(upbeat music) You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs, where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers. I'm Tim Chen, and today we're talking about demand generation. Now, early in my 20s, I had the opportunity to visit Kolkata, India for my cousin's wedding. Now, I'm a naturally curious person, and I love food.

So I was just dying to try something that I've never had before. Now, everyone warned me, and rightfully so, that I should stay far, far away from street vendor food, because my stomach had not yet gotten used to my new environment. There was also this legitimate fear that I could get sick due to lack of sanitation.

But I didn't care. I didn't listen. I was so fascinated by the culture, the people, and the entrepreneurial hustle around me, I had to try something. So I remember going down a street, and a man and his daughter offered me some jalebi from the roadside cart. Now, if you're not familiar with jalebi, think of an American funnel cake that you would find at a county fair.

But instead of it being this large, twisted donut thing, they're much smaller, and they're thinner, and they're crunchy, orange in color, and they're soaked in rose syrup. Now, I could tell that a man knew I was a foreigner, and that I had no idea what I was looking at.

So between broken English, and sign language, which is mostly him pointing at stuff, and letting me smell the fragrance of the ingredients, he started to educate me. And only after I showed a little interest did he offer me the tiniest sample with dipping sauce. But I wasn't ready for it, because I was craving something savory.

So I thanked him, I thanked his daughter, and I left. But you know what? I could not get the jalebi out of my mind. He had created a demand for it that I didn't even realize existed. And I could feel their eyes follow me as I continued walking down the street.

Now, after buying and eating some goat curry and naan, who did I find standing next to me? It was a jalebi vendor's daughter. And she knew that I was ready for some dessert. Her English was far better than her father's, and within two minutes, she sold me three servings that I gladly shared with some of the kids who were nearby.

Now, this to me is a perfect example of how demand generation and sales work together. The purpose of demand generation is to generate and create interest in a product or service that you have to offer. The more targeted and relevant your message is to your audience, the more they will likely take action to exchange their information for valuable content that you have to offer.

So the million dollar question is, how does a marketer determine what content is targeted and valuable to their audience? Now, there are ways to conduct research and look into the data, but your ace in the hole, your wild card, is your sales team. Why? Because they have their ears to the ground and they hear firsthand what a prospect is looking for.

They know what features or solutions are important. They usually have this dialed down by persona, job title, and industry. They also know why a prospect would choose to take their business elsewhere. So having that information is highly valuable in refining your message to the right segment. But remember, this is a two-way street.

As a marketer, by regularly providing sales with insights about industry trends and what people are engaging with, the sales team can refine their approach to be more effective in qualifying a prospect, leveraging the insights that you provided to them. So today, we will be joined by Hector Preciado. He's the director of demand generation at LawClerk.

He brings a very unique perspective because he was a highly successful sales executive and he made that transition from biz dev to growth marketing and demand generation. In this video, he will cover topics such as how to optimize that intersection between marketing and sales, how to leverage insight from sales to drive marketing success, and the importance of personas and how to validate their key pain points.

All right, let's get started. Hey, guys. Today, we're talking about growth marketing and demand generation. With us, Hector Preciado. Hector, how are you doing? - Hey, I'm doing well, Tim. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. - Hector, I am excited about this call because I fundamentally believe sales and marketing go hand in hand.

The individual who's experienced both is, I think, is the most unique and valuable person in a marketing organization, I believe. That's my opinion. And so that's something you find yourself doing today as well, right? So can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing right now and kind of how you see the intersections meet?

- Sure, yeah. No, I couldn't agree with you more, Tim, actually. And in many ways, once I kind of figured out what I wanted to do in the product sector and tech specifically, it's kind of by design, actually. And so right now, I am the Director of Demand Generation for a small startup in the legal tech space called LockClerk.

My role is, as the name suggests, demand generation is to generate demand for our solutions. And so I work in tandem with our sales leaders so that we can figure out how to bring more leads to the sales team. And I do that through a multi-channel approach. So as a marketer, multi-channel, all these buzzwords, right?

We all know what it means. But essentially, I manage a team of marketers who manage different channels. So I have an email marketer. I have an SEO manager that handles all of our organic work. I have a growth marketing manager who's focusing on our paid campaigns, online advertisements, things like that.

I work in tandem with our co-founders to generate content that kind of helps fuel and drive our campaigns. I manage partnerships, strategic partnerships, whether it be to generate leads externally or to figure out how to monetize some of those partnerships. So working at a startup, as you know, you kind of wear a lot of hats.

And my current role is no exception. So can you tell us a little bit about the intersection point between sales and marketing? You know, I'll give the listeners an example. So Hector and I used to work together, right? At that time, you're like one of the superb, like a rockstar sales leaders.

And I was in like web and demand gen. And every week, I would sit down and look at all the leads that came in. And we would look at every single stage of the buyer's journey in terms of the lead stage, right? So from MQLs all the way down to SQL conversion rates to bookings in one, and the whole purpose of that was to align on quality of leads collected or understand fluctuations of leads, right?

And as an example for those out there, like sales qualified, like the last stage, that's very much not marketing influence, it's totally sales influenced. And if part of the sales team is on vacation, that number could go down. Or if we give you bad quality leads, that number would also go down as well.

And so we're trying to figure out the math and conversion rates between all those. And I think that led to a very harmonious relationship. So in your role, you mentioned talking, working closely with your sales leaders. What does that look like to you? And given your background in sales, is that conversation different from your point of view than maybe someone who doesn't have a sales background?

- Yeah, no, I think so. To start with the first question around like, how's the intersection of sales and marketing? When you look at it from a revenue standpoint, like how does a company develop revenue, right? And if you have functions, if you have marketing teams and sales teams, what you're talking about is two different funnels, right?

You're talking about, from a marketing standpoint, it's kind of where it all begins, is how do you begin to raise your brand recognition so that people can start having an interest in learning more about you, right? And then once you kind of pick them, as you know, better than I do, right?

That's where kind of like the journey in marketing starts, right? Like the education standpoint, I wanna start doing some research, I wanna learn more, I'm gonna watch some videos, maybe read some product reviews, so on and so forth. All of those types of activities eventually kind of bring you down the marketing funnel, where you're just like, okay, I wanna talk to somebody, right?

And once you're open to talking to somebody, that's essentially where like the sales journey begins, right? That's what, you know, sales representatives, that's what they, that's their job. Their job is to engage with prospects and then try to convert them, right? And so, and that point is where you have your inflection point, right?

And that's where the handoff happens and that's where you start to see the relationship between marketers or the marketing team and the sales team. Down the funnel, you start getting that more signal. So, say a sales rep starts talking to somebody, it was a great conversation, but they weren't ready to buy it, right?

That feedback, right? That they could, it would be important to share with the marketing team so that we can ask the question, well, why do you think they weren't ready to buy it? Right? They want more information. Was it not the right kind of fit? They thought they were getting X when we were selling Y.

Are we delivering that X message and they're expecting Y, right? And by we, I mean the marketing team, right? So, all those types of questions and those conversations and you and I used to, once a week, right? We had those conversations and I love those conversations. Those are some of my most fond memories when you and I used to work together, right?

That kind of feedback, that loop, number one, has to exist. And then the quality of that feedback and the information that you get to go back so you can make some changes to your marketing strategy, your marketing channels. 'Cause it could also mean, hey, most of the people that I'm talking to are coming through emails, right?

Like, okay, great. Well, you know that your email channel is doing well. Maybe you want to think about it, throwing more money through your email channels. And then you say, oh, look at these campaigns that were running on paid advertisement, let's say on Google AdWords, for example, are not really generating any leads for us or any good leads.

So then maybe we want to think about shifting some of the budget for some of the campaigns that are working, right? And so, as you know, it is a constant, like, let me listen to what's happening. What are the ears to the ground? What kind of feedback are we getting from the sales team about the quality of the leads or the lack thereof?

What messaging is working? What pieces of content are working? Is it blogs? Is it videos? Is it white papers? So all of that needs to come back to the marketing team, right, so that we can begin to optimize to see what's happening, right? And because oftentimes what I've experienced in different places is sometimes, you know, the sales team and the marketing team seems to be at odds, right?

It's competing, right? Or there's like this finger-pointing blame game that happens where it's like, well, it's not our fault, the leads aren't good. Or like, well, you know, we got good leads, we got a high volume, they're just not closing deals, right? And so sometimes you see like an antagonistic relationships amongst marketing and sales, where I prefer to look at it from like, no, we're strategic partners.

Actually, we're kind of like cousins. We're first cousins, right? At the end of the day, we want the same thing, right? We want to succeed and success at the end. And at the end of the day, it comes in the form of revenue, right? We're talking about the next generation.

So long as we're closing deals and we're making money, everybody's happy, right? And it doesn't have to be a contentious relationship to get there. Actually, when you're actually working lockstep with one another is when the magic really happens. - I totally agree. You know, it reminds me of one test I ran once on LinkedIn with your input.

We were looking at optimizing a contact sales form. And that point, like again, LinkedIn learning at that point was a startup. So we're trying to throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, right? And the typical template looked like a form on the left and the right was some kind of value-based proposition about like why working with LinkedIn learning is better, whatever.

And that, you know, being LinkedIn, the brand carried, so it performed well. I remember I had one conversation with you, Hector, where I said, hey, when you're actually on that sales call with the customer, what are the top three things that actually come up? Whether it's the FAQ or whatever it is.

And you kind of helped me understand, hey, like these are the top five commonly asked questions or discussed topics. So I said, okay, let me run with that. I did a test where I took and exposed those on the landing page. I said, hey, look, on this call with sales, you will most likely talk about this.

And conversions went up, right? And I think that's an example where sales and marketing, the feedback bi-directional is really helpful. Do you mind giving us maybe some examples specifically of maybe like whether marketing had an insight, maybe you guys noticed something from a trends point of view where the insight fed into sales and maybe helped increase deal closings or the other direction?

- Yeah, no. So, I mean, that was a great example that you shared when we worked at LinkedIn. And I specifically remember that 'cause one of the biggest pain points was how do I get more time, right? And I remember sharing that feedback and I remember you implementing that in part of the messaging proactively, right?

So what you want to do in that case is you wanna get in front of the pain points or some of the questions that are gonna come up, right? And that's one approach. But let me share a different approach but the same concept, right? - Yeah. - For us, we're in the legal tech space and so our core customers are attorneys, right?

Attorneys are among some of the most discerning customers that I have ever experienced, right? And working at LinkedIn, we work with marketers, with talent recruiters, with salespeople. - Yeah. - And advertisers, right? I mean, we work with four different lines of business, right? And the first time I actually worked with attorneys and they're very discerning, right?

For a lot of different reasons, including that that is their job, right? Their job is for them to like poke holes in arguments and like, you know, find the loopholes, right? - Yeah. - And speak contrarians, right? Like that's essentially what lawyers do. And so when we're trying to engage them, it was a bit of a challenge.

So, you know, we started running some tests on some calls to action or CTAs as it's often called in some of our webpages specifically when for us, the highest converting type of lead is book a demo. Surprise, surprise, right? Like that's for everybody, right? And so, but we were trying to see what kind of messaging around the call to action would resonate the best with attorneys, right?

And so, you know, we had like, oh, book a demo, book a demo, book a demo. And we were doing it for a long time and we're getting some leads and whatnot, right? But we were having conversations internally that was suggesting that, you know, these guys, people don't convert until they talk to somebody, until they talk to one of our experts.

- Right. - Once they talk to one of our experts, then that's when the conversations really get substantive. And then that's when we're able to move people down a funnel and then convert them into customers. And so for the longest time we kept having the conversation and then we finally realized, well, why don't we use talk to an expert as our CTA as opposed to just like book a demo, right?

I'm like, okay, great. So some time ago, actually, I had a conversation with you when I was picking your brain about tools to use and whatnot. And on an A/B testing solution that we are currently using now that, well, we did that. Yeah, great. Let's change the CTA button on, and let's run the test where the control is book a demo and the variable is talk to an expert.

And guess what? Talk to an expert converted at a much higher rate than just simply book a demo. And we actually got a higher volume of book a demo requests because the concept for an attorney that the person that I'm talking to is not a sales person, person is an expert, right?

And so we tested another variable, like talk to an advisor was actually another one. So we did multiple A/B testing rounds and talk to an expert was one that actually resonate the best and increase the volume and the conversion rate for demos. And so, we wouldn't have landed on that had we not had the internal conversations with our sales leaders, right?

And had these conversations. 'Cause if not, then us as marketers, we're just kind of out on an island trying to figure out like, we think this is the way to go. I don't know, let's test it, right? - Yeah, that's a wonderful example. It actually reminds me. So like the, because I've been mostly in a B2B high-tech space.

So specifically around like hardware storage or security. And so my target customer is like a hardware or backend architect, let's say, right? So you have like your engineers, but architects is one who look at all those solutions. They've got a lot of pride in their work, which is important for the persona.

And then they want to figure something out. And it's interesting, if you go back to the topic of who our personas are, to even figure that out, you need to look at the various stages of the buyer's journey, right? 'Cause you make a lot of assumptions that not everyone is the same.

And once you start kind of delineating the different persona types against every stage of the buyer's journey, the exercise forces you to think, okay, well, at each stage, what question are they looking to answer? 'Cause remember, they're trying to get a job done at the end of the day, right?

So what are they trying to get answered? And then what are the top tasks they're trying to do to get that, to answer that question? You can use that as a formula to audit any website efficacy. The reason why it's important is because for the architect, we discovered through conversations with sales, technical sales, technical engineers, and the product team, we discovered that that persona in particular was very, very prideful, meaning they did not want to be handheld through something 'cause they're actually surrendering or admitting that they don't know.

And so the test we ran was like, so do they want a trial then? Do they want an on-demand demo? Do they want a live demo? Or do they want to talk to sales? And we found out that each of those hit them at a different stage of the buyer's journey.

Trial was a lot further along. Demo, I'm just learning. But getting a live demo was the last one 'cause that particular persona didn't want it, right? So I think what you're saying is like, you gotta do a lot of testing for which of your customers are actually on your site.

In some cases, a demo and sales form can be one and the same. Sometimes you might want to split it up 'cause your intent is completely different, right? So I love that example you shared, man. - Yeah, no, and you're absolutely right. And for us, you're talking about the buyer's journey, the persona, like we have a few different personas.

Like we work primarily right now with solo practitioners and small firms, right? And there is a difference between a solo practitioner, like a singular attorney who's doing it all themselves, or like a small firm in which they do have additional support, right? But they lack, you know, they both like time and they both want to get to the same point where it's like, they want to do more work, right?

But how they get there is a little different, right? And you're totally right. Like understanding the buyer persona and the journey that they're in and where they are in the journey is key to the types of campaigns that you should be running, so. - And so I'm kind of curious, kind of going back to your personal journey, 'cause again, I'm just so fascinated by your actually re-imagining of your career, going from sales to marketing.

Can you help me understand even in the beginning, like what led you even into sales? 'Cause I don't have like, when I think of a salesperson or engineer, those are the two roles that I believe I don't have the skill sets or personalities for. And that's an uneducated statement, which is why I want to get the crux of this, right?

So like, 'cause I make assumptions around like, I need to know this, or I need to be able to do that. I need to be totally comfortable with X, Y, and Z. And then I kind of self-select out of career opportunities. So can you help me understand like, was your path to sales a direct one, or was it kind of like a hodgepodge of experiences?

- No, you know what? It was an indirect, actually. And it was kind of, in some ways, it was kind of like, as I'm walking down my career journey, kind of paying attention to what is available and what I needed, and then like optimizing all along the way, right?

And so, I mean, not that that's the best route for anybody, but it has proven to be a good one for me. - What does that mean to you? Like optimizing along the way? - Yeah, so one of the things to understand about my career, and I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about this part, but actually I started my career working in nonprofit public policy work, right?

I did a lot of communications work. I was director of communications for a nonprofit, as well as the director of development, which means I'm raising money. Which means I was basically the salesperson for the organization. And what I was selling, I was selling a vision, right? I was selling a mission and vision of the organization to potential clients and customers who give us money to do that, which, from a nonprofit standpoint, is the philanthropic community, which means like foundations that have a lot of money, right?

Or like wealthy donors, right, who wants to give. So like my sales journey kind of started in the nonprofit sector, which I won't go into too much detail, but just kind of to give you a sense of how I kind of got started. - Yeah. - I knew at some point early in my career that I wanted to go to the private sector, but I didn't know what that meant and where and how, right?

And so when most of my colleagues were applying to public policy schools, I decided I want to go to business school, right? And that was part of what actually kind of helped me optimize, right, how I want to get to the next phase. And actually, when I joined LinkedIn, at the time, they were giving you the book, "The Startup of You" by Reid Hoffman.

And it's one of the books that I go to periodically and I recommend all the time because, you know, in it, Reid Hoffman talks about how do you make a career pivot, which is exactly what I was doing, right? I was trying to go from my nonprofit public policy, very specialized, to like go to the private sector, right?

And so a couple of the things is you, one, you pick up a new skill set or an educational certification. For me, it was getting an MBA. And two, you pick up a new network. Well, I picked up that network by way of like my MBA experience and my classmates, right?

And so that's kind of how I began to like optimize for the next step of my career. And actually, when I started working in tech, I started working in marketing. I was a search engine marketer and I had to learn, you know, Google AdWords and Yahoo Bing and how to run ads on those platforms.

I had to learn on the fly on the job in my first job working at a startup. And it was in that space. And so that was, so for me, like when you think about like the type of skill sets that you might want to pick up, like as a marketer, like online, auction-based, right?

Advertising, technology platforms, it's kind of like the baseline, it's table stakes. - Yeah, yeah. - And I didn't know it then, but I know it now and I appreciate it, that that foundational knowledge, right, that I was picking up when I was trying to sell jewelry for Macy's online, or women's shoes and women's clothing.

And, you know, like those are like the catalogs that I had to sell, right? Like I was actually setting the table for myself to kind of move more into like a marketing, like a future marketing roles. 'Cause in business school, what they teach you in marketing is kind of like the fundamentals when it comes to like the frameworks that you're gonna need, right?

What is the product? You know, how do you price it? How do you position it? - Right. - You know, like those kinds of things is, again, like the higher level thinking around marketing, that's what they teach you, but they don't teach you search engine marketing in business school.

- No. - Right, you have to learn it either on the fly at work, or, you know, like Google AdWords has like the, you know, the ad center that, you know, kind of has tutorials and certifications and all these other things in order for you to better learn it.

So just kind of unsolicited advice for anybody out there that wants to get into like the marketing space, like you and I, demand generation, growth marketing, like definitely set the groundwork foundation and learn auction-based like advertising, technology solutions like Google AdWords and whatnot. So, and so that's kind of how I got started.

And actually that's how I got my foot in the door at LinkedIn, right? Like I came in LinkedIn as the first, you know, content marketer, 'cause we were launching at the time was sponsored, sponsored updates and now sponsored content, right? We were launching it. And so I was the first person hired to come in and help the largest advertisers that were part of the beta test, right?

For the proof of concept to manage their campaigns. And, you know, and had it not been for that foundation of work that I had, you know, doing search engine marketing at the startup that I worked at, I would have not been as successful, I think, as I was in advertising operations when it comes to marketing solutions, right?

And so, and so, and so that's, so the optimization, right? Like I went from like, okay, I got an MBA from, you know, UC Berkeley, high school, like top name brand, but I didn't know how to do the job. And so I had to learn it on the job and that's how I optimized.

And then I was able to leverage that experience to go to LinkedIn and then like learn that experience and learn content marketing and that's how I optimize. And so when I talk about optimization, a lot of it is really like not taking any part of your experience for granted, learning as much as you can, because you never know what a particular skill set you're learning today, right?

When that's gonna pay off for you tomorrow. And that's kind of been the case for my entire career. - No, I love that. And that's the crux of a growth mindset, right? Like you epitomize that. And I think that's probably why you and I get along 'cause we have a very similar perspective.

'Cause what you said at the very end, which is basically being intentional about what you wanna learn out of every single job opportunity is key. I remember not to date myself. So I graduated college in like 2001 with a dot-com bubble burst, right? - A young man. - I am a young man.

But like marketing jobs, so I graduated with a marketing degree and like those are the jobs we're getting to let go at the time 'cause the bubble burst, right? 'Cause I couldn't find anything. And so I took all these oddball jobs, you name it. I worked at a mom and pop sausage factory, stuffing sausages.

And I worked as a computer technician, building computers back in. I also, the most memorable one was being in a call center at Wells Fargo, calling people on a Saturday morning on an automated dialer, telling them that they overdrafted by $2, now they own 20. It was like a not a conversation they wanna have.

But to your point about learning and kind of optimizing your career, those jobs one could say, that seems really random. And that actually, is it beneath you? Like, no, nothing's ever beneath you, right? 'Cause if you're there to learn, you're there to learn. I remember like the Wells Fargo one, it taught me how to have a thick skin, right?

It taught me how to talk to complete strangers who did not wanna talk to me. - Yeah, that's hard. - And somehow bring them around. And that's like marketing, that's sales, right? So I totally agree with you. There's something to get out of everything. And I was, I look at my girls these days, I'm like, "Oh, I wonder what their first job's gonna be." I was like, "Whatever it is." Like, they wanna work at Boba?

They wanna work in a library? I don't even care. It's like, I wanna make sure they have a strong point of view on what skills they wanna gain. Yeah, so thanks for that perspective. - Absolutely, absolutely. - So when you made the shift from sales then back over to marketing, like what was that inflection point for you?

Like, why did you make that a pivot back? - Yeah, no, and when you and I met, actually, I had pivoted from marketing over to sales. And just some context of why I did that is, when I started thinking about my career trajectory, I started looking at leaders within LinkedIn and talking to them and doing information interviews and just, I mean, the culture there allows itself for that.

You can talk to anybody, right? And so my ambitions then, as they are today, was I wanna be in the C-suite, right? And so when I start thinking about like pathways into the C-suite, right, I hit a point where it's like, hey, I'm in the marketing side. I can continue to learn and grow and develop on the marketing side and pick up those skillsets and then kind of work my way up to, let's say, like a chief marketing officer role eventually, right?

And I was like, oh, that could be a potential path. But I was thinking, but you know what? My interests are also broader and my skillset, I think, are also broader. And so I need to be on the revenue generating side as well, or at least I need to understand that.

And I remember years ago, a mentor of mine in the nonprofit world who, when I was talking to him about like, hey, I wanna go to the private sector, he specifically said to me, 'cause he had done the same, he said, in the private sector, there's two types of jobs.

There's those jobs that spend the money and then those jobs that make the money. He said, you wanna be on the side that makes the money, right? And so for me, what makes the money is the sales side, right? And so for me, I realized that I don't understand the sales side of the equation very much.

And that's when I decided, listen, I think what I need to do is optimize again and then move in that direction so that I can learn that side of the equation, right? And that's when you and I met, right? And that's when we started working together and I was learning the sales side as I was working with you and understanding your value to what it is we're trying to do as a business unit.

And so, and I did that for a number of years as a leader at LinkedIn and then I went to a different company and then I was leading a global sales team. And then I went back to another organization when I was actually managing both the sales team and the marketing team.

And that was super interesting for me because now both funnels are under my control and my direction. And so that was fun. And now I'm back on the marketing side and part of why I'm just solely on the marketing side is 'cause I think marketing is more fun than sales.

(laughing) And you can do a lot more interesting things on the marketing side and I just pursued opportunities that were there for me. And this is post-pandemic now and actually it was like over the... I've been here now for about a little over a year and a half and it's been great.

And so for me, those were the reasons why I kind of like kept straddling between sales and marketing 'cause they're kind of like two sides of the same coin. - Yeah, yeah. - For me to make myself more employable, right? To make myself a more well-rounded leader on the text, on the text realm, I thought that I needed to make myself well-rounded.

And now I can totally say like, and I own it, I can totally say like, look, it took me a while, right? But now I can say like, I am a go-to-market leader, right? And so for those folks who understand what go-to-market means, right? It's like, hey, this person has a deep understanding and not just how the marketing side of the equation works but also how sales side of the equation works.

And when you think about like my career, when I think about my career prospects, I think that I've continued to make me like employable should I decide to make the next move or go for business. Negative happens to the company now, but so on and so forth, right? - Yeah, that is just amazing.

And I think I'm jealous of you in a way that you discovered early on that you're not sure where you want to go, you kind of know you want to do a pivot. And so you took action, in your case, went to business school to kind of help you understand your possibilities to pivot and what you gain in developing a point of view, ultimately kind of understanding what end goal you want to go.

And that allowed you to have the right conversations and exposures and informational interviews to kind of get that feedback of context, right? What advice would you give to someone who they're not sure if it's a time to pivot yet, but they just feel like there's got to be something more?

- Yeah. - And let's just say, let's put everything on the table 'cause they may not have the, maybe the financial means to do business school, right? So like what advice would you give to them? - Yeah, no, so I think the first thing I would say is before giving any advice is whenever it happens for you, like it's gonna take time, right?

So there is never, it is never too soon or too early to start putting the wheels in motion, right? Because it's gonna take time, right? If it's a matter of a skillset you need to pick up, whether it be by you going back to school or taking an online class or like, you know, going on YouTube and looking up tutorials, right?

Like YouTube, as you know well, YouTube is quickly becoming like, you know, the most, the highest volume search engine, right? And everywhere, and so people are learning things on YouTube all the time, right? And so, however it is that you learn something, like that process itself is gonna take some time.

- Yes. - So the other thing that's gonna take time, which is another variable of you making a pivot is the network and the people that you're gonna be able to leverage in order for you to make that pivot, whatever it is they may be, right? You were an engineer and now you want to be a chef, right?

Like you're gonna have to learn that skillset somewhere, right? And when you start thinking about like your career prospects, you're gonna have to meet people who are gonna be able to guide you or introduce you to other folks, like that's also gonna take some time. - Yeah. - And so, but whether it be those two variables, at the end of the day, it starts with you and taking the leap of faith, right?

And that's like my advice, number one, like take the leap of faith, right? If you're contemplating something, like wake up one morning and decide, I'm gonna put this in motion, because even if it doesn't work out for you, even if it doesn't go anywhere, right? Like you're giving yourself an at-bat, right?

To use like a sports analogy, right? Like you're not gonna get a base hit if you don't step up to the plate and take a swing. - Yeah. - You're just gonna be a spectator, right? And so that'd be my advice, number one, like take a leap of faith.

Like have faith in yourself that something may happen. Even if it doesn't, at least you tried, right? And then the other part is I've alluded to, the other two things I would say is you have to always be learning, right? You can't assume that you've hit, like the learning, learning is a journey, it's not a destination.

- Yep. - Right? Like you just don't like, I've arrived, I've learned everything I need to learn, I don't need to do anything anymore. No, that's not the way it works. Like you have to constantly be learning new things, either as an IC, an individual contributor, who's gonna be running campaigns or whatnot, or as a leader, who's gonna be managing and leading teams.

And I'll just give you a quick example. Like coming into this role that I'm at, I didn't really know search engine optimization, right? I didn't, which is different from search engine marketing, which I knew, right? 'Cause marketing is like, you have a budget for your campaigns, you're running campaigns, you're trying to get conversions, you're looking at click-through rate and all that other stuff.

SEO is different, SEO is like the organic traffic that is coming to your website, how are they getting it? - Yeah. - How do you optimize your website, right? Like it's different, they're connected, but they're different things, right? And so it was one of the skillsets that I didn't really know a lot about.

So I had to learn, right? What tools do we use to execute on it? Like what are some of the key performance indicators that I need to pay attention to? What are best practices? Who are the best people that are looking at it? Like, you know, so I was excited because I got to learn something new and something different that is now part of my toolbox.

- Yeah. - And so from a learning standpoint, that's what, like I said, you gotta always be learning. And then the last part is, as I already alluded to, is like, you gotta build a network. And even if you're the most introverted person, like yourself, like I think you probably consider yourself an introvert, but you are one of the most socially adept human beings that I've met in my life, right?

- Thank you. - And part of it is because you and your growth, right? You stress yourself out, you realize, hey, there's value in this. I can't just not speak to people. You use the example of you being at Wells Fargo and you got comfortable with talking to people you don't know, especially people who don't wanna talk to you, right?

And so, you know, so I would say today, like the tin that I know has social grace, whereas like maybe the tin graduating from college was probably like, oh no, I don't wanna talk to anybody and look at you now, right? And so like learning how to build relationships, maintain them over the course of your career is gonna be another key component.

So I would say like, if you do those three things, take the leap of faith, continue to learn and build a network for where it is that you wanna go, I think those are some three good ingredients for you to be successful. - Oh man, plus one to all of that.

I think taking the leap of faith is essentially why I'm building this video channel, right? 'Cause you know what I've been discovering in my conversation with people, especially right now, I'm gonna time date this video. This is 2023. We're hopefully coming out of the pandemic. The market is in a terrible place and job stability is, can't take it for granted anymore.

Doesn't matter how awesome you are. Business decisions are made regardless of performance. And so I'm discovering in my conversations with people, 'cause you know, I opened myself up to kind of mentor people, right? And the common feedback I got was a side of fears around the true fears of financial security, especially for like single income family, head of households, or you have parents who need financial support, besides the financial piece of it.

There's a true fear around, I wanted to make a pivot or I wanted to make a change. I don't know if my skills can translate. I have a preconceived notion about what a job is that kind of want to do, but based on my limited exposure to that, that's all it is.

And I'm missing this whole pie of what actually it is, but I'm still here. And because I'm not talking to anyone, I have assumptions about what that job requires based on the job description. On paper, I don't think I qualify anymore. I'm not even gonna try. You know why?

'Cause there's like thousands of people who just entered a job market due to layoffs and they're probably applying as well. And I essentially eliminate myself from any career opportunity before I even get started. To your point, you just gotta take that leap of faith, right? Leverage the network you know.

Talk to people. Do I really understand the thing? And again, the purpose of this whole video series is to talk about all the ins and outs of all these fields and make you realize, shoot, it's a lot more broad than I previously realized. Now I know how to have a conversation with someone.

So I'm really glad you talked about that piece of it, Hector, 'cause I totally agree. The last thing I wanna kind of talk about with you, Hector, is in my conversations with you, you're one of the individuals I would define as your genuine self outside of work is probably very closely aligned to who you are at work.

Like Hector is Hector, right? Now I'm pretty sure it was a journey to get there. And a lot of people, there are two different people at work and at home. Can you tell us a little bit about like what that self-discovery or kind of arriving to who your true sense of self was and how that carries on to work and just your thought around just, you know, whether it's culture building or things that are kind of personally important to you and how they kind of transcend just work.

Can you just tell us a little bit about that? - Yeah, you know, thanks for asking that. You know, for me, like I'm a first generation college grad in my family, right? There were no professionals in my sphere growing up and even at a young adult. And so I guess you can say like my family is kind of new to the professional game, right?

And so walking into like a career pathway as a person of color, right? You heard heard from others, you know, as you're starting a career about like, you know, like you have to do this dance or there's like your work persona and then there's like your home persona, right?

And you have to keep them separate and this and that. And that's real, man, that's a real argument. And there's people out there who truly struggled on a regular basis. And for me though, man, you know, what I realized earlier on is that when I was my true self, I ended up seeing the best results for me professionally.

And, you know, when I try to be somebody that I wasn't in the workplace, it just, you know, I couldn't fake it, you know, and people would take notice and be turned off by that and I wasn't being as successful in the workplace as I was when I was just being my true self.

And, you know, and I think part of it and this is part of my excellent superpower, I think, in the workplace is, you know, I've been told that I have like contagious, positive energy. - You do. - I'm just a positive person, man. And like part of it is 'cause I feel blessed for how I started my life and my family and to where I am today.

And I'm super blessed to be, you know, to have had the opportunities that I continue to have. And I think for me, it's a daily reminder of that. And so for me, it's like, man, I'm living a charmed life. Like there are literally hundreds of millions of people on the face of this earth who would trade places with me in a heartbeat.

- Yeah. - Right? And so I try to keep that perspective. And so that's why for me, when I show up to work, it's like, look, what you see is what you get. And I'm gonna be my authentic self because I know me being my authentic self is when I bring my best version of the professional to work.

And that's when you're gonna get the best out of me. Right? - Yeah. - And if you want the best out of me, then you have to support me and me being my authentic self. If you can't do that, guess what? You're not gonna get the best of me.

And so, and I'm not gonna do it on purpose. That just naturally was gonna happen. And so for me, I realized that I have to be authentic. And people have told me that too. Like when they work with me or after the fact, they said, "Hey, I like how authentic you are and you don't sugarcoat things, but then at the same time, you're also not, you know, really negative about things." And so for me, it was key to do that and recognize that not everybody has that luxury, right?

And I don't think I've ever been hindered by that, to be honest with you. I think part of it is, you know, skill set and experience and working with cool people like you and, you know, those kinds of workplaces. But I think for me, it's super important for you to just be authentic and not be fake.

And especially when you get into a leadership role, right? Like once you're in a leadership role, you know that the work is different. It's not about you and your success anymore, right? It's about your team's success. And that's how you are successful as a leader, is if your team is successful, right?

And so if you have a growth marketing manager, look, unless they're hitting their goals and their targets and they're, you know, they're excelling, then you're not, you're failing them as a manager if you're not helping them realize that for themselves. - Yeah. - And so, and I realized that people respond to leaders who are authentic, who are like, "Hey man, I care about you as a human being "as much as I care about you with getting the job done.

"And let me understand that about you and not be fake." And so I'm glad you brought that up 'cause that's another one of my, you know, X-Men superpowers is authenticity and it's carried me a long way. And I mean, I'm gonna continue to do the same thing so long as I'm a professional, so.

- Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of similar to my journey in that we have a personality trait where we're friendly and optimistic. I think for me, so it went through the spectrum where I actually started my career very much extroverted. I was like your classic ENFP. I'm now INTJ. I don't know if that's because, I don't know if it's because I'm managing people now and I need my own time.

I don't know what that is. But I remember early in my career, I tried to be myself at work and I did, but what it looked like was I had way too much energy for people. And I'm being myself, but I didn't necessarily have the discipline or know how to apply, kind of put some restraint around it.

Well, restraint is the wrong word 'cause we're talking about being ourselves, but like the packaging and how people receive that is different, right? - You're optimizing. - Yeah, optimizing. Yeah, like now I'm at a different place now where I think the key that I had unlocked was I had to be okay with being vulnerable.

And I didn't experience how to be vulnerable until it hit rock bottom, right? I had some really difficult managers and things that really made me question my employment viability, am I worth it as an employee and all these kinds of things. And I had to come out of that and figure out, hey, like, what is the nugget of truth in the criticism?

And I'll just focus on that and you kind of optimize that. And then what happened was I started getting more comfortable in my shoes. And then so I reapplied it back to being my true self at work. Now it's like, you know what? Okay, there's all of these things that I used to, I used to say, I'm an extrovert or whatever.

But that's actually not who I am. It's actually, extroversion was the vehicle to communicate genuineness. Okay, so like being genuine, transparent, that packaging can look different. And now I'm over here. And so it's a quieter and more thoughtful point of view. Right, but again, I'm still bringing myself to work.

But I think that's the things that I would kind of tell my young self. It's like, look, go through the time, take the lumps, it's gonna happen. But if you can find a way to be yourself at work in the core areas that are important to you, right? You don't have to do everything, you know, but like, that's a lot less work, you know, at work.

- Yeah, no, totally, man. And you know, man, I commend you and you inspire me, Tim, by, you know, what you shared, because, you know, we cross paths in our careers at certain points, right? And we were both on our journeys towards here and then wherever else we're gonna go.

And I intend on being your friend for a long time, Tim. So I look forward to seeing more growth. - Yeah. - But I can see that, man. Like listening to you talk now and the way that you are and thinking about how you were, I don't know, five, six years ago when we worked together.

I mean, isn't that long now? More, actually more like- - More, yeah, it's like seven years ago. - Yeah, seven years ago, right? It's funny, it's great to see how you have evolved, how we both have evolved. And you're absolutely right, man. Like, I think, like, I'm not surprised to see you go from like an E to an I, right?

And like, you know, for those folks who are listening, who are like, what the hell are you talking about? - The Myers-Briggs, yeah. - The Myers-Briggs, right? And I said, remember my, and I agree with you. Like, I used to be, seven years ago, 10 years ago, I used to be where in order for me to kind of recharge my batteries, I would need to be around other people, right?

Let's go out for happy hour. Let's go hang out. Let's go do like, that's how I recharge my batteries after a long day. Now, actually, as an inspiring introvert, like I enjoy my time by myself, man. Like, I'm good. I'm just gonna go and like go for a walk or I'm just gonna go at home and just like, let me read a few articles and just, you know, get in my head.

And so, you know, I think that's a key that everybody needs to recognize that, you know, as a human being, as a professional, when you continue to evolve, or at least you should continue to evolve. And I think one of the best tools for your evolution is the feedback that you get from people, right?

Whether it be like direct them telling you something or like nonverbal communication, how people respond to you physically when they're around you, right? I think feedback, feedback is a gift. And that's one of the things that I tell my direct report to my mentees all the time as I give them feedback.

I say, look, like feedback is a gift. And whether you agree with it or not, that's not for me to tell you what to do about, right? That's for you to decide how much of the feedback that you're getting is noise and how much is it actually gonna be valuable and what are you gonna do with it to help make yourself a better human being and a better leader, right?

And so, some people don't shy away from feedback and it might be tough to hear, but it gets better 'cause as you get older, as you know, tough feedback after a while, you're just like, yeah, I can take it, I'm a grown person. Like, I don't, you know, but pretty much important.

- You know, it's funny. I've talked to a lot of people in your position, like in terms of seniority, like in our experience level, everyone has agreed with that exact same point, which is being comfortable and willing to take feedback as one half of the picture and be able to separate out the noise versus the truth is the other one.

And if that's one thing they could tell their younger self, that would be it, right? And so, I think for everyone who's listening to this, I think it's important, especially if you are in a role, for example, where you're actually creating something, like a creative or you're a writer, where your performance is based on subjective feedback sometimes, not just objective.

And you have to find a way to, again, separate out that noise and come to your happy place, but figure out what actually is true. And sometimes actually going back to that person and give you feedback and talking about that one nugget of truth and kind of blowing up and kind of not blow up, but like to dive into that, actually demonstrates a lot of maturity.

- People respect that. People will totally. - Yeah. So Hector, I just want to thank you for your time. You know, I think that the three summations you had at the end, which is really important. For anyone who's watching this video and looking at, hey, how do I even make a pivot or how do I maybe reimagine my career?

It's like, you got to take a leap of faith, bet on yourself, believe in yourself, right? Always learn, figure out how to grow. Could be hard skill or soft skill. There's no such thing as not learning. And third one is look into your network and figure out who you can talk to to learn more about stuff and create opportunity, right?

- Yeah. - Well, Hector, I just want to thank you for your time. This is really helpful for me, quite frankly, and hopefully for all of our viewers. Hopefully we can come back and talk to you again. - Yeah, absolutely. Anytime, anytime. For you, buddy, anything, man. - All right, awesome.

Thanks, Hector. - Fine, you too. (gentle music) (gentle music)