Substance Over Style: Good work has to speak for itself (podcast episode #111)

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“Writing is never done, it is just due.”

This is a common sentiment from anyone who has ever worked in a deadline-driven field like journalism or academia.

And it certainly holds true right here in the marketing industry as well, made all the more difficult in my career personally when I transitioned from print to digital…which could be changed an infinite number of times.

Or as my next guest puts it – ‘Don’t let perfection get in the way of completion.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Kelly Cutler, Lecturer and Associate Director of the Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern University.

Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and has an annual operating budget of $3 billion. Cutler has published five papers on topics including ChatGPT and Web3. She recently published her first book, called ‘Search Marketing: A strategic approach to SEO and SEM.’

Listen to 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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Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

“If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.”

This famous quote has been attributed to everyone from Blaise Pascal to Mark Twain.

After working in many different environments where operations are complicated, Cutler has learned the value of simplifying. Most things are better when they are simplified. She recently took a 75-page slide deck and edited it down to 25 slides for a TED Talk-style presentation. The result was awesome because she was able to focus on a few important key ideas rather than trying to cover many various topics and examples.

Don’t let perfection get in the way of completion

Quality is super important but can often be the writer or creative person’s enemy. Writing her book taught Cutler many lessons but one in particular is the value of accepting and moving forward. One of the trickiest parts of this type of work is that no one is there to provide a stamp of approval. She found herself redoing the table of contents over and over again when she finally decided that it had to stop.

She reminded herself that there can and most likely will be future editions where she can make updates as needed.

Good work has to speak for itself

Marketers and ad agency creatives can work pretty hard to sell their ideas internally. But Cutler says that if the work is good enough, it should stand on its own without your presentation.

She told a story about a client she won based on a job interview…but Cutler wasn’t the one being interviewed! A junior marketer who worked in a client Cutler had done work for was being interviewed and discussed one of Cutler’s marketing campaigns in the interview. The strategy was so compelling – and had the ability to stand on its own – that the interviewer searched out Cutler and asked Cutler to take her on as a client.

Lessons (with stories) from people she collaborated with

Reach for the stars

via Karrie Sullivan, President, Culminate Strategy

Sullivan has taught Cutler that anything is possible with hard work, dedication and a strong network. She was able to build an impressive network through her career in corporate marketing which allowed her to then realize her dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Her deep network is apparent in everything she does. A true pioneer in her field, people look to Sullivan for inspiration and innovation in business. She delivers.

Delegate

via Ajay Goel, President, Wordzen

Goel taught Cutler the freedom to allow others to do what they do best so you can focus on what you do best. In the many years of their friendship, she has often heard stories about the interesting and talented people he has hired to do work including HR, accounting, admin, marketing, software development and more. Although Goel possesses many of those skills, they can often be counterproductive to actually running and growing the business. Let the experts do their best.

Don’t give up

via Roy Wollen, Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University

Wollen has been a wonderful friend, partner, and collaborator throughout Cutler’s career. He is always generous with his time and has been an influential member of her support system for nearly 20 years. Without Roy, she would not be at Northwestern.

They have had an interesting and fun journey together from industry to higher ed while always keeping a toe in the industry. Wollen always finds the humor in scenarios, even when they get tricky. He has taught her that things are never perfect, but you just keep going.

Discussed in this episode

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Copywriting for Marketing Leaders: Why you should never delegate the marketing message (and how to get it right)

Don’t Give Clients What They Want (podcast episode #6)

How I Made It In Marketing podcast

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Transcript

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Kelly Cutler: And we went and met for coffee on campus, actually at Kellogg, and he was name dropping all of the very important, you know, people whose books he had edited. And he had a lot of good points. But he spoke over me. He interrupted me. He, sort of devalued some of the points that I was trying to make.

I had a very clear vision for the book. I wanted input, and I wanted to, you know, evolve the idea. But I did feel like I had a good idea. Many publishers were interested in the book, so I felt like I was on to something. And I just had to recognize that this was this was not going to be a great fit.

Although he was a very well-known editor, very prestigious, like I said, and had done a wonderful job for other books, but it just didn't feel like the right fit for me. So I had to go for the know in that instance.

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

Daniel Burstein: Writing is never done. It is. Just do. This is a common sentiment from anyone who's ever worked in a deadline driven field, like journalism or academia, and it certainly holds true right here in the marketing industry as well. Made all the more difficult in my career personally, when I transitioned from print to digital, which really could be changed an infinite number of times and digital could just never be done sometimes.

So I like how my next guest put it when I read her podcast guest application. Don't let perfection get in the way of completion. It's something I have to remember every single day. You're just hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson filled stories. Is Kelly Cutler, associate director of the Spiegel Research Center and a lecturer at Northwestern University.

Thanks for joining us, Kelly.

Kelly Cutler: Hi, Daniel. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Daniel Burstein: All right. Let's take a quick look at your background so people know I'm talking to you. Kelly has worked at all Time Warner and apartments.com. She had a digital marketing agency, which she sold. She's done tech and digital marketing consulting for two decades. She's been a program director at Northwestern University. And for the past eight years, she has been at Northwestern, where she is a full time faculty member, teaching both at the Middle School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, the Kellogg School of Management, and the School of Professional Studies.

I said both it's actually three schools if anyone's keeping score at home. Northwestern. I'm sure you've heard of it. But in case you haven't, Northwestern's the oldest chartered university in Illinois and has an annual operating budget of $3 billion. A well known and prestigious institution. And color has published five papers on topics including ChatGPT and web three.

She recently published her first book called Search Marketing A Strategic Approach to SEO and CRM. So, Kelly, give us a sense. What is your day like as an associate director at the Spiegel Research Center and a lecturer at Northwestern?

Kelly Cutler: Well, no day is the same as the day before it or the day after it in my world. But in general, I spend a lot of time researching, as I'm sure you could probably guess. Whether it's for a, a survey or a study that we're putting together through Spiegel or writing a paper or even researching a book topic.

So good chunk of time is spent on on research. And then also I spend a lot of time working on my courses. So either course development or grading or posting to discussion boards, commenting, providing feedback to students. I do a lot of office hours during the week with students as well. I love to spend time with my students.

That's a great delight and wonderful part of my job. And then I also still do some consulting work. I like to keep a foot in the industry. So, on any given day, I'll be, you know, working with a client on either their digital marketing strategy or some technology that they're building or helping facilitate at group brainstorm.

So lots of different, balls in the air at any one given time.

Daniel Burstein: Well, let's see what we can learn from that juggle. From that you need career. We got academia, academia. We got content creation. We got, actually working in the field. Here's the first lesson you mentioned, referencing this famous quote I've heard of attributed Blaise Pascal, Mark Twain, but I've always loved this quote. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

So how have you learned this lesson in your career?

Kelly Cutler: Yeah, it's one of the great, you know, sort of lessons that I think has really, provided me with the opportunity to continue to grow and kind of do better throughout my career. And it's really very simple. It's the idea of just, you know, kind of editing and really having that ability to look at what I'm putting together and how my audience will sort of, you know, consume that information, whether it's a presentation or, a research paper or my book or a lecture that I'm putting together for a class.

What I tend to do is start with, you know, something much larger and then go through it. Practice it, you know, in some cases actually present it out loud or, you know, record myself. And then, you know, edit it back and really get it down to the core essentials, because as we all know, people only have, you know, so much time in the day.

People are busier than ever before. And I actually read a statistic recently that people have a shorter attention span than a goldfish at this point, which is a little bit disheartening, a little bit disturbing. But, for anyone who's been, you know, in the front of a room or at a conference delivering a, keynote presentation, we know that, you know, you can lose people fairly quickly and they'll start checking their phone or talking to their neighbor.

So it's really important to try to keep people's attention and try to be compelling. And I think a big, you know, sort of piece of that is, is just editing. And, you know, do I really need this? And how can I say this in a shorter, more concise way that will really connect with my audience?

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, I want to ask about this because probably balances with our next lesson. But that goldfish statistics, it's very famous. It's been around a long time. And the thing that's funny to me is, is we thought that back then, and then things like TikTok came out in YouTube shorts and all these things. I'm like, I wonder how much more true it is today.

But let me ask you this. So how does this lesson about being succinct, how does that affect the assignments you give to your students? So they create content this way? Because and let me tell you, I ask this question. So, my daughter now is a senior in college, but, throughout her college and high school career, I would she would show me her writing and I would kind of be disappointed in it.

As a professional writer, I don't know academic writing as well. I gotta admit, it's a little bit of a different beast, but I would always talk about how like, it's it was like overly wordy and flowery when it didn't need to be. And I would try to teach them, like, look at all this. We can cut out of it and make this read so much better.

And she's like, dad, you don't understand. I have a minimum word count. That's why I'm writing this way. I know it's not good writing, but so fast forward. This is why it's not just for academia. At some point when I was writing, we worked with an SEO agency and they gave me, I won't mention the name, but different SEO software.

And so if you know how SEO software works, it also has word counts in there. So then I found myself doing the thing that my daughter was doing. I was writing overly flowery or too long of content just because I had this little, like score card in this SEO software, giving me points for like, you know, adding in a bunch of words or keywords or stuff like that.

And that's when the point when I was like, you know what? Forget the algorithms. I'm writing for people, and I'm going to write really good copy for people. And if it doesn't serve the algorithm, that's fine. So let me come back to the original question I had for you, because I've seen this both in academia and in practice and business, where like word counts drive things as opposed to what should drive things, which is effective communication.

So how does this lesson affect how you give assignments to students? Do you say there should be a word count, and if not, then what are you kind of judging them on or encouraging them to do?

Kelly Cutler: It's a great question. And before I answer it, I just want to add one thing which is in my world, when I think about those, you know, SEO tools and how we can best utilize those. What I like to take away from that is the idea of incorporating keywords. And what I mean by that is that even in a 20 minute presentation, if I say the same word four times, people will remember it versus if I explain that topic in four different unique ways.

So the idea of, you know, some level of repetition, obviously, we don't want to sound like a robot. We don't want someone to sound like we're keyword stuffing. But, you know, the idea of repetition is an incredibly important lesson in succinct communication. And I actually teach in one of my classes a lesson where we participate in watching a YouTube video of the Martin Luther King Jr speech, where he accepts the Nobel Peace Prize.

Many students are extremely familiar with other, speeches that Doctor King gave, but many have not fully listened to that speech. And it's one of my very, very favorite examples of amazing communication. And one of the lessons is repetition that he uses certain terms, several times throughout a 12 minute or 13 minute speech. And those are the things that people remember.

So that's my my sidebar on the, you know, sort of topic of keywords. And then in terms of my assignment, it's I love that question because I've really put a lot of thought and time into this. And one thing that I do is I ask my students to get feedback from their classmates, and that has been a really great opportunity for them to feel like a they can, you know, sort of safely ask for help or ask questions or solicit feedback.

They also learn how to provide feedback. And, and, you know, help their fellow classmates out. And what I find is that the final deliverable is really, something that benefits from that opportunity. And it's something that I think in our, in our jobs, we don't do enough. I think that we're too rushed. Oftentimes, we're scared to ask for help.

We think we may not look very put together or smart if we're asking for feedback, but really, I believe it's the exact opposite. So I love that your daughter is is, you know, working with you and ask, hopefully maybe asking for some help, or at least a second set of eyes. Because I really think that that just, you know, sort of makes us continue to evolve and grow and get better at our trade because we're, you know, we're refining, we're fine tuning.

And and that's something that I try to teach my students that goes along with that lesson. You know, if I if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. It's easier to just, you know, sort of dump what we're thinking onto a piece of paper. It's harder to refine it and fine tune it. And read it and say it out loud and record ourselves.

I always tell my students, I know it's painful, but after you do it a few times, you'll get used to it and this will really benefit you in your career long term.

Daniel Burstein: Okay, I like that lesson because it really now we have the next lesson which balances it well. Right. This is this is a good dyad. And I'm using a fancy academic term because you're on Kelly I'm trying to impress you. Normally I wouldn't use a term like that, but, so in all seriousness, the next lesson is don't let perfection get in the way of completion.

So, okay, I thoroughly agree with your first lesson, right? Because and I try to like just call it I don't want to I don't want to have one unnecessary word, not even one unnecessary, one unnecessary syllable. If a four syllable word work, I don't want to use a six. All aboard. However, I'm in a deadline driven environment I need to constantly produce.

So this next lesson don't let perfection get in the way of completion. Ouch. So. So tell me how you learned this lesson and how you balance it against the first lesson.

Kelly Cutler: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just sometimes really tricky when you're, you know, you're in the business of of creating something that's, you know, at a, at a very high level. Right? You want to you want to write something that's really well received, that's, you know, really, at a high level. Right. You want to, publish something for a, an industry piece or for an academic journal or in my case, when I was writing my book.

You have really high standards, and you've read other books or other papers on those topics, and, you know, you feel a little bit intimidated that, wow, there's some really good stuff out there, you know, mine has to be even better. And we all have those thoughts. Right? But what I found when I was writing my book is that I could have gone on forever.

I literally could still be working on the book right now. And thank goodness I'm not. It was published in, the end of last year. And, you know, I'm glad to be moving on. And now I'm thinking about, you know, new projects and new topics. But it's hard. And especially in a field like digital marketing, that's always changing.

It's very hard to, you know, sort of stick with something and determine that. Yes. This is this is good. This is done. This is something I can, you know, send off to the presses. Even in my courses, I'm constantly reevaluating, you know, the different topics that I'm covering and how deep I want to go into each one. And, you know, is SEO still relevant now that, you know, there is, you know, generative AI and there's, you know, search, generative experience and all of these, you know, copilot and all of these different, you know, AI tools.

Is SEO still relevant? Well, the answer is yes it is. And I've got a, you know, sort of way how much I want to tweak my content and, and, you know, update it. But I also have to finish it because I have to teach that that lesson very soon actually. So, you know, I have to sort of just, you know, balance getting something completed and knowing that I can always change it again into the future.

But, you know, for now, I have to, you know, I have to deliver something. I have to hit my deadline or I have to, you know, sort of, complete what I set out to do. And that can be really, really hard when we're hard on ourselves. And we have really high standards.

Daniel Burstein: I'm glad you mentioned AI, because that's my next question for you. And I wanted to get your thoughts on artificial intelligence in general also when it comes to search, because for me, the way I've kind of worked with this kind of two headed beast of, you know, getting that quality work that's not too long winded, but also hitting a lot of deadlines lately is with artificial intelligence.

We have our own, artificial intelligence. I should mention Mac Labs. I, that's an organization, marketing Sherpa and our patented methodologies in there. And so, you know, while there was a time earlier in my career and even probably not too long ago where there were, like a lot of different steps, I was there as creative directors and copy editors and copy chiefs, you know, all of these things.

And I would edit my teams work and all these things, now, especially like working from home. My gosh, artificial intelligence is just a great way to get feedback to to brainstorm while I'm writing, but also to get feedback very quickly. And so I want to hear your thoughts on I know you mentioned that you teach your students.

I think that's so fantastic that, you know, in person, giving feedback to each other. But one, your thoughts on using AI for that in in a certain level. But also, I know we've heard you've just recently written a book about search and weave, and you're, you know, we talked about a tech consultant, what is the right role for AI as well, where we've we're hearing conflicting stories about, well, you can't use AI with search.

You have to use AI with search. So that's kind of a two part question. What are your thoughts?

Kelly Cutler: Well, regarding my classes, I do encourage my students to try out the use of AI within, you know, certain, guidelines. And I try to provide those guidelines for them so that they don't operate from a place of fear of, you know, doing something they're not supposed to do or doing something wrong or, using a tool that they're not supposed to use.

So I, I do try to provide them with some guidelines and, you know, some, some guardrails in terms of what's acceptable, which, you know, for me, as long as they cite the fact that they did use AI, I'm okay with it. And I do encourage them to try out, you know, free versions of tools like ChatGPT or Midjourney or Dall-E, and many others that, you know, potentially could be helpful for them.

Grammarly or Jasper, you know, depending on what the use cases. I, I do try to encourage them, because frankly, they're probably using AI already. And if they're not, it's probably because they're afraid. And I never want my students to operate out of a place of fear. I want them to feel very confident in my class and and feel very empowered and encouraged by me to, you know, try different things and see what works.

So, so I'm, I'm a proponent of AI again. You know, within those, those certain sort of guidelines. I also talk to them about the fact that sometimes I can be wrong, it can hallucinate, it can sound like it's right, but it's actually wrong. So, you know, there's this idea of what I call AI with the human touch.

And actually just recently, a large technology company hired me, to write a, a report for them about this exact topic about helping their team members understand how to sort of ethically use AI in a way that is guided by the human touch. So it's a it's sort of a topic that I'm pretty passionate about and I'm pretty familiar with, because I've just gone through this process with one of my clients where we actually wrote out a guide that helps them sort of really navigate, you know, some of the different questions and things that come up when you're thinking about utilizing AI, particularly for marketing and for, you know, content creation or

curation, for creating images, you know, things like that. So I think it's a it's a really important topic. And I think it's one we should not shy away from. We should be having these conversations. And then your other question, sort of how does AI, you know, impact, SEO in particular? And I think, you know, both search marketing and search optimization are impacted by AI, hopefully in positive ways.

But, you know, I continue to watch that and I continue to monitor the impact of large language models, in particular on SEO. I think that, you know, tools like Copilot and Gemini have offered, you know, in some, in many cases, an enhanced, experience with search. So I think that's a good thing. But there are also cases where it's it's been frustrating for people and it's not necessarily providing what they're looking for.

I do see a world where, you know, people who are researching, people who are using search engines will also use chat bots. And, you know, they potentially can have different use cases. So I do think that there is an opportunity here for marketers to really understand where these technology is, are headed and to, you know, kind of plan for the future.

So I talk about that a lot in my class, and I talk about that in my book as well.

Daniel Burstein: Well, what about using AI? If we're creating content to try to get, you know, SEO to try to get search traffic? So I know you're talking about AI for in terms of what's the user experience going to be like when they search? My understanding has been, hey, it's okay to use AI if you do the thing that you're teaching your students to do, you know, cite it properly, source it properly.

The algorithms aren't going to overly penalize you for that, but I think there's been also different chatter out there on both extremes of just have I right everything. Google can't figure it out, or the algorithms can't figure it out, or you can't have AI touch anything or you're going to get penalized like crazy. So I know you've just recently written a book about this.

You're doing some tech consulting. I won't ask you to give away everything you're writing up in that report for that company, but do you have any insight onto how we should use AI in creating content as it impacts SEO?

Kelly Cutler: Yeah, I think you're you're really on to something when you say that it's similar to the the message that I have for my students, which is, you know, understanding, first off, what these tools are providing, what their capabilities are, what information they're trained on, really having that knowledge base is key. And then from there, you know, utilizing it to the extent that it makes sense, but with that human oversight.

So, I read something recently, that compared some AI generated content to a naked candle, which basically was that it's missing something. Which I.

Daniel Burstein: Thought was, oh, wow, that's great.

Kelly Cutler: I thought that was fantastic. So, you know, it really kind of, you know, speaks for itself at that point. And I think it's so true. So if you generate something from a chat bot or from AI, it's missing something, right? It's missing my perspective, my opinion, my take on things. And as a human being with 20 plus years of experience, I have that perspective.

I have those opinions. AI has what it was trained on. And so when you use AI, you have to really understand that it's a little bit like the tip of the iceberg, and there should be a lot more beneath the surface that comes, you know, from the human experience.

Daniel Burstein: All right. Let's talk about that human being who has 20 years of experience. Let's see what we can get out of our brain that we can't get out of AI. So, this is a very human story that I don't think I could come up with. You said good work has to speak for itself. Tell us how you learned this lesson.

Kelly Cutler: So that was a lesson that I learned, actually, just over ten years ago, and basically what happened was I was I received a phone call, and, an individual had contacted me to create something, do some work for her based on an interview that she had had recently with someone who worked at a client, that I worked with previously.

So what happened was when my new client was interviewing my old client, she brought something up. That was work I had done for that client many years ago. That was extremely effective for them. And the new client recognized that that was something that would also be very effective for her business. They were competitors, by the way. It was, two companies that had competed with each other, and that new client was trying to hire the old client to, you know, to to bring in some of that knowledge.

So she ended up not hiring the old client that I had worked with. But she came to me and asked me to do some work based on what she had learned about, what I had created for the for the old client. And so the lesson there is that, you know, really good work has to speak for itself.

So as much as we want as marketers to market ourselves and put ourselves out there and, you know, sell our, ideas and our brainstorming and our products and our services, sometimes we're unable to do that ourselves, but our work can actually do that for us. And I really did learn that lesson through that experience. I was absolutely blown away by the fact that this had come up in an interview and that, you know, this woman had called me based on that conversation.

Daniel Burstein: So that's fantastic. That's a 1 in 1,000,000, story. But when I hear this, too, the thing I think is, you know, a lot of times we'll do the work and we'll go into pitch meeting, we'll sell it in a pitch meeting. And sometimes not everyone's in the pitch meeting. Right. And sometimes. So you have to make sure that's where it's like you can't trust them to sell your work for you.

Someone just has to see that work and it has to be self-evident, has to work. So that is, like I said, 1 in 1,000,000. Fantastic story. But I think, you know, even if that doesn't happen to people listening, this has to be true every day. That work has to speak for herself. But this brings up the question, how do you discover what is good and what will perform well, right?

So, for example, I wrote a case study with a marketing agency that was promoting their e-book. I know you just worked on a book. We could talk about any other example from your career. And they engage in AB testing of their ads to determine which message would perform best. So, for example, they were testing a fear message of loss aversion versus a seeking message, a desire for gain.

Right. So, you know, we could all kind of guess in a meeting or guess. And, you know, when those pitch presentations we talk about what would work better, what would be good work, but they actually tested it and saw it perform best. So for you, Kelly, you know, what have you done in your career to to to determine what is good work, what will actually perform?

Kelly Cutler: I love that question. And the AB testing example is is terrific. And I recommend that exact process that you just described. All the time to my clients. Usually they take me up on it. Not always, because it's a lot of work to create, you know, multiple versions of the same ad, especially across a large campaign where you're running a lot of different ads.

But that's a great example. I think I'm lucky in that I have sort of a built in network, which are my students, and I oftentimes will test things out with them. So recently, I wrote a case study, and I utilized two different versions of that case study in two different classes. And I solicited their feedback. I asked them, what do you think of the case study?

I asked, you know, 3 or 4 questions, not a not a, you know, a very long interview, but, you know, just to get that feedback from them, to help me understand the best way to move forward. The case study, I thought was, you know, something that would be very useful in future classes and in future, you know, different situations that I'd be in.

So it was really important to me to get, you know, to get that feedback. And I think, you know, we can do our best to assume what is going to resonate, what is going to perform better when it comes to ad groups or pieces of content or ad creatives or or even copy within an ad? It's really easy for us to assume, but nothing is better than having data to back that up.

And I've been in so many meetings where I've just felt so empowered by the ability to show, you know, two things and have, you know, this one performed, you know, 75% better than this one. Done right. Nobody questions that decision. You just move on. And I love that empowerment the data provides. So I'm a big believer in, you know, soliciting feedback.

I do a lot of surveys. I do a lot of things to help, kind of build up that quantifiable argument for why, we're recommending certain pieces of content or certain ads, those types of things.

Daniel Burstein: Okay. Well, we just learned some lessons from some of the things Kelly has made in her career. But we don't only just get to make things as marketers, we also get to make it with people. So in the second half of the episode, we're going to talk about some of the people that Kelly has learned from when she collaborated with them.

But first, I should mention that the how I Made It in Marketing podcast is underwritten by McLeod. I, the parent organization of marketing Sherpa. Right now, you can get a free three month full scholarship to the I Guild and a free quickstart I productivity kit at joint Mic Labs. I.com to help you navigate the artificial intelligence marketing revolution that's joining MSE labs.

I comm. All right, Kelly says. We talked about let's look at some lessons from the people you collaborated with. The first person you mentioned was Carrie Sullivan. The president of culminates as culminates strategy. And you said, from Carrie, you learn to reach for the star. So how did you learn this from Carrie?

Kelly Cutler: So Carrie is someone that has always, just impressed me with her work ethic and with her, expertise in her field. And I think for for me, that lesson comes directly from the fact that she decided, several years ago after a very long and very impressive career in marketing, working at large corporations, that she was going to walk away from that, start her own consulting business and really kind of change gears and move into some new areas of technology and digital transformation and change management.

Developed several products around that and has been incredibly successful with that new sort of approach. And I think that's something that's very, empowering when you've been in the business for a long time and you take that knowledge and you can bring it into the world in a different, unique way. But I think it's also scary and intimidating.

It's a lot easier to sort of keep doing what you're doing versus, you know, kind of pivot and start something new. So that's always been something that has really impressed me and something that I've tried to, to, to really emulate. I did something similar when I pivoted to the world of academics. I had taught for many, many years as a side hustle.

And then when I was approached, to join the faculty of northwestern, I had to really think long and hard about whether or not that was a pivot that I wanted to make. And, it was really scary, because a lot of my colleagues are PhDs and lifelong academics. And have you know, very impressive CV's and rosters of publications and books and things that, you know, I hadn't really delved into yet.

So I think, you know, pivoting, taking your, learning from, you know, a long sort of interesting career and putting that into something new and unique is really impressive. And I think that's something that, you know, is, is really worth celebrating.

Daniel Burstein: So in hindsight, what would you do the same and what would you do differently in pivoting from, you know, a marketing career, actually doing the marketing to going into academia? Because I got to admit, from where I'm sitting, academia, it just seems so appealing. Like I one of the things I love, I kind of made a transition from actually doing marketing, working at agency, having my own consultancy, and now working at Marketing Circle, where I get to interview smart people like you, and I get to more write about marketing than do the marketing.

So much. So that's been a lot of fun for me. But I also do get to be a guest lecturer at universities sometimes. And and there's just a little extra pep in my step. Like, I love the academic environment. So much fun. And it I always does think in the back of my head of like, maybe at some point in my career, maybe academia would be, you know, a fun place to be.

And I'm sure a lot of people listening feel the same. So for our audience, you know, what have you learned that now, in the flip side, too, we worry that, you know, I don't know, academia would be bureaucratic and, you know, you would be able to get things done like you couldn't in a smaller organization and, you know, move slower to business and all these things and, and dealing with some of these, the greater things going in just academia right now be on marketing.

So, with all that said, for our audience, for me personally, what would you have done? The same. What would you have done differently if you could do it all over again? This transition into academia?

Kelly Cutler: Well, for me, I'm very pleased that I, that I did make that pivot and that I did sort of take that risk. There were some lessons that were learned kind of the hard way, I will admit. Because I just didn't know what I didn't know. And so, you're absolutely right that, you know, an institution, you know, higher education typically will move a lot slower the harder it is or get certain things accomplished.

There's a there's a great opportunity to collaborate, but there's also a real focus on individual, production and, and, you know, sort of, building up your own sort of personal brand in a lot of ways. So, you know, a lot of those things were things that I kind of learned on the job. But I would say that for me, this was a great decision.

And it is absolutely one of the joys of my life to be able to work with the students that I work with. That's that's my favorite thing, hands down about it. I love the energy. I love the sort of, perspective that they bring. I love knowing that I have a chance to interact with, you know, generation Z, as well as, you know, millennials and Gen X, I teach in I don't know if I mentioned this, but I teach in undergraduate, a couple of master's programs, and I teach and exec at, at Kellogg.

So I really get to work with people across the spectrum of generations. I've worked with people who have, you know, 40 years of marketing experience. And then I've worked with, you know, juniors and in undergraduate college, you know, level classes and everything in between. So I really enjoy that. You mentioned your daughter is a senior. I have a daughter who's a sophomore in college, and I feel more connected to her because I have this experience working with these students.

So I just absolutely can't say enough about that. Part of the experience for me has been incredibly rewarding and and frankly, a lot of fun. You know, it's just fun to get to be around those people with that energy that they bring. And being on campus with them is is just really a great opportunity. So I really enjoy that.

I think in terms of things that I would have done differently, I think maybe I would have spent a little bit more time. I did this a little bit, but maybe not enough with with friends of mine who were in academia and really understanding more about the day to day and, and the research side of it.

And, there are basically three components to being a clinical professor at a university, which is what I am, which are people who work in industry. They're not on tenure track PhD either. They're kind of the folks that that are either coming out of the industry or, like myself, still work in the industry. So you have to have teaching excellence.

You also have to have creative research and publication excellence. And then you also have to have service excellence. And I really didn't understand that. It was never explained to me. And now that I know that, it's very helpful to understand, you know, sort of what helps you succeed in the university setting. So, you know, I'm definitely working on that.

And it's a work in progress. Even though I've been there for a while now, I'm still continuing to learn and and try to grow into, you know, the academic that I aspire to be. So I think, you know, there's probably some, some work ahead of time that someone could do. That being said, what you're doing is great.

I always recommend when people ask me, you know, how did you make the pivot into academics and what did that look like? The first step is guest lecturing. There's no question that's that's what I did. And I, you know, like you greatly enjoyed it and found it to be something that was very fulfilling and very exciting. And you mentioned it gives you a pep in your step.

That's how I feel every week when I teach, I get totally like an adrenaline rush, I get excited, I love that feeling. So guest lecturing is a great way to start. And then, you know, if you were to really think about it, you know, what type of program would you want to teach in? What would that look like?

What would a class actually look like? You know, and, and from there, you just start to kind of brainstorm and have fun with it and, you know, talk to the people that you know and network if that's something that you're interested in. But for sure, the very first step is guest lecturing and just, you know, starting to be part of that, that world and that community and seeing kind of how that feels.

Daniel Burstein: So this brings up your next lesson, which which I wonder if you can't do as much in academia as you could in business. But I'll tell you this. I, got a master's certificate a few years ago, a graduate certificate. And in taking those classes, I realized this was a gap I had. And your lessons? One more delegate.

You said you learned it from AJ Goyle, the president of words and. And I didn't even realize that I'd gotten a place in my career where there's a lot of things I didn't necessarily do hands on, whether it's creating a presentation or whatever it is. I had a team and I delegated. And the great thing about delegation that there's, you know, everyone's doing hopefully their best skill if we're doing it correctly.

But then as a student in graduate courses, I couldn't delegate. Right. So, so tell me, how did you learn this lesson, delegate. How did it apply, to your marketing career? But also in academia?

Kelly Cutler: You know, one thing that I really learned specifically from AJ, who's a good friend of mine and also a serial entrepreneur who has, developed, grown and sold many different businesses over the course of his career. Is he said that it was important to work on your business, not in your business, and that, you know, it's it's fairly easy to hire people to do specific work and, you know, people with specific skills.

What's really hard, though, is to, is to strategize and grow a company into something that someone will ultimately want to acquire or buy. So that was a good lesson for me. When I had started my first company back in 2003, which was a search engine marketing firm, I felt very overwhelmed with having to do everything myself.

And, you know, really, you know, sort of everything from pricing to, you know, client work to setting up my, you know, invoicing software to buying office space, to hiring an attorney to help me write a contract. You know, every little thing sort of came together, and I felt very overwhelmed by that. But once I started to hire people, I started to realize what I was good at and what I could really do to help grow the business.

And that was more important than, you know, doing something, you know, more menial that I could potentially hire somebody to do. So that was a really great lesson, I think in, higher education is a little bit different. It doesn't it doesn't function exactly the same way. Although I have brought in work study students and I have hired, editors to help me with citations and things that are really difficult for me to do on my own, like with my book, for instance, which had, you know, hundreds and hundreds of citations, which had to be submitted in the exact right way.

And, you know, with academic publishing, that's the case as well. So I think, you know, just delegating and knowing, what I'm good at, what I bring to the table, what I should be focusing on and understanding the things that I'm not as good at, where I can, you know, sort of bring in the reinforcements to help has been really eye opening for me.

Daniel Burstein: Well, let's talk about that. Do you have an example of something that you wouldn't delegate and why you wouldn't delegate it? Because, you know, when we talk about this topic moving up in your career, it seems like more and more and more delegation. Right? But one of the things that we've always taught is, hey, even if you're the CMO, even if you're the biggest marketing leader in the company, don't delegate the marketing message.

Don't delegate the creation of the value proposition. Right? So, yes, it makes one thing, once you've got those things right, you have an agency, you have a copywriter, whatever the execution of that. But no matter, even if you're more of a technical CMO or, you know, whatever type of CMO you are, I don't delegate the value proposition, don't delegate the messaging that IT element is so crucial to an organization.

So for you, Kelly, like, how did you figure out. And we talked generally about this, but do you have an example of okay, the contracts lawyer can do. But here's something that as a in business I will not delegate. And here's why I won't delegate it.

Kelly Cutler: Yeah, absolutely. There are a few different examples, but one that kind of just popped into my head. I'm actually consulting with a client right now. I'm pretty engaged in their marketing and communication efforts throughout their organization. And, you know, I've sort of given them a similar message, which is you could hire somebody to just do all of your marketing, but no one knows your customers better than you do.

And so what I've done is I've created a series of workshops where I am providing them with frameworks and real world examples and actually facilitating workshops and, you know, brainstorm sessions where we're actually doing this work together. And I think, you know, in some ways, this client was a little disappointed up front because they were hoping that, you know, I would come in and just say, okay, I'm going to hire a marketing director, and you guys are all off the hook.

But I didn't do that because I really believe in decentralized marketing. I really believe that the owners of each business within this organization know their customers much better than a third party ever could. And so what I've done is I have spent the time and rolled up my sleeves to train them and to give them the tools that they need.

Another sort of example that's a Jason, is that I did consider sending them a bunch of resources and, you know, maybe your podcast, Daniel, that might be one of the resources, and, you know, several other resources that I'm familiar with that I use in my classes and just sort of hoping that they get it. But I knew that I couldn't delegate in that way.

So I did give them pre-work, and I did give them resources. But then I spent the time really working through what that all meant and how they could apply it. And actually, again, facilitating those conversations where we're all brainstorming and we're, you know, whiteboarding and we're creating, we're co-creating this message together versus having them, you know, completely isolated, doing that on their own or me just doing it for them.

Daniel Burstein: Right? So all of that, I love it. But at the end of the day, we have to execute, right? So we get those right ideas. And that's what you're talking about. Then we have to execute. And this is where sometimes we get fall down. So I love this final lesson from you. Don't give up. You learned this from Roy Wallen the a lecturer and marketing at Northwestern University.

So how did you learn this from Roy and how do you live it in your career?

Kelly Cutler: Yeah, it's a great one. Roy is a great friend of mine, and, we, we refer to each other as partner because we teach two courses that that sort of, piggyback each other really nicely within the IMC master's program at, at Medill, at Northwestern. And we talk a lot about all of the different projects that we always have going.

He's like me, still keeps a foot in the industry and has a lot of you know, plates in the air that he's juggling, just like I do. And, you know, one thing that I've really learned from Roy is that he's always reinventing and trying new things. And, you know, that gets harder and harder as you're more advanced in your career.

As I mentioned, it's easy sometimes to just sort of keep doing the same thing you've always been doing. But as you know, Daniel, technology changes. You know, the times change. The, the work environment changes, AI comes into play. All of these things are happening real time. And so we have to adjust. We have to continue to evolve and we have to continue to change.

And that's something I've definitely learned from Roy is, is this idea of like, just never give up, you know, be tenacious, keep it, keep going for it, keep reinventing. And that's something I've done a lot with my classes as well. I taught a class just two years ago. It's hard to imagine. Two years ago, I taught a class at Kellogg called Web3 and the Future of Marketing, and it was all about blockchain and NFTs, which are really just, you know, not top of mind anymore.

I changed that class last year to become, generative AI in the future of marketing. And so, you know, I continue to evolve and I continue to, to, reinvent myself and my classes based on, you know, the trends that are happening right now that are top of mind for my students and my clients. And that's what led to writing that paper for one of my clients on the use of AI and technology, because I had that, you know, background with, with the class that I had just developed.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, I hear you, that don't give up is so important as we have to evolve our careers. As I mentioned before, I started writing print ads and look what we're doing now. There's I know these other things, like, I never could have admitted, but the Other place, Don't Give Up, has really hit me in my career is when you have to say no to someone to the there could be no to a client, that could be no to a business, or there could be no to.

I know university administrators, and I wonder if you have an example of that. When I interviewed Liz Ha, a partner at hinge on how I made it marketing, one of her lessons was don't give clients whatever they ask for. And she told the story about researching what clients wanted to do in for an event and then having to tell them that they shouldn't do that, and why.

That can be one of the hardest things to do, and that can be something we could just want to give up. Me, like fine lets them do whatever they want. So do you have any examples there? In your own career, how you had to kind of have that tenacity and not give up and tell someone no.

Kelly Cutler: Absolutely. Yeah. I actually have a term for it. I call it going for the no. And it's something that I've done throughout my career. And honestly, when I recognize that it's just not going to be a good fit for whatever reason, it can be just, you know, sort of a vibe. It can be, that they're asking for things that I know are not the right things.

Oftentimes, clients can be very adamant on what it is that they think they need. And, you know, I'm not in the business of just executing someone's idea. I'm in the business of strategy and consultation. And so, oftentimes, you know, it's just not a good fit for a multitude of different reasons. And actually, when I was shopping around my book idea, I had to use the going for the no concept with editors.

Because, believe it or not, you know, very often I was met with an editor that I just didn't feel understood. Me and and we weren't vibing. It just wasn't working. So, you know, and I thought that was a really important, relationship to cultivate because I wanted to be able to utilize that person and their expertise, and I wanted to feel valued, and I wanted to feel like I had a voice in the room, but that also we would be collaborating quite a bit.

So there's so many examples, that I can use of going for the. No. But the most recent one would probably be with the, with the editor. There was one editor in particular that I felt was was really not a good fit. It was a very well known, very prestigious imprint. And I met with the gentleman, he actually asked to meet in person, which most do not do.

And we went and met for coffee on campus, actually at Kellogg. And he was name dropping all of the very important, you know, people whose books he had edited. And he had a lot of good points. But he spoke over me. He interrupted me. He, sort of devalued some of the points that I was trying to make.

I had a very clear vision for the book. I wanted input, and I wanted to, you know, evolve the idea. But I did feel like I had a good idea and many publishers were interested in the book, so I felt like I was on to something. And I just had to recognize that this was this was not going to be a great fit, although he was a very well-known editor, very prestigious, like I said, and had done a wonderful job for other books, but it just didn't feel like the right fit for me.

So I had to go for the know in that instance.

Daniel Burstein: And I think that's a great example, because it's so easy to have that confirmation bias, like you said, like like even before you met with that editor, just to know you're going to sit down with that person, be like, oh, this will be great. And you can I know if it was me, I'd be envisioning in my mind that would work and all that stuff.

And then, like when you're going through that conversation, if it was me, I'd, I'd be like, oh, but it's fine, but it's fine, you know, and then but you have to force yourself to come to that realization. No, I gotta I got to do what's right for this book and what's right for me. So I love that example.

All right. Because we talked about so many different things about what it means to be a marketer from all of your lessons and all of your stories. If you had to break it down directly. What are the key qualities of an effective marketer?

Kelly Cutler: Such a great question. And I would boil it down to three C's curiosity, communication, calculated risk taking. There are so many others that I could talk about, but to me those three are so important and oftentimes overlooked. I think we think about creativity. We think about data and analytics. We think about, you know, you know, really, tactical things, right?

Like you have to know how to, you know, use the self-service ad platform in Google Ads or Facebook or LinkedIn. You have to know, you know, Google Analytics, you have to and all that stuff is super important. But I think also you have to be curious. You have to ask questions. You have to engage with your team, your customers, all the people around you because you want to continue learning.

And curiosity is how you do that. Communication. It's so easy these days to work in a silo. So many people are working from home and slack is the main communication channel. It's so rare that people will say, hey, let's jump on a call, let's talk more in person, let's go grab a coffee. But that meaningful communication channel, it really opens up.

So many more opportunities to build a relationship, to learn more and to get into that kind of curiosity and then calculated risk taking. I just think, you know, we're just we're really, really, in our, in our silos. We're afraid sometimes to, you know, think outside of the box or to be the person that says, hey, we should try something we've never done before.

So I really encourage folks to embrace that and take those calculated risks. If we try ten things, 2 or 3 of them are probably going to work out. I always say, you know, most of them probably will not, and that's okay. A couple of them will work out and that will be great for our business, too. You know, embrace those new opportunities moving forward.

Daniel Burstein: Well, I like that like a true teacher at the end, breaking it down to three things. And I gotta say, because most teachers would have gone with an R for that last one. But you worked into those pieces that are memorable. Thank you so much, Kelly. I learned so much from you. Thanks for being here today.

Kelly Cutler: Thank you for having me. This was great.

Daniel Burstein: And thanks to everyone for listening.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for how I made it and marketing with Daniel Burstein. Now that you've gotten 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.com and.