Marketing & Communications: It’s important to ‘take a beat’ (podcast episode #140)

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If there’s one word that defines what I’ve seen in the marketing industry in my career, it’s ‘acceleration.’

When I started, I was writing print ads in The Wall Street Journal for clients all over the country. So the deadline was when FedEx came to our building…or if we were really pushing it, FedEx’s deadline at the airport. This created a natural ebb and flow.

Then PDFs came along, and well, that deadline got pushed much farther back. But because it still ultimately had to go to print, there was still an ebb and flow.

Fast forward to today. Everything is always on, real time, with endless data streams. It feels like there is no more ebb, only flow.

Which is why this lesson really caught my eye in a podcast guest application – It’s important to ‘take a beat.’

To hear that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Cindy Van Horne, global head of marketing & communications, McKinsey & Company.

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

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Lessons from the things she made

It’s important to ‘take a beat’  

Van Horne was working at CBS News at the start of her career. And, in the rush to respond to breaking news, she provided the news anchor with a slightly different name for an obituary. It led to the news anchor announcing the death of the wrong person on live TV. 

That day taught her to always ‘take a beat’ – even when there are fast-moving deadlines. Be careful to triple check your facts and figures.   

Be fearless with your ambition 

One of the biggest mindset shifts for Van Horne was when she was empowered to run a marketing campaign that had never been done before. Entering unchartered territory for the first time was a really defining career moment.

Because of this mindset, she has launched a series of firsts.

Van Horne learned what it felt like to step outside of her comfort zone. How to move a bold idea forward by adapting an influencer mindset. 

Building your own resilience and courage is one thing. But bringing people on the journey with you is really where the magic happens.

Reinvention is not optional  

One of the things that Van Horne learned at McKinsey is that to achieve above-market growth, you have to constantly rewire what you’re doing. That muscle of speed and agility you build is so critical – to be able to know where the puck is going, and pivot. That means building new capabilities (yours and others), revamping your operating model for the now, and ensuring you’re making those big marketing bets. 

Lessons from the people she made it with

When goals are not hit, leadership is about finesse

via Ed Brice, CMO, PatchLink

When the stakes are high, team members can fail to live up to expectations. That’s disappointing for all involved. But leadership is about finessing the response to a misstep, resetting and empowering the team to go again. 

Brice, CMO at PatchLink at the time, was an expert in finessing his response to difficult situations. His calmness and demeanor were to be admired. That’s something that’s helped shape Van Horne’s leadership style. 

The pathway to innovative campaigns is about breaking down barriers

via Heather Loisel, CMO, JDA Software

Leadership is encouraging others to do something that they’ve never done before. Allowing them to present their bold ideas and then break down each barrier to success, one by one.

Loisel, CMO at JDA Software at the time, empowered Van Horne to enter new marketing territory and showed her the art of breaking down barriers.

Real change comes when others are inspired to break their own ceiling

via Lisa Harkness, Partner, McKinsey

Championing and elevating others are the most important parts of leadership. It is important to not only set direction, but to celebrate their small and big wins.

Harkness, Partner at McKinsey, is constantly challenging Van Horne to break her own ceiling. When someone believes in you, in that way, it’s really empowering.

Kathy Sacks is another person Van Horne mentioned as someone she calls when she gets into a challenging scenario.

Discussed in this episode

Strategic Marketing Collaboration: Find your partner in crime (podcast episode #68)

Branding Lessons from TV Production: Don't focus on failure, keep moving towards success (podcast episode #92)

Leadership Development: Network every day (podcast episode #72)

B2B Marketing Leadership: The higher you get in the organization, the more details you need to know (podcast episode #115)

Customer-First Marketing: Every click is a wish (podcast episode #85)

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Transcript

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Cindy Van Horne: We call our stakeholders differently. Like I said, they could be senior partners. Partners? They could be practice leaders, right? When you work at a company, like even data software, you have your CIOs, you have your CMO, you have, you know, you have all levels industry, sector leaders, right? You have to understand who your internal stakeholders are.

And in that brief, the special sauce is a brief that we visualize. It is it is really a brief that kind of really lays out what your internal and your external stakeholders are. And when you're understanding the path to decision making. You want to keep that path really tight.

Intro: Welcome to how I made it in marketing. From marketing Sherpa, we scour pitches from hundreds of creative leaders and uncover specific examples, not just trending ideas or buzzword laden schmaltz. Real world examples to help you transform yourself as a marketer. Now here's your host, the senior Director of Content and Marketing at Marketing Sherpa, Daniel Bernstein, to tell you about today's guest.

Daniel Burstein: If there's one word that defines what I've seen in the marketing industry in my career, it's acceleration. When I started, I was writing pronouns in the Wall Street Journal for clients all over the country. So the deadline was when Fedex came to our building or if we were really pushing it, but access deadline at the airport. This created a natural ebb and flow.

Then PDFs came along and while that deadline got pushed much farther back, but because it still ultimately had to go to print, there was that ebb and flow. Fast forward to today. Everything is always on real time, endless data streams. It feels like there is no more ebb, only flow, which is why this lesson really caught my eye in a podcast guest application.

It's important to take a beat here to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson filled stories. Is Cindy Van Horn, Global head of Marketing and Communications at McKinsey. Thanks for joining me, Cindy.

Cindy Van Horne: Thank you for having me, Daniel. It's great to be here.

Daniel Burstein: Great. So let's take a quick look at Cindy's background. She's been director of corporate communications and social media at the mention. Director of marketing at JDA software. Senior vice president of global marketing at Rev Bionics. Strategic marketing leader at Deloitte. And for the past five years at McKinsey and company. Her career she's managed cross-functional teams ranging from seven people to twenty people in marketing and business development.

Okay, seeing now that we have a bit of her background, take us into your day to day. What is your day like as global Head of Marketing and Communications?

Cindy Van Horne: I think yeah, it's like my favorite saying is, when someone says, hey, are you there? You know, they'll slap me. That phrase is, sorry, I'm still running. And I think I've been running since I started my career. And it's no different at McKinsey and, and it will tie back to, taking a beat. But I think my day to day is like, it could go from looking at, like a strategic sort of plan that you're, you're mapping out for your leaders to fire drills, you're putting out fires, to connecting with your team to say, hey, is this right?

Can we go ahead and pivot? Can we adjust this? Or preparing for a leadership meeting. Right. So it could just. It runs the gamut. I would say it it goes from tactical all the way to strategic.

Daniel Burstein: Okay, well, let's take a look at some of the lessons you've learned from your career. As I like to say, I've never done anything else. I've never been like a podiatrist or an actuary. But I feel like we get to make things. Don't we? So let's talk about some lessons from things. I mean, the first one I mentioned in The Open, I love this.

It's important to take a beat. Now, I think you learn this kind of in an earlier time in your career, and I want to hear about that, but it's so true for today as well. So how do you learn those lessons? And they.

Cindy Van Horne: Yeah, I mean, look, I started my career in journalism. I wanted to be the next Connie Chung. This is way, way back, right? I, I love storytelling, and so I started my career in journalism. Got my first job out of college, working for, CBS news local station and in a newsroom. Daniel, if you can imagine, is that speed is nonstop.

You're constantly running or constantly moving, breaking news. You're breaking stuff. And so when I started out, it was like breaking news came through. And I think, the one lesson that has stuck with me till this day is, this mistake that I made, and it's being able to look back at that mistake. We had this breaking news.

It was around an obituary, for this, for this very famous person. And I ended up, in the in the heat of moving fast. I actually wrote the wrong name down when I was writing the script and gave it to the news anchor. When it's breaking news, Danielle, you're you're actually reading it hot off the press.

And so I delivered it. And as she was reading it, I remember thinking, oh my G-d, I just killed off a very famous actor instead of someone else. And so as I'm walking out realizing this mistake, the entire newsroom, like they started chuckling because they're hearing this news for the first time and they're realizing it's the wrong person.

So that actually had me really think about, you know, not only that mistake, but it was funny at the time because everyone started laughing. The president of the news organization actually called me into his office and he chuckled like he laughed as he was actually trying to reprimand me because it was really funny. It was very famous actor that we just kind of had to think, wait, did he just die or did you just kill him off?

And I did, but anyways, they ended up correcting it. And I think this is a very important lesson as you think about it, taking a big like when you're moving fast, you tend to compromise quality. And I think in the spirit of what's happening today for marketers, I always have to remind myself like, hey, when you take a beat, you get a different type of clarity.

You get to understand, hey, do I have all of the details right? Am I going to make a mistake? Am I going to learn from it? And I think that is the one lesson that has stayed with me till this day. And what's funny is, again, I think you forget it. You get this lesson and you tend to go, gosh, I'm going to remember this lesson.

But marketers today, you're constantly running so you'll forget it. And I even forget it. And recently, one of our senior partners, when we're doing this major event, Dreamforce, you know, I think she said, hey, look, let's look at the materials, but you've got to take a beat. When you take a beat, you get a very different sense of understanding and clarity that you didn't have before because you're constantly running, checking things off the box.

And so that would be the lesson for every marketer is just take a beat, take a breather. You don't. It's not brain surgery. No one's going to die from it. And so you just have to understand, like, are you compromising quality over speed?

Daniel Burstein: Well, that's a great question to ask. How do you do that? Is there a process or tactic you've used with the teams you've led to make sure they, as you say, they take a beat. So for example, when I interviewed Colleen O'Brien, the Chief Communications Officer and head of strategy at Ahmad, how I made it marketing, one of her lessons was go back to the brief and she talked about working on the Outlook.com marketing team at Microsoft.

And in that fast paced, growth hacking environment, right. Where they really focused on was making sure they had a brief with business objectives, and it was a way they took a break or as you say, like just throwing stuff against the wall, because we just feel like it's always a fire drill. So for you, Cindy, is there any process or tactic use you use with teams you lead to kind of force that, you know, take a beat?

Cindy Van Horne: Yeah, I think I, I agree with her that you start with a brief. It gives you really it gives you a North star of where you're going. Right. And so that is how we typically start. But then it starts to sort of branch out. And you have like about it's like an octopus, like a bunch of tentacles, you know, arm start to grow outside of that brief.

And I think, you know, for our team, you could have one aspect of that brief like, let's take, for instance, like stakeholder management. When you're managing stakeholders, it's very different. Brief is a brief. But when you have to actually bring it to life and be able to make a business case of why you're doing what you're doing, is this what success looks like?

That's very different. Right? And so as you're managing the different aspects of the brief, there are different things that spread out, that things that you you build with your team. And when you have different levels of the team that are working with you, you have to take a beat to be able to help them understand what's required, what success looks like.

And so I'll take stakeholder management for instance. You're going to deal with senior leaders all the time. There's those senior leaders have very different personalities. They have very different way of digesting information. They have a very different way of looking at presentations even. And so I think when we deal with senior stakeholders, the lesson that I've learned is that personalities are different.

Sometimes they'll say, give me something that's really punchy or give me something that's really detailed. And so you have to be able to nuance that kind of messaging presentation to be able to get their buy in, get their sponsorship right for this brief or for this project. And so when you take a beat, you're able to say, okay, we've got a very big presentation coming up in two days.

You're not just checking the box to give them a, a like something that's out of, out of a box. Right. Because it's not a one size fits all. And so being able to nuance that presentation and being able to help your team members understand, how do you deliver that message for the stakeholder, how do you actually condense that down into like two slides that says, here's our objective, but what does success look like for you?

Right. How do we actually achieve it? And we need your sponsorship to do that. That is the kind of thing that you that it helps you get that clarity when you take a beat with your team is to say, okay, let's map this out. Let's get let's get with the stakeholders and let's make sure that we really have what that North Star looks like, but also what success looks like.

And to be able to move together with that goal. But when you take a beat, it also allows you to say, how do I take the distractions and say no to those distractions? Because now you have clarity on what you need to do to accomplish that right? And what that journey or the path looks like.

Daniel Burstein: So that's really interesting. You mentioned in those briefs, do you have anything about like the stakeholders voice or. I'd like to talk because, you know, when I think of a brief, I think of a brand voice. And now as you're talking, I'm thinking, well, boy, in a consulting organization, I would imagine you have an extra layer of challenge because you have the overall brand, but you also your product is your people.

And those people are, at the end of the day, who they are. I mean, I'm obviously brand aligned, but who they are. And also, I think, you know, you could explain how more consulting works there, principals or partners, however, that you know, might work. So they maybe have a, a bigger say than than they would in other organizations.

So when you're looking at those briefs, when you're kind of kind of working out, planning a project or whatever you have to do, is there something special you do to assure that that individual's voice is included, too, and not just the overall McKinsey brand voice?

Cindy Van Horne: Yes. That's correct. And I mean, it's the same even with like back in my days at other technology companies like we call our stakeholders differently. Like you said, they could be senior partners, partners, they could be practice leaders. Right. When you work at a company like even JDA software, you have your CIOs, you have your CMO, you have, you know, you have all levels, industry sector leaders, right?

You have to understand who your internal stakeholders are. And in that brief, the special sauce as a brief that we visualize it is it is really a brief that kind of really lays out what your internal and your external stakeholders are. And when you're understanding the path to decision making, you want to keep that path really tight. And a lot of people probably will understand when I say keep it tight.

When you keep that path really tight, you will understand that you're able to achieve that decision making or that consensus a little bit faster. The one thing that Ed Bryce taught me is you never go into a meeting, and this is what I teach my team to. You never go into a leadership meeting without having a full consensus, an agreement.

So you get that agreement offline individually with those stakeholders before you bring those stakeholders together on a big call. Right. And so that is one lesson that I've learned, and that is the lesson that I tell my team. But in that brief it is it is really understanding not only what does that project look like, what is a success look like, but it is also what is that path to get you there, to be able to have full sponsorship and to be able to get the consensus that you need to be able to to be able to move fast.

Daniel Burstein: They the meeting before the meeting. But that consensus shouldn't stop us from being ambitious. Right. And one of the lessons you said is be fearless with your ambition. I like that fearless. Have you learned this in your career, Cindy?

Cindy Van Horne: I, I love to, I love to break things. I love to, I love to break things. Not for the sake of breaking, but I love to break things. I think I'm just probably. There are trailblazers, right? You'll hear, you know, marketers say that a lot. I'm a trailblazer. But being fearless, I think, comes with true fear inside.

You do have fear. It's like the fear is. Oh, my gosh, what if if this doesn't work? What if I don't get the sponsorship? For me, I like bold ambitions. I like to think and do big things. When I think about that. I also understand that you have to fail mindfully when things don't work out, and so it helps you to not repeat those mistakes.

One of the things that I realized working with a lot of different leaders, not just in not just in my current role, but just, you know, throughout my entire career is you've got a lot of imposter, like, you've got a lot of leaders with imposter syndrome, and they like to stay very, very comfortable. And what I try to do with sort of what that being fearless means is live on the edge of your comfort zone.

Like when you get too comfortable, you don't grow like you stop growing. And so being fearless means that you've got to. You've got to break the status quo. When I say break things, you've got to break status quo. I think one example is, you know, working at JDA software, I had a really unique opportunity. JDA software at the time when I joined, was one of the one of the largest, I guess, supply chain companies at the time.

And what they said about the company when I joined was we are the best kept secret in the industry. And I thought, well, let's change that. Right? So let's change that because I'm not sure that's a, that's, that's the best thing when you're trying to really break through an industry. And so I introduced I thought of an idea.

This is before Daniel, you'll appreciate this. Before social media was a thing. I said, look, the world is changing. The information is out there, you know, news. It's no longer about news organizations driving the news. It's about people driving the news. And so we brought in the concept of really embracing a social media program. Didn't exist at the time, probably in a lot of companies, right, especially in B2B.

And so that was me being fearless that I took something that I didn't know, but I knew it was going to change the company, I was going to change the industry. And so being able to take that concept and really build it out to see how it would apply to a company that was so conservative. How do you nuance that for such a conservative company?

And I was lucky enough to have a really bowl champion at the time. Heather, Eloise, Elle and I still think of her, and I'm very grateful to her. She love that concept. She was like, let's do it, Cindy. And here is how how I'm going to guide you to actually get the sponsorship and the championship from the C-suite.

So we started at the C-suite to be able to get them to understand what the impact would be, what the ROI would be, and ultimately it was it was a long, it was a long probably we spent more time on change management, Daniel, than we did in actually executing, because that changed management. That buy in was very essential for us to be able to move with this, with with decisiveness, with precision, but also with a lot of energy.

And so we did that and we ended up getting one hundred percent compliance when we were done with the internal social media change management and compliance. And we actually ended up launching really great things from there on. Our first, very, first blog platform so that we get the news out there before it hits the news cycle.

We actually control the narrative. We're able to tell our story from our perspective that really matter to our clients. And so, very proud of that, that fearlessness. The other probably example that I would say is like when you work for companies like a consulting firm that really don't think about they think about marketing, but they marketing in a very different way.

And so they think top of the funnel thought leadership. Right. How do you put as much articles out there, to be able to drive like what we call eminence right. Or thought leadership and I think flipping that when when you're a marketer that has to think about where is the market, like where's the hockey puck going? Like where's the hockey puck going?

And where are we in this. Right. And how do we actually move with that hockey puck? And so that big sort of flip was not only thinking about the full funnel marketing, which was a while ago, Daniel. I mean, full funnel marketing is like it's table stakes now, right? But back then, before McKinsey being able to introduce the concept of one marketing right through marketing two is full funnel marketing.

But I think the sort of the revolutionary thing for us at the time was flipping the funnel, which we called account based marketing, before massive amounts of companies and marketers actually embraced it. And so that was a very, very different concept that scare the hell out of me, because it was so it was so different. But you knew you you know, I had conviction that it would change the trajectory of how we were actually connecting to the right audience, the right client, and the the right prospective clients.

And so those are probably the two examples of being fearless, being able to break the status quo. But there are mistakes. So being able to learn from those mistakes and apply it as you think about the next turn of what that looks like.

Daniel Burstein: We'll yeah, let's let's talk about those mistakes. Because is there anything you've been able to do in your career when you've led a team or vendors or anything that you've been able to make failure. Okay. Because, for example, when I interviewed a brand strategist, Hilary Young, on how I made it in marketing, one of her lessons was don't focus on failure.

Keep moving towards success. And she talked about working on The Colbert Report for the first three years, where The Colbert Report launched, and how many times they would mess up and fail and things would go wrong. Right. But by doing that, obviously they built an icon. And what really struck me of your CBS news story was not just, you know, that famous Mark Twain quote or whatever it was.

You know, the news of my death has been greatly exaggerated, ever. It's it's how your leaders handle that. I mean, that is a really good way. If they'd handle that by publicly firing you and embarrassing you like the whole culture of the organization would be different. But that was a great cultural way to handle an organization of, hey, you know, we're moving quick.

We're doing great things. We're going to fail. Sometimes. So I don't know. Is there anything you've been able to figure out in your career to make failure? I don't know, acceptable or to make mistakes? Okay. So you can take these risks so people are comfortable taking these risks.

Cindy Van Horne: Yeah I mean I think, you know, it's it's funny how much, how far we've come like back in, back in my sort of, earlier in my career when you made a mistake, you can expect almost like, you know, that that that I guess, you know, not like a physical lashing, but you know what I mean?

It's like, you know, you knew that they would come down very hard and that, you know, you'd get yelled at for for making those mistakes. And I think I've, you know, I would say that probably over, over the years, I've learned what you call finesse as because I've had to endure those mistakes. I've had very different ways, of, being or getting reprimanded that I think I've learned that it's okay because it's actually made me really, really tough.

Like, tough like I could. I used to lose sleep. I used to dwell in my head, you know, about, oh, my G-d, I made that mistake. I, I don't I can't believe that you were that stupid to do that. And that was me. But what I externalize and through the years of learning is that when my team makes mistakes, it's not just about move past it.

Let's go. I think it's really important that you take a beat and you understand. What were those mistakes like? Were they avoidable? What would you do differently moving forward? Those are the two things that I asked my team usually is could we have avoided it right. If we slow down and what would we do differently? Moving, moving into the future?

And it's not about just the things that you're working on. I think it's a life lesson that you can't dwell on it, but it is really important for you to learn so that you don't repeat it again. And so me, I still to this day, we'll move fast and I will take a pause and I'll be like, G-d, Cindy, just keep that in mind.

Like you're going to make the same mistakes and I do. I get on calls and I'm like, why didn't I catch that? It's because I'm moving too fast. And, you know, like, you know, you're like as you're presenting, you're thinking in your head, oh my G-d, I could have avoided it. So it's it's really important that my team and the ones, the people that I surround myself with, they learn that and it's important.

So look, I'm still learning. I don't have it, all right? But I think it's just important to constantly learn and remind yourself. But I'll say this giving yourself grace is so important because I think we all work really, really hard. And I have to remind myself it's not only about giving myself grace, but giving your team a lot of grace and the space to be able to learn, but also not dwell.

You know, like learn because it's good for the future. It's good for their personal development, but not to dwell on it because love, it's done. You know, you can't do much about it.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, one of the lessons I learned early in my career was when you lose, don't lose the lesson. And I always like that approach is not like at least, hey, I'm getting something out of this. Let me move forward. So in the opening, I talked about my ancient history writing print ads, and you talked about that hallowed era before social media.

And we've seen a lot of change. I mean, nothing like change a century. And so I love this lesson. Reinvention is not optional. So how did you learn this at reinvention is not optional.

Cindy Van Horne: You know, reinvention is a scary thing. I, I love that word. I think back in, my days at, at Deloitte, you would see that word reinvent. I stuck to that word like I'm like, oh my G-d, when I'm doing marketing campaigns, I'm going to bring that word back, reinvent. But I think when you start to learn and you start to talk and this is really I think for me it was really important.

When you have an idea new, it sticks in your head. You want to bounce that idea as much as possible, especially for those who are client facing, those who are in the front lines, that are working with the clients. Right. Because ultimately, as marketers, what we are doing, it's supposed to resonate with the clients and with the prospective clients.

And so testing that idea is really important. And what I hear back is that word reinvent as fast as companies are going, as crazy as technology is happening, like how crazy? It's like revolutionizing things. Reinvention is so scary because that means you have to completely redo everything. So it is not an option. I think that when you think about, as marketers, like what I've learned as having whatever you do, however you want to pivot, however you want to refine, right?

You have to have the foundational blocks of your marketing and your operating model. Tight. And when you have that, you can actually switch course, you can pivot easily. You can actually adapt to how things are changing if you're because if your consumers are in store and they're actually moving online during Covid, which happened, right, you had ten years of e-commerce, right?

Happen in six months or, you know, less than a year, right? Which is insane to think. But having that foundational blocks really tight, really well defined. It gives you that ability to make those adjustments very quickly. But reinventing it, you know, some people will have to do that because everything that you've got in terms of the building blocks, it's not right.

Or you've got to maybe flip that. So to me it is a very scary thing for people. But I think whatever it is that you do, you have to think about the solid base of what you need to be able to successful, because at the top of things, how you change it will always fluctuate. So your ability to adapt, flex, move, that's the kind of muscle and that's the kind of, I guess, pivots that it's going to give you to be able to do that if you've got the foundational base tight.

Daniel Burstein: When we're talking about reinvention, giving you examples or thoughts of what you do to get the rest of the organization involved, because when you use this word reinvention, the thing that really strikes me is you've worked for organizations where this is pretty much their job. I mean, a lot of consulting firms are brought into companies to help them reinvent.

So me personally in my career, like when I've done marketing at a software company, it's a lot easier because the whole company isn't marketers, right? They're more focused on building that software and like, hey, it's great you did this marketing. But when I've done marketing with marketing companies or with agencies, everyone's focused on your marketing. So that's what the whole whole agency does externally, right?

So, I kind of think like, you know, a whole consulting firms, they're focused on reinvention. So is there anything you've learned to, to how you get the the whole firm involved, bring them along, communicate with them?

Cindy Van Horne: Yeah, I mean, I, I don't think we call it reinvention. We call it transformation. It's like okay.

Daniel Burstein: What's the difference? What's the difference?

Cindy Van Horne: It is it is a buzzword. And I think when you're when you're trans, you know, when you're when you're like transformation again I think Daniel you're right. It is is a very big task. Right. And there are going to be companies that are like companies that are much more mature along that way, where they've had that very solid base all along, and all you're doing is assessing, hey, where is that market headed?

How are consumers changing? Okay, what are the adjustments that we have to make? What are the new things that we've got to bring into this right layer into this? And how do we actually change the go to market. So those are sort of well positioned, well positioned companies that have actually sort of been able to flow with how the market's been shifting.

And then I think there are those that actually have to oh, this is how fast things have changed. And now we've got to actually sort of change that foundational layer of what we're doing. And so I think you can do, you know, I think you can deal with your you're sort of looking at a lot of different types of companies that are in the different areas of that journey, right, or different phases of that journey.

For marketers, it's the same thing. Like you can have marketers that are still doing the traditional marketing. You have marketers that are far along where they're like, you know what? We're no longer during traditional. We're actually going all digital. We're going all social. You know, a lot of different things that they're going to do. But to me, I think what you've got to understand when you're making those decisions about whether it's a reinvention, whether it's like really new, watching what you have and really refining it is being able to understand, like, where are you at in that journey?

Do you have what it takes like to actually meet where the market is, meet where the consumers are or your customers are? That assessment is really important. And I think to your point, Daniel, it's a it's not about making those decisions very lightly. You have to have a really good diagnostics and assessment of those key areas, right, to be able to make the decisions of where what's a priority, like what's a priority for us, and what are the areas that really require the attention in order for us to be able to move at speed into the future?

I think those are a lot of things that you have to debate. So I don't want to say, hey, reinvention is is not optional for me. It is not optional because as a good marketer, we want to be able to make those pivots easily as things shift. But there are going to be marketers that are in different phases of that journey.

So I, I understand that and I want to make sure that, hey, look, sometimes you do need a clean sheet. Maybe rarely. You'll need a clean sheet because you're sort of middle, middle of that road. But for me, it's about when you have something that is so solid, it's just being able to say, hey, look, we knew that these were foundational layers that you needed to have.

And I think the operating model is so important. Daniel, that operating model, when we talk about operating model at speed, it is about like me, I have an ecosystem of agencies, ecosystem of partners. And I know you hear this a lot, but having your team, but also that additional layer of that ecosystem of agencies, media add, you know, creative, being able to move on unless like you understand, all of those key pillars are going to be very essential for your go to market.

And being able to have that support system with your ecosystem of partners is really, really important. And so that foundational layer with your operating model that's going to actually support your team to be able to move fast. That's what I call like not reinvention, but it's really refining and expanding, right. And enhancing that operating model. Does that does that help?

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, absolutely. You got to have the groundwork. And well, that's you know, a key thing too. I mean talk about reinvention. There are marketers too. So you're talking I think some some what about some of the marketers were scared for change. There are some marketers who are so excited for change. And all they ever want to do is change and do the next big thing, right?

Jake? The shiny object syndrome is what we call it. And so I think you're balancing that too, by talking about making sure you have that operating model in place so you have a good base to work off of versus let's just constantly change. Chase the shiny next new thing right as we fall victim to that as well.

Cindy Van Horne: You said it. Yes. There. I think you get, like, you know, you think of generative AI like you know how it's going to impact the impact marketing probably, in, in, and one of the biggest ways, right, for us and it goes back to like taking a bait. I think we could chase that shiny object. But one of the things that I always sort of, caution with, you know, with my, with my team and with, with the stakeholders is yes, it will change.

But let's understand in what areas will it impact us the most as a content? Is it creative? Is it, more tedious task? And how long is it going to take for it to mature and have the different use cases? And so I think it's it's being able to kind of break those things down and being able to not chase what's next.

But when you have that, that layer and being able to decipher how it's going to be important in your business, right? In your role on your team, I think that helps you to make a really good, informed decision into like, what are the things that you need to do? What are the things that you have to prioritize?

Daniel Burstein: Volume plan this, this the perfect handle for me. I read a little bit before we get into the second half of our episode, where we talk about some of the lessons from people that Cindy has learned from. But I should mention that how I made it a marketing podcast is underwritten by MEC labs. I the parent company of marketing Sherpa.

You can get conversion focused training from the lab that helped pioneer the conversion industry in our AI guild, along with the community to collaborate with. Grab your free three month scholarship to the AI Guild at join that MEC labs AI dot com that's joined MEC labs. I talked give you a chance to take a beat, figure out how I should be used in your organization.

So thanks Cindy for that. And I didn't mean to do that intentionally, but the first half of the episode, we talk about, lessons from some of the things that you've made in your career. The second half, you talk about lessons from people you made it with, because that's what we get to do as marketers. We get to make great things, and we get to make them with people.

The first person you mentioned is Ed Brice, the CMO of Patch Link. And from Ed, you said you learned that when goals are not hit, leadership is about finesse. How do you learn that from Ed?

Cindy Van Horne: G-d, I love that. He was hi. I he's, he was, yeah. CMO of, Patch Tech at the time. And I was running, I was running global communications, and analyst relations at the time. I, I was, I was hard, hard hitting, like, you know, got to meet those goals we got. I hit like, the top of the quadrant, you know, for our analyst, you work across so many different teams for so long to be able to hit that, sort of that, that leadership position.

And I think what it taught me as we actually had, a major analyst report that came in, we ended up getting dinged, I think, in one of the like one of the more critical areas of that, of that, rating, I ended up getting really, really upset, like pissed at one of the team members because they were responsible for product, like where you have to really describe and defend the product positioning, the product capabilities.

I came in hot element, I came in hot. I was I raised my voice and I was telling ad about, you know, this is this is B.S., you know what's going on here. You know, this wasn't you know, this was all on product. And I think I just kind of, you know, I just kind of went into this the space that I, I, I wasn't used to.

And Ed just sat there and, you know, behind his desk and he looked at me and he said. All right, you know, two things. And that just automatically just calmed me because he said two things like, you've got to calm down. And I was like, okay, what do you think, Ed? And he was like, two things, Cindy. When you are a leader.

The buck stops with you. You are responsible for every thing that happens. You take accountability. That's what a leader is. Two is Vanessa, you know, you have to you have to be able to address and and to be able to really bring in that level of finesse. When you're addressing this problem and this this to like your team.

So I look back on that one quite a bit, because what he's taught me is, you know, how when things break, you go in hot, you know, you go in hot. And that is probably the one, like the two things that I took away as when you're a leader, you take full accountability while you are sort of behind the scenes in your team and you're saying, hey, look, could we have done better?

What could we do differently? But ultimately, as a, you know, on the front lines, you take that accountability. But also when you're addressing that, it's really having that finesse and really extending that grace. And I think I didn't understand that very well. And ever since then I've always remembered I'm like, okay, this thing broke. Let me go ahead and just take a breath and then thank Vanessa.

So far, probably the two things that I, that I, that I took away from Ed and I and I still am grateful for a lot of his leadership lessons, but those are the probably two things that I remember a lot.

Daniel Burstein: What what a beautiful leadership lesson. I also what a chance to vent to him before you actually had to go to the team like that. That's that's great. So one thing with taking responsibility, leadership responsibility is though, leaders often have a role in building the team. And I wonder if there's anything specific you do in how you've crafted the team.

You've talked about this vendor ecosystem. We've talked about these cross-functional teams to make sure they do get the job done because, for example, when I interviewed Dan Garcia, the CMO of Providence Blockchain Foundation, one of his lessons was make up for areas where you're not as strong. And he told this story about, becoming a director at a fortune three hundred company.

He was only twenty six years old. And, you know, first, he's hiring people just like him, you know? And then someone had to tell him, like, hey, that's our natural human reaction. Like a track. Like, you know, we just assume people like us are going to be the most effective. You really have to make sure when you're building a team that you're balancing yourself and all the people on the team, so you have all those skills to to hit things.

So I just wonder for you since, like I said, you talk about ecosystem vendors, you talk about these cross-functional teams, you talk about leadership, taking responsibility. Is there anything specific you do when you're building a team to give you a higher chance of success, and not to have to take responsibility for something going wrong?

Cindy Van Horne: Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think it's important, like, I, when I, when I build my team, like, I, I go back to, like, more bodies, more problems. Right. Like some people think, gosh, I have like this big team. It's like, I love it. I don't think that's the answer. I think that, you know, I've, I've operated quite lean.

We have a lean, mean machine, what I call a lean, mean machine. I think when you think about your team, you're thinking about two things. You're thinking about, do I have the right people that that would fit into the culture, right. Because you move at a different speed, right. And you move in a very different way.

And so for me, I think about, do I have the right people with the skill and the will to be able to grow with us, to where we're going? Second is, do I have the right, do I do I have the right set of core capabilities that they could grow into and where we can outsource? Right.

And that's where the ecosystem of agencies and partners comes in, is that you don't need a big team. You don't need a big machine. What you need is a really good team that's got the right set of skills, that's going to help you today, but also grow into what's required tomorrow. And do they have like that passion. Right.

And the second is the operating model that comes in. Are they able to really manage and move with that operating model, to be able to activate and mobilize in the areas that we need to? So I think those are the things that I think about. But when it comes to people, Daniel, I think what's important is and maybe, you know, I know a lot of leaders, like, really think about the people.

I think the, the sort of the what I try to really take a step back on this as taking care of my team. When you're running so fast and you've got these demands coming down from senior leaders, you're constantly just firing on all cylinders. And when you're constantly firing on all cylinders, I've learned that my team or the people that I work with, they don't have time to think about why is this the right?

Is this the right thing that's going to help me grow? Is this is this the right investment that we need to make as a company or as a, as a, as a personal sort of a development area? And so I try to take all of those things into consideration when, when I'm working with the team, is taking care of my team and being able to strategic like have those strategic conversations with them as to say, yes, we're going, but let's just kind of take a pause and say, hey, is this going to actually help you at the end of the year?

When you look back, was this a success? Was this a success from a personal development? Was this a success from a, you know, from a practice perspective, from what we had set out to do? And so I think those are all the important things that I just try to really remember with, with my team and with the colleagues that I work with.

Daniel Burstein: I like that looking back at the end of the year, because it forces us to think differently. Like you said, we've got that that fight or flight brain when things are going on hot and heavy. Right? But if we're thinking into our future selves and we can look back and and see what, how we feel about it.

You also mentioned that the pathway to innovative campaigns is about breaking down barriers. And you said you learned this from Heather LaSalle. I'm always out the CMO of JDA software. How did you learn this from Heather?

Cindy Van Horne: Yeah, I mean, I think I mentioned Heather probably in my in my earlier conversation. Danielle I mean, Heather is I think the barrier was like, you know, when you're trying something new, it's not trying something new for the sake of the sort of the the newness, the shiny object. I think it's because you don't want to be left behind.

And that was the thing with not only marketing the way you think about marketing, like the flip the funnel that I talked about, the account based marketing, but it was the, the social media side. I think that was one of the big things that I worked on with Heather. And it was it was a barrier because it was not only a conservative company, but it was probably people were afraid.

It wasn't tested. It wasn't tested out in the market. We didn't have other companies to look at and say, what were the lessons learned? You know, how what were the sort of the look back, you didn't have that. And so it was quite scary. So breaking down the barrier was how do you not stay stale and just kind of rest on the reputation that you built, but look to the future of what it could be by doing something different.

And that was, really launching into a really a new mindset of how do we engage with people that we haven't engaged with differently, through our social media and online platforms, but also thinking about how do we get our, our people, our leaders, really energized and thinking about new ways to connect with their prospective customers, but also, more importantly, getting like their voice out there by building their personal brand.

And so that was that was a lesson in the championship. And I think when you're thinking about a pathway to how do you do something that's really innovative, it's not a go at it alone. I, I've seen people where they're like, I've got an idea. I'm going to build it out and I'm going to just go ahead and go.

That won't get you the success that you need. I think breaking down the barrier also comes down to not only the campaign concept, if it also comes down to your internal. And I think a lot of times as marketers, we forget that your internal stakeholders are just as important as your external stakeholders. You know what I mean? You've got to get them to become your extension of that campaign, your evangelist, your your ambassadors.

And so it comes down to two things. It's a thinking very innovatively of how you're going to break that, break through that in the market. But it's how do you get the inside, the internal teams to really embrace it, get really excited and then know how do I mobilize our internal teams? Because some companies have, what, ten thousand, five thousand, five hundred, you name it, they are.

They are your army like they are your you know what I mean? So I think you have to look at it in two ways. When you think about really the barriers.

Daniel Burstein: I mean, especially with social media, they're army. Yeah. Well, let me bring up a third way too, because I like a lot of what you're saying, a lot of it's like the internal marketing, corporate communications and sales enablement or these types of things. What about how do you actually structure your teams and your vendor ecosystem to break down barriers?

So, for example, when I interviewed Jim Kruger, the executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Informatica, one of his lessons, some of his lessons were combine your branding and demand generation and eliminate silos and cultivate trusting relationships. So I love what you're saying about that kind of internal communications, which marketing can just run. And we can overlook that.

There's a bigger, organization we attached to. But when we talk about your cross-functional teams, your, your team itself, your agency ecosystem, is there anything you've done to break down barriers there?

Cindy Van Horne: Yeah. I mean, I think we call it, one, one agency mindset and one agency approach, like one team. And and it's funny, Daniel, I think this is probably the way a lot of marketers think, marketers communications, they think internal external media analyst, customer customer marketing. And then you start to go off and do your own thing, and it's kind of like you don't know what you're supposed to do.

I think the beauty of how we do it is we're we integrate everything into one. And the way we think about a brief. And I'll go back to the brief for a second. When we do our brief, we don't just hit on, okay, this is our North Star. This is what we're going to do. And it's all external.

That brief really hits on what that integrative marketing and communications looks like. It is one. How are you going to target the internal internal stakeholders and segments? Two how are you going to give them like advance notice so that they don't have this like surprise come when the market when we hit the market chew is who are the external stakeholders that we've got to hit.

What is the message that we're taking? How do we actually message that narrative to the media agencies or the target of target publications we want to hit? What is the social media look like? Right. When is it going to hit? What does the customer marketing look like? I mean, we think about it all, and when we do that brief, we bring our agencies together to say, here is actually our campaign that we're going to go to market with and here's got and we bring cross-functional teams together to be able to run together like we're working on a brand launch right now.

It's super exciting. And brand launches in a brand launch. It's, it's actually a new way of storytelling, right? Telling our story in a very different way. That isn't about us. It's about where the market is headed and why you have to think differently. And when we do something like that, and every time we launch, we launch an initiative or a campaign, we bring our cross-functional teams together so that we have a clear North Star.

We know when to go live is we know what needs to be done. And then I think that gives the teams and the agencies the power to be able to run. And we think like every week we're like, okay, where does it stand? What are the critical success factors? Okay. If you can't have this, we won't get this right.

And so you're really, really deciphering and bringing those teams together so that they feel like this is one mission, right. This is what's going to count. And we all are in sync on what's the messaging, what's the story, what are the what are the things that we're launching. You know, what does success look like. And so we take a super integrated approach.

And we've been doing that for a very long time. And I think that is what has helped us from an operating model perspective, from a success perspective. But also how we how we move fast together.

Daniel Burstein: Well, let's take a, let's talk about getting the most from each of those individuals on that bigger team. You said real change comes when others are inspired to break their own ceiling, and that you learn this from Lisa Harkness, who's a partner at McKinsey. How do you learn this from Lisa?

Cindy Van Horne: If she's if she breaks, she breaks her own ceiling. So I, I if I see breaks are on ceiling, you know, I think what I've learned from her about breaking your own ceiling is that she's been able to do it. She's been able to show it, at, at in her role, for all of us to be inspired, she was, she was named, a partner, I think a few years back.

And it's it was it was new. It was new. And, what we called people, you know, people looking up to her, being able to see the art of the possible. That was very inspiring, I think, and that's why I think it's important that you have a very, very trusted set of advisors, like your trusted advisors or mentors and your coach.

She happens to be mine. I also happen to have, a good ecosystem of trusted partners. Not in the sense not in the traditional consulting sense, but you know what I mean? Trusted friends, in the company to be able to really think through some of those big ideas, even like coaching, like, just to kind of bounce off.

Hey, this is the issue. This is a challenge I'm having. How do I break through that? And having that kind of support, but also different opinions and different perspectives. It's going to help you kind of, refine maybe your approach as you, as you move forward. But yeah, she's been, she's a friend and she's, she's a colleague.

So I think watching her has been inspiring. But watching many women inside here and outside of here, it's it's also inspiring. I would encourage, you know, like every marketer to, to find that inspiration and to be able to, to be able to either have that kind of mentorship, coaching or even that trusted conversation to be able to bounce these things, with them, problem solve with them.

And Kathy Sachs is another one that I didn't mention in the in the briefing, but, you know, she's someone that someone that I, I always look up to. She's a she's one of my very, very close friends. And she's someone that I call when I, when I get into these, these sort of challenging, I guess, scenarios.

Daniel Burstein: Well, I always look at analogies between brands and people because brands are a certain corporate people, in a sense. And so when you talk about this inspiring to break the ceiling, I wonder if there's anything you've done. I know we've you've talked a lot about the reinvention and how you really try to keep a brand's toes. There's anything you've done to help, even like established brands break that ceiling, because, for example, I interviewed Gary Stein, the CMO of virtuoso, and one of his lessons was think like a challenger.

And you've worked for some very established brands. You have to name any names that you don't want. But one thing I've noticed was established brands, even up and coming brands, a lot of press releases. Every company is a leading company. You know what I mean? I really get a company that's not a leading company. I'll also mention every book is a bestseller and, every golf course is a championship golf course, but I, I see this because I like this thing like a challenger approach, especially for, you know, when you see need to reinvent.

You talked about a brand that was with best guess, best kept secret. Some brands you know, you've worked with, they're not the best kept secret. They're the most well-known company. So I just wonder. I mean, I love what you talked about about, you know, this kind of human to human mentorship of breaking that ceiling. Or if there's anything you figured out in that internal work.

We talked a lot about that, you know, working throughout the company, breaking down those barriers that kind of help keep that challenger mindset or something else to help that company reinvent and break through the ceiling. Even if it is already super established, because that's when it's scarier, right?

Cindy Van Horne: Oh yeah. So I love that, think like a challenger. I always say think like a startup. I've worked for startups, you know, startups. You're like, wearing every hat possible, and you're moving so fast you can actually flex your muscles, pretty much everywhere. Not just, not just in marketing. Having worked for startups and established brands, I always got a little scared about working for an established brand, as, can I break things?

Can I actually break through that barrier? Interestingly enough, I think it's really up to you. It goes back to my being fearless. And being able to launch, like, like things that only you can launch, right? I call it only ness. Your only ness. Right. So, yes, we have we have done it. I think that every year I have a saying and, probably my colleagues can attest to this.

You take a clean sheet, like, you know how like, like my sort of, one leader came to me and said, you guys have done an exceptional job. What are you guys going to do next year? I think that you could be comfortable and start doing the same things and maybe make a little adjustments here and there. Every year I like to do a clean sheet.

We take a clean sheet, new goal and new goal is what's the big thing we're going to do this year that no one else has done? One example is like, you know, I think, I go back to the sort of the marketing marketing mindset, and something that, that is really important for us, I think, like a marketer.

And I think when a marketer thinks about not in the traditional consulting world where marketing is really not, you know, in my world, as a marketer, I think like a startup, like when a startup has to actually do something that is only theirs, like, I think of it that way in an established brand. And so every year when we take a clean sheet, we think of two or three things that are going to actually break through, like new barriers, break through the market, break through the noise, right, and really break through how we engage with clients.

The example probably I would say is like, so the thing that we think about, here in marketing is we think about a very different type of funnel, like I told you about, like the full funnel marketing. And it's a very it's it's a concept that good marketers understand. But when you flip that funnel in a world where you don't directly work with clients, you don't directly engage with clients.

I think that's a very new concept, right? Like, think about it, Daniel. Like when I'm working at a tech company, I actually have access to a client database. I actually can engage. I actually can create nurture campaigns, I can create personalization campaigns, and I can go direct to that. But in a world when you don't have, you're sort of two layers away from your clients thinking about, a different way of really ho homing in on a set of, let's say, twenty five to fifty of your must win clients, being able to really tailor your marketing.

So forget the sort of the spray and pray, you know, area. If you can put your all your energy and your resources, your your money into really, really not only influencing but also being able to accelerate those twenty five to thirty clients, that's a game changer. So those are the things that I think about when you say break through barriers in a role like, you know, in a in a time like this, those are the things that I think marketers like, like me.

That's what I think about all the time. I don't think about how much market like like I don't think about how much coverage that we get, how much, you know, how much articles do we send out? What's the impression, I think, about how do I break through that core set of must win clients, and what role did we play in that?

I think that is that is something that we're really trying to really flip in what we're doing today.

Daniel Burstein: What I like, it's very rubber meets the road versus some marketers might have told me about the new corporate branding campaign and the new, you know, kind of shiny look and feel they have. So like, how down to earth that is. We talked about a lot of your lessons, a lot of your stories today. Cindy, if you had to break it down, what are the key qualities of an effective marketer?

Cindy Van Horne: Courage. I think you've got to be courageous. You've got to be open. You've got to be fearless. And I think you've got to be really adaptable, like, really flexible. If you don't flex, I think that's to be really difficult, especially with the, with the, with a different kind of different set of changes that are happening. But, yeah, I would say those, those things.

Daniel Burstein: Well, thanks for sharing with us. As you flex throughout your career, Cindy, and all these lessons and stories that we can learn from. Thank you very much.

Cindy Van Horne: Oh my gosh, thank you. That was, that was wonderful, exhilarating and scary all at the same time. So I really appreciate it. It's a it takes me back. It takes me back. So thank you.

Daniel Burstein: Absolutely. And thanks to everyone for listening.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for how I made it and marketing with Daniel Burstein. Now that you've got an inspiration for transforming yourself as a marketer, get some ideas for your next marketing campaign. From Marketing Sherpas extensive library of free case studies at Marketing Sherpa dot com. That's marketing RPA ecom and.