Speaker 1: 0:23

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom, powered by all the MoPros out there. I am your host, michael Hartman, flying solo today. Mike Rizzo is actively getting ready for Mopsapalooza 2024. As we're recording this in, I guess we call it almost mid-October, so we're just a few weeks away. So if you haven't registered, please do so, and Naomi's just busy. So, anyway, that's okay, we're going to keep powering through. So today, joining me is Devin Leshin, who is currently a marketing technologist at Microsoft. Prior to Microsoft, devin held multiple roles in marketing operations and as a revenue engineer, which included client-facing activities as well as internal functions at an agency. Before that, he held roles in marketing technology, marketing, account management and customer service at multiple organizations in a variety of industries. Devin has another part of his story that we're going to get into shortly, but I'm going to keep that as a bit of a surprise and not spoil it right now. So, devin, thanks for joining today.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Oh, thanks for having me Glad to be here, all right.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Well, for our listeners, devin was off camera off, microphone off, recording whatever you want to call it telling me that it's been a hectic, busy week for him and we're going to make sure his voice powers through all this. So hang in there with us, all right. So now I've kept our listeners in suspense a little bit. Let's reveal that part of your career Maybe do that in air quotes that I didn't mention up front. So earlier in your life you were involved in professional wrestling and we're going to we're going to get into how that helps you in your later career, including marketing operations and marketing technology. But first, like, why don't you like, how about you share your story about how you got into the, into the wrestling scene and what you did in that, and then how you transitioned from that to corporate roles?

Speaker 2: 2:25

Okay, yeah, sure, so, um, I was actually fully in the working working world, uh, before then. I was working at the time, um, for a very large hotel company and a manager level and, um, my, uh, my brother and I have always, you know, watched it since we were we're kids, you know. I mean just to date myself here, like, uh, when the pay-per-views were on cable and he and I would use the rabbit ears on the TV to break through some of the static because it was too expensive for us to order.

Speaker 1: 3:00

I remember those days Like if you held it, like when you had to stand there holding the rabbit ears right.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Yep, yep, so that was the WrestleMania one days, the Hulk Hogan days. So we've always been fans of it. I didn't know that there were all these sort of layers to the industry. I compare it to, say, like baseball, where you have your major league and then you have your triple A's and you have your double A single.

Speaker 2: 3:27

A that kind of stuff, same thing with wrestling. So both my parents were public school teachers and so that means my dad worked four jobs to help with the bills and one of those he was bartending. And he picked up where he was the head bartender at an Elks Lodge where I grew up in Virginia, and he knew wrestling but he didn't know quite so much. But he recognized that there were some. The head bartender at an Elks Lodge where I grew up in Virginia, and you know, he knew wrestling but he didn't know quite so much. But he recognized that there was some name, they were having a show at the place and he thought it was this bigger group coming in. So he called my brother and I and said, hey, come over, like there's all this stuff going on.

Speaker 2: 4:04

So I went over there early and it was what we call an indie company, an independent company, a very small organization, but they paid to bring in some bigger names, bigger wrestlers, more famous ones, and they were having all these problems with their set. Basically. And, like I said, I was working at a hotel at the time so I had access to the AV closet and whatnot, and I said, well, what do you need? So ran out there, got the stuff, came back, helped them set it up. You know I've been responsible for all the equipment and because I can't help but do this in every day of my life and people that work with me will attest to this I was making suggestions and all this other you know kind of stuff for improving the, the, uh, the, the presentation, and so after the show, um, the, the promoter, the head of the that company was like hey, you're really into this.

Speaker 2: 4:56

Have you thought about training? And I was like training what? And so they had a wrestling school that they ran also, um, in addition to this promotion. And so he told me where it was and I went to go check it out. I didn't even know this thing. You know this type of thing existed. Next thing, you know, I'm signed up for training. I'm doing that, you know, three or four days a week, including weekends, learning how to be in that industry. And then, soon enough, I was on shows and portraying a character and started off with that particular promotion, which is what you tend to do, and then you branch out to other ones, so I kind of slipped into it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Did you do? I don't think we talked about this when we first talked, but were you in any other sports or athletics beforehand, or was it a brand-new thing?

Speaker 2: 5:44

Well, it had been a while right. Brand new thing. Well, it had been a while right. So this was 1999, so a good seven years I guess, after high school was over and that sort of thing.

Speaker 2: 5:55

But yeah, when I was in high school and younger up until an injury because everybody's got an injury in high school, right I played mostly basketball and baseball, mostly baseball more than anything else. So, yeah, definitely was in that. I would not say I was athletic when I was getting involved in wrestling at all. It definitely pushed me in that regard and it likely affected the roles that I took on within wrestling, just because I was not going to be the human action figure, person, right, some of my friends were, but I was not. So that's why, rather than being an actual wrestler although I did wrestle in a few matches over the time I was in I was what they call a manager. So for anybody that's familiar with pro wrestling, it's the mouthpieces, the ones that are outside the ring and on the microphone and stirring up the storylines and talking to wrestlers and that kind of thing. Wrestlers and that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 7:12

Um, and so it became very quickly apparent to me that, in terms of within the industry, where my value was in in addition to, you know, helping the show itself, um, you know, and pushing the, the emotions and the story of the show along, it was to help wrestlers that were maybe younger or just hadn't quite grasped all the skills they needed quite yet to interact with the crowd and, you know, get the kind of response they needed to get, or know how to talk on the microphone, what we call promos and that kind of thing, and so that was my role, um, and then I had a very strong even though I couldn't execute physically everything, I had a very strong mind for how it was supposed to work, and so I was also someone that mentored and taught how to do those things to the younger people also.

Speaker 1: 7:59

It's two thoughts. One is what you mentioned, like you didn't know all those layers to things, and I think I had a moment like that. Uh, probably similar to you. It's going to age me. It was in the age before, when you had to travel and there you couldn't get wi-fi right and you and there weren't always movies.

Speaker 1: 8:18

You had to actually talk to people or read a book and I started I was I leaned towards talking to people surprised I'm doing a podcast, right. But, um, I talked to this one. I was talking to this one guy and we were chatting, yeah, what do you do? And he told me he was. He said I sell food grade adhesives. And I just was like what? And it was the first time I realized, like there's a, there's a, there's somebody out there, a company out there, that is making the glue that is used to seal food products, right, so candy bars or cereal boxes or like. And it never occurred to me that that wasn't just something that the manufacturers did on their own Right, right, and it made me realize, like this, this, like there's so many layers to some of these things in the economy and everything. It was just like a big aha moment.

Speaker 2: 9:02

It's interesting to me Go ahead. Everyone wants to have the big, big idea right, the big breakthrough product that's gonna, you know, allow them to uh, retire, and, and and have a nice life. What people maybe don't think about, though, is some of the people that, over you know lifetime, that come up with things that allow them to do that.

Speaker 1: 9:26

I mean, somebody invented velcro right, somebody invented a snap or a button like yep, those are all vital things that allow them to do that.

Speaker 2: 9:28

I mean, somebody invented Velcro, right, somebody invented a snap or a button, like those are all vital things that you know the world needs. So I always joke like when I'm trying to think of what I want to do next, or on the side for a side hustle, I'm not thinking like, I try not to think about what's the next big thing. To me, it's more okay. What's the next Velcro? What big thing it's? To me, it's more okay. What's the next velcro, right? What's what's the next thing that the world needs and it doesn't necessarily know it needs, but if it got out there, everybody would use it, right, it would become part of everything.

Speaker 1: 9:56

That's, that's for sure. The mindset, the the other. The other thing that it just occurred to me we just recently had a guest on who um, started her career in theater, and I'm not going to say that I'm equating theater to pro wrestling.

Speaker 1: 10:07

Oh no, you can, it is, but I am, it is, and it just occurred to me that actually, like you, probably both, especially given the role, the way you described your role as sort of being kind of involved with the operational pieces of producing the wrestling matches and the theater that went with it, right? So do you think there's parallels there, like that that kind of stuff applies, yeah, right totally yeah, there's actually a lot going on in the wrestling world now because I'm still around it.

Speaker 2: 10:37

Um, when I was going through and this is a good parallel to business I will say um you know.

Speaker 2: 10:44

And again, I was in the corporate world at the time I was in wrestling, so I wasn't in marketing quite yet, I was in a managerial role and then I went from that into the tech world and IT and that sort of thing and then eventually I got into marketing. I was already out of wrestling at that point and we'll get to that in a little bit. But the what, what there's, there's a sort of a, a sort of a mini war going on within in the wrestling world, um, just different schools of thought. Uh, when I went through it was very rigid and it was. It was starting to transition out of the likes of the old school mentality, but not really, and there were a lot of rules. I mean, you would be surprised at the number of things that you had to do as a trainee, as someone newer in the business, as a veteran in the business, like all these things. There's sort of a code and behavior structure. There are certain ways that training occurred mentoring, getting mentors, and that sort of a code and behavior structure. There are certain ways of being that that training occurred mentoring, you know, having a men getting mentors, and that sort of thing which you had to have if you were going to get past a certain point, which again that'll tie into the business discussion we get into.

Speaker 2: 11:59

But when I say like rigid rules, I mean there was a thing that every time you walked into a locker room you went around. Unless you were the veteran, that was the exception. People came to you in that case, but if you were not the vet you would or you weren't sure it defaulted to you. When you walked into that locker room and there were people there, you walked around and you shook everybody's hand and you said your name and they said their name and good to see you. And I mean it's a little less rigid. If you've been on the same show with the same people for a while and you all know each other, then it's more like oh hey, man, how you doing.

Speaker 2: 12:33

You know, but you never assume that, right, you never assume that they're going to remember who you are, especially if they're a bigger name than you, because how many people do they meet, right? So there's like rigid rules like that and there's reasons behind it. There was reasons behind it. Well, that kind of slipped away recently, more recently. And that's where I say there's like this, this way of doing things is different. Now, not that one's better than the other, but like the handshake thing is kind of like the newer trainers in the world and the newer schools. Right, you don't have to do that, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 13:03

So there's this sort of like rift happening and this change happening. And so, you know, vince McMahon of course, the former head of WWF WWE very publicly had to for financial reasons came out and said, hey, this is scripted right, like this isn't a real sport, because he was getting going to get taxed as a real sport. He was like it's not, you know, and that's the first time where that actually happened, where it was admitted, and that was many, many years ago. Um, and so that cats out of the bag a bit, um, and I'm gonna say there's ways that we, you know, in the wrestling world, they still cover through that.

Speaker 2: 13:40

But the the um with that being exposed, um, it changes a lot of things and one of the things that it it changed is, like you said, the comparisons right, it's Hollywood, in a way it's theater, it's instead of you know, I joke that it's a soap opera. And just instead of, like people, you know, having affairs with other people's relatives and whatnot, it's, you know, you get into fights. Sometimes the affair thing happens too, you know, and that leads to the fight, but the resolution of the conflict happens through a match, through the physical confrontation. Otherwise it's a soap opera. I'm not going to say it's a soap opera for men, because some people say that and you look at it now.

Speaker 2: 14:27

There's you, you know, there's just as many that are not.

Speaker 2: 14:30

And I will also say, when we get into more of the how I connected the marketing role, that was one of the things that I brought to the table. I feel like in a lot of the companies I work for, that change things. So I'm going to ask you I'll pop quiz you. Everybody, michael did not know this was coming. I have have a pop quiz for him. Okay, so who do you think? I'm going to give you the three categories, but which of these categories do you think should be the target audience for?

Speaker 2: 15:00

a wrestling company to promote to. You have the male part of the family, to be speaking in binary terms, but the father role, or the brother role, or uncle, or what have you. You have the mother or aunt type of role, and then you have the children. Which of those three do you think you would? Which of those three do you think you would? When I and when I say market to you, I'm talking about um, outside of the showtime like so, like flyers and where you promote.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Okay, so, first off, like children kind of overlaps with the other two just for, but I would like I would go towards children and here's I think what I immediately thought of is uh, there's a reason why products are advertised to kids that are not necessarily products that kids would use, just because they, they drive the kids, drive the behavior for the parents. Right, we need to get this thing, you know, know, look at this cool thing, right? So I would, my guess would be kids, but I'm not like. My confidence level is relatively low on that.

Speaker 2: 17:17

That's well, I would say. There's that school of thought in wrestling. So wrestling promotions before I got my hands in there that I worked with would either target the dads yeah, the children, the dads, because that's who would have the interest typically, or the children, like you said, because, hey, mommy, daddy, I want to go to this thing. Neither of those are incorrect. It's the moms, though, was where I brought the idea in. Here's why. So, at its core, most of the matches in wrestling are two very well-built men Sure, very little clothing wrestling in the middle of a ring. If your significant other, your wife or girlfriend or whatever, told you, hey, I'm going to this event to watch this thing, you're going to go with them, mm-hmm, right, if you have children, they're definitely going to want to go right for the most part. So if you get the children, if you target to the children, then you might get one parent or the other, or one adult or the other.

Speaker 1: 18:36

If you target the dads or whatnot, you might get just them or maybe them and a kid If you target the moms, you get everybody Very interesting. The whole family comes yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:52

And that played out. We actually tested that in a couple cases. My character actually changed so that I can. I personally was the, the bad guy that was targeting all the women in the crowd and the women wrestlers and we turned it into a whole thing and it um, um incentivized them to come to the show because they wanted to see me get what was coming to me. The ticket sales increased dramatically um one because of where we, um marketed. I actually would go to. They had all women gyms back then. I forgot the name of the chain now, but I would go in there. I would demand to be able to work out. I would go in there with a belt over my, you know, the women's belt over my shoulder, or whatever the women's title.

Speaker 2: 19:46

I would just, you know, talk meanly to everybody you know, be the bad guy, get them all worked up and be like well, if you guys think you're better than me, I'm going to be over here this Saturday at 7 o'clock. Come over there, Maybe I'll wrestle you. I'll wrestle you. You can beat me up if you think you can. I don't think you could, but we would do that kind of stuff, oh boy they would show up. They'd bring the kind of stuff and, oh boy, they would show up. They'd bring the whole families too. So instead of me helping sell one ticket, I was selling four, five, six tickets at a time.

Speaker 1: 20:20

That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 20:21

Yeah, and that made me extremely valuable, right yeah, in a role that typically was not valuable, which I know we're going to talk about also.

Speaker 1: 20:28

Well. So I want to go back to you already kind of touched on this a little bit. Well, so I want to go back to you already kind of touched on this a little bit. But one of the things you told me that you kind of learned along the way through this experience was how to sort of I don't even want to say customize, but like really adjust your communication to different stakeholders who have different roles. You know you talked about some of the protocols or etiquette for the locker room. Tell me what are some of the examples of that that you then transferred over to professional life.

Speaker 2: 21:02

Yeah, sure, so it will probably be apparent the way I explained it and I'll definitely draw those lines. So wrestling promotion at its core, um, you had a promoter, which is the person that owned the thing, um, and it was responsible for, you know, promoting the show and selling the tickets and securing the venue and all that kind of good stuff, um, and there was also a role that is called a booker and that's the person that would hire the wrestlers, hire the talent, usually had control over the creative part of the show and the story and that sort of thing. Sometimes in some places, the promoter and the booker were the same person. In other cases the booker and the promoter were two different people, usually fairly close these are really good friends or relatives or something like that and in other cases the bookers were a team. It was a group of people, the creative team, so there might be four or five people that would write it. That could be all kinds of people.

Speaker 2: 22:06

So that was one layer and I'll get into how, as a contractor, you had to interplay with those in a second, but let me just outline those categories. So you had that level. Um, you have the stakeholders, that were the locker room folks with you. So you, you know, there were other wrestlers, ever other um personalities on the show refereeses, ring announcers, like all that kind of stuff. Versus the locker room, you had tiers within the locker room. You had your veterans, you had your locker room leaders and when I say veterans it's not necessarily in the industry there's that. Those were the real veterans. You also had people that had just been at that same promotion for so long that they had a little bit of a different layer to them.

Speaker 2: 22:51

We'll get into that in a second, but you had sort of a hierarchy within the locker room, and so that was the second layer. And the third layer was the fans, right, the crowd. And obviously they were the ones that were buying the products and I said products plural, because it's not just tickets to the show, it's also concessions, it's also merchandise, it's buying things directly from the wrestlers or the personalities. They were the reason we were there. They were the ones spending the money. Okay, so in terms of corporate world, right, so the crowd is what we traditionally see as the customer, the ones that are bringing the money in. And so there was that.

Speaker 2: 23:38

And again, going back to that old school, new school way of thinking, in the olden days, if you were a bad guy, your interaction with that crowd was during your time in the show, right, in the show, right. So during your segment, when you were out there and you did as much as you could and your job was to get the show in the right way. There's a lot of psychology to wrestling, which is what I was drawn to. You're stirring up the emotions of the crowd to help the good guys be really good guys, right, and to get them to want to come back, the fans to come back for the next show, and so what you did not do in the old days was go out during intermission and sell yourself. You did not interact with the crowd in any way, because how can you go out there and sell if you're supposed to be bad? That was the mentality. Well, that went away, right?

Speaker 1: 24:28

Now everybody's out there.

Speaker 2: 24:30

The really good people, though, stay in character. They are. You know, I was able to do and can talk about that later too I was able to sell a lot of product, which is where I made my money in there, still being the bad guy. In fact, I use that to sell my stuff. So that so. So there's that the. The locker room is tricky, always tricky, but your locker room in the corporate world are your teammates, your partners on other teams, but at your layer of the of the corporate ladder, so to speak. And then again there's the hierarchy, so I would include sort of like the idea of middle management and team leads and like that kind of thing, and they're also basically everything but the senior leadership at the company, and then the promoters and the bookers were the or you know senior leadership team types, right, like your CEOs and presidents and owners and that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 25:35

And you had to act differently in wrestling to the locker room, to the promoters and to the crowd, right? I mean, I would say that some of the people that are listening that work at companies are probably going to chuckle at this because they're going to relate this right to the corporate world. You had to talk a little differently to your promoters and your bookers and you might talk to the locker room people, right? I mean, I hate to say that you're brown nosing, but you're brown nosing if you want to, if you want to continue to work there and continue to get bookings every month. You did um, and and there's a balance there and and this is a tricky thing in the corporate world, I would say, but when you establish yourself in wrestling at that promotion and they have faith that you're going to do what's right for their business, you gain more control over your character and what you did To the possibility and I had this in a few places where I became part of the booking team, I helped write the shows.

Speaker 2: 26:33

That's a promotion. That's, you know, not necessarily financial but in terms of influence, right. I had situations where I was able to my payment was. I got to pick three or four other people to come with me to the shows. So I was now a valuable resource to my locker room folks because I was able to get them to work in other places. So there's some of that that had to go on In terms of the locker room. I mean, you're putting your well-being in people's hands in a lot of cases, so you need to play nice, you need to advocate for yourself. You can't get walked on at the same time. You have to play nice and so there's a balance there that always had to happen. Um and the crowd, you know, like I mentioned before, like um, you, you had to play the part. I will say that. I'm not gonna say you always had to be nice to the crowd. Um, in wrestling, I mean, obviously you do.

Speaker 1: 27:28

And in the corporate world, yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's me what saying like it was important to understand the crowd right and what their motivations were, so that you could better do for the benefit of the organization in this case the promoters or the events and I think that's one of the things You've hit on. A couple of things I think to me are important. Right one I tell people all the time, right, I I hate what I don't hate. It really is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me when people say internal customers, because I just like customers are customers right. Um, I use like I understand the sentiment at the same time. Right, right, understanding how your business makes money. Right, and you being an advocate for doing what's right for those customers so that you generate the goodwill that they will do business with you. Right, that's an important piece. I think marketing ops folks are in a position to be able to be those advocates and help out in that process. Which leads to this other one about this balancing sort of walk, that tight rope of being a self-advocate or, you know, pushing back and providing feedback in a way that's constructive and is not seen as undermining, and all that Like.

Speaker 1: 29:04

I think there's a lot of people struggling with that and it's interesting. I was listening to a session separate session earlier today and someone's like oh, you know you can't do these things, but it's going to seem politic. I think that's gotten a bad rap, the idea that something is political. It's just the reality. You work at Microsoft giant corporation. I've worked at big companies. I've worked at small companies. My wife works at a very small nonprofit. Like there are politics in every place I've been and every place I've seen, without exception. So like, if it feels politic-y, like then you're just not seeing. The reality is my in my book.

Speaker 2: 29:47

Yeah, so people used to tell me there was more than one person in the room that the politics are involved. I would say, even if you're by yourself, there's politics involved, maybe multiple voices going on in your head on what to do, that you're compromising. But yeah, I totally agree with you. There's always. There's always that factor. And circle back on is when it.

Speaker 2: 30:11

You know where people struggle with things. You know it changes depending on where you're at right. Like you might handle a relationship with a manager in one way and you guys get comfortable with that dynamic and you know, as most companies do, things shift around. Or you get comfortable with that dynamic and you know as most companies do, things shift around. Or you get a new role, or you know whatever, and you're under somebody else. You have a new manager and you have to kind of start all over again. Um, and that dynamic may be different.

Speaker 2: 30:44

You may have to advocate differently than you did, and and where there's a struggle is that adjustment. How do you, how do you advocate for yourself with this person? Okay, I got that and then you start and I'm kind of living this a little bit, and then you have a new manager and you advocate yourself in the same way at first, because that's what you're used to and that doesn't work anymore. So you have to recalibrate and figure out how that works and I think the difference between, say, wrestling and the corporate world was in wrestling you had two layers. You had the individual relationships that you had to learn how the psychology was going to operate there. And then you had mass psychology, you know psychology, where you had, like, the whole crowd you needed. You needed hundreds or thousands of people to all respond the way you wanted them to. Um, and that's. They're very different, they're very different yeah, so um, but it was, it was.

Speaker 2: 31:43

That was all really good and I know you know and your marketing business folks, I don't want to not swing from the wrestling enough, so hopefully we're doing that. The transition to marketing for me from wrestling so again I was in other industries first was fairly quick. It was just like and I went into marketing on a tech side it was more around the database maintenance and the integration with the CRM and the marketing automation tools and that kind of thing. Less about the marketing. The problem that I have run into continuously in my career in marketing ops is that I have this background I've been in sales, I've been in customer service, I've been in wrestling, which is everything. I get the marketing place right. Yeah, because at the end of the day, where I think marketing as a general rule, may boy, this is so boxed.

Speaker 2: 33:00

I don't know if you want me to get on or not I feel like marketing is going astray over recent times in an effort to validate itself as an organization. It's getting very short-term minded as an industry where marketing is not designed to be that way, and so where I have always come in with marketing is and this is maybe this is because this is where I feel comfortable and one of my strengths- and what helped me in wrestling a lot and where I learned in wrestling and honed it is the ability to recognize a pattern.

Speaker 2: 33:41

I mean, this is what marketing is at a base, right? How do you recognize a pattern? What mechanisms do you need to have in place to be able to see the pieces of information that will allow the pattern to be recognized by you? How can you push and poke and pull on various levers to play into that pattern to reach an outcome that is advantageous? And what does that look like operationally? What does that pulling of the lever really mean in terms of what you're doing?

Speaker 2: 34:16

And to me, at the end of the day, that's really all marketing is, and as long as you stick to those pillars, everything else kind of falls into place. I will have people that are either going to cheer me on this or just go. Oh my God, what a nut job this guy is. When I say this as a marketer, I'm not worried about the revenue piece. I'm not Because, to me, if I do all of the things that I'm supposed to do and I do those things really well, the revenue will happen yeah, I mean, I would argue that, um, I don't think you don't care about the revenue, because you do, right, you do, but you, I think you're you're taking a step back on, like I think you're getting.

Speaker 1: 35:09

You're reacting to this current, fairly consistent current state, which I agree with, which is so much focus on near-term results from marketing efforts, so things like attribution reporting and ROI and all that, and it's not to say that those aren't important to some degree, but they're not the be-all, end-all, right. I think you know the best marketers, or ones that I admire, absolutely want to measure impact of what they do, sure, at the same time, they also have been able to carve out a substantial portion of their budget. Let's do it that way, because that's really what tells you where you got your priorities right carve out a substantial portion of their budget to do things that are essentially you. Either the the ability to measure them is really really challenging, so you don't even bother with it, yeah, or you don't, like you're like this is just some crazy thing.

Speaker 1: 36:03

I want to try, and they and and they've earned the right to be able to do that a little bit the part that's because they do focus on the revenue, but not, I don't think they focus on, like this, this particular campaign has to drive this x amount of revenue in this three months or six months, right, and I think that's to me the difference, and I think there's, uh, we had an episode it's one of our most downloaded ones, it's now a couple years old where, yeah, we talked about is like actually the titles like something like is is attribution ruining marketing and, to some degree, I think this desire to see very short-term results, financial results, out of marketing has driven behaviors that aren't necessarily good for the long term. Unfortunately, ceos, boards, investors that's what they're geared towards is finding seeing the revenue and growth and things like that to continue to grow. So I think there's just a good balance.

Speaker 2: 37:02

Yeah, most of them came out of the sales world, the sales world right.

Speaker 1: 37:05

For the most part, yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:08

There's not a lot of CMOs to CEO moves that should and I should clarify too. It's not that I don't care about the revenue. I think the point I'm trying to make is it's such, it's become such the singular, primary focus of marketing.

Speaker 1: 37:25

Well, I think specifically net new like net new logo revenue has been the driver, Like it's not even revenue Like it's not even like recruit, like exist. Retaining and growing existing customers has become even less of a focus.

Speaker 2: 37:39

Well, of course, where I sit, you know, I'm going to see that a little differently just because of my role in Microsoft, and of course Microsoft's a whole different beast because it's so large. I'm on the side of the marketing house. That is just for existing customers and digging in there what I found over time at many, I think a lot of companies do not know how to market to existing customers. It's not the focus, since so many people focus on net new. There hasn't been as much attention on growing the revenue and I never again quite understood that, because here's a pool of people that already know who you are and already like what you do. Why couldn't you?

Speaker 1: 38:22

Or they or they don't right, or they don't and you can turn it around or whatever.

Speaker 2: 38:26

Yeah, I think where what I what, where I'm going in my mind about these things is to your point about attribution and MQLs and all these things that marketers come up with that sound important. It goes back to what I was saying in terms of the pillars. It's not that revenue is not important.

Speaker 2: 38:53

It's not that attribution is not important. It's not that those things aren't important. It's important in the sense that to me, it's important in the sense that it allows you to see the pattern, see the patterns changing, because it will and then adjust to those patterns. It's valuable to me in that sense and I know this is a battle I'm always going to lose at this point, because we're at a stage now where a marketing organization has to prove its existence. It's no longer where companies will allow it to be a call center. It's got to be a profit-driving part of the org. I think it's a mistake. To be honest, I think we're losing aspects of what marketing used to do that are valuable. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:43

If they can't tie it into those things.

Speaker 1: 39:45

I'm not willing to just give up on the idea that marketing is is only going to be be around if they can prove their profit center, I think.

Speaker 1: 39:55

But I do think it's incumbent on marketers to do a better job of articulating the value they bring to an organization in a way that the rest of the organization will understand, and it's not about things like website visits and MQLs and you know, pipeline that you influence.

Speaker 1: 40:12

I mean, those are, those can be pieces of it, but they're probably not the most important piece because, to your point right and this is old data and I don't remember off the top of my head the exact numbers, but something like there's some research. This is probably 10 years old now, uh, and but I doubt it's changed is that like something like less than five percent of people on boards corporate boards are, uh, have any experience in marketing management? Yeah, so a lot of them come out of finance sales operations. Yeah, so it's natural that, like, like what you don't understand if you, you, you fear, so you need, you need to be able to. But to me that's important, like, stop complaining about them not understanding what you do. Your job is to help understand what they're looking for and communicate it better. I'm not saying it's easy right.

Speaker 1: 41:01

Like that's your job.

Speaker 2: 41:02

And I think that also the um, in some cases it's, it's they don't know. I think in worst cases it's a little shame on them they think they know and it's it's they don't know.

Speaker 2: 41:14

I think in worst cases it's a little shame on them. They think they know and it's wrong or it's old. I mean, how many people in that may be listening to this have run into situations where, um, either at where you work or have worked, or just even if you tell people you know the the question, oh, what do you do for a living outside of work? And you say marketing like, oh, you make ads, you're the ad people, you do commercials.

Speaker 1: 41:35

Like you know, are you?

Speaker 2: 41:36

you know what do you make a pretty picture department right, so it's it's. There's a little bit of that, and so it's easy sometimes for for senior leadership to want to cut marketing because let's call back the ads as long as we have sales people calling.

Speaker 2: 41:52

You know that's all you know and so, and so I think more dangerous than not knowing is misunderstanding. And to your point, I mean, that's up to marketing. There's so many things that marketers spin wheels on. And to your point, I don't know if those are the right things because they're not helping clear up that picture with the people that need to have it cleared up Um.

Speaker 1: 42:17

I, I, I use, I use the phrase like there are things that only marketers care about.

Speaker 2: 42:22

Yeah, that's where I was heading.

Speaker 1: 42:24

Right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:25

Exactly, that's exactly right. And and and so, and, and. I always joke, like it seems to me, when I'm. You know, if you go on LinkedIn or any of these, you know we'll call them professional social networks or professional networks and you see what people are writing and they're marketing people writing. I'm thinking, like, who are you writing that to? Because it sure sounds like you're trying to write that to other marketing people like, which is fine, especially if that might be your customer Like maybe you're trying to sell into that.

Speaker 2: 42:54

You know, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that, like, who are we? Are we trying to convince each other of this? Like what's going on? You know, we're not necessarily communicating to the people that need to hear it or need to see into our world, you know, and so there's all kinds of things. I mean I do this too. I mean it's not like I'm sitting on on a hill some of us are immune from.

Speaker 2: 43:17

Yeah, I've had two creative directors in my lifetime, that, um and if they're listening they'll know exactly who they are uh, where they had an extremely critical eye on all things that were produced, and I inherited that from them just working alongside them for so much. And it is you know, um. You know I I'm very open and I have adhd and potentially autism and some other things, and so if I, if my brain gets hung up on something, it is very tough for me to let go. Sure, if I'm looking at an email that I'm supposed to be coding in the platform and there's an orphan word in the subject, I mean in the um headline, oh my gosh, like I can't move unless I fix that and and nobody does, anybody really care about that.

Speaker 1: 44:05

That's getting. That is like the. That's like the example I use all the time an orphan word on a paragraph or headline that like. Because the level of effort to try to fix that, especially in things like an email right which you never know like is so hard, I actually worry like it's going to have unintended consequences and actually make things look worse.

Speaker 2: 44:26

Yeah, oh, absolutely. Did I ever tell you my, my, my, semi serious, semi, not serious line about email, creating emails.

Speaker 1: 44:35

What's that?

Speaker 2: 44:36

The rule of thumb is that you create an email like it's the year 1985.

Speaker 1: 44:42

I don't think you told me that, but I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2: 44:45

Yeah, I mean we're using tables Like you still need to use tables you can't use any of the stuff you use on a website. I mean, you could it's getting there.

Speaker 1: 44:59

No, not. Yeah, yeah, if you code it like it's 1985, you should be good. Yeah, no, it is, it's crazy. Um gosh, we, we have gone all over. So I, I want to leave. I want to maybe wrap up on a general notion here. So I think what we've we've talked about this a little bit, but you and I I think it feels like we both have a similar view on there's a point where you're trying to advocate for, in good faith, provide feedback that may not be taken. Well, say, a designer you're calling their baby ugly is the way they might perceive it, even if that's not what your intent is, but it's definitely a possibility of how they'll perceive it. A possibility of how they'll perceive it. So how do you like, how do you do that, like that, like this, advocating for yourself, advocating for the customers, for your team, whichever thing versus you know, you know, not undermining that relationship with this other stakeholder. That's important, regardless of what their, their group is, that you outlined before.

Speaker 2: 46:08

So I I wish I was better at doing that. I will tell you that there's been some recent pains on my still learning there.

Speaker 2: 46:15

I'm much better at that in wrestling it seems so much easier, then I would say that what I'm learning and what seems to be working. There's a few tips that I've picked up recently that seem to have changed the tone of the room. I would say One if it's possible, I will type it out for myself first and then read it aloud, if it's that kind of communication where I can do that so I can hear how it sounds. Often by doing that you will pick up on things that you didn't realize when it was in your head. That's the first thing. I will also again, if time allows this to happen.

Speaker 2: 47:00

I lean heavily into AI. Now One of the things that I tell people about all the time is in. I'm just going to use Outlook as an example. You know folks will say, oh, I use Outlook to write, you know Copilot or AI to write my email. I don't do that. I write my email and then there's a coaching function in there that will read through it and give me tips like, hey, maybe soften this or make sure you include this, or somebody may perceive it that way, and so that's been strong in helping me frame my emails differently. And I would say if you have the advantage of that or access to that. Use that to your advantage In terms of conversations.

Speaker 2: 47:42

That's where it gets trickier for me, especially if there's a time crunch and I'm trying to just get my message across, because I can sometimes be very direct. I'm trying to curb that a little bit. Get my message across, because I can sometimes be very direct, I'm trying to curb that a little bit. So what I would say there is my favorite phrase is oh, have you considered, or how do you think this would look if? Or you know, acknowledging what they're doing right, like, oh, I see what you did here and I totally get that. I'm wondering if somebody may interpret it as you know, how about you know? And I'm trying to get out of the solutioning world in that like, instead of me suggesting like hey how about this?

Speaker 2: 48:28

It might be like hey, what do you think, is there like some other way we might be able to approach this? And then it turns into a conversation where then they'll ask potentially for inputs from you, and then you kind of circumvent some of that without it being like, oh, here's the know-it-all they're trying to do, and then give them an opening, without losing face, of considering another perspective on how it might get interpreted when that thing happens, and then see if they have other ways of doing it, and if not, then they may engage you in the conversation. And now you have a conversation and now you've overcome that hump.

Speaker 1: 49:18

So it's interesting. You sort of talked about a couple of things. One I think you're doing different things for written versus verbal conversations. I think it's really important to know, like, what's the right medium to use for different types of conversations. That's number one. But the thing that also just popped in my head, the way you described those two things on the one hand, you're using some tools to help identify, like help you with your blind spots, right?

Speaker 2: 49:46

So when, I write something right.

Speaker 1: 49:48

How could I, how could this be interpreted that I'm not even thinking about? On the other hand, what you're doing with other people when you're having that conversation, providing feedback, you're helping them with their blind spots potentially right, and I think that's a really interesting way of thinking about it. And a lot of what you describe ties ties nicely with to be able to like one of the most impactful books I ever. Well, I got the book and training and I would like it's called crucial confrontations and, um, that idea of what you described like, uh, starting a conversation with them with, uh, I understand what you're trying to do, or like, help me understand. Right, you're trying to understand their point of view, not and not assume, make intent or what they were trying to accomplish, clarifying that and then and then getting into okay, you know what if we did this right? And I think that is similar to sort of the framework that you get with crucial confrontations, which is all about trying to affect behavior change with a challenging conversation or anticipating challenging conversation. Anyway, so I love that. The last thing I like just my own experience I would add add to this, like, if you're a leader and you're hearing this, I think it's really important to demonstrate what this looks like to to your team and I think I have really important to demonstrate what this looks like to your team. And I think I have a good example.

Speaker 1: 51:16

You talked about changing people you report to right. So I have an example of one place where I was, where I was reporting to CMO. Cmo had 12 people reporting to him, decided that was too many, consolidated. Well, it turns out, one of my peers became my boss. Luckily, we had a good relationship going into it.

Speaker 1: 51:36

But one of the things we established pretty quickly and I think I was fortunate in this is that we really realized that we each had our own strengths and we complimented each other if we would not let our egos get in the way and the way that showed up. There was at least one time when we were in a meeting with many other people and we were literally like we. We weren't like. It wasn't a yelling match, but we disagreed about something and uh, ultimately, right, her decision, she had the responsibility for it and um said okay, we'll make it happen. Right, it was like I voiced my right we. But we did it in a public forum and I can't tell you how many people came up to me and was like are you two? Okay, I was confused because it felt so natural to be able to have that kind of thing. It didn't feel like, but I suspect what it made me realize is that's not the norm for a lot of people, just to be able to have that kind of conversation and still walk away and, uh, have respect and that's right right yeah, now there's a line where it crosses, and you know, but we never got there and I'm grateful for that good

Speaker 1: 52:46

um, this has been awesome. I know we started out with the, the pro wrestling, and I think there's this connection to like this ability to like work with lots of different stakeholders and adjust what you're doing and recognize that it was a really important. It sounds like you really that's the big thing that carried over from your experiences in pro wrestling Any any other like major things that we didn't hit on that you wanted to cover.

Speaker 2: 53:08

Before we wrap it up here, no, I mean, I think I think that sums it up pretty well. I would say that pattern recognition is the key skill to practice and hone and have in marketing and marketing ops. So that's the other thing I took from wrestling. I think that's key. I think that's also missing a lot. And don't be afraid of having, like short-term and long-term things that you're, you know, planning as an organization or as an individual.

Speaker 2: 53:38

I think, um, having the short-term to short-term hops, um, and again, this was something I've learned in wrestling you can do a story for a show, and that's great. It's better if you can do a story for the next 15 shows and then how to break it down into each one. It just was a better product. And I think that's the case in business too. Have your North Star and then just break it into pieces and how you're going to get there, as opposed to the expression that I hate, that people talk about is flying the plane while you're building it, and that's great, except you might end up with a motorcycle and you needed to fly. So you know yeah, that's the thing I would leave with.

Speaker 1: 54:20

Interesting. Well, hey, devin appreciate it If folks do want to keep up with you or learn more about what you're doing. I don't know, you know. Is there a place where they can connect with you or follow you?

Speaker 2: 54:29

Yeah, sure. So right now, I would just point folks to LinkedIn and you know, last name is L E S H I N and you know, just send me an invite there, let me know that you, you caught this show and this is where you you heard from me and send that over there. There are things that I am going to be working on here as soon as I can get some equipment in play in terms of some video types of things, and I'll combine that with LinkedIn as soon as I can. So just keep an eye on LinkedIn. That's the best place to go Perfect.

Speaker 1: 55:07

Well, again, thank you, devin, for sharing. It's been a fun conversation. We covered lots of ground. Devin, for sharing. It's been a fun conversation. We covered lots of ground. Thanks to our audience for continuing to support us and providing ideas and ideas for topics and guests. And if you as always, if you are interested in being a guest or have a suggestion for a guest or a topic, please don't hesitate to reach out to Naomi, mike or me on LinkedIn or in the marketingupscom community. Until next time, everybody, we'll see you soon. Bye.