Welcome to the art of marketing operations, a tailor podcast here you
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Welcome to the art of marketing operations, a tailor podcast, I'm Glen
bottomly and to day my guest is Chris Panebianca, who is the chief marketing
officer at bankers, Healthcare Group, an organization which provides fast,
flexible loan solutions such as business loans, personal loans, along
with credit card solutions for individuals and business professionals.
Thanks for joining me today, Chris, it's my pleasure Glen thanks for having
me absolutely well, listen before we get started. I know that, in your
background, social responsibility is a key focus area for yourself personally,
and I know that two key areas and organizations that you support is
David's refuge and also que's pit crew. Can you just tell her audience a little
bit about those two charities? Yeah Glen there they're two very different
organizations that I've known for a long time, I'll start with kiss pit
crew. When I first moved back to Syracuse was reading an article in the
paper, and you know I had adopted dogs and always been a dog lover and the
front cover had a cover story about pitbulls and a pit. Bull ring a
fighting ring that they have broken up in Syracuse and a rising issue. So I
reached out, I met the founder of the organization and quickly became friends
with the group before I knew it. I was on their board and, as you can see over
my shoulder, one of my rescue pits stout. He was found on the south side
of Syracuse very skittish, but just he had something in his eyes and I already
had two dogs- and this is before kids. So we adopted a third dog and he's been
with me for eight years now, and it's just a group that you know her. Their
job is to go around the city going to schools and educate people on the
misunderstandings in the bully breed and it's just a breed of dog and an
animal that I've connected with throughout my career because of the
mentality, the loyalty, the hard work. You know a lot of similar character
traits that I used to think were bad, but the more and more I learned about
this breed. I realize that they're actually very good and very
misunderstood. So that's a group, that's very close to my heart and
obviously in my home and then David's refuge. There group that I met about
four years ago and they came in to beg to talk to us about respite weekends.
What they do is they provide care for families and respite for families that
have severely disabled children within the home, and so, as a lot of people
know if you taking care of your kids, I spent is hard, but when you have a
child or multiple children that have debilitating diseases or need constant
care and monitoring, sometimes you lose your partner. You lose your sense of
self, so this organization goes in and provides education, support services
and it's a group that the immediately jumped on board with and provided
multiple respite weekends and then I personally done a lot and I just joined
their board in February. So, as you said, he the CSAR part of my job. It's
not just marketing, it's not just being a professional, it's giving back to our
community what a wonderful cause for both of those and thank you so much for
sharing that with our audience. It's really valuable.
So Chris tell us a little bit. How did you first get started in marketing
because your background is so diverse and you have such a broad set of
responsibilities at banker's healthcare group? How did you first get started in
marketing? That's a great question, and sometimes I think back and I don't
really know the exact moment. I've always been drawn to art to creativity.
I'd love to write. My parents said I should have been a lawyer. I love to
argue, and I love to find information beyond. What's on the surface level, so
as I went through high school, I really found myself leaning into music into
art into movies and to reading I love reading and the more and more I read. I
found that everybody is a market. As you read historical biographies, as you
read, events is read anything it's all about marketing, and so you know when I
came through college, I did an internship. I did after I graduated an
unpaid internship in Charlotte North Carolina for an ad agency price McNab,
which is now a part of Eric Mower and associates. But what I was amazed by
was the combination of content of strategy of creative of Persona data
analytics and even twenty years ago, fifteen twenty years ago there was this.
We were almost there with data, but I was just just enthusiastic about why
certain things went together, how you understood an audience, how you took a
product and presented it and brought that out to an audience to make them
interested or to get equity I in brand share, so it started very early and
it's just been an ongoing learning, which is you know in marketing? If you,
if you take a little bit of a nap, you might miss something, it's always
evolving, and it just keeps you on your toes. So I love the challenge. I love
the the artistry behind marketing.
I very much agree. I
find a lot of value in what you how you describe both the brand value and
artistry marketing has such a such an important role in an organization and
making that connection to consumers, to your business, customers, etc. And how
did you find Chris from your career? How did you find that you were able to
start in those humble beginnings and have you how you have continued your
career growth? To get to to your role? Right now is chief marketing officer.
It was something my father taught me. I grew up on a potato farm and you know
in upstate New York, not a lot of people from my town came out and were
you didn't have the role models that were in New York City or in La doing
big marketing and big corporate things? But what my dad instilled in me a long
time ago, was a run through walls, mentality and nothing could ever stand
in the way. If there's something you wanted. So every my path isn't the
traditional path, a lot of internships, a lot of really lower level jobs. But
what I did is I listened and I found mentors along the way that were very
willing to share with me their experience, the right pathways, but the
biggest thing I learned from them was the ability to have no fear of failure.
So every step I've taken, whether it was you know, as an unpaid intern, then
a thirteen thousand dollar year media planner, then a media buyer than a
media strategist. You know every job in every role was just a step to where
I've gotten to today, but the big thing is really realizing that that could all
go away tomorrow. So my dad taught me you have to be able to do every job.
You have to respect the craft of every job, whether you're sleep sweeping the
floors or you're negotiating multi million dollar contracts. There is
respect that has to be given in each role is essential to the other. So it's
a you know like the wheel. Every spoke is important. You can't take too many
of those away. So again it was a lot of trial and error. It was listening, it
was finding mentors and it was having no fear and not being you know, put
back by how I got to where I am it's a lot of hard work. You know there. I
don't think I'll find many people that will outwork me now that I have little
kids. It becomes a little bit harder because, instead of just grinding until
nine or ten o'clock at night, there's bath time- and you know stories and
hanging out with them, but right after they're in bed, I'm learning I'm
constantly reading constantly learning, because I don't want to get past. I
think I was doing a master class last night until about one o'clock in the
morning on movie Martin Scorsese, so it was totally irrelevant to what I'm
doing, but I find relevancy and everything I'm doing and the people I
talk to. So it's just hangon learning and not being afraid to take a job or
to do what you know. Anyone else in the organization can do or won't do MM. I
love that because I really feel that a continuous improvement and ongoing
education- it just continues to make you sharp and valuable to your team
into the organization that you're working with. So I can mend you for
that. I think that's wonderful and how have you? How have you sort of taken
those that mindset that set of skills, the discipline that you have for that
continuous improvement? How have you tried to cascade that across your team,
because you have in your role, you have such a broad scope of responsibilities.
So how have you found that that you can share that passion for continuous
learning? And how have you instilled that in your team so that your entire
team can continue to outperform your competitors in the market? Sure I think
it's number one is creating clarity in saying this is allowed. This is
expected. You know I'm very vulnerable in leadership. It's one of the things
that I learned very early on is just to be authentic and I'm using a lot of
buzz words right now, but it's true. If people will see right through leaders
who are just telling you what they think you should do, but getting out on
the field and standing shoulders shoulder with your team, saying hey, I
just read this Great Book: I'm going to buy it for everyone on the team, let's
start to go through a chapter every week, so we switch up our meetings and
we're sharing a lot of show and tell not just from me but saying hey: why
don't you guys bring something to the table and share it with a team? There's
something we all can learn whether you're one of my senior managers or
you're one of the newest people in an entry level position. Everyone has
something to share and we should all be open to listen with the intent to learn
something new if you're, it's the age, old, Ato, age, old adage, if you're the
smartest person in the room y you're in the wrong room. I think it's really
true and you know in full transparency. There was a time as a young leader
where you felt that you had to be the smartest person in the room. You had to
be the one, bringing all the ideas, because that's how you got to the top,
and I had some really good leadership above me that said Chris. It's not the
way to go. You have to bring everybody in, make it inclusive make it fun make
it so that they know that it's okay, not to know something and to ask a
question. So it's something that I've done and I do every week every day with
my leaders with everybody on my team. Even you know, in a finance company,
when I looked around at the sea, suit we'd be in meetings, and I was the only
non finance person there. So talking about talk about eating a little bit of
humble pie when the majority of meetings are talking about financing
rates and cerates and yields and spreads I'm a marketing guy, and I
understand Roy and great analytics and Kpis, but I had to learn so. I started
the bottom and I share that with my team. All the time I say you really
have to get in if I was going to, if I'm going to be a good cm, I have to
understand every aspect of the business because there's something that I could
catch in a meeting that could go from a small little snippet into a multi
million dollar idea or a concept or service, because really that's what
marketing is in our organization. It's a were a service ORG underneath the
business that has to support the people and the products and our customers. So
again going through with my team and saying it's okay to ask questions. I
don't know all the answers, I'm sitting in a room with nine other people and
I'm not afraid to ask a stupid question. So it's really that openness. It's a
transparency! It's the authenticity that if your team believes that- and
you show it to them enough- you will get greatness out of them and they'll
learn things and they me even to surprise themselves. I would agree with
that. I
completely agree with that, and I think that that servant leadership that
curiosity, that you are bringing to your team. I would imagine your team
absolutely resonates to that style of leadership, so, let's dive in a little
bit more on your team itself, because, as you had mentioned, information is
coming at you so rapidly the technology or mar tex stack. Everything is
changing so quickly. So when you think about your team, how have you sort of
set the optimal organizational structure at your organization? Looking
at marketing, looking at creative brand working with sales working with the
revenue team, your data teams, how have you sort of tried to structure that to
ensure a maximum performance and revenue growth for the organization?
Well, it's ongoing and to be completely honest. We haven't gotten there yet
we've gone through transformation after transformation were a very
entrepreneurial spirit company and in that we've gone from three people in
two thousand and one to over twelve hundred in two thousand and twenty one.
So there was a lot of
try. It see what works change it, but you know we look at it as a speed boat
instead of the the large tanker that we can move quick and we can make
decisions which sounds great, but it also you're dealing with people and, as
you had more and more people that aren't used to that it becomes more
difficult. So the easiest way to answer your question is really to say: You
know we went from a one to one relationship where we almost had our
own full service department. Where I had operations development, we had
analysts and we kind of move that apart to organizational, we worked with
Mackenzie about a year a year and a half ago, and we talked about agile,
and so we started to put people into more pods and that's something that we
did recently within marketing to where we did it by business line. So I had
very good business line leaders within three of the major areas and then we
put their own creative with their own copy. We had their own technical
resources that had liaisons between development product analytics and we
had to bring that in that way and then what we did is we had our business line,
performance, marketing and then, on the other side we had our brandy now for bg
we have been a performance marketing division for a very long time, focused
heavily on response rates and approvals in Roi.
That's been great, but now, as we say hey you know, the CEO wants to be a
household name by the end of the year, two thousand and twenty two well. We
haven't really focused on brand, so we're really good in the LEA
aggregation, lead generation side and with what the analysts do with data.
But now we have this whole new challenge and that's where we're at
right now we're going through a rebrand that will come out in two thousand and
twenty two and a big focus in separation of budget and resources from
brand to actual performance marketing. So within the ten products under the B
Hg Umbrella, you have your day to day teams. Again, they have their day to
day creative their day to day content their liaisons into development into
the product side, but we also have the brand team, that's working on all of
the setting the brand guide setting the brand strategy for each of the each of
the business lines and then they work together and then we push that and work
with the outside teams and revenue. Sales were very close,
daily conversations with sales, with our CFO, with our R Coo, just always
trying to be on the same page, understood and then for the pods that
you've set up for the various product lines. How are you insuring sort of the
sharing of best practices from this this product set to that product set,
and how are you sort of looking at making sure there's, not duplication of
efforts or waste in that process? Constant communication is key. You know
we meet as a leadership team every day, even if their quick stand. UPS were
very concise. You know it's funny, you can go overboard and then you can
there's the two ends of too many meetings too long of meetings, not
enough value. Should this be an email, not a meeting to no communication at
all and then silos form? So it's a delicate balance. We do very quick,
quick, burst stand. UPS and you know we just communicate the tools that are out
there now using a SANA. You know we use a Sana very heavily and then just being
remote is leveled the playing field to where it's easy to grab a lot of people
and throw them all into a room just if they want to hear you know, there's no
crossing over. It could be inefficient at times, but you have to really manage
those meetings and make sure there's a strict agenda and then what's the recap,
what has to be done? What information needs to be shared? What do we need to
go get to make a better decision? So it's not perfect by any stretch of the
imagination, but I think the structure that we've laid out now and the pod
structure is only a few months old. I think that is the right situation for
this company and I've seen it work, because now people, instead of just
taking a project like you, wouldn't a typical agency, you're, really living
it so that whole pod could be in with the product owner could be in with the
product sales team everybody's coming together, and you never know what an
individual is going to hear that could make them, do their job better or could
help them. They may ask a thought, provoking question that you wouldn't
have gotten out of a leader so everybody's in there and that's what
they're thinking about all day, but then we pull them back and we do a lot
of sharing a lot of show until this worked this didn't. How did this go?
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of the saying that I had heard many many years ago is fail faster to
succeed sooner yeah, and I think that what I'm hearing in your description of
the pods is this rapid iteration, very agile. You know here's the data, here's
what we're hearing and now we're immediately modifying our approach and
going back out there with the next the next round etc. Can you share with our
audience how you take the data, the information information from the market,
information on campaign performance information that sales teams are
revenue, teams are sharing with you and how you use that to then immediately
iterate, creative and then, ultimately, how that might roll up to overall brand
as well? But let's start with the creative at that product level.
Solution level. How do you use that data to immediately iterate? It's a
delicate balance and again you have so much data with ten different divisions,
run or product lines coming at you or core line that will just take the
working capital and and the personal capital we're looking at our major
channels, direct mail, digital those have been for years, the major channels
we have and what we're looking at. We have models upon models. We have a
proprietary data system that we can take in data from everywhere and then
use that to make decisions on who we should even go after before we're even
doing it. So that has helped a lot with the immersion of our data scientists
and and the anal analyst they're coming in and giving us better information so
that we know who we're going out after what data we can append. Is it
psychographic? Is it just demographic? What product would they even qualify?
What are the levels of qualification so before we ever put pen to paper? We've
got a really good idea of the audience and what we're going to do so, then,
once we launch very quickly, we establish based on twenty years of
history. What we think will happen and we've got good baseline set from that
point. You know we're very quick to know even in direct mail, if it worked
or not, you know forty five days cycle and finance is pretty good. Digital is
almost immediate, so we're constantly looking at that and where we're
starting to grow and what excites me and where I'm really interested is now
breaking down the behavior of our audience by certain creatives and not
just saying hey. I was a doctor that did this with this ad, but really
digging down from a demographic, psychographic and then bringing in all
the attributes of thousands of attributes that we have access to and
starting to like a true artist is paint paint the portrait. So now I can go
back and that's without even really talking to my creative team. Now we
take all of that. We bring it back into marketing and you get the copywriters
the brand strategists you get the designers in the room. You say this is
what you created. This is who reacted, how they did now. Let's I think we
found something: Let's throw some gasoline on that and it really it's
become fun. It's very scientific and it's exciting to me every day to walk
in and say you know we just launch this, and it still allows you to have
creativity and back to what you said, but that fail fast we're able to throw
campaigns out, quick off a hunch and then pull it back very quickly, because
we've got good oversight behind us and we can. We always shoot with an Arrow
to really test. You know one of the things
that we had a lot of fun with in in post pandemic was where qr codes. You
know you can't turn on the TV now or drive by a billboard on the highway
without there being a Qr Code, so we threw one of those on there and it was
amazing the response rate- and you just gave your customer instead of having to
go online instead of having to type in url or call you just gave them a
different way that takes away the friction and then at least window
shopping with your brand and is a lot of people know once you get someone to
react in some kind of way, it'll be easier, the next time, even if they're,
not in the market, for one of our financial solutions. So it's really a
science and now taking one thing like the Qr Code, what's the next step? How
can we integrate that even more? How can we tie that into our life cycle
marketing strategy? How can we tie that into the cram or out reach efforts? So
the creative comes along with that and at every stage we call it the river
every stage of the river we have Kpis of knowing by channel all the way back
to our data sources to our led gen channels. What the performance should
be through each department of that river within B Hg. So it's that
attention to detail and attention to results that allows us to be very
dynamic with creative, and I would imagine, based on what you just
described, I would imagine you're constantly referring back to previous
campaign. Previous, you know, add copy Prevu. You know because now you're
starting to see that one worked, that's interesting that one didn't work and
continuing to sort of constantly revise your future based on you know what you
saw in the past. Definitely- and we actually, it pains me to say this. It
makes me proud and pains me, but we have a direct mail piece that hasn't
been beaten for seven years, so we've taken the content, tried it in
different carriers. In my twelve years, twelve and a half years at BG, we've
done over four thousand different direct mail kits from outer envelope to
stamp to return label to texture, to wait to message. That's even before you
get inside to the mailer. So I might one of my mentors one of the original
founders. He taught me that when I came to be, he said the attention to detail
and just direct mail, it's an art, so you have to continuously see what works
and see what doesn't and now we've expanded. When I came on in two
thousand and nine, we were doing twenty thousand male pieces a month. We had no
digital program, no email today, we're doing over twelve million mailers a
month, fully integrated digital performance, marketing platform, email
Ab. All of this, with landing pages, pearls and websites. Creative still
sits at the at the heart of this and we're in a digital age now which makes
creative more important, and you know I talked to someone all the time I talked
to our analyst all the time and especially in digital in direct mail. I
think you know, as I said, we've had one kid. That's worked for years and
we've always tested out of that, but I think when you get into linked in you
get into instagram and facebook, which are great channels for us, you have to
be different, so you've set the brand guide. We know what our brand
guidelines are, but it can't be, especially in finance the smiling
person, the the beautiful home, the Blues and Greens. You have to take a
chance because we're one of those cultures where it's just the scroll. So
I joked about this yesterday said you know when I was a kid we get yelled at
because you get the video game thumb the callous on your thumb from video
games. Now you get out the side of your finger from scrolling on your phone or
tablet, but you have to do something that grabs our attention as they're
just mindless activity, and I think you know that's where it comes back to
creative and analytics to be able to take those shots and say hey. This is
bright pink, it might not be on brand, but it's got all the other elements.
Let's just try it and then you've got a good team behind you saying: Hey that
really worked or well that only worked in this segment. Let's optimize our
budget and our data and go and then try something else over here. Yeah. I think,
there's a lot in there he's there's a a rich background that you've just that
you just provided and if I think about all of those techniques that you're
using direct mail, digital pearl, landing, page et ce all of these
different pieces, the social channels that you're on can you share what are
the most important metrics that you look at across? All of those are so
many things so much data that you look at I'm sure, like so many of our
audience, members as well, we are swimming in data and it is trying to
eliminate the noise and focus on those few key elements that is going to make
the difference today that will make to morrow a better day. So what, in your
experience, what are right now across all of those
channels, techniques, etc? What are the four or five most important metrics
that you personally look at every single day? There's one that I look at
before anything else and I think everyone you know it inherently, but
people don't pay enough attention to it and that's data quality. If you don't
have solid data, nothing, you track nothing, you do. You will never scale.
So I look at deliver ability. I look at you know, Return Mail! That's that's!
If I have a big Dash Board in front of me, I'm looking at the quality across
channels to see how good is that data before I even go and do any technique.
So that's number one number two is I'm looking at response rates? You know
those are your typical, but we have a quality of Responsoria D. pull through
you know, so it's literally responsories approval and then pull
through and then your Roi, so those with the performance marketing those
are my main and again being in finance. There's another metric and that's
performance right risk. You don't want to originate and have great pull
through great response, Great Ri and then have poor performance and finance
and so number one, I'm always talking with our analysts and trying to teach
our analysts what I know and then listening to them for the ways that
they look at things. You know we're looking at. You know our website
performance, our Pearl performance on page time, bounce rates- you know,
email, deliver ability, you know. What's our spam, look like what does
our remove from list look like unsubscribe, there's, so many that I
think by channel. You have to look at Your Business. We are not a
an expense driven organization were revenue based everywhere. I worked at
before. Bhe was very down to the dollar budgeting and you had to get everything
approved before you did a hang here. It's the polar opposite. You've got the
autonomy to go out and try new things, because we have the ability to track
and the ability to attribute it back to certain tasks or performance metrics.
So we go out and if it's making money we keep going. If it's not, we figure
out, we try. We test we test, but we're okay with a little bit of failure as
long as we're not going down the wrong path repeatedly. So you know again, I
think, if you're looking at just marketing performance, that's it. I
also have a really good relationship with our sales team. Those those are
the folks in the trenches they're talking to our customers are getting
feedback on our content and it's not really quantitative that you're getting
from them, but it's more the qualitative side, and then I look at
our customer service, so the people who withdrew I want to know. I again, I
don't pay attention to a lot of the good. I've got plenty of people that
are pulling those testimonials and doing that. I want to know where we
went wrong, why we didn't win business and if we did get people's business and
they didn't like it, why one of the things I'm most proud of in it again?
It's not a metric. You can track, it may be by the gray hair. I have, and
you know a bald spot, but I respond to every customer complaint. My name, my
email, is out there on all of the review sites. It's on the website. If
someone is upset about anything, I want to know because it allows me to go to
the other sea level and move down through the organization and try to
make a better experience for a team. So it's something that it's not a metric
that you can look at and you know maybe there is there. Someone can grab my
email and do that, but that I think, is most importantly because if you're not
focused on the customer you're in deep trouble m well- and it also keeps you
very close to the customer and so that you're understanding those trend
differences. You know when you have a email, communication or customer
communication directly with them and that may actually, you may have just
actually answered something that I was curious about, and that was is there
something specific that you feel that other organizations, either in your
industry or cross industry in in the marketing Operation Space, that you
feel that people have tried to do that? You believe maybe you've done or have
figured out a better way to do it or to do it differently. Obviously, having
your name out there in responding directly to those customers who did not
choose your solution, that's a great technique. Are there other examples,
Chris that you can provide of maybe a creative approach of to something, a
tactic and marketing operations? That really may be no, what nobody else is
doing. I honestly think it is that listening to the customer, valuing the
customer each customer to us is is the most important and that can be trendy
to say, but it's real. You know our company started in Oh two thousand and
one with three people and it's grown because we've always valued the
customer every relationship we want to fund everybody, we work with.
Unfortunately, in finance, you can't one of the other things that I think
we've done. A really good job of that. You don't see as much in talking to
colleagues across the industry is really the integration of product sales,
finance revenue and then organizational leadership to where everybody's at the
table for big discussions for the rebrand. You know, I think that goes
back to leadership at the at the highest level at Bo, getting the right
people in the room. We just do a very good job of coming with numbers and
ideas and just getting them all out on the table, but the execution you know
I've been accused in the past of not being the typical cm. That's got to
plan everything out, I'm okay, with being sixty percent of the way. If we
can get a website up- and I have to do a carbon copy of one of our old sites-
change things quick and I can get it done over the weekend. I'm willing to
do that because I want to get out to the market fast, and I want to find out
quickly if there's an appetite or something everything we've done at the
he's always been an iteration and a get it out there come back around and then
improve it, but you'll have analytics. Wol have real numbers that you can put
to that and I think that's a big advantage. We have over a lot of
companies. It's how I operate. I watch my father. Do it for years, I've done
it in other companies as well, but that fail fast mentality. I think you're. So
much farther ahead than folks that are, you know they have the tried in true
playbook of how it should be done that take that could take them a year and a
half. Well, I'm already out there in two months and I'm learning by that
year point I've learned five times what you're going to, and you know that's
something we do very well and it's something you know for the rest of my
lear. I try to instill that in my kids, don't feel you have to be perfect, just
get something out there get feedback you know find out from the customers
find out from the market. So you're right. It is it's a it's a big area
that people can lose sight of.
It just keeps you so nimble. So fast and, like you say, it's you're
responding immediately to what's happening in the market using real data.
The data set may be smaller, but it is data and you are responding to that to
that data and remaining as quick as you can, because being that being that
quick allows you to, if you had your point, another organization or a
competitor that had this incredible plan that was already set and moving
forward, they're, probably more inflexible, and you probably could make
three moves in the market and capture a greater. You know: Share of of market
chair or greater revenue stream by moving much more quickly than another
organization that ud be more. You know solid in their approach. You know or
structured in their approach that where they were not, you know modifying their
approach too much. But Chris to your to your experience there, where you were
sharing that the marketing teams, the sales teams, the FINAS team, the
revenue teams, everybody is coming together, all in the room, everybody's
participating on one hand, you could look at that and think that's you know
incredible. That is so wonderful, so modern, so current to have everybody
participating in that. Have you found, though, has there been any unintended
consequences or unexpected challenges when you've brought all of those teams
together related to your marketing operations? Yeah? I think it goes back
to you. Can it's a blessing and a curse at times too many opinions too much
data? You know it could be. You know, paralysis by analysis that I've seen
happen. You have to fight through it and I think the good does outweigh the
bad in that scenario, but I think long term having a good group of people that
feel involved the commitment, the accountability of the attention to
results of a big Pat Lentini Fan. So I'm going through half of his triangle.
It does the base line being trust. It really does create that and then having
everybody in the room, the conflict, healthy conflict. You have people that
will say their peace you're not going to get a lot of backwater chat. So I
think the good outweighs the bad, but it definitely if you don't have strong
enough leaders that can take the ball and run with it. I think it can slow
you down and create the wrong the wrong execution path M. thank you for that
advice very well, and I could I could tell that that's spoken with a lot of
experience. There too is so thank you,
Chris. Before we wrap up today's episode. What would you say is the main
takeaway that you want to make sure to leave our audience with an
understanding the challenges facing marketing operations executives today,
I think there's two one is your team you have to you have to get in there
and make sure they have a voice. They have a sounding board. You have to
listen, and I know it's easy. You read a lot. I can't go through linkin
without seeing some motivational leadership quote, but it really you
know you have to get in the trenches and you have to listen they're going to
give you information and if they feel valued they're, going to run through
that wall with you, I've made every mistake as a leader you can make from.
You know insecurity to ego, to making the wrong hires and I'm not afraid to
say that, and I'm not afraid to tell my team, because I want them to understand
it's. Okay, get the fear off the table. Make them feel like they're being
listened to, that will open up the door so much so when something goes bad, it
will be that much easier to deal with it, but it will also create experience
and trust and value and you'll get people to move mountains that way hey.
You know one of my one of my long time partners, the owner of summit direct
mail down in Dallas. We've worked with him for thirteen years I'll, never
forget the day. I met him. It was at the DNA in San Diego in two thousand
and nine and ironically enough, there was a poster or a pull up. That said,
do you do you use pearls and I stopped- and I said well, we use pearls. This is
two thousand and nine, and so one of the sales people came over and we
started talking, but the owner told me that night he said. Look don't judge me
when things are good judge me when things go bad and how I react and how
good of a partner I am then- and I've really carried that through through my
leadership. Don't judge me when we're hitting record numbers judge me and
judge my team when things aren't going well and in order for me to make that
statement, it goes back to what I was just saying. You have to have a team
that believes in your vision. They feel heard they feel valued, that that side
of it is so important. The other side is data and analytics it's not going
away the faster you get on board with your analysts, with your data folks and
bring them together. So you can work together. The better off you'll be, and
that's not easy, because data can be looked at. Analytics can be looked at
by me as as a marketing leader. In any way. I want to look at it by someone
who might be black and white any way they want and it can be presented at
such so. The mistake I've made in the past was well hey. We take it and we're
marketers and we'll do it. No, no. We have to educate them on everything,
we're doing, they have to educate us and it has to be a together so that
immersion of data and analytics into marketing, as I said way back in the
beginning of the conversation not of your tactics matter, if your date is
not good and then the analysis to know that this is actually the right thing
to be doing that that's the lifeline for what marketing and brand folks and
performance marketing what we do. So I think those are the two big things that
I would leave anybody with and trust me. It's not easy! You know. Over the last
twelve years I've failed miserably. I've had good leaders that have have
let me fail and shown me away better way to do it and then again, like we
talked about a lot of reading a lot of listening and you know we're starting
to see some daylight. So you know, I hope, to continue both sides of that
over the next. You know decade, two decades and see wheree. We end up
excellent advice. Chris. Thank you so much well, this wraps up this episode
of the art of marketing operations. Thank you so much for joining us today,
Chris and until next time, stay safe, take care and thank you for listening.
Thank you for listening to the art of marketing operations brought to you by
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