Marketing & Communications: It’s important to ‘take a beat’ (podcast episode #140)

How I Made it in Marketing

If there’s one word that defines what I’ve seen in the marketing industry in my career, it’s ‘acceleration.’

When I started, I was writing print ads in The Wall Street Journal for clients all over the country. So the deadline was when FedEx came to our building…or if we were really pushing it, FedEx’s deadline at the airport. This created a natural ebb and flow.

Then PDFs came along, and well, that deadline got pushed much farther back. But because it still ultimately had to go to print, there was still an ebb and flow.

Fast forward to today. Everything is always on, real time, with endless data streams. It feels like there is no more ebb, only flow.

Which is why this lesson really caught my eye in a podcast guest application – It’s important to ‘take a beat.’

To hear that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Cindy Van Horne, global head of marketing & communications, McKinsey & Company [https://www.mckinsey.com/].

Lessons from the things she made

• It’s important to ‘take a beat’
• Be fearless with your ambition
• Reinvention is not optional
• When goals are not hit, leadership is about finesse
• The pathway to innovative campaigns is about breaking down barriers
• Real change comes when others are inspired to break their own ceiling

Discussed in this episode

AI Guild [https://join.meclabsai.com/]

Strategic Marketing Collaboration: Find your partner in crime (podcast episode #68) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/strategic]

Branding Lessons from TV Production: Don't focus on failure, keep moving towards success (podcast episode #92) [https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/brand-lessons]

Leadership Development: Network every day (podcast episode #72) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/leadership-development]

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]

Customer-First Marketing: Every click is a wish (podcast episode #85) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/customer-first]

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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.

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