Strategic Marketing Communication: Don't do something for the sake of ticking a box (podcast episode #91)

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Here’s something I get to do as a content writer that I never got to do as a copywriter – I sign my name to my work, and that gets displayed publicly.

I’d like to think I was a conscientious writer before, but this makes me 10 times more so. And is a constant reminder that everything needs to be a certain level of awesome – no filler copy.

Even when you don’t sign your name to something, it’s difficult, that commitment to always striving to make something the best it can be – whether that’s an ad or the next rung in your career.

But as our next guest reminds us – don't do something for the sake of ticking a box.

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Nik Maricic, Marketing Director, Asia Pacific, Ria Money Transfer.

RIA Money Transfer is owned by Euronet Worldwide, which is publicly traded on NASDAQ. Euronet reported $3.668 billion in revenue for 2023. It has the largest direct bank deposit network in the world.

Maricic built a team of 10.

Listen to our conversation using this embedded player or click through to your preferred audio streaming service using the links below it.

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Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Maricic that emerged in our discussion.

Effective communication plays a vital role in achieving success

Whether it's conveying important messages to team members, clients, or customers, clear and concise communication fosters understanding and builds trust. The former CMO of Ria Money Transfer, Drew Lever, put a very clear way of defining customer messaging in Marcic’s head, he dubbed it the problem/solution method.

You cannot be everything to everyone, and defining your customer-facing communication strategy around being the solution to a customer’s problem allows you to be very targeted and personalized to specific customers’ needs. He worked with his team to build a scale around this method, which is the North Star that defines their respective assets’ messaging at various points of the marketing funnel.

Creativity takes center stage in the realm of marketing

From generating innovative campaign ideas to crafting compelling content, creativity becomes the foundation for standing out in any industry or marketplace. Maricic loves that their brand is orange, it already makes it easier for them to stand out visually. But the secret sauce is when visual flare meets copywriting flare. One of his favorite campaigns at Ria Money Transfer was the brand awareness campaign they ran in Q4 2023.

At Ria, they have a network of 750 physical locations, an online money transfer platform, and a mobile app. They had to create a visual which encompassed the idea that customers had a choice of convenience, without necessarily promoting solely online or offline. Their design team came up with a concept of the mobile storefront. This was then tied together with the simple top-of-funnel messaging of ‘Sending Money Overseas?’, which targeted the right consumer.

Adaptability also proves to be a critical trait

Given the ever-evolving nature of the financial landscape, the ability to adapt swiftly to industry changes or shifts in the market enables Maricic’s team to maintain a competitive edge. Contextual adaptability is equally important.

Lessons (with stories) from people he collaborated with

Maricic also shared lessons he learned from the people he collaborated with.

Don't do something for the sake of ticking a box

via Paul Jonson, an Associate Professor at UTS Business School

Jonson played a significant role in shaping Maricic's early career decisions. Facing the challenge of securing a relevant internship, Maricic was confronted with the possibilities of failure, settling for an undesirable role, or delaying his degree. The only readily available option was an internship at his cousin's automotive repair shop, which was unrelated to his aspirations.

Seeking guidance, Maricic consulted Professor Jonson, who advised against taking an opportunity merely to fulfill a requirement, urging him to consider the true value of the experience. This advice struck a chord with Maricic, leading him to postpone his internship by a year which meant he had to stay a student for longer.

But this decision opened the door to an internship with Popcorn Events, the organizers of the SLAM Volleyball festival, which not only kickstarted his career in event management but also ingrained in him the principle of pursuing meaningful opportunities.

Maricic guides his team to take the same no box-ticking approach in his marketing role today. He tries to instill a culture in the team of not being afraid to do things, feeling empowered to make decisions themselves. And he looks at himself as being that consultant to guide them in the direction while still having enough room to make those decisions themselves. He said he learned the importance of having that culture in place from the book ‘No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention’ by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer.

Win/Win is the concept of not being your way or my way; its a better way, a higher way

via Stephen Covey

The teachings of Stephen Covey, particularly the Win/Win concept from "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," (page 207) have deeply influenced Maricic's professional outlook. Covey's idea, which emphasizes collaborative success over individual victories, resonates with Maricic's role in marketing as a relationship manager.

Understanding and aligning the diverse interests of stakeholders—be it the ROI concerns of finance, the user engagement focus of product teams, or the efficiency priorities of executives—is pivotal in Maricic's approach. Getting questioned is the other party wanting to know what their 'Win' is…

• Finance: If we invest $X what ROI do we get? How does it contribute to the bottom line; this is what I care about.
• Product: If we add X feature, how will that get more users, retain users? This is what I care about
• Executive: If we sign up to X automation tool; how will that increase our efficiency? Will it prevent the need for additional headcount. This is what I care about.

His commitment to making data-driven decisions that cater to the internal stakeholders' objectives while fulfilling marketing goals exemplifies his dedication to the Win/Win philosophy.

Adaptability is pivotal, in all facets of the term

Adaptability, in Maricic's experience, extends beyond professional skills to encompass cultural sensitivity, a lesson he learned during his first business trip to Malaysia. After a week of fruitful engagements, a Malaysian colleague presented Maricic with a gift, to which he responded with a hug, a common gesture of gratitude in Australia.

However, this gesture was not well-received due to the cultural norms in Malaysia, a misunderstanding Maricic later became aware of through another colleague. This incident highlighted the importance of contextual adaptability for Maricic, underscoring the need for cultural awareness in a global professional context.

Discussed in this episode

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Marketing and Brand: Embrace healthy friction (podcast episode #48)

How marketers fixed 4 common marketing blind spots

Leading Through Learning: Chief Growth Officer’s innovative approach to marketing leadership

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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.

Nik Maricic: It wasn't a small amount of money that we spent. So we need to make sure we have leadership by it. And of course, leadership wants to know, well, what's our expected ROI? What are we expecting to achieve this? What are our goals and our objectives? So related to that, it's not them not wanting to do it, obviously. They want to grow the business, but they want to know what can we spend to get out of this?

Similarly, when we did watch the campaign without a little bug in the outfit and because the product team knew what we were doing, they bought into the vision. It was like night and don't. That was a loud click. But yeah, they just wanted to fix it immediately. Now again, same thing applies externally. Dealing with yellow with, but working with external vendors, stakeholders and potential partners as well.

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 Burstein, to tell you about today's guest been.

Daniel Burstein: Here's something I get to do as a content writer and I never got to do as a copywriter. I sign my name to my work and that gets displayed publicly. I'd like to think I was a conscientious writer before, but this makes me ten times more. So it's a constant reminder that everything needs to be a certain level of awesome, no filler copy.

Even when you don't sign your name to something. It's difficult, right? That commitment to always striving to make something the best it can be, whether that's an ad or the next rung in your career. But as our next guest reminds us, don't do something for the sake of ticking a box. Here to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson filled stories is Nick Marie Chick, the marketing director for Asia Pacific at RIA Money Transfer.

Thanks for joining us, Nick.

Nik Maricic: JS Thanks for having me, Daniel. Long time listener and look forward. I look forward to finally having that opportunity to talk to you myself.

Daniel Burstein: Fantastic. And I look forward to our audience getting to hear from you both. Take a quick look at your background. So Nick has been around many different industries. He worked in hospitality events. You've had his own food company before. He got into marketing as a director at Craig Carte Marketing, and for the past nine years he has been at RIA.

RIA Money Transfer is owned by Euronet Worldwide, which is publicly traded on Nasdaq. Your own NEC report, your net reported $3.668 billion in revenue for 2023. It has the largest direct bank deposit network in the world and Nick has built a team of ten that he oversees. So, Nick, give us a sense, what is your day like as the marketing director for Asia Pacific?

Nik Maricic: it's a fun day, Daniel. Most of the time it's lucky if I start my day between six, 630 in the morning with a daddy, daddy, daddy away. And that's how I know my little girl is up. I spend spend the morning, first hour or so of the day, spending the day which I spend the time with her as much as I can provide.

I don't have any early morning calls. I have my coffee. Of course, as you as you do need to get the day started, we have our breakfast. I get to the office in the office around about 9 a.m.. Important to note our Mondays and Fridays I work from home and midweek, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday is off from the office.

So those are the days that we really try to get a lot of the collaboration. A lot of the meetings, a lot of the face to face time under the belt. Because in this day and age, it is important to get that face to face time as well. And then we really leverage that Monday and Friday to get a lot of the work done that we just need to put our heads down, concentrate and get done so, you know, when we are in the office.

But just about, you know, the meeting, the face to face time, we obviously do the work as well. But you know that that's across planning meetings, one on ones and just overall catch ups of everything that we do. The way that I like to end my day is actually planning my following day by blocking time out in the calendar to actually get important things done and and wrapped up after that.

I try to be home by about six, 630. Spend some more time with the little one. I try to really switch off during that period because I've been at work all day doing it, spend time with my with my little one, and I do really value that time with her. I take the reins from my wife, give her a break.

I do the bath time. I put little one down and then it's time to sit back and relax and also catch up with some additional things that I would have missed out on whilst I was spending time with my with my little ones. So that's a day in the life of Nick, and then it all starts again the following day.

Daniel Burstein: How old?

Nik Maricic: Two years. Just about to turn two.

Daniel Burstein: That's a sweet age, and I'm glad you bring that up because, you know, I think sometimes as marketers are sometimes that we feel like, you know, we've just got to be like, all out all the time, especially in like you have an Asia-Pacific role as a greater regional role over to worldwide role. My gosh, someone's working all the time.

But I've found that sometimes in that downtime, even just like playing something silly with my kid or whatever, like that's where I boom, my brain opens up and that's where I get the idea. I couldn't figure out during the day in the office. I'm glad you bring that up.

Nik Maricic: Let's take a look that create.

Daniel Burstein: Some of.

Nik Maricic: It so sorry.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, exactly. And kids are great at bringing it out of you naturally.

Nik Maricic: 100%. 100%. And again, going back to basics, and as marketers, we always need to have that creative flair. Yes, we're not always the most creative, but spending time with the little ones, it just helps reinvigorate your mind.

Daniel Burstein: Exactly. Exactly. Well, let's take a look at some of the things that your mind has come up with in your career, some of the lessons we can learn from some of the things you made. Here's your first lesson. You said effective communication plays a vital role in achieving success. How did you learn this?

Nik Maricic: Yeah. It's an iteration, honestly, of communication is a hot topic that always comes up. But when it really came to mind was a few years ago when we when we had to leave a start as our CMO at RIA, he really instilled going back to basics. Now that Drew has passed in Walmart, so it came with a lot of experience of etc. So you want to make sure you listen to everything he has to say.

And going back to basics and having a really clear defined messaging, whether it comes down to customers, internal or external, is is really important. And then on the back of that, what we did, what I did with the team locally here in in the APAC region was we created our own funnel. Now everyone is familiar with that with the marketing funnel.

And what we did is we adapted it to what we do in anything and everything to do with marketing locally. And we really look at that as our guiding star, our North star. We put tactics in everything that we do at different levels of the marketing funnel and we just look at that relative to everything that we do.

Now what is the communication aspect? Come back into it? Well, firstly, it's the guiding star for everything that we do, so it gets funneled down. Pardon the pun, to the rest of the team and the organization to know what we do. But at the same time, what we did is we created a messaging style on the side of the funnel, which helps us define how we actually communicate to customers at different stages of the funnel, because you can't speak to the customer in the same way all the way at the top as you do down at the bottom of the funnel.

And then what we have on top of that is retention based on that same funnel, which is a completely different messaging as well. So going back to basics has proved to be really, really important and you'll see through some of the other things we might touch on later how a lot of what I bring up always relates back to that guiding principle of our North Star, which is, which is the funnel.

Daniel Burstein: That's great. So I love. Do you talk about the messaging on the side? How the messaging. So I would imagine early in the funnel we're more problem oriented and later we're more solution entered are how do you how do you vary? Let me give you an example real quick. I got pitched by this company, this early AI podcast company, right?

And they were wanting to get published on marketing server, but they hadn't done anything yet, then have a case study. And so they offered to a user a I on how I market it, made it a marketing podcast, right? So I took what they created, didn't feel right using it for the how I made it marketing podcast. Actually.

Right. But I published it on the marketing Sherpa blog just very transparently. And they said, Hey, here's this company. They created this. You can take a look for yourself. And what I realized is it's kind of like an open demo, right? It always surprises me that companies one of the most important things is a demo, and they hold on to it so tight, right?

They're like, okay, you need to give us your name and your phone number and your budget and all this stuff before we'll give you the privilege of getting on the side of the salesperson and doing a demo. So it just gets me back to thinking of when you talk about the phone, you talk about the messaging on the side like how do you do You vary, Is it start with problem and it gets to solution?

Are the solutions. Only once you, you know, deeper into the funnel. Once you talk to a sales rep, are they out there? How do you kind of vary that.

Nik Maricic: Yeah. So again it it really does vary. And I guess with money transfer having adapted the funnel to our specific needs, the way that we look at it all the way up the top is people don't know us yet. We need to get them at the top end as a bare minimum. They need to know who we are and what we do.

So at the complete top, this is what we tell them. You need to send money overseas. The create money transfer. Very simple. The problem is, hey, I need to get money to the other side. The solution is real money transfer. So a lot of the time and this also stems down to what what Drew instilled in us is thinking about things from that problem solution perspective.

Now, what is the problem to which Ria is the solution? So really, really honing in on that. And, you know, I have I do have another story where this really hones in around not even looking at from a problem solution perspective, but addressing those customer pain points. And this is one of those follow ups that we have in the next section of the funnel where, okay, now people know who we are, what we do now, and the next time they hear about us, they're going to find out how we actually addressed their pain points.

Now, these pain points different to different people because obviously everyone has different needs in regards to our product. But then now once we've addressed their relative pain points, the next time they hear about us could be about an offer, it could be about something else to help them actually convert. But we're funneling them through where nurturing them to know who we are, why they should trust us.

And then we give them an offer down the down the funnel. And then once they're in, once they become a customer and they've used us for the first time, how do we retain them? Which is the other really, really important thing. We need to make sure that we're looking at all facets of the funnel, not necessarily just speaking to them at the top, middle or bottom of the funnel or when they're in a customer, but understanding how to address them at different stages of the funnel.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, you know, and I like to think that, you know, we use the term funnel a lot as marketers. We use it to talk about my super funnel, but I always loved that idea of the hero's journey from a story and I love the idea of the buyer story. And so like, I love that story element and you know, because part of a funnel, it's not just understanding the stages, it's also how were you going to communicate like a story to make it interesting?

One of your lessons, you said creativity takes center stage in the realm of marketing. So do you want to give us a sense of how you use creativity and I love that it's outlined in the funnel. But then as you mentioned, that we actually have to get the story to them and catch their attention to get those across.

So how do you use creativity?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, no. Great, great, great question. Well, it's a great thing to look at creativity as the secret sauce to bringing in that copywriting together with the creative asset. Now, we recently did a campaign which was a top of photo campaign in Sydney, in Australia, where we wanted to really target people that haven't heard about us. And that messaging was very simple.

So what I mentioned earlier, top of funnel setting money ever since question mark, I think rate money transfer and because there was a lot of out-of-home aspect to that, we just included a hook line with that with a promo code. Now, okay, the messaging one thing, right? But how do we bring the creative to that now in Australia specifically, we have 750 points of sale around the country.

We have our online self-service money transfer platform, but our mobile app now how do we make sure we promote our digital services, but how do we make sure we promote our partners and how do we make sure that we let people know that they can use us wherever is most convenient to them? How do we really showcase that omni channel message?

And this is where that creative flair really came into it and and what the design team came up with was, All right, we have a mobile phone and on that mobile phone we made it look like a shopfront. So it's bringing that shopfront aspect of it and it's bringing that mobile aspect of it. And we had two buttons below our message.

One was find location and the other one was get the app. So we were really honing in the entire message around that convenience aspect whilst letting people know that you can go online, offline, wherever is easiest for you.

Daniel Burstein: And what media like how is this, was this online? And you're like, how, how are these messages displayed?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, no, of course. Good question. We had both online and offline, so we had out of home. So we were on the trains, we were on billboards, we were the likes of Spotify, we were on YouTube's the respective media platforms, the radio. So it was a it was a logic campaign. And that message shone through throughout the respective media and respect it to the different different channels as well.

And we just made sure everything, everything flowed. And from a targeting perspective, making sure that we're trying to target the same customers at different touchpoints just to make sure that they can see us everywhere and make sure that that message hits home of convenience no matter where or when they want to send money with with radio.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. So we talk about creativity. You know, something that comes to mind for me, you mentioned the 750 physical locations is I'd seen a lot of e-commerce or virtual companies moving back to physical locations because they've seen that it's a competitive advantage, whether it's Warby Parker that's opening things up now or even like I think it's Capital One banks in America that have turned them into cafes, right?

They look at these physical as advantage and I wonder how have you figured out how to balance the physical right? Actually that in location messaging with in-app and the other ways you do it, I wonder if you've figured out anything there in terms of creativity, because when I think of this term creativity, I think of an interview I did with Justin Herbert, the CMO and Chief Brand officer at Tractor Beverage Company, on how I made up marketing.

And one of his lessons for creativity was Embrace Healthy Friction. And I've noticed there is sometimes now this friction between the physical, the offline, the traditional meetings that you mentioned and these digital kind of mobile that you mentioned. But, you know, we really need both, right? It needs to be finding the balance of the both and finding what each one does best.

Right. So when you again, I mentioned when you bring up this physical location, like have you figured out anything special you can do in the physical locations that maybe competitors can't because they're all digital or mobile?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, no. Very, very good. Very good question. And it is a, you know, a process where there's no right or wrong way of doing things. What we are trying to do is find ways to help all the physical locations as well as the digital location. And what we have seen is simply by upping how much marketing or how much advertising we're doing online actually helps with the physical locations as well, because all of a sudden there's much more that's being said about your brand, both online and offline, because you're not you're never just online or just offline.

Now, I know there are other e-comm providers or or even competitors of ours that are solely digital providers that are trying to get in that offline side of things. But our advantage is the fact that we do have such a wonderful retail presence that we can leverage them and we can make sure to be there for people when they need us.

And, you know, there's nothing more important than someone's hot earned money. And we do have a lot of customers that go to a physical location because, Daniel, I entrust you with this money and I want you to get it to my loved ones on the other side and if you don't get it, if for whatever reason, I would like a face to go to to speak to about it, and I'd like your assistance to find out what's happening.

Not that we get too many issues, but people do like that face to face because it's it's very tangible. So this is how we're really leveraging our network. And I mean, this is how I'm finding a lot of other a lot of other companies that do have that retail footprint. And, you know, this is the age of the the clicks to bricks where people are staging that their orders in the app, ordering in the app, and then they go in-store to pick it up.

So with the whole click and collect as well. So it definitely has a place. It's finding what works and then creating that messaging to resonate with those consumers that have that as one of their pain points in regards to I want a location to go to.

Daniel Burstein: Absolutely. It's just that reassurance is kind of that safety blanket that, you know, you know, so it just helps reduce anxiety. Well, here's another lesson you mentioned. Adaptability also proves to be a critical trait. Obviously, there's a lot of fast moving, ever evolving industries. The financial one seems specifically. So as you mentioned, you know, I mean, it wasn't that long ago where you would have to go to a physical location.

Now you can do it in so many different, different digital ways, right? So how have you learned to be adaptable?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, I mean, I should probably take a step back here and let you know a little bit about about my past, and then you'll know exactly how I consider adaptability. You know, back in 2011, which seems like a lifetime ago, I spent a year abroad living in Madrid for a year. And at that point I looked at I mean, I thought I knew what was happening in the world.

But you get tossed into a country where you're still learning the language. You learn how to be very adaptable. And at that point, I didn't realize how sheltered we actually were in Australia until I was in one of my uni Spanish classes. And the teacher asked us the question around, okay, in Spanish, let us know what the current news headlines are in your country.

Look. All right, let's get this week. Pretty cool. I know one recent headline. So we have the student from Portugal putting putting her hand up saying, we've got austerity measures that are you know, crippling our country. We have student from France putting their hand up and saying, you know, the eurozone debt crisis meetings are happening in in Paris as we speak.

And then I put my hand up from Australia saying, yeah, Qantas, our national airline, has grounded flights because having an industrial dispute with employees. So just put things into perspective of how sheltered we were with regards to what was happening in the rest of the world. And that was actually a very pivotal moment because it made me start looking at things in a different perspective and it helped me really start adapting to two things.

Now, what it helped me adapt to in particular was when I came back to Australia, I missed Europe so much that I wanted to bring Europe to Australia. So what I do as anyone, this opened a credit card. So I've been up a crate cot at the local market which ended up being a little interest me opening up an actual physical storefront.

I opened the doors and I literally did it. I mean, when I say blood, sweat and tears went into building that, it did because I, I did the tiling. I pulled apart old pallets and I stuck it all up on the on the wall, pulled cobblestones. I had my my old man help me with actually building a cot.

And we really brought that sense of Europe into into well into Sydney, the city of Sydney. So that was again another way. It had a really, really had to learn adaptability. Then when we had to, when I made the tough decision to close that store, I got into what I really loved at the time, which was the business side of running the bakery, and I got into the small business consulting and I found that that seeing that things kept revolving around was, was marketing.

So then I ended up really focusing in on that marketing aspect of the consultancy. But what I found really, really difficult, and I'm sure a lot of people and attested this was finding new clients. I had a few clients, but what was really difficult was keeping the lights on with only a few clients and struggling to to get others in.

So I kept my options open and I was looking for employment at the time as well. A lot of rejection then I had to opportunities coming up at the same time. One was with a digital marketing agency. The other one was with a company called Real Money Transfer. I was weighing up the pros and cons with with both.

Obviously, digital was the future, but it's an agency you might be difficult to grow or really show your your progress and what you can do on that front. So the other side had a RIA, which is a marketing coordinator role looking after the Australia-New Zealand business, where you could really make the role your own. There wasn't a established marketing footprint in in Australia.

So just I made the leap and I decided to come to Syria, which all in itself was that was a learning curve. So long story short, and I'll get to the point now, I promise, around adaptability. It is in my team. When I hire new people, I look for people from other industries. I look for people that have had a lot of lessons learned in other industries that I can bring to the financial services industry because I.

I know the flair that I brought to this space when, when I joined RIA and I've seen the exact same flair with a lot of the team members that that I brought in. And then we've had people from all different industries come in, including the hospitality, airline industry, hotel industry, e-commerce, even infomercials. And everyone brings a different flair and different learnings.

And when we look at adaptability, it's about how do they adapt to what we're currently doing. Heat, but leverage, all those learnings they have from those other industry and and make it work. And I tell you, Daniel, it is it is very, very powerful how your space or your niche product actually grows with a lot of these intra industry learnings that that you get.

So very, very big believer in that.

Daniel Burstein: Okay. I want to hear what you brought from a Craig Perry to RIA money transfer. But I have another question first, but I want to hear that you've mentioned bringing it from other industries. I want to ask this question first. So, you know, you mentioned these different experiences you had and you mentioned kind of I love when you said going to that class, you really saw the blind spots of being Australian and seeing how other people look at things.

And I wonder now at this point, though, you've been here nine years, so what do you do to overcome your blind spots? Right? Because for example, I did a case study with Ben called Tab Bank, and they were working with a number of agencies and just nothing was moving the needle. And a lot of what they did, they just brought everything in-house.

They questioned every previous conclusion about their customer profile and they started totally fresh with new marketing research. And when I interviewed them, I remember they said they were taking that Zen approach, which is called The Beginner's Mind, if you're familiar with that. Right. The beginner's mind. And so that can be hard, though, Like obviously, like again, they were to be bank a banker, an incumbent.

They were doing things a certain way. They just had to scrap everything and start over. That's pretty radical. Okay. But I wonder if for you, you've been there nine years now, How do you overcome any blind spots you have?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, again, I'll I'll revert back to. Well, there's a couple of things. First thing is being surrounded by people without those blind spots, because at times as leaders, we need to be reminded about a lot of things and getting people from different industries or people that are looking at the different facets of the marketing function. It helps ground you as well and look at things from another different perspective, right, Which is incredibly, incredibly important.

Now the other thing is it's important not to just constantly be in the office doing your day to day. What is what is incredibly important is to get out there and visit partners, speak to customers. And what that does, is it? Yes, we could have blind spots with regards to the industry and know what is or isn't possible relative to our industry.

But speaking to the customers, you learn a lot and the nature of the customer is changing all the time. As you can imagine in this world, is there's a lot of moving parts, is a lot of moving people. People are migrating all the time. And as people migrate, they bring new thoughts, new beliefs, new things that you just have to adapt to.

So it's incredibly important to be out there in the field and actually speak to them. And at the same time, what you see is what your competitors are doing as well. And that also helps you stay on your toes and know how to. Well, I don't like this term react, but how do you be proactive in your own way, but at the same time, keep in mind, okay, this is what our competitors are doing, but let's not lose sight of our bigger picture because of just reactionary feelings that we have.

Daniel Burstein: Right? We get so we get so focused on the competitor. Don't focus on the customer. Right. But then I want to ask about the creperie to the gift card. So what did you learn from there that you brought into RIA? Because I feel like sometimes, you know, as I mentioned, we publish a lot of case studies on marketing Sherpa, and sometimes the feedback we hear is like, if it's not the exact same situation, someone's in there.

Like, I can't learn from that. You're working at a very large company now. You are essentially a solopreneur. If we did a case study about a solopreneur, I could see someone in a very large company saying like, I'm totally different in a big company. So I wondered, was there anything you were able to take into your current role?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, a lot. What one of the things that I don't like is how entrepreneurs that have a venture that doesn't succeed get in a shroud. And if it's like this in the States, I think it's not. But you get looked down on where it's like, you have a business. It failed, didn't do well. But the way that I look at those individual is that person has a lot of lessons that they learned.

Yes, it might not have worked, but they know why and they know what they would have done differently. Now, going back to what I brought, Syria as a result is I really try to bring that personalization, that customization to individual customers. Now we're talking back 2015 where, you know, digital was still on the app with with a lot of things, you know, customer data, platforms, City pays wasn't really a thing.

But what I really wanted to do was bring that personalization to customers. So what did I do? One one example is we used to sponsor a lot of events and at these events we'd sign up a lot of people. At that point in Australia, we didn't have a digital product yet. So to find a way of how can we actually let people know where to find us, we had this amazing encounter.

We spoken to the customer and they're like, You guys are great. You know, I want to save so much money. On sending money overseas. How can I send money with you? But no problem. Sign up here and I'll send your closest location for you again for the 2015. We don't have many of these automated tools that can simply fire off an email telling people of where the location is.

So what I do, I signed up to MailChimp, which was one of the only providers available at the at the time. I created a lot of different forgot what they called that at the time was a lot of different iterations where relative to the post code that someone entered on that sign up form when we was signing up, I prebuilt, God knows about 100 different channels relative to different post codes, and it had about three or four of our top locations around those areas, which should fire off an email at the same moment.

So that particular sign up, letting them know when that what the locations are. So what I used to think I brought is that different layer, different level of thinking where we are starting to hone in on, All right, let's let's try and make life as easy as possible for the customer. They want to use us. Let's show them how they can actually use us.

And we're sorry.

Daniel Burstein: that's a that's a beautiful example. Yeah. I mean, I always like to say I heard a story my old boss used to tell me about in Richmond, Virginia. He would go and he would, you know, get suits from this guy. This guy was well known for suits for busy business professionals. And the guy knew everyone so well.

He said, I could just pop in. I'm busy. 10 minutes. He knew exactly my size, exactly what I wanted for suits. You would have things picked out. You knew what I like to do. Might get him right away. Right. Because again, that was a small business person who knew people on a 1 to 1 basis. I always say that's what we're every enterprise is trying to even the bigger enterprise.

Right. And they're trying to fake it with CDP and CRM and marketing automation and personalization and all this. But that's what they're trying to do. So I think that's a beautiful thing you did to try to hack it together before the technology was able to do it just with kind of like gum and string and whatever to make it happen.

So I think that's something we could all learn from, especially now with the more powerful tools we could use.

Nik Maricic: The funny back story to that is as well. When I was on, I spent quite a few weeks in the office trying to fly, trying to work out his Band-Aid approach, and I was talking to MailChimp support a lot and at the end of it they're like, Yeah, you're doing a lot of cool stuff, you know, Can you give us your address and we're going to send you a couple of MailChimp t shirts, but right, right.

Which is, which is awesome. I love those t shirts long by now, but they're really, really, really cool.

Daniel Burstein: You earned the t shirts. Well, the first half of the podcast, we talk about lessons we learned from the things Nick made like incredibly complex, personalized email pathways on MailChimp in the early days. And then the second half of the podcast, we're going to talk about lessons from the people he made them with because that's what we get to do as marketers.

We get to build things, we get to build it with people. But before we get there, I should mention that the How I Made It and Marketing podcast is underwritten by Mac Labs Institute, the parent organization of marketing, Sherpa Mac Labs, A I now has expert assistants, copywriter, project planner, marketing professor and social Media Pro. It is totally free to use for now.

Just go to Mac Labs, ICOM that's MVC Lab, ICOM to get these artificial intelligence and expert assistants working for you. All right that's a new technology than that back then. All right. Let's take a look at some lessons from we learned for people we work with. So you mentioned Paul Johnson. He was an associate professor at UTS Business School, and you went there and I love this last man.

I love this lesson. So good. Don't do something for the sake of taking a box. So especially as a young college student, like, that's not what we want to hear. We just want to get everything done and get on the pathway to success. How did you live this lesson?

Nik Maricic: my God. Hi. It's one of those lessons now that you look in hindsight and you're like, It's commonsense. You should have just done it in the first place. Why even ask the question? But I'm glad I did. It changed it completely changed the direction of of my life, I would say. And I didn't realize this till much, much later, but where I was at was I needed to finalize an internship and then to do as part of my my studies, but hide anything.

And I, you know, I run the risk of either one failing to doing something I didn't want to do or three like finishing my degree and or three things I really don't want to do. You know, I did have the option of doing the internship with my cousin, who's a mechanic. Again, my degree had nothing to do with automotives, but again, they would just tick the box and I have to get it over and done with, but I can't because I really respected Paul.

He was actually one of my favorite lecturers and tutors at the time. I, you know, really respected his advice. I went up to him and I said, what would you do in this situation? And he said, Honestly, I can't tell you what to do, but what I will tell you, I just do something. What's like doing it?

You know, what do you get out of it? What what's the value you get from just taking a box? And that that really, really stuck with me. Needless to say, on the back of that, I attended that internship with my with my with my cousin. I really put my head down and I didn't want to delay it either.

So I just shut off probably a good 100, 150 emails to different organizations, a lot of cold calling, trying to find an internship that I wanted to do. And I found it. I found and this was my first taste of the events industry. I got into the events in the shoe, which was which is my sub major, that I was doing it at university and after the internship I ended up getting full time employment there as well.

And it just worked out. And this is why it really changed the trajectory of what I was doing because it really gave me a taste of what the industry was about and what is out there, which again was a stepping stone to where I am today. God knows where I'd be today if I didn't get into that and probably be a mechanic, which is nothing wrong with being a mechanic.

It's just I wasn't the person that liked getting their hands greasy and whatnot. I like getting my hands dirty with getting into things, but grease. And if you haven't tried to get grease out of your hands, I recommend trying it once in your life. Yeah.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. There's that special orange stuff I've know. Used to get it off. Yeah, it's hard. And you clearly got your hands dirty with MailChimp, but. Okay, so let me ask. It's one thing to know this lesson ourselves right out of the cells. Now, you mentioned culture. We were talking earlier. How do you instill it in a team? Right?

That's hard because this is something that has been sometimes the most frustrating things for me. And I'm sure in fairness, I've done this myself to others. Right. And I don't maybe I didn't notice that. But when I've been on teams where I've seen others do, this is so frustrating. For example, like saying like, like, here's the manifesto and we followed it and boom, the things now live.

But then you look at the thing and it just doesn't make sense, right? And, you know, see like an analogy of when I learned math in school, you know, the teacher, I say, okay, calculate it out within before you, you know, actually fill it out in the test or put in the answer in gut check it like, okay, does this make sense?

Like, is this what I thought it would be? It would be like roughly this area, you know, an answer. And again, that's why I said like sometimes where I've seen people just follow a process very rightly and that's their excuse. It's like, well, great, you followed that process, but there needs to be that gut check thing of like, okay, now this thing is live.

Does it make sense? So that's something for me, for you, Like how have you led a team to come along to, you know, the culture of a team to also feel this way, not to check a box? It's an easy trap for us all to fall into, right?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, it 100%. 100%. And I again, even I had learned this lesson a lot of the times you're like, you know, it's it's been a day. How about we just do it this way and get it over and done with? But then you check to stuff like make no, we need to address this or we need to, we need to look at it again.

Marketing isn't iterative process everything. We just need to iterate, right? You know? Right. If something goes out this one time, that's fine. It's a lesson learned. But we can write it on on it the next time. So the culture that I like to instill and that comes back down to my my history is going to fail, fail fast, but learn from it.

And similarly in the team, if we if we do a campaign and it's a flow and again, as a marketer, every marketer, if they're being honest with themselves, has one that helps and ones that work really well, the ones that are that are very important as well, because as many lessons to learn from that that you know, you're not going to make the next time.

So within our team specifically, that's the culture that I like to instill where the team is not afraid to do things. I really like them to be empowered to make these decisions themselves. And I look at myself as being that consultant to guide them in the direction to go, but have enough room to make those decisions, decisions themselves.

But all this also stems from having that right team. You know, I read the the Netflix book. I remember what it's what it's called. But I think no culture, culture or something like that by Reed Hastings. And it was it was an eye opener with how important it is to get the right team behind you with regards to culture.

So before getting to a stage where you can trust your team to make these mistakes, you need to make sure that the people you're bringing to the team in the organization are that cultural fit firstly for the organization and secondly for your respective thing. Because if you're bringing the wrong person, doesn't matter how skillful they are, they don't get along with with others, they don't work well with others.

I mean, everything, everything is you're going to as a as a manager, you're going to be spending more time dealing with the team culture clashes than you will with actually, you know, having that high productivity, effective, effective team to manage. So, yeah, long story short, I really like them to be empowered and learn from lessons. If things don't go well, obviously, if it's something that is completely way off, that's when we step in and we really have to work the team.

But yeah, I really like letting them make their own, their own path. As long as it's within our within our northern North Star trajectory of the of the marketing funnel.

Daniel Burstein: So even in the southern hemisphere, it's called the North Star. Just so I'm clear, you guys are called the South Star.

Nik Maricic: That's what I refer to it as the North Star, because, you know, a compass always points north. And I one thing that I did to myself when I was younger, I wow, I told myself, if you're ever lost, if you don't know where you're going, I mean, just just go straight, just head north and eventually you'll find a road.

Eventually you'll find something. Luckily, Touchwood, I've never been lost so far to not be unfound. But yeah, that, that. That's why I still stick to the North Star analogy.

Daniel Burstein: That's awesome. I'm sure it also helps to live on an island. You can look and it's a big island, but you can only go so far, right?

Nik Maricic: I know it's a few miles so far from everything. That's why I love the the year I spent abroad in in Madrid, where it was just eye opening all the different countries I traveled to. And it just opens your mind.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. And no joke. I mean, that's important for a lot of us that work on international teams. Actually. Your last thoughts or want to talk about, you know, learning from other cultures, that's more than just a point of curiosity. It's what we need to be effective marketing leaders. Well, let's first talk about love is when when is the concept of not being your way or my way?

It is a better way. A higher way. And of course, this is a very famous lesson from Stephen Covey. So how have you embraced this lesson from Covey? How do you used it in your career? I'm also a company fan.

Nik Maricic: I'm a big fan. I'll admit. I first started the book and it took me a while to get back into it because life got in the way. But when I did finish it, I mean, the guy is still relevant today as it was when he when you wrote the book. But you know, it's brilliant. The win philosophy. I like to apply that both from an internal and external perspective.

So internal in regards to dealing with other departments and other other team members where making sure that everyone you work with gets a win, right? Because you want to make sure you build synergies with other departments because then they want to help you with whatever it is that you have to do. You know, and what's important in this respect, not to reframe, getting questioned by other teammates or team members or departments or leadership or whoever it may be as you know, that question of is that I believe what you're doing should read between the line.

They want to know what the win is. You know, what does this organization get? What does the department what what does them as a as a teammate, what did they get? What's their win? The for example, you know, the the campaign I alluded to earlier, the out of heart, you know, it wasn't a small amount of money that we we spent.

So we need to make sure we have leadership buying. And of course, leadership wants to know, well, what's our expect of our ally? What are we expecting to achieve this? What are our goals and our objectives? So relative to not it's not them not wanting to do it, obviously they want to grow the business, but they want to know, all right, what do we spend to get out of this?

Similarly, when we did launch the campaign, we found a little bug in the app. And again, because the product team knew what we were doing, they bought into the vision. It was fixed like that. And I don't know that was a allowed click, but yeah, they just wanted to to fix it immediately. Now again, same thing applies externally dealing with but dealing with but working with external vendors, stakeholders and potential partners as well.

I've got a couple of really cool examples with partnerships that we've had with with other companies as well. One that comes to mind is in Australia a few years ago we had a partnership with Air Asia. Now I was doing a lot of research around complimenting businesses that you know, that we could team up with through shared vision and an organization that really wants to provide that value to their customers.

And this is where they came across AirAsia, where they're a reliable low cost airline that really wants to provide that value to to the customer to get back home to their loved ones. We help people send money to their loved ones. They help money get they help people get to their loved ones. So speaking to AirAsia, they they love the visually loved the fact that we could team up and they sponsored for its own trips for for two people to either India, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, which was great.

We created a media plan around the promo. In hindsight, I will admit the headline now that we have our North side, this was before we had our North Star. That messaging scale could have been a bit better. We we kept a very simple in terms of send money, win flights, which again, this is not a line that our problem solution path or where we were targeting in the funnel but still lessons learned now what was the windfall AirAsia well they had a new well they had a targeted audience reach that they could reach out to this audience is from an Indian Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan background.

We work directly to them through real money transfer because they send money home to us all the time. And these are the communities that AirAsia's trying to tap into, not necessarily people that are trying to go to a holiday to those countries as well, but this people that are also traveling to go home to visit family as well.

So that was a really, really big thing. And what was the windfall area? Well, added value to our customers. I mean, customers didn't do didn't need to do anything more than just send money, which is what they're used to doing with us. And all of a sudden now they had the opportunity to potentially win a trip to go back and visit their loved ones, as well as sending the funds.

So that was that was a great partnership. And another one that comes to mind, which was actually really, really fun, was the KFC partnership we had in Malaysia. Now I know what you're thinking, Daniel. How does KFC and Money transfer relate at all? And I'll get into that right now where we were having an initial planning session for the upcoming Ramadan campaign that we were having at the time.

Now, Ramadan, if you're not familiar, is the holy month of fasting practiced by the Muslim community. So after sunset in prayer, the community breaks that fast with a meal that's known as you start now instead of most commonly shared with friends and family. Now, something to note with this community in in Malaysia is that their family is still back in their home countries.

So they're living working in Malaysia and sending back most of their earnings to to their loved ones. So what we want us to do is let's let's find a way to get our customers to break fast together. How can we do that? Because we've got a vast network in in in Malaysia as well. We wanted to team up with a provider or a company that has that network as well as So we reached out to arguably the most popular food brand in Malaysia, which is KFC.

The team at KFC saw the vision and they were on board. Now, what did they get out of it? They got a targeted new traffic coming through their doors. What was in there for us? Well, added value to our customers that KFC sponsored meal vouchers for for our customers, getting people coming into into the store. I mean, this this wasn't necessarily a target market that they saw themselves wanting to target, but because the opportunity was there and it was it's a sizable market not just in Malaysia, but even even in Australia and growing and actually worldwide because of the global movement of people and people have that need to send money.

So it was it was a no brainer for KFC to team up with us at the time, which again was just fantastic to deal with, to work with, with those brands where we win, they win and everyone wins.

Daniel Burstein: So those are some great examples of the kind of a win win being partnerships and inside your organization. You know, something that really strikes me about the product you sell is there's kind of another win win you have to have there. And there's because there's two sides to a transaction, right? There's a sender and there's the receiver. And so I wonder if there's anything special.

I know it seems like a lot of the campaigns we talk about have kind of been more focused on the sender of the send money. Is there anything special you do to focus on the receiver, to want them to get money through the money transfer? And I ask because really every organization has this challenge in some way. Any brand that you're listening because there's the influencer, right?

I mean, we've got the purchaser and the influencer. And I know for me, like when I've done money transfer, sometimes it's like or when I've gotten it sometimes like, no, don't send it on that one. I don't use that one. Can you send on this one instead? So what can we learn from you for having a win win where we're not just focused on the purchaser, we're focused on the influencer as well?

What do you do for the other side of that transaction?

Nik Maricic: Yeah, look, I was hoping you'd ask me this question. I didn't want to bring it up myself, but I'm really glad you bring this up because I have a really, really powerful story. And this alongside with that, don't just tick a box for the sake of taking a box. Is it really shaped the way that I look at look at this industry, to look at people as human beings in general.

I'm personally very, very passionate about cultural inclusivity and diversity in everything. Having been a migrant myself, moving to Australia with my parents, there's Australia after the Balkan Balkan wars, so you really hit home how important and how much of a lifeline and a need money transfers. So I'm going to get a little bit deep now and I'll kick off by saying don't run campaigns don't run campaigns.

If you're just there to promote your product and not really understand what your product does or what it serves. Now let's look at that. Look at the deeper meaning of of what you do. Now. The quote from Paul Johnson, it just the quote, sorry, not the lesson I learned from Paul Johnson really brought me back to give it even deeper meaning to a lesson that I learned at the Africa Cultures Festival in Sydney in the late 2000.

And I spoke to a customer and she doesn't I don't think she realized how much what she said hit me. Her name was Adam, I say. I even remember her name. And it really redefined my perspective on how I look at any product that I market, not just money transfers. And it's look at that deeper meaning. She put into perspective what really meant to her.

She was a customer. She sent money back to her grandmother in Sierra Leone, used she's used our competitors as well. But her preference was was real. Now, up until that point, I looked at the remittance industry as people sporting loved ones back home in their home country. Now, this story put that human side to the marketing. Now I'll just give you a little bit of context as well.

At that point in time, Region had the best network payout network in in Sierra Leone. So the cash pick up points which now where we're probably the best. But at that point we didn't. Now the only way we could challenge our competitor in Sierra Leone was to have better value overall value for the customer. So we were providing better exchange rates.

Now, again, I'll take a pause to let you know that prior to this encounter I was looking at the overall value that customer was getting is for Adama. You know, she wanted to maximize how much money she gets to the other side. Now, continuing the story now, Adam, his grandmother had to travel about 30 minutes to the next village to pick up funds from Raya.

I know what you're thinking. Why would you send through Raya? I mean, just having to travel 30 minutes. Poor grandmother. She's already older and having to. Having to get that now. Why did you do that? Well, Raya's exchange rate was much better. Now, what does that mean? That means that Adam, his grandma, could get five extra dollars. Five extra dollars?

I don't. That that doesn't seem much to us at all. But what did that mean to her grandma? To her grandma? That meant buying an additional bag of rice that could feed the family for two extra weeks and sustain the family. Now, just stop for a moment and think about that. The fact that to us $5 is relatively insignificant.

But just by using Raya and traveling an extra 30 minutes at that time, she doesn't need to anymore. She got an extra $5, which it can now sustain the family for an extra two weeks. Now that itself is very powerful and from that point, what we do to to market to people in the countries primarily is to make sure people know where allocations are so they can tell their loved ones that, hey, I do have a location close by that I can pick up funds, but at the same time locally from that moment on, I look at it as a responsibility for me and I take it upon myself that if someone doesn't know that

the customer can get more value by sending through us, then I'm not doing a good job. I need to make sure this person, everyone is aware that by sending it to us, they get overall better value so that on the other side, their loved ones who are receiving this remittance because it's a lifeline, are getting as much value as they can and they know exactly where they can go pick up those funds.

So, you know, what I will tell you is don't do a campaign or release any creating the will just for the sake of doing it. Have to think about what the product or service actually achieve or is looking to achieve to to solve someone's problem or alleviate their pain points. Don't just do something for that for the sake of doing it.

Daniel Burstein: Now, that's beautiful on two levels. One that really realized it didn't have a value proposition and so it had to do something that didn't have a value proposition in terms in that country yet of having a big enough network. And so it offered a better value exchange. That's one that is awesome right there. There are so many companies that would try to just solve that with marketing, right?

They'd be like, Well, we have a worse value exchange. We don't have as many locations. Let's sponsor the local soccer team, right? You know, let's let's just throw a bunch of ads at it. Let's throw a bunch of money out. So one, that is a thing of beauty in itself to create a value proposition. The company created a value proposition where one did not exist.

Now, the second level, which I love, and as you said, that's what we get to do as marketers, right? So so all in we live in this capitalist society, right? And all organizations do is that they create value, create value, right? Hopefully and in a good way. And then we as marketers, that's what we get to do. It's not just campaigns.

There's not just slogans or ads or headlines, right? It's we're helping people who will be served by that value understand that value. And that's what you do with that campaign. So we call it marketing. But as you said, that's communication. That's a thing of beauty that's really connecting humans to what they need. So bravo. I love that next one.

Nik Maricic: And with appreciate the last story. Here it is. It is. It is amazing what we get to do. And now what I love about being a market is that every day is different. You come into the office and you go out into the field. You you choose what you want to do from the perspective of it's all within the realm of possibility should you want it to be in the realm of possibility.

But you just need to make sure that you're doing what is in the best interest of getting customer. It's not about, you know, just let them know, Hey, we exist. It's about actually getting them to realize why they should use you or why what you're going to do to help alleviate their pain point, because they're probably using a competitor if they have that need, they're using a competitor.

But why should they use you? What pain points that are having with with a competitor that you can help alleviate?

Daniel Burstein: Well, and that's one of the hardest things to do, though not just as a marketer but as a human is. I was talking about blind spots before. Why should they use us? Because we're the best, right? I mean, because you work in a company, you get that company theory. I'm sure, when you go into your office. Nick, I know it's only a few days a week.

I'm sure there's the company's logo and color splashed around. I'm sure you have a nice break room. I'm sure it's a beautiful office. It's great to feel like this is amazing, right? But no one in Sierra Leone does that, right? So we kind of have to. And that's why I like what you're saying. We're talking to the customers and understand them.

Get out of that team based mindset of a rah rah rah. It's our team. We're the best. That's why you should use us to actually understanding that customer needs actually being able to serve it, understanding that that woman has to walk for 30 minutes to get the money and understanding what would make that worthwhile to her and change her life.

That the beauty of it. I love that. Let me end with one last lesson here from you. And I love this. So this is actually the second lesson about adaptability. This is how important you think adaptability is for marketers. You mentioned that and this is good. Adaptability is pivotal in all facets of the term. And originally we were talking about adaptability and we're talking more about, you know, both for the company and for your career to understand in these fast changing, you know, times and fast changing industries.

We have, I think this lesson. To me, it's a lot more personal. So you want to kind of take us into this and now we can all kind of work together.

Nik Maricic: Yeah, definitely. But this is this is a doozy. If I look back in hindsight that I definitely should've thought about much, much more before, you know, I went in for it. But it was during my first trip to Malaysia to out here in Malaysia and, you know, is a very week, got a lot done, met a lot of new faces.

And I had a colleague who gave a gift to and also a gift to take back to a couple of other team members here in the in the Sydney office. And, you know, as a as a thank you is customary, you know, in those instances I hug my colleagues saying thank you so much, I really appreciate it. But at that point, when I hugged my colleague, I realized on you're in Malaysia, you're not in Australia, and I could feel it in my colleague as well, where she was very tense and again, she's very respectful.

But I could see on her face she went, white. And she just felt very, very uncomfortable. So again, we parted ways and she spoke to another one of my my colleagues, who is from the same cultural belief as she was and said, please, please, please let Nick know, never hug anyone from from Malaysia, because it it's just you don't do that here.

And again, my colleague didn't need to tell me that I knew as soon as I hugged that that is a lesson learned is a very valuable lesson across dealing with different cultures. It's completely at the forefront, no matter no matter where I go now, just to make sure that I keep local customs front of mind because, hey, it could be acceptable in in my own country, but not necessarily everywhere around the world.

So a lesson learned and lesson out there for everyone as well. I learned to see you don't have to, so please keep it. Cultural nuances is front of mind.

Daniel Burstein: Well, that is great because I mentioned we're we're talking about customers as a difficult thing, as human beings, understanding a person other than yourself, understanding person is different from yourself. It's true for customers. It's true for the people we work with, especially working across so many cultures and where the rubber meets the road with that. As a marketing leader, though, I want to ask you, like when you're managing a team, how do you make sure the role adapts to what works best for the individual?

That's the other adaptability I think of. You know, for example, I interviewed Christine Healey, the chief growth officer at Senior, early on, how I made it marketing. One of her lessons was Believe in People, and she told the story of how when she became a single mom, flexibility and understanding, she got from her colleagues what made the role work for her.

So, you know, for you, Nick, I know we talked about the hybrid work setup that the company currently has, and then we talked about how important your daughter and central she is to your life and how you make that work. What do you do as a marketing leader to make sure that that the role adapts to that team member?

Nik Maricic: This is why growth is important now. Growth can come in a lot of different ways. It could come through promotions to different positions, could come down to a lot of different things, could be just expanded responsibilities as well. So what I like my team being is always having one ear open to to new trends, new things that they can like they can grasp.

I'm really big on them wanting and getting further education if they need with any short courses like for example, out at designer who sits there. And that's one of our designers that sits here in the Sydney office. I mean, she is a phenomenal designer and a lot of this stuff is, is is self-taught and she keeps keeps up to date with all the latest trends and just keeps going for it.

Another instance is our digital marketing manager who who got promoted to a wider business railway. He manages the digital product now as well. He locally in Australia as well. You know, adding additional responsibility is to our to our lifecycle manager as well to manage a wider pace of that retention side of the business as well. So as much as it is about growing professionally in regards to progressing in your career, it's also about having the ability to add different facets, marketing under your repertoire and keeping one eye open to new things that are available to you and to to everyone.

Daniel Burstein: Great. Well, Nick, we talk about so many different things about what it means to be a marketer. If you had to break it down, what are the key qualities of an effective marketer?

Nik Maricic: Well, well, all of the above. And the reason I said all of the above is I've heard a lot of your other guests also mentioned that because I'm an avid, avid listener. But in all seriousness, I think what's important is, you know, someone that leverages the basics. A lot of the times as marketers, we try to be too creative.

We try to be too, too into the weeds and try to misconstrue the message so much to make it look appealing where people don't know who you are or what you do. So I think sticking to the basics is is really important. The other one is if you're going to fail, fail fast and learn from it. So marketers who are willing to actually go out there and try new things and explore and it doesn't work at all, right?

No, learn from it. A metaphor that I like to use with with my team, especially with New Start till they actually get what I'm referring to is you know, let's take the approach at times of a bowl of spaghetti. Let's toss that bowl of spaghetti onto the wall and let's see what sticks. Yeah, a portion of it will fall to the ground, but will pick pieces of spaghetti that stick to the wall.

Similarly, in marketing, we're not going to try different things if we're not going to keep our minds open, leverage, new tools, we're going to be left behind and we're going to be like that. All the spaghetti that slides all the way to the floor. We want to be those pieces that that state. We want to find those pieces of spaghetti that stick to the wall.

And the other one is yet on the back of that one. You're right. You're right. You're right. There's no such thing as good Enough is good enough sometimes. But as long as you keep iterating on that good enough and persisting persistence is key. You can't you can't achieve anything without assistance. You need to have that go hard or go home mentality where you're just constantly striving for, for everything that you can do.

Just be focused and keep it going for it. Because what's the worst that happens? You learn a lesson perfect, because you know next time you won't run into the same issues because you would have already learned from it.

Daniel Burstein: Well, I want to mention we had some tech difficulties at the beginning of this recording, and Nick had persistence. He stuck with it. He didn't give up. I didn't I wasn't sure he emailed record, but I'm so glad we did, Nick, because I learned a lot from you today. Thank you so much for your time.

Nik Maricic: IS Thanks for having me, Daniel It's been a pleasure.

Daniel Burstein: And thank you to everyone for listening.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for how I made it in marketing with Daniel Bernstein. Now that you've gotten inspiration for transforming yourself as a marketer, get some ideas for your next marketing campaign. From Marketing Sherpas, Extensive library, a free case studies at marketing Sherpa dot com That's marketing s h e rpa Ecom and.