20 Lessons in 20 Years as a Marketer & Entrepreneur

When I graduated from college with a business degree and a marketing concentration, I was not exactly well-equipped to tackle what became a career in business with a marketing focus. Fortunately, I’ve continued my education over the past 20 years, learning from my mistakes. I thought I would impart 20 of my most profound lessons over that time period and hope you find a few helpful nuggets.

1. Do what makes you happy, so at least one person is content. Don’t spend your life trying to please others, as you are most likely to fall short. Being a manager or business owner isn’t a popularity contest and sometimes you have to make tough decisions and have difficult conversations. Focus on the desired outcome and life gets easier. For more insights, read Take this quiz to find out if you’ve found your Dream Job.
2. Discover your “Why” and leverage your Unique Abilities/Freak Factor to realize your personal and professional goals. Whether you’re an intern or a business owner, it is essential to know what gets you up in the morning and out of bed or powers you late into the night on personal or professional endeavors. Turn your Why into a What (business, product, career roadmap, etc.) and then use your Unique Ability/Freak Factor as your How to get there.
3. Set goals and you will achieve. In 1997, my roommate advised me to write down my short and long-term goals, both personally and professionally. I spent the time to set compensation milestones for my career and personal milestones like buying a house, traveling to Dubai and even finding my soulmate. All of those goals have been achieved and I credit seeing those goals on my nightstand for 5 years straight and letting my subconscious guide me.
4. Understand your team’s strengths, talents and interests and map their roles accordingly. In Good to Great, Jim Collins analyzed nearly 1,500 companies to understand key growth factors. He identified one key element was ensuring employers put employees in the right seat (role) on the bus (within the company). Companies that do this as a best practice are exponentially more successful and I can vouch for this approach based on my experience at Anvil. For more, check out Hire for Culture, Talent and Traits, not Skills, Knowledge or Experience.
5. Accountability without expectations, tools and support is hallucination. I originally developed Anvil’s Credo around the concept of personal accountability, as I felt it was critical to our success. I quickly learned, however, that even the most well-intentioned employee was prone to failing to meet expectations without proper tools, training and support. As a result, we’ve instituted work groups that drive internal training and certification and regularly evaluate tools and other professional development opportunities to ensure better outcomes.
6. Inspect, do not expect. I built a successful business based on hiring talented and motivated individuals and letting them “do their thing.” Unfortunately, without proper check-ins to evaluate performance and happiness, problems festered to the point of losing employees and clients. Put processes and communication touch-points in place to ensure everyone is aligned and empowered. For more, read How to Hire and Develop a Winning Team.
7. You can’t throw money at every problem. I learned long ago that one common mistake business owners make is to overpay key employees to retain them. I’ve never seen it work as a long-term strategy, let alone in the short-short term. While sales teams are largely motivated by money, it is just one of many metrics used by most people to determine their value. Focus on the other attributes (corporate culture, benefits, processes, days off, etc.) to ensure retention is based on something other than money.
8. Sell experiences and outcomes, not products and features. Customers want memorable experiences and are willing to pay more for it (think perfume or exotic cars). Secondarily, they are interested in desirable outcomes (losing weight or increasing sales). A majority of marketers tend to focus on selling product features or service benefits but not through engaging storytelling or through the end-user’s eyes.
9. Price on value, not on cost. Too many companies (especially agencies with billable hours) price on the cost-plus model. Spend the time to understand and communicate the ROI of your offering and dramatically increase your fees accordingly.
10. Delight before you elevate. I’ve lost two dozen clients over the years due to lack of performance, but that is out of more than a thousand companies. Unfortunately, I and my team lost the remainder due to our team’s lack of connection, trust and respect. If you don’t connect with your client or customer first, your ability to deliver outcomes is much less valued and you risk losing them. For more, check out Four Strategies To Keep Your Clients From Firing You.
11. The service mindset always wins. As an employee, I’ve always had a service-oriented mindset, perhaps developed in my early days of employment as a bag boy at Albertson’s (worst job ever) and lingerie consultant at TJ Maxx (second best job ever). Whatever the case, I’ve carried that approach through as a business owner, but it took me awhile to see how it could best work. I’ve often reminded my team I’m there for them, but it wasn’t until recently that I learned to end nearly every conversation with the powerful words, “how can I help?” I believe it has transformed my relationship with the team, as it is a constant reminder to all parties of my role as President: to empower and support the team.
12. You can never learn too much about a customer or client. It is not uncommon to get comfortable in your industry and role and assume you know everything you need to know to get your job done. Unfortunately, smart clients understand the importance of vendors that demonstrate intimate knowledge of their business. Early in my career, I would fax articles (yes, it dates me) about the industry or competitors and the feedback was always overwhelmingly positive.
13. Data leads to insights leads to results. Data is worthless without proper analysis. Good analysis leads to powerful insights which inform strategies and tactics. Informed insights often lead to results which then lead to promotions, business growth or other positive outcomes. Be careful, however, that the data you are using is clean and accurate, or run the risk of false-positives and bad strategy.
14. Measure what matters. One of my clients and long-time industry peers in the analytics business recently informed me that he only manages his business to one metric: customer satisfaction. Despite setting up measurement programs and setting complex key performance indicators (KPIs) for clients, he’s kept his own business KPIs to one simple metric. He’s found that checking in regularly with his clients lead to correcting small issues before they become major problems. His happy clients drive his business through improved retention, account growth and referrals to new business. This metric may be overly-simplified for some business, but even Fortune 500s use Net Promoter Score to determine the health of their business.
15. Murphy’s Law and the Peter Principle are alive and well. What can go wrong; will go wrong, so it is important to ensure you manage your response to the predictably unpredictable. As the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Expect life will throw you curveballs and be prepared to turn every challenge into an opportunity through creativity and mindfulness. When it comes to managing a talented young team in growth mode, it’s easy to promote people beyond their capabilities over time, which can cause undue stress, mistakes and overall unhappiness for all involved. With regular check-ins, you are more likely to identify small issues before they become larger problems.
16. Stay close to the money. The first and most profound bit of career advice I ever received was from my uncle. After graduating and starting my career in public relations at a marketing agency, he reminded me to make sure I understand how money flowed through the company at which I worked for or with, and get as close to the flow as possible. I soon realized that the world of PR is so well-insulated from the flow of money from the consumer to the client that I changed careers shortly thereafter. I discovered that managing digital marketing was one or two steps closer to the flow of money and have flourished ever since.
17. Impact diminishes over time. I’ve always been a fan of efficiency, perhaps due to a mild case of OCD. Whatever the case, my desire to be responsive and productive has had a positive impact on my career and my business. In fact, we use responsiveness as a core component of our differentiation at Anvil. For more, check out Impact Marketing: Winning Customers with Quick Wits.
18. Never underestimate the power of your network. As the founder of a career-oriented networking group, pdxMindShare, I’ve spent the last 15 years connecting with and helping people. That investment has paid off handsomely over the years in terms of facilitating new hires, partners and clients, even though that is not the reason I founded or continue to oversee MindShare. Your network is only worth what you invest, so take the time to feed and curate it. For more, read Referral-based Networking, Portland Style.
19. Happiness is defined as experiences that exceed expectations. Set expectations carefully with your team, customers or clients, so you can exceed your goal a majority of the time. This requires sufficient knowledge of the goals, resources, timelines, team and overall business, but the investment is worthwhile. A happy client or customer leads to a healthy company.
20. Give and you shall receive. I once heard a prominent Portland business owner say he’s seen a 10x return on all of his charitable giving. By the time I heard him speak, I was already committed to giving back to the community, perhaps because my mother spent her career in non-profits. By the time I founded Anvil, I developed the belief that business owners are obligated to give back to the communities that enable their success. Anvil wouldn’t be what it is, nor would I, if the Portland business and marketing community wasn’t here to provide the resources and support. For more, check out Why Early Literacy is My Charitable Focus.

I’ve learned a good deal from my membership in Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). One of the first lessons I learned from an expert speaker was from an old proverb:

“A smart person learns from their mistakes. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others.”

With that insight in mind, I hope you will take heed from my insights and avoid a few expensive mistakes on your own journey.