How I Made it in Marketing

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)

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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)

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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

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)

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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 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.

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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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

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/)

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

“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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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