Marketing for Business Services: When the world changed, so did we (podcast episode #141)

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Timing is key to successful marketing.

If you broke it down, that’s probably a third of it. Right offer to the right prospect…at the right time.

But how well do you focus on timing for your personal brand in your own career?

You can hear ideas for that from this episode’s guest – she said one of the key lessons in her career is ‘know when it’s time to leave.’

Here to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, is Lisa Lahiji, CMO, Eurest and ESFM.

Eurest and ESFM are part of Compass Group, a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange. It reported $42.2 billion in revenue in 2024. Lahiji oversees the strategy for 45 marketers.

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

Know when it’s time to leave

Lahiji’s first job was in publishing for Nation’s Restaurant News. She was learning fast and working with great people, but Lahiji hit a ceiling. There was nowhere to grow, no next step. And that’s a tricky spot because she was happy. Lahiji took the leap and suddenly, she went from working in project management to being the marketing director across multiple college campuses for Sodexo.

It was a completely different world. She had to rebuild her confidence in a new industry, in a role that demanded more of her every day. That move changed the trajectory of her career. Lahiji learned that comfort can be a trap, and growth doesn’t come without some discomfort.

Scaling up means letting go

When Lahiji was leading marketing at Lackmann Culinary, it was acquired by Compass Group, a huge player. Overnight, everything changed. Suddenly she was asking herself: “Do I still have a job? Are my clients still my clients? What even is my role now?”

It’s a lot of uncertainty but also an opportunity if she could find it. Lahiji realized quickly that clinging to “how they used to do things” wasn’t going to serve her or the team.

She had to adapt, be proactive and embrace the scale and structure that a bigger company brings. Not everyone made that shift, but she did. It became a defining moment in her career. Lahiji learned how to lead through transition and that has been one of her biggest assets ever since.

When the world changed, so did we

The pandemic hit their industry hard. They operate in workplace foodservice and overnight, workplaces went dark. Everything they knew about their business was upended. Here’s the part Lahiji is proudest of: the transformation in the years since. They came back stronger and more strategic with their marketing operations.

What worked before was not going to work now, especially as clients wanted a strategic partner to help with their return-to-office efforts. Marketing was traditionally viewed as creative support, and they evolved and expanded their capabilities to drive the business. Now, they’re doing experiential marketing, whereas before they would just post their menu up in the elevator bank.

Lessons from the people she made it with

Advocate for others

via Andy Lackmann, CEO, Lackmann Culinary Services

At Lackmann Culinary Services, Lahiji had a boss who truly believed in her. Lackmann went out of his way to advocate for her, nominating her for Long Island Business News’ “40 Under 40.” She still remembers how that made her feel and that support stayed with her.

She’s had the opposite experience with other bosses in her career, even competition in the workplace from a direct superior, and that doesn’t feel good. This shaped the kind of leader she wants to be. Today, Lahiji always asks her team: What do you want? And then, How can I help you get there? She believes in pushing talent forward, not holding them back. Lackmann taught her that advocacy is leadership and it changes careers.

Relationships matter

via Rick Post

Establishing true rapport is what drives change and Lahiji sees marketing this way, too. Transactions are short term, and true relationships drive long-term impact. Rick Post, who led Compass Group’s Business & Industry sector and is a true legend in hospitality, recommended her for her current role at Eurest. This job was another big shift, from leading marketing for 50 accounts to overseeing the entire U.S.

What makes it even more memorable is that she was pregnant at the time and navigating a lot of change personally and professionally. Lahiji sees Post’s recommendation as more than a professional gesture but an expression of belief and trust, really when she needed it most.

Raise your hand

via CEO Tony McDonald

When Lahiji stepped into the CMO role at Eurest, she didn’t stop there. She went to Tony McDonald, their CEO, and said she wanted more. Specifically, Lahiji wanted to bring ESFM (their facilities division) under a unified marketing strategy. It made sense for the business: same clients, shared value, one story. It wasn’t a given, marketing hadn’t been structured that way before.

So she made the case, and McDonald who’s a phenomenal boss, backed her and gave her the chance. Today, she leads marketing for both brands under one strategy centered on experience. That moment taught her something important: go after what you want and show the value behind your idea.

Discussed in this episode

Advertising and Brands: Details matter, know when to quit, …be nice (podcast episode #27)

Marketing Adaptability: The art of letting go of creative ideas so you can champion future concepts (podcast episode #112)

Elements of a Landing Page, Advocate Marketing Program, and Conversion-Optimized Blog Post: 3 quick marketing case studies

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Transcript

Not ready for a listen yet? Interested in searching the conversation? No problem. Below is a rough transcript of our discussion.

Lisa Lahiji: Data is the core of everything we do. We are very lucky to have an arm within Compass Group that focuses on data analytics. The other piece that I think is something that's just phenomenal about the organization is that Compass Group is about sector and nation. So we do have, organization with our company, chartwells higher ed.

So as our clients or let's say, gas have changed in demographic, we are dealing with more millennials than ever before. So understanding the data that we got from that school division provides us that insight that really sets us apart. So it was really nice going into client presentations or doing them obviously virtual and really talking about not only their consumers of today, but this immersive tomorrow, looking at what their needs are right now to get them back into the office.

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 speakers and.

Daniel Burstein: Timing is so key to successful marketing. If you broke it down, that's probably about a third of it, right? Offer to the right prospect at the right time. But how well do you focus on timing for your personal brand in your own career? We'll hear about that from today's guest, who said one of the key lessons in her career is know when it's time to leave.

You're just hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson filled stories. As Lisa Higa, CMO of yours and SFM, thanks for joining us, Lisa.

Lisa Lahiji: Thank you so much, Daniel. It's great to be on today.

Daniel Burstein: I want to tell our audience I'm talking a little bit of background about today's guest so they understand what I'm talking to you. Lisa has been a project manager at Nation's Restaurant News and director of marketing at Sodexo. And for the past 18 years, she's been at Compass Group, where she's been many roles corporate director of marketing for Lachman Culinary Services, SVP of marketing for your AST.

And now, as I mentioned, CMO for your AST and SFM, your AST and SFM are part of Compass Group, a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange. It reported $42.2 billion in revenue in 2024. And Lisa oversees the strategy for 45 marketers. So, Lisa, give us a sense. What is your day like as CMO?

Lisa Lahiji: That's such a great question. So every day is really different, which is what I love about my job. So much. I manage not only our B2C, but also our B2B strategy for the organization. So one day can be about sales retention. It can focus on, you know, really just dealing with the day to day operational challenges that we have.

And then it could also be about marketing campaigns and strategies to add drive sales or even individual client projects. We have over 2000 clients across the US. So on any given day, which again is back to I love my job so much and being a CMO is, really being able to be challenged and to look at every day as something new.

So when I wake up in the morning, I do not know what the day is going to bring, but I know it's going to be for selling. It's going to be very different than the day before.

Daniel Burstein: I that's great. But let's look at some of the challenges from throughout your career, how you overcame them, how you handle them, what you learned. I like to say in marketing, like I've never been in any other industry. I've never been a podiatrist or an actuary or anything like that. But I feel like we make things right. That's one thing we get to do as marketers, and that's a fun thing to do.

So let's see some lessons from what you made in your career. The first thing you mentioned is, as I mentioned, at the top, no one. It's time to leave. So how did you learn this lesson?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, I when I worked for this restaurant years, I was really fortunate to be a project manager. And the company who owned Nation's Restaurant News was LaVar Freeman Publishing. So I got, I was part of a creative services group and then asked to go into managing, projects for Nation's Restaurant News, which is kind of how I always say I fell into food service in some way because they put me on this amazing magazine, and I got to work with phenomenal companies and work on their creative ads, for more B2B messaging.

And, you know, really loved what I did, but there wasn't much room for growth. I was kind of at my point of wanting to do more. I had been there a few years and there just was nowhere to go. And I had that moment of trying to figure out, do I stay? You know, do I just continue to ride it out and hope for the next opportunity?

Or do I look to kind of take a leap and make that decision that there just isn't something for me right now, and I'm ready to take that leap of faith and and go to the next opportunity that's out there. So I looked and I really challenged myself as I moved into another role with Sodexo as director of marketing.

And that was definitely completely different of a role. It was a big leap, but it it taught me that sometimes that fear of not knowing if you should make that change, but just knowing that it's time to leave in your heart, you know, follow your heart and make that decision because you never know what the future or what the next step could bring.

And if you don't try, you never really know. So it worked out for me that it was the right decision, but it definitely taught me to really evaluate when I'm feeling stagnant in a job or or where I'm at, to make a change.

Daniel Burstein: So let's talk about that feeling stagnant because you mentioned the growth. Right. And that's a key element. Right. But what role does personal passion play in knowing when it's time to leave? So for example, when I interviewed Doctor Mara Einstein, who's now professor of media studies at Queen's College, one of her lessons was know when to quit. And she told the story of working at NBC.

Right. And everyone was excited to see of Jerry Seinfeld. And, you know, the show Seinfeld, the one show in America where they're going to come back for another year. Everyone was excited, see? And she was like, I didn't care. And so she's like, that was the moment I realized that I should probably not be here anymore. I need to find something else.

And she ended up going into academia. But, you know, for you, Lisa, I know you. You definitely focused on career progression there. But something that's come up more and more, I think, you know, especially with this new generation, is that passion we have for our job. So what role do you think that personal passion plays in knowing when it's time to leave?

Lisa Lahiji: I think it's actually everything. I think when you really love what you do and kind of how I started off with that, I love every day is something different you can hear in my voice. It's the passion that I have for it. If it was something that I felt wasn't fulfilling or didn't make me happy, I wouldn't feel like I wanted to really go to work or, you know, be an exciting leader for people.

So I think having the opportunity to really know what your passion is or know what your love for the job is, who you want to be as a person, who you want to be as a leader. I always say like looking ahead and knowing where you want to go or where you want to be in the next few years.

Even just understanding that about yourself is a true passion and understanding. You know what the next step is going to be for you, and being in tune to that.

Daniel Burstein: And make the case for us, if you would, especially to our younger listeners for your passion for the food service industry. Because one thing is like when I speak at colleges and I talk to people in this industry, you know, a lot of them, obviously when you're college, you're looking at like Porsche ads or Harley ads or whatever, whatever that thing that you're doing, fashion, whatever it is.

But one thing I always advise is like, look at kind of some of the B2B industries and think about breaking in there because that could be a place to get your foot in the door and like, yes, maybe right now you don't know about it, but really, to me, at least in my career on the BBC, understanding the how things work and stuff, it does get interesting.

Those kind of background logistics and seeing that your role kind of powers the whole country and economy and all those things. So my background was more tech in these types of things. So I'd be curious though, anyone young listening again? Maybe they want to go work in fashion, push whatever. What is the case for passion in food service?

Because you've spent your career here? You must. There must be something there for you.

Lisa Lahiji: Well, it's become a passion. It wasn't an automatic passion. And what's funny to say is I did work in fashion while I was in college. I was a manager of clothing stores. Like, if you told me, what is your future going to be? I'm not sure I would have said, oh, it's going to be in food service. It just happened to be that I fell in love with the food service business.

So I think starting off again, vaccinations, restaurant news, how my career changed and then also being able to look at things in a strategic way. So I think you could be someone who knows you're a great marketer, have a passion for marketing, have all of the things that make you creative as a person, but then finding that niche of the thing that's going to take you to that next level.

So for me, with food service understanding, you know, there's there's a bunch of sides to the business. So it's understanding employees, right. Like who the associates are the team members that you want to show appreciation to, that you want to lead, that you want to teach that growth opportunity. Right. And then there's the sales side of it where you get to speak to clients, understand their needs, partner with them, really tailor things customized to them.

And just the day to day, right, with your, you know, how you inspire, how you influence purchases, how you, you know, even from a storytelling perspective, storytelling is so important when it comes to marketing. You know, you could do the greatest program promotion if you're not telling the story to the people in the audience, it kind of falls to deaf ears.

It doesn't really matter that you're actually even working on the greatest program ever if you're not telling that story. So for food service in general, I think has been, just something that I've learned to love so much because of how it's evolved. But it just definitely wasn't where I started out or where, again, as I say, younger me would have thought that I would have been.

So I always say, you know, you say yes to every opportunity. You really never know where you're going to go.

Daniel Burstein: No, I like that saying yes. So I mean, anyone listening, if you're kind of starting your career out again, there might be all these different B2B industries that you might fall into that could you could find a passion for that. You didn't realize right now, let's talk about a next step in your career where you mentioned you learned that scaling up means letting go.

How'd you learn this lesson?

Lisa Lahiji: So my career again from Sodexo, I ended up moving to Lachman Culinary Services. Which is a great opportunity. I ended up doing marketing for the college division and ended up taking on, the BMI side as well. So I ended up growing within Lachman Culinary Services. I was so proud of it, really, like on a great path and at the same time was kind of evolving in what I was doing in my day to day.

And then all of a sudden, we were acquired by Compass Group, which was an amazing venture, but something a little nerve wracking as well. Not knowing where we were going to go, what was going to happen with the company. So taking the risk and looking at opportunities and looking at this is something that, if I move into the right direction, could create big opportunities in a company like this.

So I really did look at that says, you know, how do I get out of my comfort zone of where I'm at? And really look at the next opportunity that could be for me, that maybe wasn't something I expected either.

Daniel Burstein: All right. So let's talk about this is another really key inflection point in a career. Right. So we talked about knowing when knowing when to go right. But also like how do you stay right. So M&A mergers acquisition can be kind of scary right. You don't know what the new owners are going do. So how did you prove to the new owners that you were the right person for the role you wanted?

For example, when I interviewed Nicole Sumner, who's a brand director of ally, one of her ally Pat's, one of her lessons was act like you already have the job title you want, right? So like I said, M&A need.

Lisa Lahiji: To get one.

Daniel Burstein: Scary. So so what did you do Lisa. Like these new owners come in. What did you do to kind of kind of stay in there.

Lisa Lahiji: It's a I remember the first meeting I went to and I'm in a room with marketing leaders of all these other companies within Compass Group, and I had an opportunity to speak up the way I normally do and raise my hand with ideas, because I'm a I'm someone who's an idea person for sure. Or I could have stayed silent and I could have gone back to just being kind of in awe and saying, I really don't know what's going to happen here.

I've I've gone from managing 52 accounts to, you know, to now being part of this huge company. And do I want the next step and do I raise my hand and do I get my ideas? I have to say, I'm really proud of myself for taking that leap. I raised my hand. I gave my ideas. They were valued.

I spoke up. I think also the benefit was I did come from a smaller company, and I think sometimes that actually is a benefit going to a larger organization because the way you do things is a little bit different, and I wasn't really sure if it was going to be valued, but it was I also see that a lot of people did not accept the change so well, they were not able to look at this as more of an opportunity to speak up, to do things different, to have.

I always say change management is one of those qualities that's so important in someone because, as you know, the past few years, it's it's been a lot of change, in every industry. So I, I think that really understanding not only again, back to who you are as a person, where you want to go, but when you're sitting in a room with people who may intimidate you to actually really just remember who you are, what got you there, and have that confidence to raise your hand and continue to speak up.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, I like that. Don't back down. I also heard some good advice once they bought your company for a reason. It's. Yeah. Sounds like that advice. All right. So we talked about kind of smaller teams. You mentioned change management. We talked about a micro change in person. Your career a much bigger change company acquisition. Now let's talk about the biggest change possible, what we'd call macroeconomics or whatever you want to call it.

When the world changed, so did we. You said so. So what happened when the world changed and how did you react to that?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, I you know, I don't think anyone could have ever expected what happened with the pandemic. And I remember very clearly the last meeting I was in March with all the marketing team. We were sitting and having a great meeting and heard there was something going on, and to wear masks on a plane, and no one knew what was happening.

And everyone was like, we'll be back to flying next week. Well, that didn't happen. And all of a sudden everything is about the phone calls were having, the team meetings and talking about what we're going to do to not only meet the client's needs of what was happening right now, but also take a pause, which we go so fast, we move so quick.

We're doing so much. So to actually have to take a pause and change and figure out what we're going to do, you know, you know, the workforce was hit harder than anyone. So for us being a food service provider, it it really was so challenging, to be that partner to our clients during such a tough time.

I think also, what I'm the most proud of is that we were able to change really quick and separate from realizing that we're not just a food service company, where true amenity partner really kicked in as we started to call our clients saying, what can we do? How do we support? And then everything changed really quick again, because it was about return to office.

How do you get people back into the office? How do you make them feel comfortable? We went from three days to work, three days a week where people were coming into work. Now people are more four days a week and sometimes Fridays, but we're seeing such an opportunity to continue to drive experiences and look at ourselves as a true amenity partner than ever before.

So I'm really impressed with the organization. I think we changed so quickly and did such a phenomenal job, and being able to provide to our guests, you know, the offering of, you know, safety and understanding and also the information that to make them feel comfortable to our clients the same way. But in a world where everything was unknown, we didn't go into panic.

We actually were really proactive in figuring out solutions, which I've seen friends in other organizations where they just didn't know what to do. And we really did take such a great, proactive approach under the leadership of my CEO, Tony McDonald's. I mean, it was phenomenal. The calls we were having this strategy calls just to stay on top of what we need to do.

Daniel Burstein: As a B2B company. Do you have any specific examples of something you've done to help understand your customer's customer right. Because in your case, if I understand you and you can explain it better, I think most of your customers are ultimately companies, but their customer right is their employees to serve them food and when we talk about this kind of back to the office thing is going on, we've seen two approaches.

There's a carrot and stick approach, right. The stick approach, you got to come back, whatever. But the current approach has been let's make these really nice office environments so people want to come back. And part of that is food. And you know, you know, it's nice to eat good food around your coworkers instead of just kind of alone in your house.

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah.

Daniel Burstein: So, you know, I wonder if you guys, I can see that challenge of thinking like, okay, well, we want to sell these companies on, as you said, as things have changed, we're going back and forth to work at home to hybrid. This, but to ultimately help those companies would be, I would assume, is to serve their employees. So as a B2B company, you're anything specific you do to really help understand or market to your customer's customer?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, everything starts with data. So data is the the core of everything we do. We are very lucky to have an arm within Compass Group that focuses on data analytics. The other piece that I think is something that's just phenomenal about the organization is that Compass Group is about sector ization. So we do have, organization with our company, chartwells higher ed.

So as our clients or let's say guests have changed in demographic, we are dealing with more millennials than ever before. So understanding the data that we get from that school division provides us that insight that really sets us apart. So it was really nice going into client presentations or doing them obviously virtual and really talking about not only they're consumers of today, but consumers of tomorrow looking at what their needs are right now to get them back into the office.

So lots of studies have been done on sort of the power of socialization and understanding what that means to people when they come back into the office, what they're looking for, the value of just connection, right. Like we've we've lost that during the pandemic. So to get them back into the office and feeling there's a reason to be there that makes them feel good about themselves personally, makes them feel connections with others, lets them offer themselves, to really feel valued again, has been a real opportunity for us to partner with our clients even more and provide our guests what they're looking for.

So, I think data is really everything. We've seen, obviously, we're we're constantly looking at what's next, what's coming, what the future brings. And use those analytics for that information to really help us.

Daniel Burstein: So that's a really interesting point you bring up. I think a lot of companies look at things like M&A and they see what else can we acquire. There's a lot about, you know, cost efficiencies or these sorts of things, right. Or maybe even a shared value proposition. But tracking your end customer throughout their life by having these different brands that serve them in different parts of life, that is a real differentiator.

That's very interesting.

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, it's the true life cycle, which is really it is really amazing and unique.

Daniel Burstein: That's great. Well, and we talked about some lessons we learned from lessons, career and some of the things she made. In just a moment, we're going to talk about some of the lessons she learned from people she made it with, because that's what we get to do as marketers. We build things. We build it with people. But first I should mention that the how I Made It in Marketing podcast is underwritten by MacLeods 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 and a community to collaborate with. Grab your free three month scholarship to the AI Guild at Joint Mic Labs. Ai.com that's joining Mech Labs ai.com and get artificial intelligence working for you in your career. All right, so let's take a look at some of the people you learned from a you mentioned, Andy Lachman, the CEO of Lachman Culinary Services.

And from Andy, you said you learn to advocate for others. So how do you learn this from Andy?

Lisa Lahiji: Andy was definitely someone who encouraged me to not only speak up, but to bring my ideas and not only bring them out, but he believed in even some of the craziest ones. That definitely paid off in execution, but I think sometimes we undervalue our ideas. We may be second guess them. And it was nice having a boss who appreciated them, who valued them, and then he ended up nominating me for Long Island Business News 40 under 40, which I never asked for.

Never. You know, even just thinking about. So it was nice to not only being recognized, let's say, in a boardroom for my ideas and encouraged to speak up, but then for him to go out of his way to nominate me for a walk really showed the value that he felt that he had in me as a marketer, which value is just, you know, when you talk about people say, oh, what makes you stay with a company?

Is it compensation? Is it value? Is it recognition? To me, the recognition meant so much more than anything because I didn't have to ask for it.

Daniel Burstein: Well, congratulations on being, one of the 40 under 40 for putting it into this journal. So that's a great example of advocating for your employees. Do you have any examples of getting customers to advocate for your brand? For example, I wrote a case study, about another B2B company, Cisco, their advocacy community, they call it the gateway.

And they generated an ROI of over $3 million from setting up this advocacy community. Because, of course, you know, who do we believe more than a brand or marketing or advertising or colleagues? And one thing I see in business and marketing in general is, is that humanization often gets overlooked. And I say that because that's a great story you have.

Right? But the the the coworkers, you employees who work with, they're naturally humanized to us because we're working with them. We see them every day, right? But our customers can be hidden behind these databases or spreadsheets or data. Right. And we talk about data is so helpful and effective, but it can kind of dehumanize men. One way I've seen companies do this, especially B2B companies, is set up.

These communities are these advocacy organizations or whatever we want to call them of customers. So this one, do you have any examples from your career of how you've gotten customers to advocate for any of your brands or products or services?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, in in different parts in my life and my career. So when I was with Lachman Culinary Services, I was focused on the school division. So, having marketing interns and actually working with the teams on campus was really a unique opportunity to connect with them and understand not only the brands that meant something to them, but then really help promote them.

And then in the back eyes segment with, with yours, you know, being able to do focus groups, we do numerous focus groups asking our guests what they're looking for, what's important to them, and then having a strong business partner program where we're allowed to do sampling of different brands, connect with our guests in a way that we're not only hearing them, we get their feedback.

We let them vote on different things. And do you know, appreciation days? I mean, a lot of the most powerful experiences that we offer are really when we're doing events and promotions and pop ups and really cool things at our locations. You know, whether we have a small location, a large scale to a large location, it's it's really about driving that experience that resonates with them.

And even though brands play such an important role, in certain categories like beverages or coffee, I know so many people are so loyal to specific coffee brands. But just being able to understand what they're looking for. And that's why I think it just gets back to what you said, the data insights, just asking people, you know, and really being focused on the guests of what they're looking for today, not only, you know, again today, but in the future.

And being proactive in that way.

Daniel Burstein: Well, speaking of that, that people orientation, you mentioned that relationships matter and you learned this from Rick Post. So how'd you learn this from Rick?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah. Rick Post, who is, icon in, the food service industry? I cannot say enough positive about his influence on me and his belief in my career growth. He encouraged me to go for this position. And again, back to if he understands, really, what Lachman was, it was New York and Florida based food service. And now all of a sudden, I'm being asked, you know, do you want a position that covers the whole United States?

On top of that, I just found out I was pregnant with my third child. So, that was definitely something that I kind of said to myself, can I do this? But Rick believed in me. He encouraged me to go for it. He is someone who focus always on people. And it's really, it's encouraged me to focus on my people and be a different leader than I think I would have been if it wasn't for his influence.

I really I spent a lot of time when I'm talking, and it doesn't take an annual review or reviews six months in with someone on my team to say, you know, kind of do that pulse check. Is there anything that I can do for you? How do you feel it's going? Do you feel good about your job?

Do you are we headed in the right direction? Is this where you want to be? I've had. I've constantly challenged my team to say, you have to advocate for yourself and look ahead as to where you want to grow and what you want to do, and write up your own plan. Because I can tell you what I think you're great at and and where to go.

But if it's not, back to originally when we started talking about your passion, it's not going to mean anything. So I think that Rick, I was on a grape path of leadership when it came to Andy Lachman, Rick Post teaching me the importance of people, leadership and how to believe in not only yourself, but how to be someone who helps others grow is something that really helped define who I am and want to be.

As a continuous leader.

Daniel Burstein: Is there anything you did with your team when you moved from like a regional role to a national role to help understand maybe the differences in different areas of the country to serve customers better? Because when you mentioned going from, okay, you had a Florida in New York role to a national role, right? I was born in New York.

I live in Florida. Yes, they're different states, but I mean, they're not different. They're not as different as like Oklahoma, I would think, you know, and one of the smart things I saw, I was in a B2B team, that had America's as their go. And I loved, you know, we have these off sites, and I love that the leader would always have off sites in different areas of the country, you know, different.

And whatever the hosting kind of team was there, like she made it and they make sure that, like, we did these local things. So we understood what was going on. And not just the general, you know, marketing and business meetings and all of that stuff and talk about Eloqua or whatever. Right. And I always really love because it was not only did it humanize the whole team and know, you know, and I think she made this big point, too.

If you're not just in some conference room, it doesn't matter. Sitting here and like the different parts of the country, different regions can act differently. And if you understand them, you can better serve those customers. So that's a big leap from Florida in New York. Can nationwide do anything you did to help understand any maybe regional differences?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, I mean, the first thing was just getting on the road. So I started traveling around. I actually did focus groups with teams within the organization. So, I'll, I'll give you, one of my favorite stories is I was in Chicago and I met with the district marketing manager team, and I asked them, what do you think of marketing?

How's it going? Like, give me your feedback. And then I said, who's your marketing person? And they said, well, we're a little you know, it wasn't as clear to them that there was a marketing lead within their world. So I said, does anyone have an interest in marketing and someone raise their hands? So this person ended up being a marketing champ, a champion became a regional marketing manager, became a division marketing lead, and now is a vice president of marketing within the organization.

So I think and I know this kind of goes a little sideways on just understanding your guess, but I think it's understanding who your people are, who your team is first. So actually traveling around evaluating what we have done as an organization. So previously where we want to be and what the look ahead is. And then really studying analytics by region.

What's working, what sells from a beverage in the South is very different than what's popular in my neck of the woods in New York. It's there's a most popular trending beverage. So kind of positioning things and understanding and actually having that moment, even communication, being a New Yorker, I'm a straight shooter. Say it how it is.

Right. That's what we're known for.

Daniel Burstein: And that's.

Lisa Lahiji: Right. That's not everyone's style. So really, I think understanding how to speak to people, how to understand also empathy. I think being empathetic that think there you know, you go through so many things within your day and your day is not like my day. So if I'm really going to take the time to understand not only a day in the life of you, I need to know the day in the life of your guests and what they're looking for to be able to market better.

Daniel Burstein: Well, I love that story about going to Chicago and someone raise your hand because your final lesson is raise your hand. And you said you learned this from CEO Tony McDonald. So how did you learn this from Tony?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, I, had a huge opportunity, obviously. I said it's, I was chief marketing officer for years. Before that, SVP of marketing and I am the type of person who is always looking to be challenged continuously and grow my career. It's something I, I would say that is probably my biggest passion. I just love to be challenged and take on new things.

I went to Tony and said, I would love to be able to take on the additional responsibilities for SFM and lead their marketing as well, with just obviously in our organization. And his response was so positive, so supportive. He really believed not only, again, that I could do it, but it just really taught me that there is a value not only to speak up, to raise your hand, to look for the next opportunity to offer, to take on more.

I do speak to my team about that, the same way I'm always saying to them, if there's something that you see is something you want to get involved in, let me know. Speak up. No wrong idea. There's no wrong idea. There's no wrong. You know, I want to take on something or be part of something. The value of collaboration, the value of looking at yearly what could be next, instead of being in that box of your structure.

Your asset is a phenomenal company that's growing and changing every day. But I wanted to do more, and he was very supportive of it.

Daniel Burstein: And speaking of raising your hand, do you have any examples or ideas or advice on how to navigate a larger international company like yours? Right, because that is a great example. You talked about saying you're asked, and yes, if I'm together, you know, but as we mentioned, Compass Group and $42.2 billion in revenue, one of the things I know when I work with larger companies, part of the hard thing is just navigation is, you know, there's all of this navigation we have to do outside of a company, figure out what channels we want and all this stuff.

But there's all these opportunities within a company that we don't always even necessarily know about. And having to try to navigate that with sales, with marketing, with different brands and different countries, like the people that I have seen that have done well in the large companies are the people that have been really good at that. So I wondered if you've learned anything about, you know, you had this great example earlier, Chartwells can help feed into what you're doing because they're doing with younger customers.

That's a great example of how you can use a bigger company. Have you figured anything out about how to navigate a company? $42 billion international company?

Lisa Lahiji: Yeah, I think it's part of the power of networking, I would say is key. So the opportunity to build real relationships with people, we have opportunities all the time. And someone can say no, not attend. There's industry events. There's so many things that you can do. I think there's levels of networking. There's the networking to say, I have an idea and I want to share it over with the UK or, you know, there's something going on and, you know, locally that I can meet other people within other companies, within our larger organization or just industry events.

So I think networking is key. I think building relationships, I think knowing who to go to for what, meaning when it comes to the ideas that you have, actually who the right people are to speak to about those ideas. So I've always looked at and I know it was a challenge again, for some people moving from Lachman to Compass Group to kind of navigate that and to understand that.

But I think that that was definitely something I recognized early on, and I took advantage of every networking opportunity I could, whether it was a local organization or a local sponsorship or something, a community event that we were doing to really look at all the opportunities continue to grow within.

Daniel Burstein: Our we've talked about all these different stories and lessons from throughout your career. Lisa, if you had to break it down, what are the key qualities of an effective marketer?

Lisa Lahiji: Number one, you have to be the best communicator. It's a non-negotiable. You have to be someone who communicates, who leads with confidence, but also empathy a lot. There are a lot of challenges and things that come up. I've learned that change management is probably one of the most important qualities. Without even knowing that that was something that was going to be important.

Due to the past few years. I think that being someone who works well works well with others, but that also realizes that what your goals may be maybe a little different than the larger organization that you work for. And understanding that there's a balance between the two and really just speaking up of speaking up in a smart way.

It can't just be, you know, not thought out or not strategic. It has to be a real strategic plan when coming to the table with your ideas that may not be comfortable for others. So really, being an effective leader is someone who and really encompass all of those areas.

Daniel Burstein: Well, thank you for sharing all the stories and the effective leadership throughout your career. Lisa. It was very interesting.

Lisa Lahiji: Thank you so much. This has been great.

Daniel Burstein: 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.com. That's marketing Paycom.