October 21, 2024 • 54 mins
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Imagine stepping into the ring of professional wrestling and how it could transform your approach to the corporate world. That’s precisely what happened to Devin Leshin, a marketing technologist at Microsoft, whose journey from wrestling fan to wrestling performer has left a lasting impact on his career. Devin shares how his passion for wrestling, sparked through resourceful ways to catch pay-per-view events and a chance encounter at an Elks Lodge, seamlessly intertwined with his trajectory in marketing operations and technology. The episode shines a spotlight on how unexpected paths can equip us with diverse skills that enrich our professional lives.
Peeling back the layers of business and entertainment, we draw intriguing parallels between the economy's hidden complexities and the theatrical world of pro wrestling. From handshake rituals in locker rooms to the meticulous planning behind wrestling promotions, Devin and I explore how these elements mirror corporate structures and cultural shifts over time. Revelations about everyday inventions like Velcro add depth to our conversation about the often-overlooked intricacies of both industries, offering fresh insights into the similarities between theater and wrestling.
Communication is the backbone of both wrestling and business success, and we uncover strategies for fostering collaboration and growth. By weaving in Devin's experiences from wrestling, sales, and customer service, we highlight the art of balancing short-term wins with long-term vision. Emphasizing the use of tools like AI for refining communication, we showcase how small shifts in approach can lead to significant improvements in teamwork and strategy. This episode is more than just a tale of wrestling and marketing; it's a testament to the power of unique experiences in shaping innovative perspectives in any field.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom, powered by all
the MoPros out there.
I am your host, michael Hartman, flying solo today.
Mike Rizzo is actively gettingready for Mopsapalooza 2024.
As we're recording this in, Iguess we call it almost
mid-October, so we're just a fewweeks away.
(00:21):
So if you haven't registered,please do so, and Naomi's just
busy.
So, anyway, that's okay, we'regoing to keep powering through.
So today, joining me is DevinLeshin, who is currently a
marketing technologist atMicrosoft.
Prior to Microsoft, devin heldmultiple roles in marketing
operations and as a revenueengineer, which included
(00:51):
client-facing activities as wellas internal functions at an
agency.
Before that, he held roles inmarketing technology, marketing,
account management and customerservice at multiple
organizations in a variety ofindustries.
Devin has another part of hisstory that we're going to get
into shortly, but I'm going tokeep that as a bit of a surprise
and not spoil it right now.
So, devin, thanks for joiningtoday.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Oh, thanks for having me Glad to be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, for our listeners, devin was off camera
off, microphone off, recordingwhatever you want to call it
telling me that it's been ahectic, busy week for him and
we're going to make sure hisvoice powers through all this.
So hang in there with us, allright.
So now I've kept our listenersin suspense a little bit.
(01:31):
Let's reveal that part of yourcareer Maybe do that in air
quotes that I didn't mention upfront.
So earlier in your life youwere involved in professional
wrestling and we're going towe're going to get into how that
helps you in your later career,including marketing operations
and marketing technology.
But first, like, why don't youlike, how about you share your
(01:52):
story about how you got into the, into the wrestling scene and
what you did in that, and thenhow you transitioned from that
to corporate roles?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Okay, yeah, sure, so, um, I was actually fully in the
working working world, uh,before then.
I was working at the time, um,for a very large hotel company
and a manager level and, um, my,uh, my brother and I have
always, you know, watched itsince we were we're kids, you
(02:22):
know.
I mean just to date myself here, like, uh, when the
pay-per-views were on cable andhe and I would use the rabbit
ears on the TV to break throughsome of the static because it
was too expensive for us toorder.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I remember those days Like if you held it, like when
you had to stand there holdingthe rabbit ears right.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yep, yep, so that was the WrestleMania one days, the
Hulk Hogan days.
So we've always been fans of it.
I didn't know that there wereall these sort of layers to the
industry.
I compare it to, say, likebaseball, where you have your
major league and then you haveyour triple A's and you have
(03:02):
your double A single.
A that kind of stuff, same thingwith wrestling.
So both my parents were publicschool teachers and so that
means my dad worked four jobs tohelp with the bills and one of
those he was bartending.
And he picked up where he wasthe head bartender at an Elks
Lodge where I grew up inVirginia, and he knew wrestling
but he didn't know quite so much.
But he recognized that therewere some.
(03:23):
The head bartender at an ElksLodge where I grew up in
Virginia, and you know, he knewwrestling but he didn't know
quite so much.
But he recognized that therewas some name, they were having
a show at the place and hethought it was this bigger group
coming in.
So he called my brother and Iand said, hey, come over, like
there's all this stuff going on.
So I went over there early andit was what we call an indie
(03:46):
company, an independent company,a very small organization, but
they paid to bring in somebigger names, bigger wrestlers,
more famous ones, and they werehaving all these problems with
their set.
Basically.
And, like I said, I was workingat a hotel at the time so I had
access to the AV closet andwhatnot, and I said, well, what
do you need?
So ran out there, got the stuff, came back, helped them set it
(04:11):
up.
You know I've been responsiblefor all the equipment and
because I can't help but do thisin every day of my life and
people that work with me willattest to this I was making
suggestions and all this otheryou know kind of stuff for
improving the, the, uh, the, thepresentation, and so after the
show, um, the, the promoter, thehead of the that company was
(04:31):
like hey, you're really intothis.
Have you thought about training?
And I was like training what?
And so they had a wrestlingschool that they ran also, um,
in addition to this promotion.
And so he told me where it wasand I went to go check it out.
I didn't even know this thing.
You know this type of thingexisted.
Next thing, you know, I'msigned up for training.
I'm doing that, you know, threeor four days a week, including
(04:52):
weekends, learning how to be inthat industry.
And then, soon enough, I was onshows and portraying a
character and started off withthat particular promotion, which
is what you tend to do, andthen you branch out to other
ones, so I kind of slipped intoit, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Did you do?
I don't think we talked aboutthis when we first talked, but
were you in any other sports orathletics beforehand, or was it
a brand-new thing?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Well, it had been a while right.
Brand new thing.
Well, it had been a while right.
So this was 1999, so a goodseven years I guess, after high
school was over and that sort ofthing.
But yeah, when I was in highschool and younger up until an
injury because everybody's gotan injury in high school, right
(05:43):
I played mostly basketball andbaseball, mostly baseball more
than anything else.
So, yeah, definitely was inthat.
I would not say I was athleticwhen I was getting involved in
wrestling at all.
It definitely pushed me in thatregard and it likely affected
(06:06):
the roles that I took on withinwrestling, just because I was
not going to be the human actionfigure, person, right, some of
my friends were, but I was not.
So that's why, rather thanbeing an actual wrestler
although I did wrestle in a fewmatches over the time I was in I
was what they call a manager.
(06:28):
So for anybody that's familiarwith pro wrestling, it's the
mouthpieces, the ones that areoutside the ring and on the
microphone and stirring up thestorylines and talking to
wrestlers and that kind of thing.
Wrestlers and that kind ofthing.
(06:48):
Um, and so it became veryquickly apparent to me that, in
terms of within the industry,where my value was in in
addition to, you know, helpingthe show itself, um, you know,
and pushing the, the emotionsand the story of the show along,
it was to help wrestlers thatwere maybe younger or just
hadn't quite grasped all theskills they needed quite yet to
(07:08):
interact with the crowd and, youknow, get the kind of response
they needed to get, or know howto talk on the microphone, what
we call promos and that kind ofthing, and so that was my role,
um, and then I had a very strongeven though I couldn't execute
physically everything, I had avery strong mind for how it was
supposed to work, and so I wasalso someone that mentored and
(07:30):
taught how to do those things tothe younger people also.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
It's two thoughts.
One is what you mentioned, likeyou didn't know all those
layers to things, and I think Ihad a moment like that.
Uh, probably similar to you.
It's going to age me.
It was in the age before, whenyou had to travel and there you
couldn't get wi-fi right and youand there weren't always movies
.
You had to actually talk topeople or read a book and I
(07:57):
started I was I leaned towardstalking to people surprised I'm
doing a podcast, right.
But, um, I talked to this one.
I was talking to this one guyand we were chatting, yeah, what
do you do?
And he told me he was.
He said I sell food gradeadhesives.
And I just was like what?
And it was the first time Irealized, like there's a,
there's a, there's somebody outthere, a company out there, that
(08:19):
is making the glue that is usedto seal food products, right,
so candy bars or cereal boxes orlike.
And it never occurred to methat that wasn't just something
that the manufacturers did ontheir own Right, right, and it
made me realize, like this, this, like there's so many layers to
some of these things in theeconomy and everything.
It was just like a big ahamoment.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It's interesting to me Go ahead.
Everyone wants to have the big,big idea right, the big
breakthrough product that'sgonna, you know, allow them to
uh, retire, and, and and have anice life.
What people maybe don't thinkabout, though, is some of the
people that, over you knowlifetime, that come up with
(09:00):
things that allow them to dothat.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I mean, somebody invented velcro right, somebody
invented a snap or a button likeyep, those are all vital things
that allow them to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I mean, somebody invented Velcro, right, somebody
invented a snap or a button,like those are all vital things
that you know the world needs.
So I always joke like when I'mtrying to think of what I want
to do next, or on the side for aside hustle, I'm not thinking
like, I try not to think aboutwhat's the next big thing.
To me, it's more okay.
What's the next Velcro?
What big thing it's?
(09:28):
To me, it's more okay.
What's the next velcro, right?
What's what's the next thingthat the world needs and it
doesn't necessarily know itneeds, but if it got out there,
everybody would use it, right,it would become part of
everything.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
That's, that's for sure.
The mindset, the the other.
The other thing that it justoccurred to me we just recently
had a guest on who um, startedher career in theater, and I'm
not going to say that I'mequating theater to pro
wrestling.
Oh no, you can, it is, but I am,it is, and it just occurred to
me that actually, like you,probably both, especially given
the role, the way you describedyour role as sort of being kind
(09:53):
of involved with the operationalpieces of producing the
wrestling matches and thetheater that went with it, right
?
So do you think there'sparallels there, like that that
kind of stuff applies, yeah,right totally yeah, there's
actually a lot going on in thewrestling world now because I'm
still around it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Um, when I was going through and this is a good
parallel to business I will sayum you know.
And again, I was in thecorporate world at the time I
was in wrestling, so I wasn't inmarketing quite yet, I was in a
managerial role and then I wentfrom that into the tech world
and IT and that sort of thingand then eventually I got into
(10:37):
marketing.
I was already out of wrestlingat that point and we'll get to
that in a little bit.
But the what, what there's,there's a sort of a, a sort of a
mini war going on within in thewrestling world, um, just
different schools of thought.
Uh, when I went through it wasvery rigid and it was.
(10:58):
It was starting to transitionout of the likes of the old
school mentality, but not really, and there were a lot of rules.
I mean, you would be surprisedat the number of things that you
had to do as a trainee, assomeone newer in the business,
as a veteran in the business,like all these things.
(11:18):
There's sort of a code andbehavior structure.
There are certain ways thattraining occurred mentoring,
getting mentors, and that sortof a code and behavior structure
.
There are certain ways of beingthat that training occurred
mentoring, you know, having amen getting mentors, and that
sort of thing which you had tohave if you were going to get
past a certain point, whichagain that'll tie into the
business discussion we get into.
But when I say like rigid rules,I mean there was a thing that
(11:39):
every time you walked into alocker room you went around.
Unless you were the veteran,that was the exception.
People came to you in that case, but if you were not the vet
you would or you weren't sure itdefaulted to you.
When you walked into thatlocker room and there were
people there, you walked aroundand you shook everybody's hand
and you said your name and theysaid their name and good to see
(12:01):
you.
And I mean it's a little lessrigid.
If you've been on the same showwith the same people for a
while and you all know eachother, then it's more like oh
hey, man, how you doing.
You know, but you never assumethat, right, you never assume
that they're going to rememberwho you are, especially if
they're a bigger name than you,because how many people do they
meet, right?
So there's like rigid ruleslike that and there's reasons
(12:21):
behind it.
There was reasons behind it.
Well, that kind of slipped awayrecently, more recently.
And that's where I say there'slike this, this way of doing
things is different.
Now, not that one's better thanthe other, but like the
handshake thing is kind of likethe newer trainers in the world
and the newer schools.
Right, you don't have to dothat, that's ridiculous.
So there's this sort of likerift happening and this change
(12:43):
happening.
And so, you know, vince McMahonof course, the former head of
WWF WWE very publicly had to forfinancial reasons came out and
said, hey, this is scriptedright, like this isn't a real
sport, because he was gettinggoing to get taxed as a real
sport.
He was like it's not, you know,and that's the first time where
(13:10):
that actually happened, whereit was admitted, and that was
many, many years ago.
Um, and so that cats out of thebag a bit, um, and I'm gonna
say there's ways that we, youknow, in the wrestling world,
they still cover through that.
But the the um with that beingexposed, um, it changes a lot of
things and one of the thingsthat it it changed is, like you
said, the comparisons right,it's Hollywood, in a way it's
theater, it's instead of youknow, I joke that it's a soap
(13:35):
opera.
And just instead of, likepeople, you know, having affairs
with other people's relativesand whatnot, it's, you know, you
get into fights.
Sometimes the affair thinghappens too, you know, and that
leads to the fight, but theresolution of the conflict
happens through a match, throughthe physical confrontation.
(13:57):
Otherwise it's a soap opera.
I'm not going to say it's asoap opera for men, because some
people say that and you look atit now.
There's you, you know, there'sjust as many that are not.
And I will also say, when we getinto more of the how I
connected the marketing role,that was one of the things that
I brought to the table.
I feel like in a lot of thecompanies I work for, that
change things.
So I'm going to ask you I'llpop quiz you.
(14:18):
Everybody, michael did not knowthis was coming.
I have have a pop quiz for him.
Okay, so who do you think?
I'm going to give you the threecategories, but which of these
categories do you think shouldbe the target audience for?
a wrestling company to promoteto.
(14:39):
You have the male part of thefamily, to be speaking in binary
terms, but the father role, orthe brother role, or uncle, or
what have you.
You have the mother or aunttype of role, and then you have
(14:59):
the children.
Which of those three do youthink you would?
Which of those three do youthink you would?
When I and when I say market toyou, I'm talking about um,
outside of the showtime like so,like flyers and where you
promote.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Okay, so, first off, like children kind of overlaps
with the other two just for, butI would like I would go towards
children and here's I thinkwhat I immediately thought of is
uh, there's a reason whyproducts are advertised to kids
that are not necessarilyproducts that kids would use,
just because they, they drivethe kids, drive the behavior for
(15:39):
the parents.
Right, we need to get thisthing, you know, know, look at
this cool thing, right?
So I would, my guess would bekids, but I'm not like.
My confidence level isrelatively low on that.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's well, I would say.
There's that school of thoughtin wrestling.
So wrestling promotions beforeI got my hands in there that I
worked with would either targetthe dads yeah, the children, the
dads, because that's who wouldhave the interest typically, or
the children, like you said,because, hey, mommy, daddy, I
(16:12):
want to go to this thing.
Neither of those are incorrect.
It's the moms, though, waswhere I brought the idea in.
Here's why.
So, at its core, most of thematches in wrestling are two
very well-built men Sure, verylittle clothing wrestling in the
(16:40):
middle of a ring.
If your significant other, yourwife or girlfriend or whatever,
told you, hey, I'm going tothis event to watch this thing,
you're going to go with them,mm-hmm, right, if you have
children, they're definitelygoing to want to go right for
the most part.
So if you get the children, ifyou target to the children, then
(17:02):
you might get one parent or theother, or one adult or the
other.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
If you target the dads or whatnot, you might get
just them or maybe them and akid If you target the moms, you
get everybody Very interesting.
The whole family comes yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And that played out.
We actually tested that in acouple cases.
My character actually changedso that I can.
I personally was the, the badguy that was targeting all the
women in the crowd and the womenwrestlers and we turned it into
a whole thing and it um, umincentivized them to come to the
(17:47):
show because they wanted to seeme get what was coming to me.
The ticket sales increaseddramatically um one because of
where we, um marketed.
I actually would go to.
They had all women gyms backthen.
I forgot the name of the chainnow, but I would go in there.
(18:11):
I would demand to be able towork out.
I would go in there with a beltover my, you know, the women's
belt over my shoulder, orwhatever the women's title.
I would just, you know, talkmeanly to everybody you know, be
the bad guy, get them allworked up and be like well, if
you guys think you're betterthan me, I'm going to be over
here this Saturday at 7 o'clock.
Come over there, Maybe I'llwrestle you.
(18:34):
I'll wrestle you.
You can beat me up if you thinkyou can.
I don't think you could, but wewould do that kind of stuff, oh
boy they would show up.
They'd bring the kind of stuffand, oh boy, they would show up.
They'd bring the whole familiestoo.
So instead of me helping sellone ticket, I was selling four,
five, six tickets at a time.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, and that made me extremely valuable, right
yeah, in a role that typicallywas not valuable, which I know
we're going to talk about also.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Well.
So I want to go back to youalready kind of touched on this
a little bit.
Well, so I want to go back toyou already kind of touched on
this a little bit.
But one of the things you toldme that you kind of learned
along the way through thisexperience was how to sort of I
don't even want to say customize, but like really adjust your
communication to differentstakeholders who have different
(19:21):
roles.
You know you talked about someof the protocols or etiquette
for the locker room.
Tell me what are some of theexamples of that that you then
transferred over to professionallife.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, sure, so it will probably be apparent the
way I explained it and I'lldefinitely draw those lines.
So wrestling promotion at itscore, um, you had a promoter,
which is the person that ownedthe thing, um, and it was
responsible for, you know,promoting the show and selling
(19:54):
the tickets and securing thevenue and all that kind of good
stuff, um, and there was also arole that is called a booker and
that's the person that wouldhire the wrestlers, hire the
talent, usually had control overthe creative part of the show
and the story and that sort ofthing.
Sometimes in some places, thepromoter and the booker were the
(20:18):
same person.
In other cases the booker andthe promoter were two different
people, usually fairly closethese are really good friends or
relatives or something likethat and in other cases the
bookers were a team.
It was a group of people, thecreative team, so there might be
four or five people that wouldwrite it.
That could be all kinds ofpeople.
(20:38):
So that was one layer and I'llget into how, as a contractor,
you had to interplay with thosein a second, but let me just
outline those categories.
So you had that level.
Um, you have the stakeholders,that were the locker room folks
with you.
So you, you know, there wereother wrestlers, ever other um
(21:02):
personalities on the showrefereeses, ring announcers,
like all that kind of stuff.
Versus the locker room, you hadtiers within the locker room.
You had your veterans, you hadyour locker room leaders and
when I say veterans it's notnecessarily in the industry
there's that.
Those were the real veterans.
You also had people that hadjust been at that same promotion
for so long that they had alittle bit of a different layer
to them.
(21:23):
We'll get into that in a second,but you had sort of a hierarchy
within the locker room, and sothat was the second layer.
And the third layer was thefans, right, the crowd.
And obviously they were theones that were buying the
products and I said productsplural, because it's not just
(21:43):
tickets to the show, it's alsoconcessions, it's also
merchandise, it's buying thingsdirectly from the wrestlers or
the personalities.
They were the reason we werethere.
They were the ones spending themoney.
Okay, so in terms of corporateworld, right, so the crowd is
what we traditionally see as thecustomer, the ones that are
bringing the money in.
And so there was that.
(22:10):
And again, going back to thatold school, new school way of
thinking, in the olden days, ifyou were a bad guy, your
interaction with that crowd wasduring your time in the show,
right, in the show, right.
So during your segment, whenyou were out there and you did
as much as you could and yourjob was to get the show in the
right way.
There's a lot of psychology towrestling, which is what I was
(22:32):
drawn to.
You're stirring up the emotionsof the crowd to help the good
guys be really good guys, right,and to get them to want to come
back, the fans to come back forthe next show, and so what you
did not do in the old days wasgo out during intermission and
sell yourself.
You did not interact with thecrowd in any way, because how
(22:54):
can you go out there and sell ifyou're supposed to be bad?
That was the mentality.
Well, that went away, right?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Now everybody's out there.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
The really good people, though, stay in
character.
They are.
You know, I was able to do andcan talk about that later too I
was able to sell a lot ofproduct, which is where I made
my money in there, still beingthe bad guy.
In fact, I use that to sell mystuff.
So that so.
So there's that the.
The locker room is tricky,always tricky, but your locker
(23:24):
room in the corporate world areyour teammates, your partners on
other teams, but at your layerof the of the corporate ladder,
so to speak.
And then again there's thehierarchy, so I would include
sort of like the idea of middlemanagement and team leads and
like that kind of thing, andthey're also basically
everything but the seniorleadership at the company, and
(23:48):
then the promoters and thebookers were the or you know
senior leadership team types,right, like your CEOs and
presidents and owners and thatkind of thing.
And you had to act differentlyin wrestling to the locker room,
(24:10):
to the promoters and to thecrowd, right?
I mean, I would say that someof the people that are listening
that work at companies areprobably going to chuckle at
this because they're going torelate this right to the
corporate world.
You had to talk a littledifferently to your promoters
and your bookers and you mighttalk to the locker room people,
right?
I mean, I hate to say thatyou're brown nosing, but you're
brown nosing if you want to, ifyou want to continue to work
there and continue to getbookings every month.
You did um, and and there's abalance there and and this is a
(24:39):
tricky thing in the corporateworld, I would say, but when you
establish yourself in wrestlingat that promotion and they have
faith that you're going to dowhat's right for their business,
you gain more control over yourcharacter and what you did To
the possibility and I had thisin a few places where I became
(25:00):
part of the booking team, Ihelped write the shows.
That's a promotion.
That's, you know, notnecessarily financial but in
terms of influence, right.
I had situations where I wasable to my payment was.
I got to pick three or fourother people to come with me to
the shows.
So I was now a valuableresource to my locker room folks
(25:23):
because I was able to get themto work in other places.
So there's some of that thathad to go on In terms of the
locker room.
I mean, you're putting yourwell-being in people's hands in
a lot of cases, so you need toplay nice, you need to advocate
for yourself.
You can't get walked on at thesame time.
(25:43):
You have to play nice and sothere's a balance there that
always had to happen.
Um and the crowd, you know,like I mentioned before, like um
, you, you had to play the part.
I will say that.
I'm not gonna say you alwayshad to be nice to the crowd.
Um, in wrestling, I mean,obviously you do.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And in the corporate world, yeah, I mean, I think, I
think it's me what saying likeit was important to understand
the crowd right and what theirmotivations were, so that you
could better do for the benefitof the organization in this case
the promoters or the events andI think that's one of the
(26:22):
things You've hit on.
A couple of things I think tome are important.
Right one I tell people all thetime, right, I I hate what I
don't hate.
It really is like fingernailson a chalkboard for me when
people say internal customers,because I just like customers
are customers right.
Um, I use like I understand thesentiment at the same time.
(26:43):
Right, right, understanding howyour business makes money.
Right, and you being anadvocate for doing what's right
for those customers so that yougenerate the goodwill that they
will do business with you.
Right, that's an importantpiece.
I think marketing ops folks arein a position to be able to be
(27:30):
those advocates and help out inthat process.
Which leads to this other oneabout this balancing sort of
walk, that tight rope of being aself-advocate or, you know,
pushing back and providingfeedback in a way that's
constructive and is not seen asundermining, and all that Like.
I think there's a lot of peoplestruggling with that and it's
interesting.
I was listening to a sessionseparate session earlier today
and someone's like oh, you knowyou can't do these things, but
it's going to seem politic.
I think that's gotten a bad rap, the idea that something is
(27:54):
political.
It's just the reality.
You work at Microsoft giantcorporation.
I've worked at big companies.
I've worked at small companies.
My wife works at a very smallnonprofit.
Like there are politics inevery place I've been and every
place I've seen, withoutexception.
So like, if it feels politic-y,like then you're just not
(28:17):
seeing.
The reality is my in my book.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, so people used to tell me there was more than
one person in the room that thepolitics are involved.
I would say, even if you're byyourself, there's politics
involved, maybe multiple voicesgoing on in your head on what to
do, that you're compromising.
But yeah, I totally agree withyou.
There's always.
There's always that factor.
And circle back on is when it.
(28:43):
You know where people strugglewith things.
You know it changes dependingon where you're at right.
Like you might handle arelationship with a manager in
one way and you guys getcomfortable with that dynamic
(29:03):
and you know, as most companiesdo, things shift around.
Or you get comfortable withthat dynamic and you know as
most companies do, things shiftaround.
Or you get a new role, or youknow whatever, and you're under
somebody else.
You have a new manager and youhave to kind of start all over
again.
Um, and that dynamic may bedifferent.
You may have to advocatedifferently than you did, and
and where there's a struggle isthat adjustment.
How do you, how do you advocatefor yourself with this person?
(29:27):
Okay, I got that and then youstart and I'm kind of living
this a little bit, and then youhave a new manager and you
advocate yourself in the sameway at first, because that's
what you're used to and thatdoesn't work anymore.
So you have to recalibrate andfigure out how that works and I
(29:48):
think the difference between,say, wrestling and the corporate
world was in wrestling you hadtwo layers.
You had the individualrelationships that you had to
learn how the psychology wasgoing to operate there.
And then you had masspsychology, you know psychology,
where you had, like, the wholecrowd you needed.
You needed hundreds orthousands of people to all
(30:08):
respond the way you wanted themto.
Um, and that's.
They're very different, they'revery different yeah, so um, but
it was, it was.
That was all really good and Iknow you know and your marketing
business folks, I don't want tonot swing from the wrestling
enough, so hopefully we're doingthat.
(30:32):
The transition to marketing forme from wrestling so again I
was in other industries firstwas fairly quick.
It was just like and I wentinto marketing on a tech side it
(30:54):
was more around the databasemaintenance and the integration
with the CRM and the marketingautomation tools and that kind
of thing.
Less about the marketing.
The problem that I have runinto continuously in my career
in marketing ops is that I havethis background I've been in
(31:15):
sales, I've been in customerservice, I've been in wrestling,
which is everything.
I get the marketing place right.
Yeah, because at the end of theday, where I think marketing as
a general rule, may boy, thisis so boxed.
I don't know if you want me toget on or not I feel like
marketing is going astray overrecent times in an effort to
(31:42):
validate itself as anorganization.
It's getting very short-termminded as an industry where
marketing is not designed to bethat way, and so where I have
always come in with marketing isand this is maybe this is
(32:03):
because this is where I feelcomfortable and one of my
strengths- and what helped me inwrestling a lot and where I
learned in wrestling and honedit is the ability to recognize a
pattern.
I mean, this is what marketingis at a base, right?
How do you recognize a pattern?
What mechanisms do you need tohave in place to be able to see
the pieces of information thatwill allow the pattern to be
(32:25):
recognized by you?
How can you push and poke andpull on various levers to play
into that pattern to reach anoutcome that is advantageous?
And what does that look likeoperationally?
What does that pulling of thelever really mean in terms of
(32:46):
what you're doing?
And to me, at the end of the day, that's really all marketing is
, and as long as you stick tothose pillars, everything else
kind of falls into place.
I will have people that areeither going to cheer me on this
or just go.
Oh my God, what a nut job thisguy is.
(33:09):
When I say this as a marketer,I'm not worried about the
revenue piece.
I'm not Because, to me, if I doall of the things that I'm
supposed to do and I do thosethings really well, the revenue
will happen yeah, I mean, Iwould argue that, um, I don't
(33:31):
think you don't care about therevenue, because you do, right,
you do, but you, I think you'reyou're taking a step back on,
like I think you're getting.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You're reacting to this current, fairly consistent
current state, which I agreewith, which is so much focus on
near-term results from marketingefforts, so things like
attribution reporting and ROIand all that, and it's not to
say that those aren't importantto some degree, but they're not
the be-all, end-all, right.
(34:02):
I think you know the bestmarketers, or ones that I admire
, absolutely want to measureimpact of what they do, sure, at
the same time, they also havebeen able to carve out a
substantial portion of theirbudget.
Let's do it that way, becausethat's really what tells you
where you got your prioritiesright carve out a substantial
portion of their budget to dothings that are essentially you.
(34:26):
Either the the ability tomeasure them is really really
challenging, so you don't evenbother with it, yeah, or you
don't, like you're like this isjust some crazy thing.
I want to try, and they and andthey've earned the right to be
able to do that a little bit thepart that's because they do
focus on the revenue, but not, Idon't think they focus on, like
this, this particular campaignhas to drive this x amount of
(34:47):
revenue in this three months orsix months, right, and I think
that's to me the difference, andI think there's, uh, we had an
episode it's one of our mostdownloaded ones, it's now a
couple years old where, yeah, wetalked about is like actually
the titles like something likeis is attribution ruining
marketing and, to some degree, Ithink this desire to see very
(35:09):
short-term results, financialresults, out of marketing has
driven behaviors that aren'tnecessarily good for the long
term.
Unfortunately, ceos, boards,investors that's what they're
geared towards is finding seeingthe revenue and growth and
(35:30):
things like that to continue togrow.
So I think there's just a goodbalance.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, most of them came out of the sales world, the
sales world right.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
For the most part, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
There's not a lot of CMOs to CEO moves that should
and I should clarify too.
It's not that I don't careabout the revenue.
I think the point I'm trying tomake is it's such, it's become
such the singular, primary focusof marketing.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Well, I think specifically net new like net
new logo revenue has been thedriver, Like it's not even
revenue Like it's not even likerecruit, like exist.
Retaining and growing existingcustomers has become even less
of a focus.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Well, of course, where I sit, you know, I'm going
to see that a littledifferently just because of my
role in Microsoft, and of courseMicrosoft's a whole different
beast because it's so large.
I'm on the side of themarketing house.
That is just for existingcustomers and digging in there
what I found over time at many,I think a lot of companies do
(36:34):
not know how to market toexisting customers.
It's not the focus, since somany people focus on net new.
There hasn't been as muchattention on growing the revenue
and I never again quiteunderstood that, because here's
a pool of people that alreadyknow who you are and already
like what you do.
Why couldn't you?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Or they or they don't right, or they don't and you
can turn it around or whatever.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, I think where what I what, where I'm going in
my mind about these things is toyour point about attribution
and MQLs and all these thingsthat marketers come up with that
sound important.
(37:19):
It goes back to what I wassaying in terms of the pillars.
It's not that revenue is notimportant.
It's not that attribution is notimportant.
It's not that those thingsaren't important.
It's important in the sensethat to me, it's important in
the sense that it allows you tosee the pattern, see the
(37:40):
patterns changing, because itwill and then adjust to those
patterns.
It's valuable to me in thatsense and I know this is a
battle I'm always going to loseat this point, because we're at
a stage now where a marketingorganization has to prove its
existence.
It's no longer where companieswill allow it to be a call
(38:01):
center.
It's got to be a profit-drivingpart of the org.
I think it's a mistake.
To be honest, I think we'relosing aspects of what marketing
used to do that are valuable.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
If they can't tie it into those things.
I'm not willing to just give upon the idea that marketing is is
only going to be be around ifthey can prove their profit
center, I think.
But I do think it's incumbent onmarketers to do a better job of
articulating the value theybring to an organization in a
way that the rest of theorganization will understand,
(38:37):
and it's not about things likewebsite visits and MQLs and you
know, pipeline that youinfluence.
I mean, those are, those can bepieces of it, but they're
probably not the most importantpiece because, to your point
right and this is old data and Idon't remember off the top of
my head the exact numbers, butsomething like there's some
research.
This is probably 10 years oldnow, uh, and but I doubt it's
(39:00):
changed is that like somethinglike less than five percent of
people on boards corporateboards are, uh, have any
experience in marketingmanagement?
Yeah, so a lot of them come outof finance sales operations.
Yeah, so it's natural that,like, like what you don't
understand if you, you, you fear, so you need, you need to be
(39:22):
able to.
But to me that's important,like, stop complaining about
them not understanding what youdo.
Your job is to help understandwhat they're looking for and
communicate it better.
I'm not saying it's easy right.
Like that's your job.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
And I think that also the um, in some cases it's,
it's they don't know.
I think in worst cases it's alittle shame on them they think
they know and it's it's theydon't know.
I think in worst cases it's alittle shame on them.
They think they know and it'swrong or it's old.
I mean, how many people in thatmay be listening to this have
run into situations where, um,either at where you work or have
(39:56):
worked, or just even if youtell people you know the the
question, oh, what do you do fora living outside of work?
And you say marketing like, oh,you make ads, you're the ad
people, you do commercials.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like you know, are you?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
you know what do you make a pretty picture department
right, so it's it's.
There's a little bit of that,and so it's easy sometimes for
for senior leadership to want tocut marketing because let's
call back the ads as long as wehave sales people calling.
You know that's all you know andso, and so I think more
dangerous than not knowing ismisunderstanding.
(40:30):
And to your point, I mean,that's up to marketing.
There's so many things thatmarketers spin wheels on.
And to your point, I don't knowif those are the right things
because they're not helpingclear up that picture with the
people that need to have itcleared up Um.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I, I, I use, I use the phrase like there are things
that only marketers care about.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, that's where I was heading.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Exactly, that's exactly right.
And and and so, and, and.
I always joke, like it seems tome, when I'm.
You know, if you go on LinkedInor any of these, you know we'll
call them professional socialnetworks or professional
networks and you see what peopleare writing and they're
marketing people writing.
I'm thinking, like, who are youwriting that to?
(41:17):
Because it sure sounds likeyou're trying to write that to
other marketing people like,which is fine, especially if
that might be your customer Likemaybe you're trying to sell
into that.
You know, there's nothing wrongwith that.
It's just that, like, who arewe?
Are we trying to convince eachother of this?
Like what's going on?
You know, we're not necessarilycommunicating to the people
that need to hear it or need tosee into our world, you know,
(41:44):
and so there's all kinds ofthings.
I mean I do this too.
I mean it's not like I'msitting on on a hill some of us
are immune from.
Yeah, I've had two creativedirectors in my lifetime, that,
um and if they're listeningthey'll know exactly who they
are uh, where they had anextremely critical eye on all
things that were produced, and Iinherited that from them just
(42:06):
working alongside them for somuch.
And it is you know, um.
You know I I'm very open and Ihave adhd and potentially autism
and some other things, and soif I, if my brain gets hung up
on something, it is very toughfor me to let go.
Sure, if I'm looking at anemail that I'm supposed to be
coding in the platform andthere's an orphan word in the
(42:28):
subject, I mean in the umheadline, oh my gosh, like I
can't move unless I fix that andand nobody does, anybody really
care about that.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's getting.
That is like the.
That's like the example I useall the time an orphan word on a
paragraph or headline that like.
Because the level of effort totry to fix that, especially in
things like an email right whichyou never know like is so hard,
I actually worry like it'sgoing to have unintended
consequences and actually makethings look worse.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, oh, absolutely.
Did I ever tell you my, my, my,semi serious, semi, not serious
line about email, creatingemails.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
The rule of thumb is that you create an email like
it's the year 1985.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I don't think you told me that, but I couldn't
agree more.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, I mean we're using tables Like you still need
to use tables you can't use anyof the stuff you use on a
website.
I mean, you could it's gettingthere.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
No, not.
Yeah, yeah, if you code it likeit's 1985, you should be good.
Yeah, no, it is, it's crazy.
Um gosh, we, we have gone allover.
So I, I want to leave.
I want to maybe wrap up on ageneral notion here.
So I think what we've we'vetalked about this a little bit,
but you and I I think it feelslike we both have a similar view
on there's a point where you'retrying to advocate for, in good
(43:53):
faith, provide feedback thatmay not be taken.
Well, say, a designer you'recalling their baby ugly is the
(44:14):
way they might perceive it, evenif that's not what your intent
is, but it's definitely apossibility of how they'll
perceive it.
A possibility of how they'llperceive it.
So how do you like, how do youdo that, like that, like this,
advocating for yourself,advocating for the customers,
for your team, whichever thingversus you know, you know, not
undermining that relationshipwith this other stakeholder.
(44:34):
That's important, regardless ofwhat their, their group is,
that you outlined before.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
So I I wish I was better at doing that.
I will tell you that there'sbeen some recent pains on my
still learning there.
I'm much better at that inwrestling it seems so much
easier, then I would say thatwhat I'm learning and what seems
to be working.
There's a few tips that I'vepicked up recently that seem to
(45:06):
have changed the tone of theroom.
I would say One if it'spossible, I will type it out for
myself first and then read italoud, if it's that kind of
communication where I can dothat so I can hear how it sounds
.
Often by doing that you willpick up on things that you
didn't realize when it was inyour head.
That's the first thing.
(45:27):
I will also again, if timeallows this to happen.
I lean heavily into AI.
Now One of the things that Itell people about all the time
is in.
I'm just going to use Outlookas an example.
You know folks will say, oh, Iuse Outlook to write, you know
Copilot or AI to write my email.
(45:48):
I don't do that.
I write my email and thenthere's a coaching function in
there that will read through itand give me tips like, hey,
maybe soften this or make sureyou include this, or somebody
may perceive it that way, and sothat's been strong in helping
me frame my emails differently.
And I would say if you have theadvantage of that or access to
(46:09):
that.
Use that to your advantage Interms of conversations.
That's where it gets trickierfor me, especially if there's a
time crunch and I'm trying tojust get my message across,
because I can sometimes be verydirect.
I'm trying to curb that alittle bit.
Get my message across, becauseI can sometimes be very direct,
I'm trying to curb that a littlebit.
So what I would say there is myfavorite phrase is oh, have you
(46:37):
considered, or how do you thinkthis would look if?
Or you know, acknowledging whatthey're doing right, like, oh,
I see what you did here and Itotally get that.
I'm wondering if somebody mayinterpret it as you know, how
about you know?
And I'm trying to get out ofthe solutioning world in that
(46:58):
like, instead of me suggestinglike hey how about this?
It might be like hey, what doyou think, is there like some
other way we might be able toapproach this?
And then it turns into aconversation where then they'll
(47:18):
ask potentially for inputs fromyou, and then you kind of
circumvent some of that withoutit being like, oh, here's the
know-it-all they're trying to do, and then give them an opening,
without losing face, ofconsidering another perspective
on how it might get interpretedwhen that thing happens, and
(47:41):
then see if they have other waysof doing it, and if not, then
they may engage you in theconversation.
And now you have a conversationand now you've overcome that
hump.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
So it's interesting.
You sort of talked about acouple of things.
One I think you're doingdifferent things for written
versus verbal conversations.
I think it's really importantto know, like, what's the right
medium to use for differenttypes of conversations.
That's number one.
But the thing that also justpopped in my head, the way you
described those two things onthe one hand, you're using some
(48:15):
tools to help identify, likehelp you with your blind spots,
right?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
So when, I write something right.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
How could I, how could this be interpreted that
I'm not even thinking about?
On the other hand, what you'redoing with other people when
you're having that conversation,providing feedback, you're
helping them with their blindspots potentially right, and I
think that's a reallyinteresting way of thinking
about it.
And a lot of what you describeties ties nicely with to be able
to like one of the mostimpactful books I ever.
(48:43):
Well, I got the book andtraining and I would like it's
called crucial confrontationsand, um, that idea of what you
described like, uh, starting aconversation with them with, uh,
I understand what you're tryingto do, or like, help me
understand.
Right, you're trying tounderstand their point of view,
not and not assume, make intentor what they were trying to
(49:05):
accomplish, clarifying that andthen and then getting into okay,
you know what if we did thisright?
And I think that is similar tosort of the framework that you
get with crucial confrontations,which is all about trying to
affect behavior change with achallenging conversation or
anticipating challengingconversation.
(49:26):
Anyway, so I love that.
The last thing I like just myown experience I would add add
to this, like, if you're aleader and you're hearing this,
I think it's really important todemonstrate what this looks
like to to your team and I thinkI have really important to
demonstrate what this looks liketo your team.
(49:47):
And I think I have a goodexample.
You talked about changing peopleyou report to right.
So I have an example of oneplace where I was, where I was
reporting to CMO.
Cmo had 12 people reporting tohim, decided that was too many,
consolidated.
Well, it turns out, one of mypeers became my boss.
Luckily, we had a goodrelationship going into it.
(50:08):
But one of the things weestablished pretty quickly and I
think I was fortunate in thisis that we really realized that
we each had our own strengthsand we complimented each other
if we would not let our egos getin the way and the way that
showed up.
There was at least one timewhen we were in a meeting with
many other people and we wereliterally like we.
(50:29):
We weren't like.
It wasn't a yelling match, butwe disagreed about something and
uh, ultimately, right, herdecision, she had the
responsibility for it and umsaid okay, we'll make it happen.
Right, it was like I voiced myright we.
But we did it in a public forumand I can't tell you how many
people came up to me and waslike are you two?
(50:49):
Okay, I was confused because itfelt so natural to be able to
have that kind of thing.
It didn't feel like, but Isuspect what it made me realize
is that's not the norm for a lotof people, just to be able to
have that kind of conversationand still walk away and, uh,
have respect and that's rightright yeah, now there's a line
(51:12):
where it crosses, and you know,but we never got there and I'm
grateful for that goodum, this has been awesome.
I know we started out with the,the pro wrestling, and I think
there's this connection to likethis ability to like work with
lots of different stakeholdersand adjust what you're doing and
recognize that it was a reallyimportant.
(51:32):
It sounds like you reallythat's the big thing that
carried over from yourexperiences in pro wrestling Any
any other like major thingsthat we didn't hit on that you
wanted to cover.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Before we wrap it up here, no, I mean, I think I
think that sums it up prettywell.
I would say that patternrecognition is the key skill to
practice and hone and have inmarketing and marketing ops.
So that's the other thing Itook from wrestling.
I think that's key.
I think that's also missing alot.
(52:01):
And don't be afraid of having,like short-term and long-term
things that you're, you know,planning as an organization or
as an individual.
I think, um, having theshort-term to short-term hops,
um, and again, this wassomething I've learned in
wrestling you can do a story fora show, and that's great.
It's better if you can do astory for the next 15 shows and
(52:24):
then how to break it down intoeach one.
It just was a better product.
And I think that's the case inbusiness too.
Have your North Star and thenjust break it into pieces and
how you're going to get there,as opposed to the expression
that I hate, that people talkabout is flying the plane while
you're building it, and that'sgreat, except you might end up
(52:46):
with a motorcycle and you neededto fly.
So you know yeah, that's thething I would leave with.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Interesting.
Well, hey, devin appreciate itIf folks do want to keep up with
you or learn more about whatyou're doing.
I don't know, you know.
Is there a place where they canconnect with you or follow you?
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Yeah, sure.
So right now, I would justpoint folks to LinkedIn and you
know, last name is L E S H I Nand you know, just send me an
invite there, let me know thatyou, you caught this show and
this is where you you heard fromme and send that over there.
There are things that I amgoing to be working on here as
soon as I can get some equipmentin play in terms of some video
(53:28):
types of things, and I'llcombine that with LinkedIn as
soon as I can.
So just keep an eye on LinkedIn.
That's the best place to goPerfect.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Well, again, thank you, devin, for sharing.
It's been a fun conversation.
We covered lots of ground.
Devin, for sharing.
It's been a fun conversation.
We covered lots of ground.
Thanks to our audience forcontinuing to support us and
providing ideas and ideas fortopics and guests.
And if you as always, if youare interested in being a guest
or have a suggestion for a guestor a topic, please don't
hesitate to reach out to Naomi,mike or me on LinkedIn or in the
(54:01):
marketingupscom community.
Until next time, everybody,we'll see you soon.
Bye.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom, powered by all
the MoPros out there.
I am your host, michael Hartman, flying solo today.
Mike Rizzo is actively gettingready for Mopsapalooza 2024.
As we're recording this in, Iguess we call it almost
mid-October, so we're just a fewweeks away.
(00:21):
So if you haven't registered,please do so, and Naomi's just
busy.
So, anyway, that's okay, we'regoing to keep powering through.
So today, joining me is DevinLeshin, who is currently a
marketing technologist atMicrosoft.
Prior to Microsoft, devin heldmultiple roles in marketing
operations and as a revenueengineer, which included
(00:51):
client-facing activities as wellas internal functions at an
agency.
Before that, he held roles inmarketing technology, marketing,
account management and customerservice at multiple
organizations in a variety ofindustries.
Devin has another part of hisstory that we're going to get
into shortly, but I'm going tokeep that as a bit of a surprise
and not spoil it right now.
So, devin, thanks for joiningtoday.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Oh, thanks for having me Glad to be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, for our listeners, devin was off camera
off, microphone off, recordingwhatever you want to call it
telling me that it's been ahectic, busy week for him and
we're going to make sure hisvoice powers through all this.
So hang in there with us, allright.
So now I've kept our listenersin suspense a little bit.
(01:31):
Let's reveal that part of yourcareer Maybe do that in air
quotes that I didn't mention upfront.
So earlier in your life youwere involved in professional
wrestling and we're going towe're going to get into how that
helps you in your later career,including marketing operations
and marketing technology.
But first, like, why don't youlike, how about you share your
(01:52):
story about how you got into the, into the wrestling scene and
what you did in that, and thenhow you transitioned from that
to corporate roles?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Okay, yeah, sure, so, um, I was actually fully in the
working working world, uh,before then.
I was working at the time, um,for a very large hotel company
and a manager level and, um, my,uh, my brother and I have
always, you know, watched itsince we were we're kids, you
(02:22):
know.
I mean just to date myself here, like, uh, when the
pay-per-views were on cable andhe and I would use the rabbit
ears on the TV to break throughsome of the static because it
was too expensive for us toorder.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I remember those days Like if you held it, like when
you had to stand there holdingthe rabbit ears right.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yep, yep, so that was the WrestleMania one days, the
Hulk Hogan days.
So we've always been fans of it.
I didn't know that there wereall these sort of layers to the
industry.
I compare it to, say, likebaseball, where you have your
major league and then you haveyour triple A's and you have
(03:02):
your double A single.
A that kind of stuff, same thingwith wrestling.
So both my parents were publicschool teachers and so that
means my dad worked four jobs tohelp with the bills and one of
those he was bartending.
And he picked up where he wasthe head bartender at an Elks
Lodge where I grew up inVirginia, and he knew wrestling
but he didn't know quite so much.
But he recognized that therewere some.
(03:23):
The head bartender at an ElksLodge where I grew up in
Virginia, and you know, he knewwrestling but he didn't know
quite so much.
But he recognized that therewas some name, they were having
a show at the place and hethought it was this bigger group
coming in.
So he called my brother and Iand said, hey, come over, like
there's all this stuff going on.
So I went over there early andit was what we call an indie
(03:46):
company, an independent company,a very small organization, but
they paid to bring in somebigger names, bigger wrestlers,
more famous ones, and they werehaving all these problems with
their set.
Basically.
And, like I said, I was workingat a hotel at the time so I had
access to the AV closet andwhatnot, and I said, well, what
do you need?
So ran out there, got the stuff, came back, helped them set it
(04:11):
up.
You know I've been responsiblefor all the equipment and
because I can't help but do thisin every day of my life and
people that work with me willattest to this I was making
suggestions and all this otheryou know kind of stuff for
improving the, the, uh, the, thepresentation, and so after the
show, um, the, the promoter, thehead of the that company was
(04:31):
like hey, you're really intothis.
Have you thought about training?
And I was like training what?
And so they had a wrestlingschool that they ran also, um,
in addition to this promotion.
And so he told me where it wasand I went to go check it out.
I didn't even know this thing.
You know this type of thingexisted.
Next thing, you know, I'msigned up for training.
I'm doing that, you know, threeor four days a week, including
(04:52):
weekends, learning how to be inthat industry.
And then, soon enough, I was onshows and portraying a
character and started off withthat particular promotion, which
is what you tend to do, andthen you branch out to other
ones, so I kind of slipped intoit, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Did you do?
I don't think we talked aboutthis when we first talked, but
were you in any other sports orathletics beforehand, or was it
a brand-new thing?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Well, it had been a while right.
Brand new thing.
Well, it had been a while right.
So this was 1999, so a goodseven years I guess, after high
school was over and that sort ofthing.
But yeah, when I was in highschool and younger up until an
injury because everybody's gotan injury in high school, right
(05:43):
I played mostly basketball andbaseball, mostly baseball more
than anything else.
So, yeah, definitely was inthat.
I would not say I was athleticwhen I was getting involved in
wrestling at all.
It definitely pushed me in thatregard and it likely affected
(06:06):
the roles that I took on withinwrestling, just because I was
not going to be the human actionfigure, person, right, some of
my friends were, but I was not.
So that's why, rather thanbeing an actual wrestler
although I did wrestle in a fewmatches over the time I was in I
was what they call a manager.
(06:28):
So for anybody that's familiarwith pro wrestling, it's the
mouthpieces, the ones that areoutside the ring and on the
microphone and stirring up thestorylines and talking to
wrestlers and that kind of thing.
Wrestlers and that kind ofthing.
(06:48):
Um, and so it became veryquickly apparent to me that, in
terms of within the industry,where my value was in in
addition to, you know, helpingthe show itself, um, you know,
and pushing the, the emotionsand the story of the show along,
it was to help wrestlers thatwere maybe younger or just
hadn't quite grasped all theskills they needed quite yet to
(07:08):
interact with the crowd and, youknow, get the kind of response
they needed to get, or know howto talk on the microphone, what
we call promos and that kind ofthing, and so that was my role,
um, and then I had a very strongeven though I couldn't execute
physically everything, I had avery strong mind for how it was
supposed to work, and so I wasalso someone that mentored and
(07:30):
taught how to do those things tothe younger people also.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
It's two thoughts.
One is what you mentioned, likeyou didn't know all those
layers to things, and I think Ihad a moment like that.
Uh, probably similar to you.
It's going to age me.
It was in the age before, whenyou had to travel and there you
couldn't get wi-fi right and youand there weren't always movies
.
You had to actually talk topeople or read a book and I
(07:57):
started I was I leaned towardstalking to people surprised I'm
doing a podcast, right.
But, um, I talked to this one.
I was talking to this one guyand we were chatting, yeah, what
do you do?
And he told me he was.
He said I sell food gradeadhesives.
And I just was like what?
And it was the first time Irealized, like there's a,
there's a, there's somebody outthere, a company out there, that
(08:19):
is making the glue that is usedto seal food products, right,
so candy bars or cereal boxes orlike.
And it never occurred to methat that wasn't just something
that the manufacturers did ontheir own Right, right, and it
made me realize, like this, this, like there's so many layers to
some of these things in theeconomy and everything.
It was just like a big ahamoment.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It's interesting to me Go ahead.
Everyone wants to have the big,big idea right, the big
breakthrough product that'sgonna, you know, allow them to
uh, retire, and, and and have anice life.
What people maybe don't thinkabout, though, is some of the
people that, over you knowlifetime, that come up with
(09:00):
things that allow them to dothat.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I mean, somebody invented velcro right, somebody
invented a snap or a button likeyep, those are all vital things
that allow them to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I mean, somebody invented Velcro, right, somebody
invented a snap or a button,like those are all vital things
that you know the world needs.
So I always joke like when I'mtrying to think of what I want
to do next, or on the side for aside hustle, I'm not thinking
like, I try not to think aboutwhat's the next big thing.
To me, it's more okay.
What's the next Velcro?
What big thing it's?
(09:28):
To me, it's more okay.
What's the next velcro, right?
What's what's the next thingthat the world needs and it
doesn't necessarily know itneeds, but if it got out there,
everybody would use it, right,it would become part of
everything.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
That's, that's for sure.
The mindset, the the other.
The other thing that it justoccurred to me we just recently
had a guest on who um, startedher career in theater, and I'm
not going to say that I'mequating theater to pro
wrestling.
Oh no, you can, it is, but I am,it is, and it just occurred to
me that actually, like you,probably both, especially given
the role, the way you describedyour role as sort of being kind
(09:53):
of involved with the operationalpieces of producing the
wrestling matches and thetheater that went with it, right
?
So do you think there'sparallels there, like that that
kind of stuff applies, yeah,right totally yeah, there's
actually a lot going on in thewrestling world now because I'm
still around it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Um, when I was going through and this is a good
parallel to business I will sayum you know.
And again, I was in thecorporate world at the time I
was in wrestling, so I wasn't inmarketing quite yet, I was in a
managerial role and then I wentfrom that into the tech world
and IT and that sort of thingand then eventually I got into
(10:37):
marketing.
I was already out of wrestlingat that point and we'll get to
that in a little bit.
But the what, what there's,there's a sort of a, a sort of a
mini war going on within in thewrestling world, um, just
different schools of thought.
Uh, when I went through it wasvery rigid and it was.
(10:58):
It was starting to transitionout of the likes of the old
school mentality, but not really, and there were a lot of rules.
I mean, you would be surprisedat the number of things that you
had to do as a trainee, assomeone newer in the business,
as a veteran in the business,like all these things.
(11:18):
There's sort of a code andbehavior structure.
There are certain ways thattraining occurred mentoring,
getting mentors, and that sortof a code and behavior structure
.
There are certain ways of beingthat that training occurred
mentoring, you know, having amen getting mentors, and that
sort of thing which you had tohave if you were going to get
past a certain point, whichagain that'll tie into the
business discussion we get into.
But when I say like rigid rules,I mean there was a thing that
(11:39):
every time you walked into alocker room you went around.
Unless you were the veteran,that was the exception.
People came to you in that case, but if you were not the vet
you would or you weren't sure itdefaulted to you.
When you walked into thatlocker room and there were
people there, you walked aroundand you shook everybody's hand
and you said your name and theysaid their name and good to see
(12:01):
you.
And I mean it's a little lessrigid.
If you've been on the same showwith the same people for a
while and you all know eachother, then it's more like oh
hey, man, how you doing.
You know, but you never assumethat, right, you never assume
that they're going to rememberwho you are, especially if
they're a bigger name than you,because how many people do they
meet, right?
So there's like rigid ruleslike that and there's reasons
(12:21):
behind it.
There was reasons behind it.
Well, that kind of slipped awayrecently, more recently.
And that's where I say there'slike this, this way of doing
things is different.
Now, not that one's better thanthe other, but like the
handshake thing is kind of likethe newer trainers in the world
and the newer schools.
Right, you don't have to dothat, that's ridiculous.
So there's this sort of likerift happening and this change
(12:43):
happening.
And so, you know, vince McMahonof course, the former head of
WWF WWE very publicly had to forfinancial reasons came out and
said, hey, this is scriptedright, like this isn't a real
sport, because he was gettinggoing to get taxed as a real
sport.
He was like it's not, you know,and that's the first time where
(13:10):
that actually happened, whereit was admitted, and that was
many, many years ago.
Um, and so that cats out of thebag a bit, um, and I'm gonna
say there's ways that we, youknow, in the wrestling world,
they still cover through that.
But the the um with that beingexposed, um, it changes a lot of
things and one of the thingsthat it it changed is, like you
said, the comparisons right,it's Hollywood, in a way it's
theater, it's instead of youknow, I joke that it's a soap
(13:35):
opera.
And just instead of, likepeople, you know, having affairs
with other people's relativesand whatnot, it's, you know, you
get into fights.
Sometimes the affair thinghappens too, you know, and that
leads to the fight, but theresolution of the conflict
happens through a match, throughthe physical confrontation.
(13:57):
Otherwise it's a soap opera.
I'm not going to say it's asoap opera for men, because some
people say that and you look atit now.
There's you, you know, there'sjust as many that are not.
And I will also say, when we getinto more of the how I
connected the marketing role,that was one of the things that
I brought to the table.
I feel like in a lot of thecompanies I work for, that
change things.
So I'm going to ask you I'llpop quiz you.
(14:18):
Everybody, michael did not knowthis was coming.
I have have a pop quiz for him.
Okay, so who do you think?
I'm going to give you the threecategories, but which of these
categories do you think shouldbe the target audience for?
a wrestling company to promoteto.
(14:39):
You have the male part of thefamily, to be speaking in binary
terms, but the father role, orthe brother role, or uncle, or
what have you.
You have the mother or aunttype of role, and then you have
(14:59):
the children.
Which of those three do youthink you would?
Which of those three do youthink you would?
When I and when I say market toyou, I'm talking about um,
outside of the showtime like so,like flyers and where you
promote.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Okay, so, first off, like children kind of overlaps
with the other two just for, butI would like I would go towards
children and here's I thinkwhat I immediately thought of is
uh, there's a reason whyproducts are advertised to kids
that are not necessarilyproducts that kids would use,
just because they, they drivethe kids, drive the behavior for
(15:39):
the parents.
Right, we need to get thisthing, you know, know, look at
this cool thing, right?
So I would, my guess would bekids, but I'm not like.
My confidence level isrelatively low on that.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's well, I would say.
There's that school of thoughtin wrestling.
So wrestling promotions beforeI got my hands in there that I
worked with would either targetthe dads yeah, the children, the
dads, because that's who wouldhave the interest typically, or
the children, like you said,because, hey, mommy, daddy, I
(16:12):
want to go to this thing.
Neither of those are incorrect.
It's the moms, though, waswhere I brought the idea in.
Here's why.
So, at its core, most of thematches in wrestling are two
very well-built men Sure, verylittle clothing wrestling in the
(16:40):
middle of a ring.
If your significant other, yourwife or girlfriend or whatever,
told you, hey, I'm going tothis event to watch this thing,
you're going to go with them,mm-hmm, right, if you have
children, they're definitelygoing to want to go right for
the most part.
So if you get the children, ifyou target to the children, then
(17:02):
you might get one parent or theother, or one adult or the
other.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
If you target the dads or whatnot, you might get
just them or maybe them and akid If you target the moms, you
get everybody Very interesting.
The whole family comes yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And that played out.
We actually tested that in acouple cases.
My character actually changedso that I can.
I personally was the, the badguy that was targeting all the
women in the crowd and the womenwrestlers and we turned it into
a whole thing and it um, umincentivized them to come to the
(17:47):
show because they wanted to seeme get what was coming to me.
The ticket sales increaseddramatically um one because of
where we, um marketed.
I actually would go to.
They had all women gyms backthen.
I forgot the name of the chainnow, but I would go in there.
(18:11):
I would demand to be able towork out.
I would go in there with a beltover my, you know, the women's
belt over my shoulder, orwhatever the women's title.
I would just, you know, talkmeanly to everybody you know, be
the bad guy, get them allworked up and be like well, if
you guys think you're betterthan me, I'm going to be over
here this Saturday at 7 o'clock.
Come over there, Maybe I'llwrestle you.
(18:34):
I'll wrestle you.
You can beat me up if you thinkyou can.
I don't think you could, but wewould do that kind of stuff, oh
boy they would show up.
They'd bring the kind of stuffand, oh boy, they would show up.
They'd bring the whole familiestoo.
So instead of me helping sellone ticket, I was selling four,
five, six tickets at a time.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, and that made me extremely valuable, right
yeah, in a role that typicallywas not valuable, which I know
we're going to talk about also.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Well.
So I want to go back to youalready kind of touched on this
a little bit.
Well, so I want to go back toyou already kind of touched on
this a little bit.
But one of the things you toldme that you kind of learned
along the way through thisexperience was how to sort of I
don't even want to say customize, but like really adjust your
communication to differentstakeholders who have different
(19:21):
roles.
You know you talked about someof the protocols or etiquette
for the locker room.
Tell me what are some of theexamples of that that you then
transferred over to professionallife.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, sure, so it will probably be apparent the
way I explained it and I'lldefinitely draw those lines.
So wrestling promotion at itscore, um, you had a promoter,
which is the person that ownedthe thing, um, and it was
responsible for, you know,promoting the show and selling
(19:54):
the tickets and securing thevenue and all that kind of good
stuff, um, and there was also arole that is called a booker and
that's the person that wouldhire the wrestlers, hire the
talent, usually had control overthe creative part of the show
and the story and that sort ofthing.
Sometimes in some places, thepromoter and the booker were the
(20:18):
same person.
In other cases the booker andthe promoter were two different
people, usually fairly closethese are really good friends or
relatives or something likethat and in other cases the
bookers were a team.
It was a group of people, thecreative team, so there might be
four or five people that wouldwrite it.
That could be all kinds ofpeople.
(20:38):
So that was one layer and I'llget into how, as a contractor,
you had to interplay with thosein a second, but let me just
outline those categories.
So you had that level.
Um, you have the stakeholders,that were the locker room folks
with you.
So you, you know, there wereother wrestlers, ever other um
(21:02):
personalities on the showrefereeses, ring announcers,
like all that kind of stuff.
Versus the locker room, you hadtiers within the locker room.
You had your veterans, you hadyour locker room leaders and
when I say veterans it's notnecessarily in the industry
there's that.
Those were the real veterans.
You also had people that hadjust been at that same promotion
for so long that they had alittle bit of a different layer
to them.
(21:23):
We'll get into that in a second,but you had sort of a hierarchy
within the locker room, and sothat was the second layer.
And the third layer was thefans, right, the crowd.
And obviously they were theones that were buying the
products and I said productsplural, because it's not just
(21:43):
tickets to the show, it's alsoconcessions, it's also
merchandise, it's buying thingsdirectly from the wrestlers or
the personalities.
They were the reason we werethere.
They were the ones spending themoney.
Okay, so in terms of corporateworld, right, so the crowd is
what we traditionally see as thecustomer, the ones that are
bringing the money in.
And so there was that.
(22:10):
And again, going back to thatold school, new school way of
thinking, in the olden days, ifyou were a bad guy, your
interaction with that crowd wasduring your time in the show,
right, in the show, right.
So during your segment, whenyou were out there and you did
as much as you could and yourjob was to get the show in the
right way.
There's a lot of psychology towrestling, which is what I was
(22:32):
drawn to.
You're stirring up the emotionsof the crowd to help the good
guys be really good guys, right,and to get them to want to come
back, the fans to come back forthe next show, and so what you
did not do in the old days wasgo out during intermission and
sell yourself.
You did not interact with thecrowd in any way, because how
(22:54):
can you go out there and sell ifyou're supposed to be bad?
That was the mentality.
Well, that went away, right?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Now everybody's out there.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
The really good people, though, stay in
character.
They are.
You know, I was able to do andcan talk about that later too I
was able to sell a lot ofproduct, which is where I made
my money in there, still beingthe bad guy.
In fact, I use that to sell mystuff.
So that so.
So there's that the.
The locker room is tricky,always tricky, but your locker
(23:24):
room in the corporate world areyour teammates, your partners on
other teams, but at your layerof the of the corporate ladder,
so to speak.
And then again there's thehierarchy, so I would include
sort of like the idea of middlemanagement and team leads and
like that kind of thing, andthey're also basically
everything but the seniorleadership at the company, and
(23:48):
then the promoters and thebookers were the or you know
senior leadership team types,right, like your CEOs and
presidents and owners and thatkind of thing.
And you had to act differentlyin wrestling to the locker room,
(24:10):
to the promoters and to thecrowd, right?
I mean, I would say that someof the people that are listening
that work at companies areprobably going to chuckle at
this because they're going torelate this right to the
corporate world.
You had to talk a littledifferently to your promoters
and your bookers and you mighttalk to the locker room people,
right?
I mean, I hate to say thatyou're brown nosing, but you're
brown nosing if you want to, ifyou want to continue to work
there and continue to getbookings every month.
You did um, and and there's abalance there and and this is a
(24:39):
tricky thing in the corporateworld, I would say, but when you
establish yourself in wrestlingat that promotion and they have
faith that you're going to dowhat's right for their business,
you gain more control over yourcharacter and what you did To
the possibility and I had thisin a few places where I became
(25:00):
part of the booking team, Ihelped write the shows.
That's a promotion.
That's, you know, notnecessarily financial but in
terms of influence, right.
I had situations where I wasable to my payment was.
I got to pick three or fourother people to come with me to
the shows.
So I was now a valuableresource to my locker room folks
(25:23):
because I was able to get themto work in other places.
So there's some of that thathad to go on In terms of the
locker room.
I mean, you're putting yourwell-being in people's hands in
a lot of cases, so you need toplay nice, you need to advocate
for yourself.
You can't get walked on at thesame time.
(25:43):
You have to play nice and sothere's a balance there that
always had to happen.
Um and the crowd, you know,like I mentioned before, like um
, you, you had to play the part.
I will say that.
I'm not gonna say you alwayshad to be nice to the crowd.
Um, in wrestling, I mean,obviously you do.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And in the corporate world, yeah, I mean, I think, I
think it's me what saying likeit was important to understand
the crowd right and what theirmotivations were, so that you
could better do for the benefitof the organization in this case
the promoters or the events andI think that's one of the
(26:22):
things You've hit on.
A couple of things I think tome are important.
Right one I tell people all thetime, right, I I hate what I
don't hate.
It really is like fingernailson a chalkboard for me when
people say internal customers,because I just like customers
are customers right.
Um, I use like I understand thesentiment at the same time.
(26:43):
Right, right, understanding howyour business makes money.
Right, and you being anadvocate for doing what's right
for those customers so that yougenerate the goodwill that they
will do business with you.
Right, that's an importantpiece.
I think marketing ops folks arein a position to be able to be
(27:30):
those advocates and help out inthat process.
Which leads to this other oneabout this balancing sort of
walk, that tight rope of being aself-advocate or, you know,
pushing back and providingfeedback in a way that's
constructive and is not seen asundermining, and all that Like.
I think there's a lot of peoplestruggling with that and it's
interesting.
I was listening to a sessionseparate session earlier today
and someone's like oh, you knowyou can't do these things, but
it's going to seem politic.
I think that's gotten a bad rap, the idea that something is
(27:54):
political.
It's just the reality.
You work at Microsoft giantcorporation.
I've worked at big companies.
I've worked at small companies.
My wife works at a very smallnonprofit.
Like there are politics inevery place I've been and every
place I've seen, withoutexception.
So like, if it feels politic-y,like then you're just not
(28:17):
seeing.
The reality is my in my book.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, so people used to tell me there was more than
one person in the room that thepolitics are involved.
I would say, even if you're byyourself, there's politics
involved, maybe multiple voicesgoing on in your head on what to
do, that you're compromising.
But yeah, I totally agree withyou.
There's always.
There's always that factor.
And circle back on is when it.
(28:43):
You know where people strugglewith things.
You know it changes dependingon where you're at right.
Like you might handle arelationship with a manager in
one way and you guys getcomfortable with that dynamic
(29:03):
and you know, as most companiesdo, things shift around.
Or you get comfortable withthat dynamic and you know as
most companies do, things shiftaround.
Or you get a new role, or youknow whatever, and you're under
somebody else.
You have a new manager and youhave to kind of start all over
again.
Um, and that dynamic may bedifferent.
You may have to advocatedifferently than you did, and
and where there's a struggle isthat adjustment.
How do you, how do you advocatefor yourself with this person?
(29:27):
Okay, I got that and then youstart and I'm kind of living
this a little bit, and then youhave a new manager and you
advocate yourself in the sameway at first, because that's
what you're used to and thatdoesn't work anymore.
So you have to recalibrate andfigure out how that works and I
(29:48):
think the difference between,say, wrestling and the corporate
world was in wrestling you hadtwo layers.
You had the individualrelationships that you had to
learn how the psychology wasgoing to operate there.
And then you had masspsychology, you know psychology,
where you had, like, the wholecrowd you needed.
You needed hundreds orthousands of people to all
(30:08):
respond the way you wanted themto.
Um, and that's.
They're very different, they'revery different yeah, so um, but
it was, it was.
That was all really good and Iknow you know and your marketing
business folks, I don't want tonot swing from the wrestling
enough, so hopefully we're doingthat.
(30:32):
The transition to marketing forme from wrestling so again I
was in other industries firstwas fairly quick.
It was just like and I wentinto marketing on a tech side it
(30:54):
was more around the databasemaintenance and the integration
with the CRM and the marketingautomation tools and that kind
of thing.
Less about the marketing.
The problem that I have runinto continuously in my career
in marketing ops is that I havethis background I've been in
(31:15):
sales, I've been in customerservice, I've been in wrestling,
which is everything.
I get the marketing place right.
Yeah, because at the end of theday, where I think marketing as
a general rule, may boy, thisis so boxed.
I don't know if you want me toget on or not I feel like
marketing is going astray overrecent times in an effort to
(31:42):
validate itself as anorganization.
It's getting very short-termminded as an industry where
marketing is not designed to bethat way, and so where I have
always come in with marketing isand this is maybe this is
(32:03):
because this is where I feelcomfortable and one of my
strengths- and what helped me inwrestling a lot and where I
learned in wrestling and honedit is the ability to recognize a
pattern.
I mean, this is what marketingis at a base, right?
How do you recognize a pattern?
What mechanisms do you need tohave in place to be able to see
the pieces of information thatwill allow the pattern to be
(32:25):
recognized by you?
How can you push and poke andpull on various levers to play
into that pattern to reach anoutcome that is advantageous?
And what does that look likeoperationally?
What does that pulling of thelever really mean in terms of
(32:46):
what you're doing?
And to me, at the end of the day, that's really all marketing is
, and as long as you stick tothose pillars, everything else
kind of falls into place.
I will have people that areeither going to cheer me on this
or just go.
Oh my God, what a nut job thisguy is.
(33:09):
When I say this as a marketer,I'm not worried about the
revenue piece.
I'm not Because, to me, if I doall of the things that I'm
supposed to do and I do thosethings really well, the revenue
will happen yeah, I mean, Iwould argue that, um, I don't
(33:31):
think you don't care about therevenue, because you do, right,
you do, but you, I think you'reyou're taking a step back on,
like I think you're getting.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You're reacting to this current, fairly consistent
current state, which I agreewith, which is so much focus on
near-term results from marketingefforts, so things like
attribution reporting and ROIand all that, and it's not to
say that those aren't importantto some degree, but they're not
the be-all, end-all, right.
(34:02):
I think you know the bestmarketers, or ones that I admire
, absolutely want to measureimpact of what they do, sure, at
the same time, they also havebeen able to carve out a
substantial portion of theirbudget.
Let's do it that way, becausethat's really what tells you
where you got your prioritiesright carve out a substantial
portion of their budget to dothings that are essentially you.
(34:26):
Either the the ability tomeasure them is really really
challenging, so you don't evenbother with it, yeah, or you
don't, like you're like this isjust some crazy thing.
I want to try, and they and andthey've earned the right to be
able to do that a little bit thepart that's because they do
focus on the revenue, but not, Idon't think they focus on, like
this, this particular campaignhas to drive this x amount of
(34:47):
revenue in this three months orsix months, right, and I think
that's to me the difference, andI think there's, uh, we had an
episode it's one of our mostdownloaded ones, it's now a
couple years old where, yeah, wetalked about is like actually
the titles like something likeis is attribution ruining
marketing and, to some degree, Ithink this desire to see very
(35:09):
short-term results, financialresults, out of marketing has
driven behaviors that aren'tnecessarily good for the long
term.
Unfortunately, ceos, boards,investors that's what they're
geared towards is finding seeingthe revenue and growth and
(35:30):
things like that to continue togrow.
So I think there's just a goodbalance.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, most of them came out of the sales world, the
sales world right.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
For the most part, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
There's not a lot of CMOs to CEO moves that should
and I should clarify too.
It's not that I don't careabout the revenue.
I think the point I'm trying tomake is it's such, it's become
such the singular, primary focusof marketing.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Well, I think specifically net new like net
new logo revenue has been thedriver, Like it's not even
revenue Like it's not even likerecruit, like exist.
Retaining and growing existingcustomers has become even less
of a focus.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Well, of course, where I sit, you know, I'm going
to see that a littledifferently just because of my
role in Microsoft, and of courseMicrosoft's a whole different
beast because it's so large.
I'm on the side of themarketing house.
That is just for existingcustomers and digging in there
what I found over time at many,I think a lot of companies do
(36:34):
not know how to market toexisting customers.
It's not the focus, since somany people focus on net new.
There hasn't been as muchattention on growing the revenue
and I never again quiteunderstood that, because here's
a pool of people that alreadyknow who you are and already
like what you do.
Why couldn't you?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Or they or they don't right, or they don't and you
can turn it around or whatever.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, I think where what I what, where I'm going in
my mind about these things is toyour point about attribution
and MQLs and all these thingsthat marketers come up with that
sound important.
(37:19):
It goes back to what I wassaying in terms of the pillars.
It's not that revenue is notimportant.
It's not that attribution is notimportant.
It's not that those thingsaren't important.
It's important in the sensethat to me, it's important in
the sense that it allows you tosee the pattern, see the
(37:40):
patterns changing, because itwill and then adjust to those
patterns.
It's valuable to me in thatsense and I know this is a
battle I'm always going to loseat this point, because we're at
a stage now where a marketingorganization has to prove its
existence.
It's no longer where companieswill allow it to be a call
(38:01):
center.
It's got to be a profit-drivingpart of the org.
I think it's a mistake.
To be honest, I think we'relosing aspects of what marketing
used to do that are valuable.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
If they can't tie it into those things.
I'm not willing to just give upon the idea that marketing is is
only going to be be around ifthey can prove their profit
center, I think.
But I do think it's incumbent onmarketers to do a better job of
articulating the value theybring to an organization in a
way that the rest of theorganization will understand,
(38:37):
and it's not about things likewebsite visits and MQLs and you
know, pipeline that youinfluence.
I mean, those are, those can bepieces of it, but they're
probably not the most importantpiece because, to your point
right and this is old data and Idon't remember off the top of
my head the exact numbers, butsomething like there's some
research.
This is probably 10 years oldnow, uh, and but I doubt it's
(39:00):
changed is that like somethinglike less than five percent of
people on boards corporateboards are, uh, have any
experience in marketingmanagement?
Yeah, so a lot of them come outof finance sales operations.
Yeah, so it's natural that,like, like what you don't
understand if you, you, you fear, so you need, you need to be
(39:22):
able to.
But to me that's important,like, stop complaining about
them not understanding what youdo.
Your job is to help understandwhat they're looking for and
communicate it better.
I'm not saying it's easy right.
Like that's your job.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
And I think that also the um, in some cases it's,
it's they don't know.
I think in worst cases it's alittle shame on them they think
they know and it's it's theydon't know.
I think in worst cases it's alittle shame on them.
They think they know and it'swrong or it's old.
I mean, how many people in thatmay be listening to this have
run into situations where, um,either at where you work or have
(39:56):
worked, or just even if youtell people you know the the
question, oh, what do you do fora living outside of work?
And you say marketing like, oh,you make ads, you're the ad
people, you do commercials.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like you know, are you?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
you know what do you make a pretty picture department
right, so it's it's.
There's a little bit of that,and so it's easy sometimes for
for senior leadership to want tocut marketing because let's
call back the ads as long as wehave sales people calling.
You know that's all you know andso, and so I think more
dangerous than not knowing ismisunderstanding.
(40:30):
And to your point, I mean,that's up to marketing.
There's so many things thatmarketers spin wheels on.
And to your point, I don't knowif those are the right things
because they're not helpingclear up that picture with the
people that need to have itcleared up Um.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I, I, I use, I use the phrase like there are things
that only marketers care about.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, that's where I was heading.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Exactly, that's exactly right.
And and and so, and, and.
I always joke, like it seems tome, when I'm.
You know, if you go on LinkedInor any of these, you know we'll
call them professional socialnetworks or professional
networks and you see what peopleare writing and they're
marketing people writing.
I'm thinking, like, who are youwriting that to?
(41:17):
Because it sure sounds likeyou're trying to write that to
other marketing people like,which is fine, especially if
that might be your customer Likemaybe you're trying to sell
into that.
You know, there's nothing wrongwith that.
It's just that, like, who arewe?
Are we trying to convince eachother of this?
Like what's going on?
You know, we're not necessarilycommunicating to the people
that need to hear it or need tosee into our world, you know,
(41:44):
and so there's all kinds ofthings.
I mean I do this too.
I mean it's not like I'msitting on on a hill some of us
are immune from.
Yeah, I've had two creativedirectors in my lifetime, that,
um and if they're listeningthey'll know exactly who they
are uh, where they had anextremely critical eye on all
things that were produced, and Iinherited that from them just
(42:06):
working alongside them for somuch.
And it is you know, um.
You know I I'm very open and Ihave adhd and potentially autism
and some other things, and soif I, if my brain gets hung up
on something, it is very toughfor me to let go.
Sure, if I'm looking at anemail that I'm supposed to be
coding in the platform andthere's an orphan word in the
(42:28):
subject, I mean in the umheadline, oh my gosh, like I
can't move unless I fix that andand nobody does, anybody really
care about that.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's getting.
That is like the.
That's like the example I useall the time an orphan word on a
paragraph or headline that like.
Because the level of effort totry to fix that, especially in
things like an email right whichyou never know like is so hard,
I actually worry like it'sgoing to have unintended
consequences and actually makethings look worse.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, oh, absolutely.
Did I ever tell you my, my, my,semi serious, semi, not serious
line about email, creatingemails.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
The rule of thumb is that you create an email like
it's the year 1985.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I don't think you told me that, but I couldn't
agree more.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, I mean we're using tables Like you still need
to use tables you can't use anyof the stuff you use on a
website.
I mean, you could it's gettingthere.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
No, not.
Yeah, yeah, if you code it likeit's 1985, you should be good.
Yeah, no, it is, it's crazy.
Um gosh, we, we have gone allover.
So I, I want to leave.
I want to maybe wrap up on ageneral notion here.
So I think what we've we'vetalked about this a little bit,
but you and I I think it feelslike we both have a similar view
on there's a point where you'retrying to advocate for, in good
(43:53):
faith, provide feedback thatmay not be taken.
Well, say, a designer you'recalling their baby ugly is the
(44:14):
way they might perceive it, evenif that's not what your intent
is, but it's definitely apossibility of how they'll
perceive it.
A possibility of how they'llperceive it.
So how do you like, how do youdo that, like that, like this,
advocating for yourself,advocating for the customers,
for your team, whichever thingversus you know, you know, not
undermining that relationshipwith this other stakeholder.
(44:34):
That's important, regardless ofwhat their, their group is,
that you outlined before.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
So I I wish I was better at doing that.
I will tell you that there'sbeen some recent pains on my
still learning there.
I'm much better at that inwrestling it seems so much
easier, then I would say thatwhat I'm learning and what seems
to be working.
There's a few tips that I'vepicked up recently that seem to
(45:06):
have changed the tone of theroom.
I would say One if it'spossible, I will type it out for
myself first and then read italoud, if it's that kind of
communication where I can dothat so I can hear how it sounds
.
Often by doing that you willpick up on things that you
didn't realize when it was inyour head.
That's the first thing.
(45:27):
I will also again, if timeallows this to happen.
I lean heavily into AI.
Now One of the things that Itell people about all the time
is in.
I'm just going to use Outlookas an example.
You know folks will say, oh, Iuse Outlook to write, you know
Copilot or AI to write my email.
(45:48):
I don't do that.
I write my email and thenthere's a coaching function in
there that will read through itand give me tips like, hey,
maybe soften this or make sureyou include this, or somebody
may perceive it that way, and sothat's been strong in helping
me frame my emails differently.
And I would say if you have theadvantage of that or access to
(46:09):
that.
Use that to your advantage Interms of conversations.
That's where it gets trickierfor me, especially if there's a
time crunch and I'm trying tojust get my message across,
because I can sometimes be verydirect.
I'm trying to curb that alittle bit.
Get my message across, becauseI can sometimes be very direct,
I'm trying to curb that a littlebit.
So what I would say there is myfavorite phrase is oh, have you
(46:37):
considered, or how do you thinkthis would look if?
Or you know, acknowledging whatthey're doing right, like, oh,
I see what you did here and Itotally get that.
I'm wondering if somebody mayinterpret it as you know, how
about you know?
And I'm trying to get out ofthe solutioning world in that
(46:58):
like, instead of me suggestinglike hey how about this?
It might be like hey, what doyou think, is there like some
other way we might be able toapproach this?
And then it turns into aconversation where then they'll
(47:18):
ask potentially for inputs fromyou, and then you kind of
circumvent some of that withoutit being like, oh, here's the
know-it-all they're trying to do, and then give them an opening,
without losing face, ofconsidering another perspective
on how it might get interpretedwhen that thing happens, and
(47:41):
then see if they have other waysof doing it, and if not, then
they may engage you in theconversation.
And now you have a conversationand now you've overcome that
hump.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
So it's interesting.
You sort of talked about acouple of things.
One I think you're doingdifferent things for written
versus verbal conversations.
I think it's really importantto know, like, what's the right
medium to use for differenttypes of conversations.
That's number one.
But the thing that also justpopped in my head, the way you
described those two things onthe one hand, you're using some
(48:15):
tools to help identify, likehelp you with your blind spots,
right?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
So when, I write something right.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
How could I, how could this be interpreted that
I'm not even thinking about?
On the other hand, what you'redoing with other people when
you're having that conversation,providing feedback, you're
helping them with their blindspots potentially right, and I
think that's a reallyinteresting way of thinking
about it.
And a lot of what you describeties ties nicely with to be able
to like one of the mostimpactful books I ever.
(48:43):
Well, I got the book andtraining and I would like it's
called crucial confrontationsand, um, that idea of what you
described like, uh, starting aconversation with them with, uh,
I understand what you're tryingto do, or like, help me
understand.
Right, you're trying tounderstand their point of view,
not and not assume, make intentor what they were trying to
(49:05):
accomplish, clarifying that andthen and then getting into okay,
you know what if we did thisright?
And I think that is similar tosort of the framework that you
get with crucial confrontations,which is all about trying to
affect behavior change with achallenging conversation or
anticipating challengingconversation.
(49:26):
Anyway, so I love that.
The last thing I like just myown experience I would add add
to this, like, if you're aleader and you're hearing this,
I think it's really important todemonstrate what this looks
like to to your team and I thinkI have really important to
demonstrate what this looks liketo your team.
(49:47):
And I think I have a goodexample.
You talked about changing peopleyou report to right.
So I have an example of oneplace where I was, where I was
reporting to CMO.
Cmo had 12 people reporting tohim, decided that was too many,
consolidated.
Well, it turns out, one of mypeers became my boss.
Luckily, we had a goodrelationship going into it.
(50:08):
But one of the things weestablished pretty quickly and I
think I was fortunate in thisis that we really realized that
we each had our own strengthsand we complimented each other
if we would not let our egos getin the way and the way that
showed up.
There was at least one timewhen we were in a meeting with
many other people and we wereliterally like we.
(50:29):
We weren't like.
It wasn't a yelling match, butwe disagreed about something and
uh, ultimately, right, herdecision, she had the
responsibility for it and umsaid okay, we'll make it happen.
Right, it was like I voiced myright we.
But we did it in a public forumand I can't tell you how many
people came up to me and waslike are you two?
(50:49):
Okay, I was confused because itfelt so natural to be able to
have that kind of thing.
It didn't feel like, but Isuspect what it made me realize
is that's not the norm for a lotof people, just to be able to
have that kind of conversationand still walk away and, uh,
have respect and that's rightright yeah, now there's a line
(51:12):
where it crosses, and you know,but we never got there and I'm
grateful for that goodum, this has been awesome.
I know we started out with the,the pro wrestling, and I think
there's this connection to likethis ability to like work with
lots of different stakeholdersand adjust what you're doing and
recognize that it was a reallyimportant.
(51:32):
It sounds like you reallythat's the big thing that
carried over from yourexperiences in pro wrestling Any
any other like major thingsthat we didn't hit on that you
wanted to cover.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Before we wrap it up here, no, I mean, I think I
think that sums it up prettywell.
I would say that patternrecognition is the key skill to
practice and hone and have inmarketing and marketing ops.
So that's the other thing Itook from wrestling.
I think that's key.
I think that's also missing alot.
(52:01):
And don't be afraid of having,like short-term and long-term
things that you're, you know,planning as an organization or
as an individual.
I think, um, having theshort-term to short-term hops,
um, and again, this wassomething I've learned in
wrestling you can do a story fora show, and that's great.
It's better if you can do astory for the next 15 shows and
(52:24):
then how to break it down intoeach one.
It just was a better product.
And I think that's the case inbusiness too.
Have your North Star and thenjust break it into pieces and
how you're going to get there,as opposed to the expression
that I hate, that people talkabout is flying the plane while
you're building it, and that'sgreat, except you might end up
(52:46):
with a motorcycle and you neededto fly.
So you know yeah, that's thething I would leave with.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Interesting.
Well, hey, devin appreciate itIf folks do want to keep up with
you or learn more about whatyou're doing.
I don't know, you know.
Is there a place where they canconnect with you or follow you?
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Yeah, sure.
So right now, I would justpoint folks to LinkedIn and you
know, last name is L E S H I Nand you know, just send me an
invite there, let me know thatyou, you caught this show and
this is where you you heard fromme and send that over there.
There are things that I amgoing to be working on here as
soon as I can get some equipmentin play in terms of some video
(53:28):
types of things, and I'llcombine that with LinkedIn as
soon as I can.
So just keep an eye on LinkedIn.
That's the best place to goPerfect.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Well, again, thank you, devin, for sharing.
It's been a fun conversation.
We covered lots of ground.
Devin, for sharing.
It's been a fun conversation.
We covered lots of ground.
Thanks to our audience forcontinuing to support us and
providing ideas and ideas fortopics and guests.
And if you as always, if youare interested in being a guest
or have a suggestion for a guestor a topic, please don't
hesitate to reach out to Naomi,mike or me on LinkedIn or in the
(54:01):
marketingupscom community.
Until next time, everybody,we'll see you soon.
Bye.
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