Blandvertising [https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting/writing-meaningful-copy].

It’s a word I coined 13 years ago to describe a wishy-washy marketing claim.

The type of words that fill a copy block. They look right. And it’s probably sprinkled with words like “scalable,’ ‘ecosystem,’ ‘user-centric,’ ‘best-in-class,’ ‘leading,’ and on and on. But after you read them or hear them you realize – they don’t really say anything at all.

So I loved this lesson I read in a podcast guest application, “A brand that says something is more important than saying everything perfectly.”

To hear the lesson behind that story, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Millie Hogue, CMO, Hakkoda [https://hakkoda.io/].

Hakkoda is part of IBM. IBM reported total annual revenue of $62.8 billion in 2024. At Hakkoda, Hogue manages an internal team of nine along with an array of 20 vendors and freelancers.

Lessons from the things she made

• A marketing and sales team divided cannot stand
• A brand that says something is more important than saying everything perfectly
• Expertise matters more than ever
• Build for your audience
• The success of your team is YOUR success

Join us at our next virtual event

AI Executive Lab: Transform billable hours into scalable AI-powered products [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ai-executive-lab-transform-billable-hours-into-ai-powered-products-tickets-1872389821359] – Tuesday, November 11th at 2 pm EDT.

Discussed in this episode

Marketing Experimentation Strategy: Define and differentiate between experimentation and execution in marketing activities (podcast episode #93) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-experimentation]

Authentic Brand Transformation: To build a brand that lasts, consider rebranding a team sport (podcast episode #137) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/authentic-brand]

Analytics: Driving business value matters more than perfect models (podcast episode #133) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/analytics]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Some of the best conversations I have with my kids are during filler time. Not the quality time you hear hyped up – just a side conversation over breakfast, or driving to an errand, or putting together Ikea furniture.

Marketing and public relations can be the same. Instead of focusing all this attention on forcing a customer to take an action, give them value in other ways and naturally bring up your product. Like this episode’s guest’s story about selling insurance by bringing owls and foxes to schools. It’s not an aggressive sales pitch, it’s the side conversation.

Which is why a key lesson for this episode’s guest is – ‘don’t underestimate the soft sell.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Kelly Coulter, head of marketing, Private Advisor Group [https://www.privateadvisorgroup.com/].

Private Advisor Group has $35.2 billion in advisory assets under management. Coulter leads a small but mighty team of five at the investment service firm, a team located all across the country.

Lessons from the things she made

• Learn from your mistakes and “let it go”
• Preparation is the key to success
• Collaboration is powerful
• Invest in your mental health
• Don’t underestimate the soft sell
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help

AI Executive Lab

Join us for AI Executive Lab: Transform billable hours into scalable AI-powered products [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ai-executive-lab-transform-billable-hours-into-ai-powered-products-tickets-1777237287569] on Thursday, October 23rd at 2 pm EDT.

Discussed in this episode

Marketing Leadership Lessons: Kill snakes, create the category, assume noble intent (podcast episode #61) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-leadership]

CMO-CPO Collaboration: Bridge Marketing and Product for collaborative growth (podcast episode #95) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/CMO]

DTC Ecommerce: Your worst friend is still better than your best marketing (podcast episode #132) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/DTC]

Marketing Mentorship: 10 digital marketing lessons your fellow marketers learned from their mentors [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/best-practice/mentorship]

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Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

I am not a numbers guy. And I’ve been in my fair share of meetings with decks filled with endless charts and data and my eyes glazed over. I’m sure you have as well.

So were we the problem? Were we just not captivated enough by the correlation coefficient?

I think not. And I think the reason why can be best summed up by this lesson I read in a How I Made It In Marketing podcast guest application – Even the most rigorous analysis fails without the right story.

Numbers, even very impressive numbers, still need that marketer’s touch.

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I sat down with a numbers guy who also has some deep marketing and business insights to share with us – Jiaxi Zhu, head of analytics, SMB division, Google [https://www.google.com/].

Google’s SMB division works with five million customers. Zhu leads the analysis for how to manage and prioritize the division’s several-hundred-million-dollar budget.

Lessons from the things he made

• Even the most rigorous analysis fails without the right story
• Landing solutions requires going deep and doing the hard work
• Define your data with your business partners
• Real influence means accepting the world is not fair or rational by default
• True empathy is active work
• Intellectual curiosity means always asking “why” behind the observations

Turn your knowledge assets into a new revenue stream

MarketingSherpa has teamed up with parent company MeclabsAI to produce a research study. We are granting 10 AI engineering vouchers worth $7,500 each to eligible companies. Apply for your $7,500 AI Engineering Voucher [https://meclabs.com/research/ai-engineering-voucher]

Discussed in this episode

Transparent Marketing: How to make your product claims credible … not incredible [https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/transparent-credible-product-claims]

Customer-First Marketing: How The Global Leadership Summit grew attendance by 16% to 400,000 [https://meclabs.com/gls]

B2B Marketing Leadership: The higher you get in the organization, the more details you need to know (podcast episode #115) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/B2B-marketing-leadership]

Marketing and Brand: Embrace healthy friction (podcast episode #48) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-and-brand]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

The total addressable market. TAM.

We sometimes think the bigger the better, right? Hey, it means I can go to potential investors with a more impressive number.

But too large a total addressable market can hinder success. As this episode’s guest says, “serving everyone serves no one.”

To hear the story behind that lesson, and many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Itai Sadan, CEO & co-founder, Duda [https://www.duda.co/].

Duda has raised $100 million, including most recently $50 million in Series D growth funding. Sadan manages a team of 180 people at Duda.

Lessons from the things he made

• No one needs to give you a mandate (even in a big company), just find your customer’s problem and solve it for them
• Crank through it
• Evolve your product over time to land on the right idea
• Speed in decision making is very important
• If you are feeling the pressure, it means that you are not applying enough pressure
• Solve the right problems for the right customers…serving everyone serves no one

Turn your knowledge assets into a new revenue stream

MarketingSherpa has teamed up with parent company MeclabsAI to produce a research study. We are granting 10 AI engineering vouchers worth $7,500 each to eligible companies. Apply for your $7,500 AI Engineering Voucher [https://meclabs.com/research/ai-engineering-voucher].

Discussed in this episode

Open-Source Start-up Marketing Strategy: Sometimes you need to poke the snake (podcast episode #147) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/open-source]

Time To Value: 3 speed-to-value marketing case studies featuring A/B testing, value focusing, and niche ad targeting [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/time-to-value]

Entrepreneurial Resilience: Many of the day-to-day annoyances that inspired him to sell, he actually missed after he sold (podcast episode #78) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/entrepreneurial]

B2B SaaS Marketing: No progress after Series A without product marketing (podcast episode #148) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/B2B-SaaS]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Data, data everywhere, but not a drop of insight.

Excuse my remixing of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but doesn’t it feel that way when staring at a dashboard sometimes.

We have so much data – and frankly, our competitors probably have a lot of the same data – but can we turn those numbers into real insights to better serve a customer?

Here’s one way to do it, that I read in a recent podcast guest application, but you have to close your laptop first – “Walk the market.”

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Katherine Melchior Ray, faculty member and lecturer at the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business [https://haas.berkeley.edu/], and author of the book ‘Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to build brand value across cultures’ [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/brand-global-adapt-local-katherine-melchior-ray/1146174119].

Berkeley Haas ranked No. 8 among U.S. business schools in the 2025 Financial Times Global MBA Ranking.

During her career, Ray managed teams up to 150 and reported to CEOs in Germany, France, Japan, and the US.

Lessons from the things she made

• Nurture your curiosity
• History is not just for school
• Prioritize relationships
• Walk the market
• Infuse a founder’s values into the brand
• Combine audacious risk taking with care

Our next event

Join us for ‘AI Executive Lab: Transform billable hours into scalable AI-powered products’ on September 10th at 2 pm EDT. Register here [https://join.meclabsai.com/mec050].

Discussed in this episode

Customer Experience: Great experiences are invisible, but they require relentless alignment (podcast episode #145) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/customer]

An Effective Value Proposition: What it is, why it is so important to business and marketing success, and how to use it [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/how-to/value-proposition-business-marketing%20success]

Get more episodes

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

I love Delta Air Lines. It’s my favorite airline. Please understand that.

Now, that said, when I was a kid, their tagline was ‘We love to fly and it shows.’

I would see the tagline on TV ads. I would see it on giant posters in the airport.

And then I would get on the plane. And even as a kid I could tell…the people working on the airplane, are not the ones that wrote the jingle.

So I love this lesson from a podcast guest application – Your brand is only as strong as your frontline experience.

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I sat down with Melissa Archer-Wirtz, CEO, Century 21 Circle [https://c21circle.com/].

Lessons from the things she made

• Your brand is only as strong as your frontline experience
• Change management isn’t about being right – it’s about being clear
• People don’t fear change – they fear confusion
• Culture is built through relationships, not policies
• Your integrity is your most valuable asset
• You don’t have to be the loudest voice in the room to be the most effective leader

Discussed in this episode

Advertising and Brands: Details matter, know when to quit, …be nice (podcast episode #27) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/advertising-and-brands]

Marketing: It’s not about you, and when you make it about you, you are never going to succeed (podcast episode #53) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-not-about-you]

Cybersecurity Marketing: You don’t need to scare people to sell them security (podcast episode #136) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/cybersecurity]

500 Mangled, Stretchy Rubber Guys: Make sure you have the right marketing partner for your super creative plan – Podcast Episode #3 [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/direct-mail-podcast]

Adaptive Leadership: It’s never too late to reinvent yourself (podcast episode #90) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/adaptive]

Transform your intellectual property into a revenue engine…in just days

How I Made It In Marketing is brought to you by MeclabsAI, MarketingSherpa's parent company.

In just 21 days, you can pilot your first AI-powered product with MeclabsAI [https://meclabsai.com/]

Subscribe for more tactics that turn content into closed business

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights from your fellow marketers. Sign up for free if you’d like to get more episodes like this one.

For more insights, check out...

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

I know the pinch when budgets tighten, customers shift, and deadlines close in. Yet, marketers have a superpower: like Superman’s X-ray vision, we see through constraints to the core idea.

That is the essence of our craft – not waiting for perfect conditions but delivering breakthrough concepts right here, right now.

So I loved this lesson in a recent podcast guest application – ‘every challenge is a creative opportunity.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Dana Bodine, US VP of marketing, Trustpilot [https://www.trustpilot.com/].

Trustpilot is a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange. In 2024, it reported $211 million in revenue.

Bodine looks after the entire US market, the US portion of an international audience of 64 million monthly active users.

Lessons from the things she made

• Every challenge is a creative opportunity
• Building a relationship with commercial partners is key
• Stay calm under fire (+ on tight deadlines)
• Get a seat at the table by creating sales materials
• To truly be customer-obsessed, respect the customer’s time
• Ideas are only powerful when they come with context

Discussed in this episode

Strategic Advertising and Marketing: It’s not what you make, it’s what you make possible (podcast episode #117) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/strategic-advertising]

Team Building: Loyalty, relationships, pre-selling, and other keys to marketing management success (Podcast Episode #16) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/team-building]

Marketing & Communications: It’s important to ‘take a beat’ (podcast episode #140) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-and-communications]

Five Tips From a Personal Care Industry CEO for Setting (and Getting Approval for) Your Marketing Budget [https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/tips-marketing-budget-approval/]

Marketing: It’s not about you, and when you make it about you, you are never going to succeed (podcast episode #53) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-not-about-you]

The Radical Idea: Customer-first marketing prioritizes customer experience over upsells [https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/consumer-marketing/the-radical-idea-customer-experience-over-upsells/]

AI engineering voucher

MarketingSherpa has teamed up with parent company MeclabsAI to produce a research study. We are granting 10 AI engineering vouchers worth $5,000 each to eligible companies. Learn more at https://meclabs.com/research/5k-engineering-voucher

Next event

Join us for AI Hackathon: Build a powerful lead gen agent in just 90 minutes [https://join.meclabsai.com/mec050] on Wednesday, August 20th at 2 pm EDT.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

Let’s step into these shoes for a minute. You’re the sole marketer at a B2B startup. You’ve been hustling, pitching investors, and finally you close your Series A. Suddenly, you have the budget to make real progress. What do you do next?

Here’s the lesson that stood out to me in a recent guest application: “There is no real progress in marketing, especially in B2B and post-Series A, without product marketing.”

I love that lesson and I think of product marketing as the translator between what engineers build and what customers truly need.

To hear the story behind that lesson – and many more insights born from wrestling with real revenue goals – I spoke with Asaf Raz, VP of Marketing at Agora [https://agorareal.com/].

Agora secured $34 million in Series B funding last year and has raised a total of $63 million in funds so far.

Raz manages a team of 12 demand gen, product marketing, creative, and field marketing professionals.

Lessons learned

• Marketing can’t be successful without being connected to sales goals
• One of the most important things about being a marketing executive is to know your market really well, knowing the actual people.
• There is no real progress in marketing, especially in B2B and post-Series A, without product marketing
• There’s nothing helpful that comes from complaining about things and blaming other people for your problems
• Take full ownership
• Frame for persuasion

Discussed in this episode

MarketingSherpa has teamed up with parent company MeclabsAI to produce a research study. We are granting 10 AI engineering vouchers worth $5,000 each to eligible companies. Learn more at https://meclabs.com/research/5k-engineering-voucher

Product Quality: Marketing's job is to help the product win (podcast episode #97) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/product-quality]

Marketing Career: How to become an indispensable asset to your company (even in a bad economy) [https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-career]

Customer-First Marketing: The customer is always right … but not always right for your company [https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/b2c-marketing-2/customer-is-always-right-but-not-always/]

Clarity Trumps Persuasion: How ordinary marketers are learning to write high-impact copy [https://www.meclabs.com/training/misc/optsummit/slides/10-Flint-McGlaughlin-MECLABS-Copywriting-FINAL.pdf]

Turn content into pipeline – In this episode, Raz discusses how he uses a podcast to better understand prospects and get more deals. Build your own playbook to get more leads with your content using a multi-agent protocol workflow. Launch the workflow [https://win.meclabsai.com/build-lead-gen] (from MeclabsAI, MarketingSherpa’s parent company).

Subscribe for more tactics that turn content into closed business

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa email newsletter [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters] to get more insights.

Apply to be a guest
If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application