business) – Podcast Episode #1 (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/scaling-podcast)

The Content Marketing Tipping Point: Marcus Sheridan’s magic number is 30, what is yours? (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/email-marketing/content-marketing-magic-number/)

MarketingSherpa Library (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/library) – 8,768 case studies, articles, and videos

Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) (free digital marketing course)

Customer-First Marketing Chart: How to get customers to give your company a second chance (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/how-customers-give-second-chance)

2022 Growth Trends Interview Series, Episode 5: Community building with Chris Walker (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6887062373966848000/)

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

When I started in B2B, my mentor told me, “We call this business to business, but make no mistake, people buy products, not businesses. It’s people who make decisions for these businesses.”

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. If you’re only focused on businesses as accounts, you’re overlooking opportunities.

For example, as our latest guest shared in his podcast guest application, “Track when your customer champions change jobs.”

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I spoke with Matthew Bowman, VP of Strategy, GTM, and Growth Marketing, ACT [https://www.acttoday.com/]. 

ACT is a 100% employee-owned company with 12,000 employees and 23 offices around the world.

In Bowman’s previous role, he oversaw a team of 32 direct and indirect reports and a budget of $3 million. He is currently in a startup role where he is scaling up the marketing teams.

While seemingly simple, Bowman says these lessons served as part of the foundation for his creating an international department that generated $1.6 billion in revenue over 11 years’ time:

• Message trumps channel
• Track when your customer champions change jobs
• Interview your customers
• Watch for unintended consequences of strategic initiatives
• Prioritize with the RACE (Return, Amplitude, Conviction, Energy) Method of decision making
• Generate buzz with guerrilla marketing
• Foster a positive and productive atmosphere to optimize team performance

Discussed in this episode

Build an artificial intelligence strategy that helps you produce more revenue in an AI Quick Win Intensive [https://intensives.meclabsai.com/] (from MarketingSherpa's parent organization).

Career Adaptability: Marketing can lead to many other things (podcast episode #103) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/career-adaptability]

Marketing Career: How to become an indispensable asset to your company (even in a bad economy) [https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-career]

Marketing Strategy: 5 successful (and 1 failed) strategic approaches to everyday marketing challenges [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing-strategy-5-successful-and-1-failed-strategic-approaches]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

In the debut episode of the How I Made It In Marketing podcast, Daniel Burstein talks to Whitney Hill, Co-Founder and Head of Business Operations & Development, Snap ADU (https://snapadu.com/).

Whitney shares key lessons from what she’s made – ranging from Excel data tools to a transparent website to a memorable brand name – in a career that has spanned Yale, an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, Seamless.com, Bain & Company, and more. We discussed:

• Winning on execution: using real-time data to intrinsically motivate a warehouse fulfillment team (and reduce headcount by 20 percent)
• Scaling to a $15 million company in 18 months with the help of Excel tools, pricing transparency, focusing on the ideal customer, and more
• Promoting transparency to gain trust: being an information source for an industry (whether or not people buy from you) – including clear, upfront pricing – to help attract 75% of the company’s business through organic search
• Being memorable and pithy: rebranding from a traditional construction company name (Moore Construction) to a name that better communicates the value proposition and helps with SEO (Snap ADU)

She also shares lessons she gained from influential mentors and managers in her career:

• Wiley Cierlli, CEO and Founder, Good Uncle – honing an elevator pitch
• Andrew Benoit, Founder & CEO, ZoneJump – building a legacy 
• Paul Cichocki, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer, BJ's Wholesale Club – managing a data team
• Mike Moore, Co-Founder & Head of Production, SnapADU – nurturing business relationships

Articles mentioned in this episode:

Sales Funnel: 3 case studies with tips on how to say “no” to customers and improve marketing results – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/sales-funnel-3-case-studies-with-tips-on-how-to-say-no-to-customers-and-improve-marketing-results  (Quick Case Study #1 in this article shows how Whitney helped improve proposal close rate by 55 percent)

14 Strategies for Hiring and Retaining Marketing Professionals – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing-hiring  

How to Win Friends and Influence People (book by Dale Carnegie) – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-dale-carnegie/1100370318  

Hospitals Hide Prices on Web, Undermining Disclosure Rule. – https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-hide-pricing-data-from-search-results-11616405402 

Is Your Company Embracing ‘Fear-Based’ or ‘Fear-Less’ Marketing in 2012 and Beyond? – https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/fear-less-marketing/ (Marcus Sheridan shares how transparent pricing information on River Pools & Spas website helped generate 124,000 page views over two years)

To receive future episodes of how I Made It In Marketing, sign up to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter at https://marketingsherpa.com/newsletters

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Content Warning: On How I Made It In Marketing, we delve beneath the buzzwords of our industry to uncover the biggest lessons from successful careers. Our guests share detailed, hard-fought, in-the-trenches stories of how they learned these lessons and put them into practice.

Today's guest has spent a significant part of her career selling condoms. As a result, our in-depth conversation may involve frank discussions about sexual topics. If you are uncomfortable with this subject matter, you should not listen to this episode. You can explore our 107 other episodes [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/podcast].

Marketing can be perceived as a devious force, tricking people into buying things they don’t need and using services that exploit them. Ouch. I don’t want my life’s work to be that.

In a society of choice, marketing can also connect people with things that bring them utility and joy. That’s a better place to be.

Even better, I believe the highest and best use of marketing is to nudge people towards choices that benefit them in the long term, even if they’re less appealing in the short term, like healthy eating and exercise.

Our next guest markets a product that helps reduce health risks, even though it’s often more fun not to use it. Adding to the challenge, it’s a taboo topic. The product is condoms.

To hear lessons and stories from her experience marketing this product, I talked to Milla Impola, Director of Marketing & Communications, Global Protection Corporation [https://globalprotection.com/].

Global Protection Corporation is owned by Karex Berhad. Karex is a publicly traded company on Bursa Malaysia. It reported 532 million Malaysian Ringgit in revenue in 2023, equal to approximately $117 million Impola manages a marketing team of 10 along with 50 contractors.

Here are some lessons from Impola that emerged in our discussion:

• Force yourself to practice public speaking
• The best way to learn your customers is to talk to them
• Don’t just think outside the box. Throw that box away and reimagine it as a glitter-covered bean bag.
• Mentorship is so rewarding and impactful
• Find a job you love
• Find research-focused reporters

Discussed in this episode

Our team has made 41 updates to MeclabsAI [https://meclabsai.com/] since the official launch of the full-featured version, including:

• Shareable conversations
• Voice to text
• Image generation
• The ability to create and link prompts directly from the dashboard (when you build your custom experts and apps)

MeclabsAI is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa.

Marketing Pragmatism: Embrace ‘hand-grenade math’ over false precision (podcast episode #101) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-pragmatism]

Top HARO (Help A Reporter Out) Alternatives: How to find primary sources for business journalism and content marketing [https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/content-marketing-2/haro-alternatives/]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Look, let’s face it, our industry can have a bad reputation.

And I can see why. Just scroll through YouTube or social media and you’ll see self-appointed gurus shouting about tricks and hacks and shortcuts.

But sustainably successful marketing is not about shortcuts, it’s about digging into the very essence of what it means to be a human being.

Sounds pompous, I know, but hear me out.

Effective marketing deeply understands and portrays human realities, behaviors, and emotions. It connects authentically with people's experiences, desires, and needs.

So when I read this lesson in a podcast guest application – ‘marketing is often about showcasing human truths’ – I knew I had found a kindred spirit I wanted to sit down with and learn from Karuna Rawal, CMO and CRO, Nature’s Fynd [https://www.naturesfynd.com/].

Nature’s Fynd has raised $500 million in funding since its founding in 2012. Backers include celebrity investors like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Jack Ma; along with institutional investors like SoftBank and Blackstone.

Rawal leads a team of 17 across Marketing, Sales, PR, Innovation, Culinary, Business Development and Creative – plus three agencies. Startups run fast and lean, she says.

Here are some lessons from Rawal that emerged in our discussion:

• Marketing is often about showcasing human truths
• Where there’s a will, there’s a way
• Marketing matters, even for legacy brands
• Set a high bar for quality customer experiences
• Always choose to do the harder right thing than the easy wrong thing 
• Align strategy with creativity

Discussed in this episode

Craft an AI strategy that resonates with your customers' human truth. Join Flint McGlaughlin and the MeclabsAI team for an AI Quick Win Intensive [https://intensives.meclabsai.com/] (from MarketingSherpa’s parent organization).

Marketing: It’s not about you, and when you make it about you, you are never going to succeed (podcast episode #53) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-not-about-you]

Content and Communications: Tenacity, keep it simple, authenticity works (podcast episode #33) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/content]

CMO-CPO Collaboration: Bridge Marketing and Product for collaborative growth (podcast episode #95) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/CMO]

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters]. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

The Accidental Recycled Poop Marketer!

That’s the headline of a recent podcast guest application.

And it came from someone leading marketing for an interesting product – a paid B2B and B2C product, sold by a nonprofit, that is run by an independent city government authority, a water and sewer utility formed in collaboration with the federal government.

So no matter what type of marketing you do or business you run, there’s probably a lesson for you in this episode with April Thompson, Senior Director for Bloom, Blue Drop [https://bluedrop.co/], (part of DC Water).

Blue Drop is a nonprofit organization created by DC water to generate revenue and therefore save its ratepayers money. DC Water is the District of Columbia Water and Sewage Authority. DC Water reported $898 million in operating revenues for 2023.

Thompson manages a two-person saleswoman team that has sold 65,000 tons of biosolids in its recycled poop fertilizer/soil amendment product in fiscal year 2024. Biosolids are a product most utilities pay to dispose of. 

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Thompson that emerged in our discussion:

• Marketing socially and environmentally responsible products is no different than marketing a conventional product
• Champion your champions
• Quit while you're ahead; no risk, no reward
• Optimism is underrated
• “It's not brain surgery on babies"
• Highly successful people give more credit than they take

Discussed in this episode

Get your Quick Start AI Productivity Kit when you sign up for a free, 3-month scholarship to the AI Guild [https://join.meclabsai.com/]

Sustainable Marketing: Take the time to understand your target audience deeply and your value proposition (podcast episode #104) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/sustainable]

Why You Should Thank Your Competitors [https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/why-thank-your-competitors/]

Customer-First Marketing: Every click is a wish (podcast episode #85) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/customer-first]

Client Pitch Call from the Maternity Ward: “That sound? Oh, you know, the sounds of Brooklyn” – Podcast Episode #8 [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/client-pitch-call]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Be careful you don’t engage in marketing color by numbers so to speak. It’s easy to get lost in process flowcharts and databases. 

You could build out the perfect infrastructure – the right media buys, marketing automation and drip campaigns all set, everything is being properly measured and attributed – yet in all that work it is easy to overlook what that infrastructure should be for. This is just marketing color by numbers.

So I love this lesson from my latest guest – ‘Embed creative within your business model.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Diego Osorio, Founder & Chief Creative Office, Lobos 1707 Tequila.

Lobos 1707 is a privately held company. Investors include Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Draymond Green, and Rich Paul. It has had a product in market for three years. 

Osorio oversees a team of 100, and directly manages a leadership team of 13 people and a nine-person marketing department.

To dive deeper into Osorio’s strategies and gain actionable insights for your marketing journey, listen to the full episode using this embedded player or by clicking through to your preferred audio streaming service using the links below it.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Osorio that emerged in our discussion.

• Authenticity should be at the core of a brand 
• Embed creative within your business model 
• Break down the barriers of titles
• Grab the tiger by the tail
• Build something you’ll be proud of
• Pressure is a privilege

Discussed in this episode

AI Guild (https://join.meclabsai.com/)

Not Enough Lobster In The Ocean: Trusting their gut leads to 90,000% revenue growth at Mint Mobile (Podcast Episode #11) (https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/revenue-growth-podcast)

“Authenticity” vs. “Professionalism”: Should you be your authentic self in your brand’s content and marketing? Or must you adhere to certain strictures considered “professional” in your industry? (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/authenticity)

Creative Marketing and Advertising Campaigns: Hold the line & get a door kicker (podcast episode #84) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/creative-marketing)

How the Pandemic Inspired Brands to Rethink their Marketing Strategy: 3 quick case studies (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/pandemic-brands-rethink-marketing-strategy-case-studies)

Marketing Career: Can you explain your job to a six-year-old? (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-job)

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Who is your ideal customer? And how does your brand serve them?

Yes, I know you have KPIs to hit this quarter. Leads. Sales. A specific revenue target. And so it can be easy to quickly drill down to targets.

But all marketing beings by asking… who is the ideal customer? And how does our brand serve them?

So I loved a lesson I recently read in a podcast guest application – ‘Take the time to understand your target audience deeply and your value proposition.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories from throughout her career, I sat down with Kristen Stevens, Senior Marketing Manager for the US, at the Marine Stewardship Council. (https://www.msc.org/)

The Marine Stewardship Council is a nonprofit organization that was formed by the World Wildlife Fund and Unilever. It reported £32.73 million of total income in its most recent fiscal year ending in March 2023, which equates to roughly $41.3 million – 19% of the world's wild fisheries are engaged in the MSC program.

In 2023, Stevens oversaw 58 co-marketing campaigns for the MSC.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Stevens that emerged in our discussion.

• Turn critical feedback into your strength / learn to thrive in ambiguity
• The importance of a 'hero' metric that you and team work toward
• Take the time to understand your target audience deeply and your value proposition
• Balance the lending and borrowing of trust and credibility in partnerships
• Present research with clear narrative arcs and actionable takeaways
• Structure feedback requests with specific lenses and pointed questions

Discussed in this episode

AI Quick Win Intensive – Get help building an artificial intelligence strategy that aligns with your brand’s value proposition. Join Flint McGlaughlin and the MeclabsAI team for an AI Quick Win Intensive (https://intensives.meclabsai.com/) from MarketingSherpa’s parent organization.

Data as Marketing Fertilizer: You can have piles and piles of data, but unless you know how to use the data correctly, it won’t get you very far (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/data)

Customer Value: The 4 essential levels of value propositions (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/levels-of-value-propositions)

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I always hated this interview question. It’s not that I’m against planning; it’s that I’m for flexibility. And I don’t want to get trapped in a five-year plan.

I try to focus on delivering value today helping people out, and improving my future self for tomorrow, and from there, opportunities naturally arise.

So a lesson from this episode’s guest really resonated with me – ‘be open to where your path takes you.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Melinda Marchesi, Chief Marketing Officer, Prosper Marketplace (https://www.prosper.com/).

Since its founding in 2005, Prosper Marketplace has originated $28 billion in loans for two million customers. Prosper Marketplace is backed by leading investors including Francisco Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Third Point, and Jefferies.

Marchesi manages a team of 30 and a $50 million marketing budget at Prosper. Throughout her career, she has managed teams as small as five and as large as thousands, and marketing budgets from $20 million to hundreds of million dollars.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Marchesi that emerged in our discussion.

• Be open to where your path takes you
• Marketing can lead to many other things
• Know the numbers and how your work impacts them
• Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you
• Respect people’s lives outside of work
• What are YOU going to do about it?
• Passion and curiosity fuel the best work

Discussed in this episode

Get a Quick Start AI Productivity Kit when you apply for your free three-month scholarship to the AI Guild (https://join.meclabsai.com/) – courtesy of MeclabsAI, MarketingSherpa’s parent company.

Marketing Career: How to become an indispensable asset to your company (even in a bad economy) (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-career)

The Data Pattern Analysis: 3 ways to turn info into insight (https://marketingexperiments.com/digital-analytics/episode-2-using-data-as-a-force-for-the-good)

Enterprise Solutions Marketing: You can make a big career, and still stay human (podcast episode #99) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/enterprise)

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

You can’t do everything. So you essentially have to make some ‘bets,’ for lack of a better word. What is going to have the biggest impact with your audience?

Focus your energy and budget there, to make the biggest splash you can.

OK, that’s a boring way to say it. So I like how my next guest worded it in his podcast guest application – ‘If you're gonna be a bear, be a Grizzly.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories from throughout his career, I sat down with Clinton Bonner, Vice President of Marketing, Launch by NTT Data (https://launch.nttdata.com/).

Launch by NTT Data is owned by NTT, a publicly traded company. It most recently reported annual revenue of over 13 trillion Yen, roughly equal to $85 billion at current exchange rates.

Bonner manages a team of 10 and a $5 million to $10 million marketing budget. 

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing:

• Empower your team with top designers
• Think, build, and scale like a product owner
• If you're gonna be a bear, be a Grizzly 
• Trust great creative people
• Don’t be afraid to let the deep work be the star

Discussed in this episode

Get a Scenario Analysis with this command in MeclabsAI.com (it's free to get started): 

/SNA analyze [specific scenario] for conversion rate impacts and suggest strategies

MeclabsAI is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa

Marketing 101: What is a Design Brief? (with 2 examples) (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/design-2/marketing-101-what-is-a-design-brief-with-2-examples/)

Product Management & Marketing: Surround yourself with the right people (podcast episode #38) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/product)

Enterprise Solutions Marketing: You can make a big career, and still stay human (podcast episode #99) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/enterprise)

B2B Marketing: Marketing shouldn't be about driving demand; it's about driving value (podcast episode #40) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/B2B)

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This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

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This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

We recently published data on interdepartmental collaboration by marketing teams [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/interdepartmental-collaboration]. More leading marketing departments had a strong partnership with the product team than with any other internal team.

But for the lagging marketing departments, strong partnerships with the sales team fell in the middle – 4th out of 7 departments – and they had far fewer strong partnerships with the product team than leading marketing departments did.

I was working on the data for that chart article when a podcast guest application came across my desk with these lessons – People and culture matter a lot, mentorship matters even more, product matters the most.

To hear the stories behind those lessons, along with more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Yana Ernazarova, CMO, Edushape [https://www.edushape.com/].

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

• People and culture matter a lot
• Mentorship matters even more
• Product matters the most
• Vision and culture are key to long-term results in large organizations
• Sometimes you should kill bad business ideas quickly, no matter how passionate you are about them
• A marketing or business idea is useless until it's executed upon

Discussed in this episode

Get Productive With AI [https://MeclabsAI.com/GetProductive]– January 8th at noon. No cost.

Enterprise Solutions Marketing: You can make a big career, and still stay human (podcast episode #99) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/enterprise]

Marketing Mentorship: Direct feedback is a gift (podcast episode #98) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-mentorship]

Product Quality: Marketing's job is to help the product win (podcast episode #97) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/product-quality]

Creative Marketing and Advertising Campaigns: Hold the line & get a door kicker (podcast episode #84) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/creative-marketing]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

In the fast-paced world of marketing, precision can often be a double-edged sword. In our this episode, Kiara Kempski, Vice President of Global Consumer & Vendor Marketing at The Knot Worldwide (https://www.theknotww.com/), shares why sometimes ‘hand-grenade math’—a rough yet pragmatic approach—is more effective than chasing false precision.

I discussed forecasting, along with resilience, entertainment, and many other elements of a marketing career with her.

Intrigued by Kempski’s insights? Listen to the full episode now and subscribe to our newsletter for more marketing wisdom (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Think you have a story to share? Apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application).

The Knot was a public company traded on NASDAQ until 2018, when parent company XO Group merged with WeddingWire and to form a privately held company in a $933 million buyout deal. Today, The Knot Worldwide connects nearly 4 million couples with approximately 900,000 wedding professionals per year. It earned $450 million of revenue in 2023.

Kempski leads a team of 150 marketers.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Kempski that emerged in our discussion:

• Find a business problem and recommend a solution. 
• Entertainment is powerful for brand building
• Resilience is the key to success…and mental health 
• ‘Hand-grenade math’ is good enough, don’t chase false precision (and everyone thinks they are a brand marketer)
• Stay data informed, but lead with vision and strategy
• Be purpose led
• Never be complacent or stagnant – always keep learning

Discussed in this episode

There are 4 days left until the official launch of the full-featured MeclabsAI (parent organization of MarketingSherpa). Use it for free (until June 17th) at MeclabsAI.com

Entrepreneurial Resilience: Many of the day-to-day annoyances that inspired him to sell, he actually missed after he sold (podcast episode #78) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/entrepreneurial)

Female Entrepreneurship and Marketing: Having built a big community doesn't mean you will be able to monetize it (podcast episode #71) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/entrepreneurship)

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

How I Made It In Marketing is not about marketing.

Not really.

It’s about marketers. And the funny thing about marketers is that we’re not just marketers, we’re also human beings. So to succeed as marketers, we also have to be successful humans.

Which is why I always love a lesson like – ‘Balance ambition with well-being.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lessons and stories from throughout her career, I talked to Jordan Welby, Director of Marketing Ops at Cella by Randstad Digital (https://www.cellainc.com/).

Cella is owned by Randstad. Randstad is a publicly traded company that generated 25.4 billion euros in revenue in 2023.

Welby oversees operations for a marketing team of 11, including two direct reports.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Welby that emerged in our discussion.

• Inconsistent branding dilutes the message
• Successful mergers require integration and alignment around strategy, goals, and team structure
• Launch campaigns based on data, not personal preference and assumptions
• Balance ambition with well-being
• Take someone under your wing
• The true essence of being a marketer is the ability to inspire, empathize and ignite a spark

Discussed in this episode

Get a free 3-month full scholarship (https://join.meclabsai.com/) to the AI Guild and we’ll send you a Quick Start AI Productivity Kit (provided by MeclabsAI, parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

Branding: 8 lessons to help you make the most effective brand decisions every day (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/branding-8-lessons-most-effective-brand-decisions-every-day)

Data-Driven Marketing: 7 examples of using data as a force for the good (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/using-data-as-a-force-for-the-good)

8 Mini Case Studies of Using Marketing as a Force for Positive Change in Our World While Getting Results for Your Company and Clients (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/8-case-studies-using-marketing-for-positive-change)

The Last Blog Post: How to succeed in an era of Transparent Marketing (https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting/last-blogpost-transparent-marketing)

Marketing Experimentation Strategy: Define and differentiate between experimentation and execution in marketing activities (podcast episode #93) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-experimentation)

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Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

I like to call it blandvertising. I’m sure you’ve read it and heard it before.

There are words. Lots of them. They fill a space – in an ad, on a landing page, in a press release, maybe even in a keynote presentation.

You’ve seen these words before if you’re in the target audience. Scalable. Leading. Agile. Enterprise-grade. Full-service. Data-driven. Cross-platform. Seamless.

They seem to say something, but you’re left walking away…not really understanding and certainly not believing anything at all.

I feel like my career is a battle against blandvertising. Which is why I loved this lesson in a recent podcast guest application – ‘marketing goes beyond buzzwords.’ Perhaps I found a fellow traveler on the journey.

So I sat down for an in-depth discussion with Marco Mueller, CMO, AVEVA (https://www.aveva.com/).

AVEVA was a public company until it was acquired by Schneider Electric last year. Schneider Electric is a public company and reported 36 billion euros in revenue in 2023.

Mueller has had up to 800 people reporting to him in his career. Right now, his team is 250, but he says this is the most exciting job he’s ever had.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Mueller that emerged in our discussion.

• Leadership Is everywhere
• Marketing goes beyond buzzwords
• Trust is earned, not given
• Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets
• You can make a big career, and still stay human
• Confidence is everything

Discussed in this episode

Innovation Leadership and Coaching: You should almost always do less than you think (podcast episode #46) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/innovation)

Customer-First Marketing Strategy: The highest of the five levels of marketing maturity (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/b2c-marketing-2/5-levels-marketing-maturity/)

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This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

“The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.” That quote is from David Ben-Gurion.

And it reminds me of marketing. We’re in the digital age, or maybe we’ve crossed over into the AI age. Either way, we don’t have the long deadlines we had when I started my career writing print ads.

And that’s just the difficult. What about the impossible? Well, that is part of our stock and trade as marketers, right? We push, try new things, experiment, innovate – that which was impossible yesterday is our new campaign or new tool we built for the customer.

So let me drop another quote in here, this one from my next guest – “Embrace ‘riding the worm.’” That’s her way of saying, don’t be afraid to try something that seems virtually impossible. It takes resourcefulness and the ability to tame something seemingly uncontrollable.

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Erika White, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, Affirm (https://www.affirm.com/).

Affirm is a public company that trades on NASDAQ. It reported $1.588 billion in revenue in 2023. White oversees a team of 35 professionals driving all aspects of marketing and communications for the company including growth marketing, martech/ops, partner marketing, brand marketing, research, and public relations. She was a core member of the team leading the $12 billion IPO in early 2021.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from White that emerged in our discussion:

• Embrace ‘riding the worm’
• Don’t forget to laugh and help others do the same
• Within teams, make ownership a feature not a bug
• Energy and positivity are contagious
• Always take the call
• Direct feedback is a gift

Discussed in this episode

Customer-First Marketing Guide: 4 steps (with case studies) to build a customer-first marketing strategy (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/customer-first-marketing)

Just type /SNA into MeclabsAI (https://meclabsai.com/) and get conversion rate optimization ideas for your specific scenarios.  It’s totally FREE to use, for now (Meclabs is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

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This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to 

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

I’ve been watching the new Steve Martin documentary, and it includes a clip of him accepting the Mark Twain Prize.

He calls it “The only significant American award for comedy…except for money.”

It reminded me of our own industry, but in a different way. We have many awards for creativity, and I am a creative person so I love them, but ultimately this art we do is a business art. And the ultimate measure of success is often monetary.

So when I saw this lesson in a podcast guest application – ‘make people money’ – I wanted to dive deeper.

To hear the story behind that lesson – why he left another job function to join the marketing department – along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Brad Gillespie, GM of Cvent Consulting, Cvent (https://www.cvent.com/).

Cvent was a public company, until it was acquired by Blackstone for $4.6 billion last year.

Gillespie estimates that over his 20 years in marketing his campaigns have influenced $1 billion in revenue.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Gillespie that emerged in our discussion.

• Top-down vs. bottoms-up
• Marketing's number is the sales' number
• Marketing's job is to help the product win
• Make people money
• Be the cause
• Get it done. Do it right.

Discussed in this episode

Marketing Research Chart: What information do marketers ask for on list registration forms? (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/information-list-registration-forms)

Marketing Career: How to become an indispensable asset to your company (even in a bad economy) (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-career)

Get even more ideas by pasting the URL for this episode into the Analysts – Video Transcript expert assistant in MeclabsAI (https://meclabsai.com/). It’s totally FREE to use (for now). (Meclabs is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Wherever you are in your career today, you are not necessarily stuck there. I’ve heard time again from guests on How I Made It In Marketing about how they’ve been able to make dramatic, perhaps unlikely career shifts.

On the flip side, if you are a hiring manager, do not pigeonhole potential recruits based only on their current experience.

For as my latest guest puts it, ‘look past the CV.’ Hear the story behind how he learned that lesson in his career, along with many more lesson-filled stories, from Tomer Zuker, VP of Marketing, D-ID (https://www.d-id.com/).

D-ID has raised $47 million overall, including $25 million in a Series B round of funding led by Macquarie Capital two years ago. Zuker manages a team of 10 marketers, in addition to freelancers and agencies.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Zuker that emerged in our discussion.

• Look past the CV
• Delegate
• Understand the rules of the game and set your own boundaries according to your values
• Time is your most precious asset
• Without clear and identifiable goals, you don’t know if you are effective, improving, or contributing
• Networking is a talent and skill

Discussed in this episode

Copywriting for Marketing Leaders: Why you should never delegate the marketing message (and how to get it right) (https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting-2/copywriting-for-marketing-leaders-dont-delegate-the-message)

Marketing Career: How to become an indispensable asset to your company (even in a bad economy) (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-career)

Marketing Research Chart: What are your peers' top email marketing goals? (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/seo-campaigns-in-house)

Get even more ideas from this episode by using the Analysts – Video Transcript expert assistant in MeclabsAI (https://meclabsai.com/). It’s totally FREE to use, for now. (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

One of my favorite career analogies is the music video for No Rain, by Blind Melon.

There’s a girl in a honeybee costume, dancing around, and she’s so sad because no one seems to care or understand.
 
 And then one day, she comes across this field filled with people in honeybee costumes hopping and leaping around. A look of elation crosses her face, and she joins them to dance her best dance.

Are marketing careers really that different? As my next guest puts it – ‘find the place where you thrive.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Tifenn Dano Kwan, CMO, Amplitude (https://amplitude.com/).

Amplitude is a public company traded on Nasdaq. Its annual recurring revenue in 2023 was $281 million, up 10% year-over-year. Dano Kwan manages a team of 60 and a budget of $30 million.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Dano Kwan that emerged in our discussion.

• Lead with empathy
• Find the place where you thrive
• Become a natural collaborator 
• Branding shapes success for companies and leaders
• Empowerment and accountability cultivate leadership at every level
• Bridge Marketing and Product for collaborative growth

Discussed in this episode

Empathy Marketing: 3 examples of empathetic marketing in action (with results) https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/empathy-marketing)

How the Pandemic Inspired Brands to Rethink their Marketing Strategy: 3 quick case studies (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/pandemic-brands-rethink-marketing-strategy-case-studies)

Spontaneous Combustible Collaboration: Most important things in any company are people, people, people, market, and product (Podcast Episode #9) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/people-podcast)

Personal Development in Career: Step out of your comfort zone (podcast episode #73) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/personal-development)

Marketing: It’s not about you, and when you make it about you, you are never going to succeed (podcast episode #53) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-not-about-you)

Get even more ideas from this episode by using the Analysts – Video Transcript expert assistant in MECLABS AI (https://meclabsai.com/). It’s totally FREE to use (for now). (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Whatever it is you’re working on and struggling with, don’t pivot too soon. Make sure you give it enough time to work.

For as this episode’s guest explains – resilience pays out.

Frank Spitzer, CEO, Pelecanus, shares the story of how he grew his company’s YouTube channel from zero to 100,000 subscribes, along with many more lesson-filled stories.

Pelecanus has $250,000 in annual revenue. Spitzer manages a team of four employees, along with four freelancers and interns.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Spitzer that emerged in our discussion.

• Taking responsibility leads to rewards
• Resilience Pays Out: From zero to 112,000 subscribers
• Embracing honesty can lead to deeper connections, personal growth, and inner peace
• Dedication shapes an entrepreneurial journey
• To Achieve Success: Hard work trumps natural talent
•  A good leader stands up for their team

Discussed in this episode

Get even more ideas from this episode by using the Analysts – Video Transcript expert assistant in MECLABS AI (https://meclabsai.com/). It’s totally FREE to use (for now). (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

Female Entrepreneurship and Marketing: Having built a big community doesn't mean you will be able to monetize it (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/entrepreneurship)

PR, Writing, and Marketing Agency Corporate Culture: Think big (podcast episode #49) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/PR)

Marketing Leadership: Aligning the entire team around the unifying vision is an integral part of project management (https://marketingexperiments.com/leadership/aligning-team-around-unifying-vision)

Dive deeper into the minds of marketing mavens with more episodes of 'How I Made It In Marketing.' (https://marketingsherpa.com/podcast) Your next big idea awaits.

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This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Coders are rewarded for writing new features, not for making their code as efficient as possible, Chirstopher Mims recently reported in The Wall Street Journal. According to the article, bloated software raises many risks, and costs the US alone $2.41 trillion due to cybersecurity issues, operational failures, and other problems.

It would be easy for me to sit here and point the finger at software developers, but are marketers any better? As we focus on getting campaigns out the door, new websites up, and hitting our numbers, what do we sacrifice?

Which is why I love this lesson from a recent podcast guest application – ‘Streamline processes to enable efficiency, smooth operations and get rapid results.’ Not shiny and exciting like new marketing tactics perhaps, but essential for a well-run organization.

So I invited that applicant – Tom Amitay, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, Entail (https://entail.ai/) – on How I Made It In Marketing to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories. 

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Amitay that emerged in our discussion.

• Define and differentiate between experimentation and execution in marketing activities
• Prioritize talent over experience when recruiting
• Provide talented yet inexperienced people with frequent, short training sessions and support as they tackle new challenges
• Capitalize on opportunities when they present themselves, even if you don't fully understand their potential value at first
• Streamline processes to enable efficiency, smooth operations and get rapid results
• Combine platform expertise with consultative service that builds client trust

Discussed in this episode

Get even more ideas from this episode by using the Transcript Tutor expert assistant in MECLABS AI (https://meclabsai.com/). It’s totally FREE to use (for now). MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa.

Leadership Development: Network every day (podcast episode #72) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/leadership-development)

The Invisible $1.52 Trillion Problem: Clunky Old Software Everwhere (https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/the-invisible-1-52-trillion-problem-clunky-old-software-f5cbba27)

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This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

We as marketers, we’re the ones that make the brand promise to potential customers.

So it is our job to make sure our companies actually come through on that promise, are consistent with that promise. We are the defenders of the brand.

I love a lesson from my next guest – don't be afraid to say ‘no’ if it serves the brand.

Which of course sounds good in theory but can be incredibly hard in practice. To get underneath that lesson and hear the story behind it, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I sat down with Hilary Young, Brand Strategist, Hilary Young Creative (https://www.hilaryyoungcreative.com/).

Young runs a consultancy with six figures in revenue and seven contractors.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Young that emerged in our discussion.

• Don't focus on failure, keep moving towards success
• Don't be afraid to say ‘no’ if it serves the brand
• Change can be scary, but you have to trust the process
• Operate without ego
• Integrity over compromise in brand vision
• Branding affects more than just the bottom line, it affects people’s lives

Discussed in this episode

Here’s a prompt you can try in MECLABS AI (https://meclabsai.com/). It’s totally FREE to use, for now. (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).

‘Review my competitors' value propositions [URL and URL] and let me know any opportunities for messaging exclusivity for my brand [URL]. Put the information in a table.’

NFTs For Brands: It’s OK to say no, always be a student, don’t resist change (podcast episode #26) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/NFTs-for-brands)

Calling All Writers and Marketers: Write the most effective copy for this Consumer Reports email and win a MarketingSherpa Summit package (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/summit-2016-copywriting-contest)

The De-Branding Campaign: When customers make fun of your new product launch (podcast episode #2) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/debranding)

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This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

We’ve all seen it in the movies. A character has an invisibility cloak, or drinks a potion, or perhaps turns into a ghost. And then, oooh how tantalizing, they can see what goes on when they’re not around.

Well as our latest guest explains it, we shouldn’t just think of that kind of moment as some sort of sci-fi fantasy. We should work as if we’re trying to optimize that conversation.

As she puts it – “It's about what people say when you are not in the room.”

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Allyson Havener, Chief Marketing Officer, TrustRadius [https://www.trustradius.com/].

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

• Creating a category is one of the most difficult GTM strategies, but if you have enough conviction, time, and money to pull it off, it's worth it
• Done is better than perfect
• It's about what people say when you are not in the room
• Align marketing initiatives to revenue
• Lead marketing strategy with the voice of your customers
• Partner to understand the investment needed for growth while also achieving profitability

Discussed in this episode

Get Productive With AI – Join us on November 20th at Noon EST. There is no cost. See the 7 principles you can learn in this session and register to join us at MeclabsAI.com/GetProductive (from MarketingSherpa’s parent company, MeclabsAI).

B2B Digital Marketing & Demand Generation: My boss has asked me to produce $1 billion in revenue. Now what? (podcast episode #109) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/B2B-digital]

Female Entrepreneurship and Marketing: Having built a big community doesn't mean you will be able to monetize it (podcast episode #71) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/entrepreneurship]

Brand Voice: 3 quick marketing case studies from Pedigree, a freelance marketplace, and a marketing agency [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/brand-voice-case-studies]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Here’s something I get to do as a content writer that I never got to do as a copywriter – I sign my name to my work, and that gets displayed publicly.

I’d like to think I was a conscientious writer before, but this makes me 10 times more so. And is a constant reminder that everything needs to be a certain level of awesome – no filler copy.

Even when you don’t sign your name to something, it’s difficult, that commitment to always striving to make something the best it can be – whether that’s an ad or the next rung in your career.

But as our next guest reminds us – don't do something for the sake of ticking a box.

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Nik Maricic, Marketing Director, Asia Pacific, Ria Money Transfer (https://www.riamoneytransfer.com/).

RIA Money Transfer is owned by Euronet Worldwide, which is publicly traded on NASDAQ. Euronet reported $3.668 billion in revenue for 2023. It has the largest direct bank deposit network in the world. 

Maricic built a team of 10.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Maricic that emerged in our discussion:

• Effective communication plays a vital role in achieving success
• Creativity takes center stage in the realm of marketing
• Adaptability also proves to be a critical trait
• Don't do something for the sake of ticking a box
• Win/Win is the concept of not being your way or my way; its a better way, a higher way
• Adaptability is pivotal, in all facets of the term

Discussed in this episode

MECLABS AI (https://meclabsai.com/) has a guided headline writing path to write a powerful headline based on your guidance. It’s totally FREE (for now).

How I Made It In Marketing (https://marketingsherpa.com/podcast)

Artificial Intelligence Demo: A look at the output from an AI-powered podcast assistant service (https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/content-marketing-2/ai-demo/)

Marketing and Brand: Embrace healthy friction (podcast episode #48) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-and-brand)

How marketers fixed 4 common marketing blind spots  (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/marketing-blind-spot-case-studies)

Leading Through Learning: Chief Growth Officer’s innovative approach to marketing leadership (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/leading)

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This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Rebranding.

We use that term for companies. But what about for you?

What is your current value proposition, and what would you like it to be…no matter where you are in your career?

Because as my next guest has learned – it’s never too late to reinvent yourself.

Here to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, is Carlos Cantú, CMO, Freepik (https://www.freepik.com/).

Freepik is owned by EQT, a public company that trades on Nasdaq Stockholm. It reported 2.131 billion Euros of revenue in 2023, or about 2.41 billion US dollars. Cantú manages a marketing team of 45 people.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Cantú that emerged in our discussion.

• It’s never too late to reinvent yourself
• You don’t need to know everything to do the job
• Diverse teams are more challenging in the short term but worth it in the long run
• Clarity and focus are keys to a corporate turnaround
• Embrace discomfort to harness creativity
• Balance data with intuition for the full story
• Discussed in this episode

Leading Through Learning: Chief Growth Officer’s innovative approach to marketing leadership (podcast episode #79) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/leading)

Marketing & Content in Gaming/Esports: Influencers of all sizes can drive product adoption (podcast episode #55) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-and-content)

Innovation Leadership and Coaching: You should almost always do less than you think (podcast episode #46) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/innovation)

Digital Marketing: Be passionate about the challenge you are trying to solve and not stubborn about the product solution (podcast episode #59) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/digital)

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

You know too much. You know too much.

No this isn’t dialogue from a spy movie, I mean in your role as a marketer. You know too much about your product or service or whatever you’re asking your customer to do.

And it makes it hard for you to see your advertising and your conversion funnel through the customer’s eyes.

Or as my next guest put it in her podcast guest application – Be mindful of the ‘curse of knowledge’ (which could itself be a good name for a mystery movie).

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Purna Virji, Principal Consultant of Content Solutions at LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/), and author of the book ‘High-Impact Content Marketing.’ (https://www.koganpage.com/marketing-communications/high-impact-content-marketing-9781398608436)

LinkedIn recently crossed 1 billion users. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, which recently surpassed a $3 trillion market value. Virji functionally manages a cross-functional, global team of 16.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Virji that emerged in our discussion.

• Be mindful of the ‘curse of knowledge’
• Have a measurement plan in place *before* even creating content
• Focusing on inclusion is of absolute, critical importance
• The best performing marketing can come from aligning with Sales folks
• Make the case for resources on a project to get leadership buy in
• If someone sends the elevator down for you, then it is your responsibility to send that elevator back down and lift others 

Discussed in this episode

MECLABS AI (https://meclabsai.com/) now has expert assistants – copywriter, project planner, marketing professor, social media pro, and email assistant. It’s totally FREE to use (for now).

Financial Services Marketing: Don’t fall for Wile E. Coyote marketing (podcast episode #57) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/financial)

MECLABS Institute (https://meclabs.com/)

How to Get Buy-in for Your Projects, Plans and Proposals From the First Pitch to Successful Completion (plus free template) (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/free-template-to-get-buy-in-for-your-projects)

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

If a podcast plays in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Bit of a cheeky thought experiment, I’ll admit, but here’s one thing I’ve noticed – we marketers don’t always create content for an audience, sometimes the audience is an afterthought.

We’re too focused on an algorithm. Or a lead generation goal. Or a calendar. Or a process.

So I love this lesson from a podcast quest application – ‘there is no content without an audience.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Ashley Levesque, Vice President of Marketing, Banzai (https://www.banzai.io/).

Banzai is a public company traded on NASDAQ and currently valued at $100 million. Levesque is currently a team of one, but she manages five functions in this newly public company.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Levesque that emerged in our discussion.

• Data is more compelling than anecdote
• There is no content without an audience
• Overhiring is a real thing
• Say ‘yes’ before you’re ready
• The higher up you go, your priority becomes the people
• There are three things to solve for in times of unmet expectations

Related content discussed in this episode

MeclabsAI.com now has expert assistants – copywriter, project planner, marketing professor, and social media pro. It’s totally FREE to use, you don’t even have to register (for now). MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa.

The Last Blog Post: How to succeed in an era of Transparent Marketing (https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting/last-blogpost-transparent-marketing)

Growth Marketing: Give a choice of "yes" or “yes” (podcast episode #37) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/growth)

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Think about the last time you read a piece of content that truly resonated with you. It could have been a news article, a blog post, or even a social media update. Now, consider what made that content impactful. Was it the way it was written, the story it told, or how it connected with your experiences? This brings me to a crucial aspect of marketing – the art of storytelling and the responsibility that comes with it.

In my career, I've seen how powerful content can shape perceptions and influence decisions. It's not just about putting words on a page and filling your site with content to hopefully appease Google’s relentless algorithm; it's about crafting narratives that engage, inform, inspire…and truly serve an audience.

And who better to learn this from than someone who has practiced the art of storytelling in both journalism and marketing?

So I sat down with Nohar Zmora, SVP of Brand and Strategic Marketing, Kaltura (https://kaltura.com/). 

Kaltura is a public company with 750 employees that trades on NASDAQ and had $168.8 million in revenue in 2022.

Zmora manages a team of 25 in the company’s 40-person marketing department, and works “super, super closely” with her “better half,” Roi Kaufman, VP Growth, Kaltura.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Zmora that emerged in our discussion.

• Don’t just make ‘content,’ take a journalistic perspective and produce impactful material
• Balance long-term brand vision with short-term performance
• Learn how a team ‘breathes,’ evolves, and adapts
• Storytelling has magic and beauty
• Actively listen while collaborating with the business and Sales to create effective marketing strategies
• Have continuous and profound dialogues with stakeholders to achieve success

Related content discussed in this episode

MECLABS AI (https://meclabsai.com/) now has expert assistants – copywriter, project planner, marketing professor, and social media pro. It’s totally FREE to use, you don’t even have to register (for now).

Get more episodes

This article is distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters). Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application