The Power of the General Marketer: Insights from an Expert at Atlassian

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | When you hear someone say that they're a marketing generalist

00:00:10.320 | what's your first impression?

00:00:11.400 | Is it a good thing?

00:00:12.720 | Is it bad?

00:00:14.360 | Do you assume they make more or less money

00:00:16.640 | than a specialist?

00:00:18.040 | Let me ask you another question.

00:00:20.280 | Which one sounds like it would give you more job stability?

00:00:24.200 | I recently did a poll on LinkedIn.

00:00:26.480 | 45% of respondents said that being a marketing generalist

00:00:30.440 | is great for early career individuals.

00:00:33.420 | Now 30% said that it's better for late careers

00:00:36.640 | and the remaining 25% said that it's better

00:00:38.960 | to have broad skill sets than being a pure specialist.

00:00:42.980 | So which is it?

00:00:45.260 | The truth is both a specialist and generalist

00:00:48.860 | can provide great stability and both have the potential

00:00:52.380 | to result in very positive personal economic gain.

00:00:56.240 | So let's break this down.

00:00:57.880 | What does it mean to be a marketing generalist?

00:01:01.400 | If you've allowed yourself to experience

00:01:03.280 | different job functions, being a generalist means

00:01:05.960 | you know just enough about all the various functions

00:01:08.220 | around you and you package that together

00:01:10.760 | and bring all that wisdom and influence into your work.

00:01:14.860 | You're that proverbial jack of all trades

00:01:17.160 | that could be the fabric that holds everything together.

00:01:20.140 | At this stage of my career, I would describe myself

00:01:23.560 | as a marketing generalist with a specialty in web marketing.

00:01:27.440 | Being a generalist has allowed me to be proactive

00:01:29.600 | and productive in meetings and take on

00:01:31.560 | that connective tissue role where I understand

00:01:33.920 | enough of the context of the meeting

00:01:36.040 | just to ask the right questions at the right time

00:01:39.280 | and really be that translator between various specialists

00:01:42.900 | and sometimes even leading cross-functional tiger teams

00:01:45.620 | that have nothing to do with my direct line of work.

00:01:48.280 | So today, we'll be joined by Ashley Foss.

00:01:52.000 | She's the head of Lifecycle Marketing Portfolio

00:01:54.120 | at Atlassian.

00:01:55.600 | Not only is she a hilarious and a passionate individual,

00:01:59.440 | but she shares some great examples about the power

00:02:02.480 | of being a marketing generalist.

00:02:04.800 | In this video, she'll cover topics such as

00:02:07.440 | how to be the bridge builder that aligns teams

00:02:09.960 | to a common outcome, how a generalist equips you

00:02:12.920 | with skills to propel your career,

00:02:15.140 | and tips on how to become an effective marketing generalist.

00:02:19.240 | All right, let's get started.

00:02:21.020 | - Hey, everyone.

00:02:21.860 | Today, we're talking about the power of a general marketer

00:02:24.560 | and joining us is Ashley Foss.

00:02:26.080 | Ashley, how are you doing?

00:02:27.400 | - Hey, I'm good.

00:02:28.220 | I'm excited to talk about this.

00:02:29.400 | I'm real passionate about this topic.

00:02:30.760 | - And I can't wait to dive in with you.

00:02:33.400 | Can you maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself

00:02:35.480 | before we get started?

00:02:37.120 | - Sure.

00:02:37.940 | So my name is Ashley and I am a marketer, writer,

00:02:41.080 | and speaker by day, and a singer, actor,

00:02:43.480 | and fitness fiend by night.

00:02:45.760 | - That is awesome.

00:02:47.600 | - We're gonna dive right into the whole generalist thing.

00:02:49.720 | Go straight. - Yeah, I don't know.

00:02:51.500 | You know, what I hear is like well-rounded, balanced life,

00:02:55.300 | work, and after.

00:02:56.500 | So I love everything you just said.

00:02:59.220 | And I think that's actually quite often,

00:03:01.460 | quite frankly, the theme of today.

00:03:03.340 | You know, I think the idea of a general marketer,

00:03:06.820 | which we're gonna kind of ask you what your take on it is,

00:03:09.580 | but like given today's market, you know,

00:03:12.020 | it's a very unstable time, right?

00:03:13.940 | And people are actually equipped with a lot of skills.

00:03:17.660 | And the question is how do you put all those skills to use?

00:03:20.720 | Or how do you find an entry point

00:03:22.920 | that allows you to branch off into many things?

00:03:25.420 | 'Cause I think listeners to this particular podcast

00:03:28.240 | are just dying to know,

00:03:29.200 | especially if they're at a point

00:03:30.280 | where they wanna pivot their careers,

00:03:32.160 | or maybe they're at the starting point

00:03:33.480 | and they just graduated.

00:03:34.560 | It's like, where do I go from here?

00:03:36.640 | So kind of turn to Ashley, like to you,

00:03:38.800 | like what does a general marketer mean to you?

00:03:41.340 | - So I think of a generalist.

00:03:44.720 | There's a couple of different frameworks

00:03:46.040 | that I've used over the years

00:03:48.160 | to kind of frame up this thinking

00:03:49.600 | that are pretty popular in the market.

00:03:51.440 | One is the concept of the T-shaped marketer.

00:03:54.680 | So it's basically looking at some of the adjacent disciplines

00:03:58.300 | and skills and crafts within marketing

00:04:00.660 | and being broad across the top,

00:04:02.960 | and then eventually going deep in one area.

00:04:06.100 | But looking at that, again,

00:04:08.200 | from an adjacent crafts perspective,

00:04:10.120 | not just a single area.

00:04:11.660 | So that's one that I like.

00:04:13.140 | The other one that I've heard that I think is interesting,

00:04:15.520 | it talks about the I-shaped marketer.

00:04:18.120 | So it's similar to the T-shaped marketer,

00:04:20.080 | except that it has this bottom foundation

00:04:22.980 | of leadership skills or communication skills

00:04:26.800 | or team management skills or project management skills,

00:04:29.940 | like kind of basic things you need to do

00:04:32.840 | if you're gonna be a leader

00:04:33.680 | or you're gonna be a professional as that foundation,

00:04:36.960 | that no matter what craft you're in,

00:04:38.620 | there's some core skills that go across the bottom.

00:04:40.480 | So those are two that I really like.

00:04:42.560 | I think the biggest thing for me is,

00:04:44.680 | I think there's value for specialists and for generalists.

00:04:47.400 | And I think that the market tends to swing.

00:04:49.640 | It's a pendulum.

00:04:50.920 | For a while, particularly when I first graduated,

00:04:53.800 | you know, years ago,

00:04:55.240 | we were in a very specialist market.

00:04:57.080 | And it was like, we need you to have 15 years in email.

00:05:01.200 | And I'm like, that is a lot of years

00:05:03.400 | in just like a single channel.

00:05:04.720 | Like, you don't need me to be good at writing

00:05:06.560 | or good at like analytics or any of that.

00:05:09.060 | You just like only email.

00:05:11.200 | And then it swung back.

00:05:12.200 | We saw this over the last couple of years,

00:05:14.300 | the meme that everybody wants to hire one person

00:05:17.280 | to do 10 jobs.

00:05:18.560 | And it's like, you have to be a marketer and a writer

00:05:21.520 | and a graphic artist and a web dev and in it, right?

00:05:24.640 | This concept that it's like,

00:05:26.880 | don't realize these job descriptions

00:05:28.280 | are 10 job descriptions.

00:05:29.360 | These are 10 jobs, not one job.

00:05:31.440 | So I think the pendulum swings.

00:05:33.800 | I think there are plenty of times

00:05:35.240 | where everybody wants a generalist,

00:05:37.720 | then it swings back and everyone wants a specialist.

00:05:40.200 | So I think both are valid paths.

00:05:43.320 | For me personally,

00:05:44.620 | that ability to look across the different areas

00:05:48.000 | within marketing, the different channels,

00:05:49.820 | the different audience types, the different deliverables,

00:05:52.420 | that's what's fun for me,

00:05:53.580 | that ability to connect the dots.

00:05:55.660 | So that's what I need when I talk about being a journalist

00:05:58.700 | and why I get excited about it.

00:06:00.980 | - Yeah, that's a really, really good point.

00:06:03.140 | Right now, and I personally experienced it as well, right?

00:06:05.500 | You have organizations

00:06:07.300 | that may be flattening the organization or whatnot.

00:06:09.860 | And naturally, as you point out,

00:06:12.020 | when headcount gets removed, for example,

00:06:13.720 | it's gotta get absorbed somewhere.

00:06:15.800 | And right now, given the economy,

00:06:17.920 | companies don't have necessarily the budget

00:06:19.360 | to replace headcount with headcount.

00:06:20.740 | So it does get absorbed by the team, right?

00:06:23.240 | And you're right, one headcount

00:06:25.120 | does a job of two, three, or four these days.

00:06:26.920 | And it's very, very true.

00:06:28.560 | I want to kind of maybe touch back

00:06:30.120 | on something you introduced us with,

00:06:31.920 | which is just kind of like how your career got started,

00:06:33.720 | right?

00:06:34.560 | 'Cause you mentioned that whether it's a T or it's the I,

00:06:36.680 | what they share in common is this horizontal bar

00:06:39.040 | of just like a broad spectrum of experience.

00:06:42.780 | So can you take us through like your own experience

00:06:44.740 | and what that looks like?

00:06:45.980 | And I'm kind of curious to understand like,

00:06:48.220 | how did that start becoming maybe a launching point

00:06:51.940 | for exploration to different parts of marketing?

00:06:54.780 | - So I graduated in 2008,

00:06:58.300 | which was one of the worst recessions we've had

00:07:00.340 | in a very long time.

00:07:01.940 | It was not a good time to be a marketer

00:07:04.420 | coming out of school.

00:07:05.780 | So that was one factor against me.

00:07:07.300 | The other factor against me is that I graduated and moved.

00:07:11.680 | And so marketing, especially early in your career,

00:07:15.000 | because there's a lot of art and science to it,

00:07:18.340 | there's not an objective right answer in most cases,

00:07:21.560 | the way there is for some of the hard,

00:07:23.400 | you know, the STEM areas where there's, you know,

00:07:25.980 | can you do the math?

00:07:26.820 | Can you do the code?

00:07:28.300 | So it's a lot harder in an early career to get in somewhere

00:07:31.200 | if people don't know you,

00:07:32.120 | and you don't really have a portfolio to speak to,

00:07:34.240 | to say, this is how I know that I've got this experience

00:07:37.160 | or this is how I can prove it, or I've worked with you.

00:07:39.360 | So that was the second strike against me.

00:07:41.280 | And then the third strike against me

00:07:42.680 | is I moved from Texas to California.

00:07:45.480 | And at the time when everybody was co-located

00:07:47.840 | and everybody had to go into an office,

00:07:50.800 | most of the companies that could afford it

00:07:54.040 | would actually outsource,

00:07:55.680 | like basically put their sales and marketing

00:07:58.300 | in a cheaper state.

00:08:00.120 | Like they basically only had developers

00:08:03.040 | in their California offices because it's so expensive here.

00:08:05.880 | Real estate is very expensive.

00:08:07.260 | And so I had like three strikes against me coming out of it.

00:08:10.200 | It was like, you're new,

00:08:11.680 | you move to a new place where nobody knows you,

00:08:13.680 | and you move to a place that's like kind of not a hub

00:08:16.520 | for marketing and sales and communications.

00:08:19.720 | And at the time I had my marketing degree,

00:08:22.080 | but I didn't really know where I wanted to go in marketing.

00:08:24.360 | And so I basically just took the first job I could get.

00:08:26.640 | I was interviewing a ton.

00:08:28.680 | A lot of people said, oh, you seem very smart.

00:08:30.800 | You seem very eager.

00:08:31.880 | You seem like a hard worker,

00:08:33.600 | but we need somebody with 10 years of experience.

00:08:35.920 | And again, similar to the market right now

00:08:38.120 | where there's this glut of talent,

00:08:40.480 | they could hire somebody more senior.

00:08:42.320 | They didn't have to kind of settle

00:08:44.400 | for this random Texas girl who barely has,

00:08:48.400 | you know, barely has a marketing degree.

00:08:49.960 | It's like, you just got out of school.

00:08:52.640 | So I took a startup role

00:08:54.880 | and I was doing a variety of things.

00:08:56.180 | I was doing writing.

00:08:57.480 | I was doing sales enablement.

00:08:59.600 | I mean, it was a startup.

00:09:00.440 | We had like five people.

00:09:01.840 | I was doing some math things.

00:09:03.240 | I worked in solar.

00:09:04.720 | And so it really just taught me, you know,

00:09:07.920 | I had these grand visions of being in this big company

00:09:10.960 | and I'm going to become the CMO of Coca-Cola.

00:09:13.600 | And I'm, you know, that is not at all what happened.

00:09:17.000 | So what I would say a common thread,

00:09:19.320 | I've worked in solar, I've worked in aviation,

00:09:21.240 | I've worked in presentation and design and training firm.

00:09:23.940 | I worked in two security companies prior to Atlassian.

00:09:27.280 | And then I've been in several teams at Atlassian

00:09:29.480 | across different audiences and markets.

00:09:32.160 | And the common thread is that I can fall in love

00:09:35.280 | with the audience.

00:09:36.520 | I can fall in love with their problems.

00:09:38.520 | I am, the thing that I am passionate about is marketing.

00:09:43.700 | And that translates to being passionate

00:09:46.880 | about the audience and their problems.

00:09:48.240 | So it's not about the specific industry

00:09:50.160 | or the specific tasks.

00:09:52.000 | It's really about how do I fall in love with

00:09:54.240 | and serve that audience?

00:09:56.380 | And then how does that connect back to the business

00:09:58.840 | to serve the business goals?

00:10:00.520 | I'm acting as that bridge.

00:10:02.440 | And so I think that that overarching mindset

00:10:06.040 | is the thing that has allowed me to lean

00:10:08.080 | into different types of audiences, types of companies,

00:10:11.100 | types of channels, types of metrics.

00:10:13.960 | I'm not super precious about which marketing thing I do.

00:10:18.080 | I'm super precious about the audience.

00:10:21.080 | - I love that.

00:10:21.920 | And as a matter of fact, I chuckle to myself

00:10:24.040 | to date myself as well,

00:10:25.360 | 'cause I graduated from undergrad in 2001,

00:10:28.280 | which was the great dot-com bubble burst, right?

00:10:30.520 | So like no one was hiring for marketing.

00:10:34.560 | And I think you caught out two things

00:10:36.240 | that are really, really important

00:10:37.320 | because someone might wonder,

00:10:39.000 | it's like, well, why should I consider a generalist role?

00:10:42.360 | Like almost journalists almost seems like watered down,

00:10:45.280 | seems like a specialist,

00:10:46.400 | like are they smarter and more experienced?

00:10:47.920 | Like, no, like the reason why I believe a generalist

00:10:51.600 | is so important is for a few things you mentioned.

00:10:55.120 | If you have the curiosity to understand

00:10:57.080 | what engages an audience,

00:10:59.600 | and you have the innate curiosity to figure out like,

00:11:02.600 | what levers do I pull to get them to engage?

00:11:06.000 | What you're naturally doing in that role

00:11:08.360 | is testing the audience, testing mediums,

00:11:10.880 | testing messages or vehicles or technology or whatever.

00:11:14.800 | And whether you're intentional about it or not,

00:11:18.280 | you're grabbing all of this experience

00:11:20.640 | that can in itself put you into a channel,

00:11:23.240 | whether it's email marketing or whatever it is, right?

00:11:25.560 | But you walk away so well-rounded

00:11:29.320 | that typically like as a hiring manager,

00:11:32.120 | we're trying to hire someone from these days,

00:11:33.800 | like a lot of it goes into the mindset,

00:11:36.040 | like what drives you?

00:11:37.360 | And if you came across my way and you say,

00:11:39.240 | hey, look, I care about the customer,

00:11:41.320 | I care about learning,

00:11:42.320 | and I just wanna figure out how to get them to engage,

00:11:45.480 | that mindset can propel you to a point

00:11:47.880 | where you're driving a leadership role eventually.

00:11:50.640 | 'Cause again, it's the mindset

00:11:52.160 | and having that round baseline

00:11:54.160 | allows you to work with a lot of cross-functional teams

00:11:57.320 | as opposed to just going narrow really quickly.

00:12:00.480 | And now, again, there's nothing wrong

00:12:01.720 | with being a subject matter expert,

00:12:02.840 | that's actually fantastic as well.

00:12:04.440 | But the well-roundedness of a generalist

00:12:07.280 | allows you to use a launching point

00:12:09.720 | to do just a lot of really cool things.

00:12:11.720 | - I think it also helps you become a translator

00:12:15.280 | among those specialists.

00:12:16.400 | So I get brought in a lot

00:12:18.360 | where I've got a bunch of specialists in a meeting

00:12:20.760 | and then they throw me in to be like,

00:12:23.200 | how does all of this connect?

00:12:24.600 | Like we each know our thing

00:12:26.360 | and there are a number of my colleagues

00:12:28.160 | who can do it better, faster, and cheaper than me

00:12:30.640 | in one specific area.

00:12:32.680 | But if you want somebody who can connect all the dots,

00:12:35.120 | I'm a great person to add to your meeting.

00:12:37.600 | I had the experience, this was years ago at this point,

00:12:40.920 | but we're all sitting around a room

00:12:42.800 | and they're trying to solve this problem.

00:12:44.480 | And I don't know if you've seen the meme

00:12:46.560 | that's basically how to draw an owl.

00:12:49.040 | And it's like step one, draw two circles.

00:12:52.240 | Step two, draw the rest of the owl.

00:12:53.960 | And it's like the most lifelike detailed,

00:12:56.760 | it looks like a photograph.

00:12:57.600 | And you're like, there are a lot of steps

00:13:01.280 | between draw two circles and an owl that looks like this.

00:13:04.760 | So I'm sitting in this room

00:13:05.880 | and I'm listening to all of these people

00:13:08.240 | who know how to draw their specific bird.

00:13:11.040 | Like they can go from the two circles of an owl

00:13:14.800 | to a realistic owl.

00:13:16.240 | They can go from two circles and it becomes an eagle

00:13:19.440 | or two circles and it becomes a hawk.

00:13:21.960 | The problem was they didn't realize

00:13:24.080 | that they were all drawing different birds.

00:13:26.240 | And so they were kind of arguing and it was like,

00:13:27.880 | well, no, it's this and no, it's that.

00:13:29.560 | And I'm sitting there listening and I'm like,

00:13:32.480 | I think that they don't understand

00:13:34.400 | that they're actually drawing different birds

00:13:36.640 | because they all kind of recognize

00:13:38.440 | that they're talking about birds,

00:13:40.160 | but they're so knowledgeable

00:13:42.960 | about their specific species of bird

00:13:47.080 | that they don't realize

00:13:47.920 | that they're talking about different birds, right?

00:13:49.920 | I am not an expert in drawing owls or eagles or hawks,

00:13:54.360 | but I am an expert in recognizing what these will become

00:14:00.280 | and helping them kind of translate and saying,

00:14:03.560 | listen, you're over here trying to draw this curved beak,

00:14:06.960 | right?

00:14:07.800 | And this person is over here drawing a flat bill

00:14:09.440 | because it's actually a duck.

00:14:10.880 | Let me explain to you about the differences.

00:14:13.480 | And so that was the value that I could add

00:14:15.600 | was actually helping them to translate

00:14:18.480 | that they're drawing different birds,

00:14:19.880 | here's the differences,

00:14:21.080 | here's why it matters that we draw this bird or that bird,

00:14:24.680 | right?

00:14:25.520 | That was the big value add.

00:14:26.800 | But it was just a fascinating moment to sit there

00:14:30.200 | and be like, sorry, why am I here?

00:14:31.920 | You have a lot of expertise in this room.

00:14:34.200 | And then as I listened, I was like,

00:14:35.520 | oh, this is why I'm here.

00:14:39.400 | - Yeah, you know, I wish I got that kind of insight

00:14:42.760 | or feedback early on in my career.

00:14:45.080 | You know, 'cause I don't know anyone who's listening

00:14:47.160 | to this can relate to this,

00:14:48.360 | but like when I graduated out of college,

00:14:50.680 | obviously there's no experience on my resume

00:14:52.200 | that I can speak of, right?

00:14:53.480 | And I know that like communication skills

00:14:55.920 | seems to be something I was strong in,

00:14:57.920 | but it comes really weird on a resume.

00:15:00.520 | As a matter of fact,

00:15:01.360 | it doesn't even make it on as a bullet point.

00:15:03.000 | And you kind of feel like, what do I do with that, right?

00:15:06.120 | Like, is there any value in that?

00:15:07.280 | I think what you're articulating here is like, yes,

00:15:09.000 | like communication skill described in a different way

00:15:13.320 | as the ability to understand

00:15:15.600 | what multiple different functions

00:15:17.440 | or departments are trying to figure out

00:15:19.760 | and being the connective tissue that becomes a translator

00:15:23.080 | that enables them to move forward towards a common goal.

00:15:27.040 | That's what generalists can do.

00:15:28.280 | And that's super powerful.

00:15:30.800 | I'm thinking even on my own personal experience,

00:15:33.000 | you know, many, many years later, you know, like you,

00:15:36.520 | starting off in a,

00:15:37.720 | I started off in the world of project management

00:15:39.560 | and project management is also a great way

00:15:41.680 | to go deep and wide.

00:15:43.880 | And just like you kind of interacting with developers,

00:15:46.640 | designers, project managers, like peers or product,

00:15:50.240 | taking me to a point where, you know, like a few years ago,

00:15:53.600 | so my role at the time was like senior director

00:15:56.040 | of web and digital.

00:15:57.440 | And I was brought into a meeting to solve something

00:15:59.280 | that was not even within my purview, right?

00:16:01.120 | There was a issue that in this case,

00:16:04.640 | I'm not gonna obviously,

00:16:05.880 | you're not gonna use the name of the company,

00:16:07.800 | but there was an opportunity to optimize the sales process.

00:16:11.080 | Something was happening with the leads.

00:16:13.200 | I am not an SFDC expert.

00:16:14.760 | I've never have been.

00:16:15.800 | I would never pay myself to do that.

00:16:18.240 | But when you're sitting in a room saying,

00:16:19.880 | okay, I've talked to sales people before.

00:16:22.760 | I've talked to sales engineers before.

00:16:24.720 | Okay, I've talked to people in the technology stack.

00:16:28.120 | So now as they're trying to figure out like,

00:16:29.960 | what, where's the leaky bucket?

00:16:32.320 | And they're kind of speaking across each other

00:16:34.440 | 'cause some of these problems existed for many, many years.

00:16:36.920 | So there's politics at play as well.

00:16:38.720 | Like there's finger pointing.

00:16:40.200 | It allows a generalist like me in that position to be like,

00:16:42.560 | hey, pull back for a second.

00:16:45.080 | Are we talking about this?

00:16:47.080 | Like, am I categorizing the problem statement?

00:16:49.680 | Yes.

00:16:50.520 | Okay, well, are we in agreement that like,

00:16:52.520 | this is the problem we're trying to solve?

00:16:55.080 | And if it's yes,

00:16:55.920 | then it seems like these other things

00:16:57.200 | you guys are talking about

00:16:58.360 | are a little bit less than party.

00:16:59.400 | Is that true?

00:17:00.240 | Yes. Oh, cool.

00:17:01.080 | Okay, well, let's shift the conversation here then.

00:17:03.200 | Again, I'm not saying anything intelligent.

00:17:05.120 | I'm just being like a translator, right?

00:17:07.600 | And then it ends up revealing,

00:17:09.880 | oh, it seems like it's a technical issue.

00:17:12.640 | Great, then what do we need to do that?

00:17:14.400 | Again, to your point,

00:17:15.680 | I'm not bringing anything to the table.

00:17:16.800 | As a matter of fact,

00:17:17.640 | none of these solutions have anything to do with

00:17:18.840 | that I'm responsible for.

00:17:20.440 | But at the end,

00:17:21.280 | I'm in a position where I'm driving the tiger team.

00:17:23.600 | And I think to your point,

00:17:24.440 | that's the essential generalist right there, right?

00:17:29.440 | And just having the spectrum

00:17:31.440 | to kind of pull people together.

00:17:33.360 | - Yeah, I think it's interesting too.

00:17:35.160 | I think a lot of people,

00:17:37.000 | especially whenever they're trying to think about

00:17:39.080 | putting this on a resume,

00:17:40.000 | they'll write excellent verbal

00:17:41.840 | and written communication skills.

00:17:43.520 | Everybody is gonna say that.

00:17:47.000 | - Yes.

00:17:47.840 | - The connective tissue, the translator, the bridge builder,

00:17:50.560 | ability to get executive buy-in,

00:17:53.440 | ability to speak to different audiences.

00:17:56.240 | Those are the interesting things.

00:17:58.560 | And especially if you have proof points of that,

00:18:00.840 | where you say, ran the tiger team consisting of

00:18:04.520 | these three other crafts to solve this problem.

00:18:08.400 | You don't have to say experienced communicator

00:18:11.400 | with 15 years of verbal and written experience, right?

00:18:14.360 | Nobody cares about that.

00:18:15.920 | They care about the outcome you were able to achieve.

00:18:18.160 | And I think that was something,

00:18:19.640 | especially for me being able to tell those stories

00:18:22.600 | of the different types of people I've managed.

00:18:25.000 | I've had a bunch of different specialists

00:18:27.120 | who've reported into me.

00:18:28.880 | And when you look at the types of teams I've managed,

00:18:31.920 | that starts to speak to my expertise

00:18:35.040 | and ability to connect and ability to communicate

00:18:38.160 | versus me saying, ability to manage different crafts.

00:18:41.520 | It's like, okay, so you have expertise in that?

00:18:44.440 | You do that?

00:18:45.800 | Like, what do you do versus saying,

00:18:48.160 | these are the types of deliverables, the types of teams,

00:18:50.680 | the types of talent that I've helped lead and develop.

00:18:54.200 | That's the thing that signals it to you.

00:18:56.000 | So I would say too,

00:18:56.920 | it's interesting when you think about translating it

00:18:59.080 | beyond just excellent written and verbal skills,

00:19:01.560 | like you see in the job description.

00:19:03.880 | How do you translate that into outcomes and actions

00:19:08.120 | that you take when you're in a role?

00:19:10.840 | - Yeah, I totally agree.

00:19:12.320 | As a matter of fact, even projecting on myself,

00:19:15.120 | I go into interviews very differently now.

00:19:17.040 | And as a matter of fact, I wish I can rewind 20 years

00:19:19.960 | and see if it still worked.

00:19:20.880 | Back then it probably would, because to your point,

00:19:23.920 | I don't go into any interviews anymore where like,

00:19:26.080 | here's your job description.

00:19:27.680 | Here are my job accomplishments.

00:19:30.240 | Let me show you how they align to each other.

00:19:31.920 | It's like, no, like no one cares about that, right?

00:19:33.400 | It's like, here's the outcome that I drove.

00:19:36.400 | And more interestingly enough,

00:19:37.720 | let me tell you how I got there.

00:19:38.920 | 'Cause like understanding how my brain works,

00:19:41.360 | that's what a hiring manager is more interested in.

00:19:43.160 | The outcome they can control

00:19:45.880 | by the context and environment, by team.

00:19:48.880 | How you solve the problem is really, really interesting.

00:19:51.560 | I think that's where, if you allowed yourself

00:19:53.960 | the opportunity to become a generalist

00:19:56.560 | and get that broad spectrum of experience,

00:19:59.160 | how you pull people together or how you align people

00:20:02.320 | or how you drove efficiency,

00:20:04.000 | 'cause maybe you observed an extra step in the process

00:20:06.680 | and you cut it out.

00:20:07.520 | Now like, all of a sudden you're like,

00:20:10.040 | your product life cycle process and launch

00:20:11.880 | just got 20% faster 'cause you cut unnecessary stuff.

00:20:14.880 | Like those are really, really valuable.

00:20:16.960 | So Ashley, I'm curious,

00:20:18.120 | 'cause you mentioned like in the beginning of your career,

00:20:19.960 | obviously you kind of dabbled into a lot of things.

00:20:22.640 | You mentioned being passionate about the audience

00:20:25.000 | and how that then kind of spurred in different avenues.

00:20:28.200 | Can you actually help us understand even more in depth,

00:20:31.280 | like which areas really called out to you

00:20:33.760 | that started becoming the foundation

00:20:35.640 | of maybe discovering what you're passionate about

00:20:38.800 | and allowing yourself to kind of experience that breadth?

00:20:41.400 | - I think one of the biggest things is that

00:20:44.880 | early in my career,

00:20:45.720 | I didn't have the choice of where I worked

00:20:48.920 | and who I worked with.

00:20:50.440 | And so because of that,

00:20:52.520 | if I wanted to enjoy going to work every day,

00:20:54.400 | if I wanted to enjoy the tasks I was doing,

00:20:57.480 | if I wanted to feel like I was accomplishing something,

00:21:00.680 | I needed to go beyond just,

00:21:02.440 | I personally use this product

00:21:05.040 | or see value from this technology.

00:21:08.120 | So we didn't have solar panels.

00:21:10.040 | Like I wasn't installing solar panels.

00:21:11.720 | I don't know anything about solar, right?

00:21:13.560 | Until I got in and I started realizing

00:21:16.600 | that the value of renewable energy

00:21:18.960 | and there's some nerdy pricing models

00:21:23.560 | with California energy

00:21:25.160 | that like make this particularly interesting here, right?

00:21:28.280 | And so that was something where I was like,

00:21:29.480 | okay, what is the unique thing here

00:21:31.520 | that I can kind of grab onto?

00:21:33.600 | I remember when I was in aviation,

00:21:35.880 | I was in marketing.

00:21:37.160 | I was the only marketing person.

00:21:39.080 | I actually worked for the parent company,

00:21:40.840 | which was only like three people.

00:21:42.200 | But so all of the child companies were bigger

00:21:45.640 | and I was the only marketing person for all of them.

00:21:48.280 | And so it was this very weird thing where it was like,

00:21:51.240 | I'm kind of part of the culture.

00:21:52.680 | I'm kind of part of the business,

00:21:54.320 | but I'm not fully immersed and I'm kind of an odd ball.

00:21:58.520 | And so I got tasked with helping to decorate the office

00:22:01.360 | because we were in this space.

00:22:03.480 | And it turns out that part of the reason

00:22:05.960 | we needed to decorate the space

00:22:08.000 | is that when clients would come,

00:22:10.640 | they felt like we were kind of a fly-by-night shop

00:22:13.840 | because it didn't look like we were settled into the office.

00:22:17.040 | It looked like we had just moved in

00:22:18.800 | and that didn't sell well.

00:22:23.040 | And so there was an element of it where on the surface,

00:22:27.040 | it would look like, I don't know,

00:22:28.240 | get the marketing girl to do it, right?

00:22:29.800 | She's young, make her buy some pictures, right?

00:22:32.160 | But when you dig in and you find out that actually

00:22:34.120 | this is impacting our ability to close deals

00:22:37.080 | because we can't really invite people to our office.

00:22:40.400 | They don't feel comfortable.

00:22:42.080 | And it's kind of just, it just doesn't look nice.

00:22:45.960 | And so they don't feel comfortable.

00:22:47.280 | And again, this was 15 years ago and aviation is old school.

00:22:51.560 | Man, like they're still wearing their suits

00:22:53.440 | and their polo shirts and like doing business in person.

00:22:56.760 | If you can't invite your customers to your office,

00:22:59.640 | that's a problem.

00:23:01.280 | And so I started pulling things together

00:23:04.760 | and it ended up being kind of this culture thing

00:23:07.520 | where people would ask like, Ashley, hi, yeah,

00:23:10.080 | I noticed you were putting up some pictures in this space.

00:23:12.840 | Like, are there gonna be any in my hallway?

00:23:15.880 | And so it started to really bring people together.

00:23:17.720 | And that's how I started to develop the relationships

00:23:20.760 | with the sales reps and with our manufacturing lead

00:23:23.520 | and with our shop floor lead.

00:23:25.480 | And that way, when I then came around and said,

00:23:27.360 | hey guys, there's this new thing called LinkedIn.

00:23:30.360 | This is how we start to build relationships

00:23:33.120 | to go for bigger deals.

00:23:34.760 | I had built that credibility that they were like,

00:23:37.560 | all right, you can take our headshots.

00:23:39.120 | You can put us on LinkedIn, right?

00:23:40.520 | You can help us with LinkedIn.

00:23:41.680 | So I think that's the big thing for me

00:23:44.120 | is that willingness to do some of the work early on

00:23:48.840 | that on the surface looked boring or looked like busy work,

00:23:55.240 | but actually finding out that that's a way

00:23:57.640 | to build relationships with people.

00:23:59.320 | And so that's something that's been positive

00:24:01.800 | throughout my career of being willing

00:24:04.440 | to find the interesting stories.

00:24:06.600 | Like, I wanna do interesting work for myself.

00:24:09.920 | That probably means that whoever is consuming this work

00:24:14.080 | also wants to feel interested in it, right?

00:24:16.640 | You know? - Yeah.

00:24:17.480 | - And I hear this a lot from people of like,

00:24:20.680 | oh, that audience is boring.

00:24:22.240 | Or like, oh, that product is boring.

00:24:23.840 | And I'm like, it's not boring to somebody.

00:24:26.920 | Somebody thinks this is interesting.

00:24:29.360 | Somebody is thrilled that this problem got solved.

00:24:32.920 | Plenty of people think what I do is boring.

00:24:36.160 | So if we flip that around, right,

00:24:37.880 | there's something interesting.

00:24:39.760 | There's a human behind the screen.

00:24:41.560 | Somebody thinks this is interesting.

00:24:43.880 | Why are they so excited about it?

00:24:45.480 | And can I draft off of some of that excitement?

00:24:48.680 | - Yeah, that is so cool.

00:24:49.960 | And I even think of the world of like Marvel

00:24:52.440 | with parallel universes, right?

00:24:53.880 | Like one single decision can branch off on so many things.

00:24:57.280 | 'Cause as you're talking through that, it made me think.

00:24:59.520 | So like, taking the opportunity to notice,

00:25:02.520 | hey, our office space needs to feel more welcoming, right?

00:25:05.960 | And you kind of do all things.

00:25:07.640 | That in itself as a generalist activity

00:25:10.520 | could have branched you into different universes.

00:25:12.720 | You could have spun that as, hey, you know what?

00:25:15.240 | This is actually about brand building.

00:25:17.480 | So maybe brand and comms becomes a passion area

00:25:20.640 | you kind of branch off into.

00:25:22.400 | If it's around attracting customers,

00:25:23.720 | maybe that becomes event planning,

00:25:25.160 | or campaigns, or demand gen, or maybe regional sales.

00:25:30.000 | There's another branch for you, right?

00:25:31.760 | Maybe it's around,

00:25:32.600 | because you're talking about bringing people to the office,

00:25:35.000 | that could become an HR function, right?

00:25:37.480 | And so like everything that you do,

00:25:39.720 | like I think that universe,

00:25:41.080 | the underlying theme you mentioned

00:25:42.440 | is like a hunger or desire to kind of learn

00:25:45.080 | and extract the most you can out of any situation

00:25:48.200 | with intent.

00:25:49.520 | And then you can go kind of figure some stuff out.

00:25:51.280 | 'Cause I think early in my career,

00:25:53.320 | that's probably the one thing that did right

00:25:55.840 | amongst all of the things I did wrong.

00:25:57.920 | 'Cause like I graduated during recession

00:26:00.920 | and like nothing was happening.

00:26:01.960 | So I took all these really random oddball jobs,

00:26:04.360 | which on the surface was the least glamorous thing, right?

00:26:06.920 | Like it ranged from like call center to whatever.

00:26:09.440 | But I challenged myself with every single role that I took

00:26:13.440 | to at least get one major learning out of it.

00:26:16.600 | So for call center,

00:26:17.440 | I overcame the fear of cold calling and rejection, right?

00:26:20.680 | I had a content entry job.

00:26:22.480 | My words per minute typing went up, you know?

00:26:24.560 | So like, but all these things then cascade

00:26:27.880 | and build up into who I am today.

00:26:30.120 | And I'm glad that I took a chance to go broad,

00:26:35.120 | to experience all these things.

00:26:36.680 | And quite frankly, sometimes you rule stuff out as well.

00:26:38.240 | It's like, oh, that's totally not for me, you know?

00:26:40.880 | School ruled out medicine for me, you know?

00:26:43.680 | Because I just couldn't do it.

00:26:44.720 | I wouldn't have known if I didn't try.

00:26:47.080 | But yeah, I think what I'm hearing from you

00:26:49.080 | is kind of similar to me.

00:26:49.920 | These things start building up for relationships.

00:26:52.320 | For you, you kind of discover a platform like LinkedIn.

00:26:54.960 | You build a brand for yourself now.

00:26:56.440 | You have credibility.

00:26:58.280 | And that overall experience allows you,

00:27:00.920 | it propels you to do a lot of things.

00:27:03.240 | So where did you go from there then, Ashley?

00:27:05.080 | So now like you just discovered one channel

00:27:07.240 | or one avenue you're interested in.

00:27:08.840 | Is that where you double down on or where else did you go?

00:27:12.240 | - I mean, I kept, I was in smaller companies and startups.

00:27:15.120 | So I continued down that path.

00:27:16.440 | I would say, I think I kind of like found my people

00:27:21.440 | when I was working at Duarte.

00:27:23.640 | So it was a presentation design and training firm.

00:27:26.360 | I had a graphic designer, project manager,

00:27:28.240 | and a writer on my team and a videographer.

00:27:30.760 | So again, like this very interesting mix of skills

00:27:33.600 | that were not core marketers.

00:27:36.480 | I was kind of the only marketer.

00:27:37.680 | My boss was a marketer,

00:27:38.600 | but she was off trying to build another part of the business.

00:27:41.720 | And she was like, listen, I just need somebody

00:27:43.120 | who can get in here and do this.

00:27:43.960 | So I did email.

00:27:44.840 | I did social media.

00:27:46.120 | I did PR.

00:27:47.360 | I was doing branding stuff.

00:27:48.680 | We were doing a mix of like high touch kind of sales stuff.

00:27:53.040 | So like I brought in Marketo

00:27:54.440 | when HubSpot into that organization at the time,

00:27:56.880 | I was helping to do events.

00:27:58.800 | We did book marketing.

00:27:59.880 | So our CEO, Nancy Duarte had written several books.

00:28:03.280 | So I helped her launch those books.

00:28:04.760 | I hosted the events in the office, right?

00:28:06.600 | Like I got a chance to do everything.

00:28:09.480 | And I think that, you know, I had been doing a lot of that

00:28:12.560 | at the previous two companies where I was doing email

00:28:14.720 | and starting to bring people into social

00:28:16.760 | and that kind of thing.

00:28:17.600 | And I think those staying in small companies.

00:28:20.880 | And then again, I was at two security startups.

00:28:23.520 | So like, I just didn't have the luxury of being like,

00:28:25.800 | I only want to do this one thing.

00:28:29.160 | I've, you know, started to specialize a little bit

00:28:31.920 | at Atlassian, but even still I've gotten the chance

00:28:34.440 | to do more of the product marketing.

00:28:36.440 | My title is literally integrated.

00:28:40.080 | It's been integrated twice now.

00:28:41.600 | I was senior manager of integrated media.

00:28:44.200 | Then I like sort of specialized,

00:28:47.000 | whatever you want to call it in content strategy.

00:28:49.400 | And again, that does still include email, social media,

00:28:54.240 | presentations, you know,

00:28:55.760 | a variety of different content marketing types.

00:28:58.480 | Now I'm back to like integrated product marketing.

00:29:01.440 | So I think that every time I start to get too specialized,

00:29:06.240 | I'm like, why is there only one audience?

00:29:09.360 | Why is there only one channel?

00:29:10.600 | Why is there only one deliverable?

00:29:12.080 | And I start to be like, all right guys,

00:29:14.280 | can't let my skills get dull in these other areas.

00:29:17.840 | And I do think that I take a pretty broad approach,

00:29:20.360 | even in those cases of like, you know,

00:29:23.840 | looking at onboarding journeys or, you know,

00:29:26.120 | doing demos and tutorials that might not

00:29:28.400 | traditionally be considered.

00:29:30.720 | Content marketing is a weird space.

00:29:33.240 | I think it's like a catch-all term.

00:29:35.600 | I feel like that's almost a generalist space in itself,

00:29:38.720 | but I actually do have fairly deep expertise

00:29:41.840 | in social media.

00:29:43.200 | And so the people who use social media

00:29:47.200 | as a distribution channel in their content strategy

00:29:51.520 | versus a separate channel, influencer marketing,

00:29:54.160 | community building, like basically treating it

00:29:57.280 | as its own strategy would probably look at the way

00:30:00.440 | I treat both of those and say, okay,

00:30:02.200 | those are actually quite separate and they are specialists.

00:30:05.800 | The way I do them is more of a generalist,

00:30:07.640 | very connected, integrated way.

00:30:09.560 | So I think just that ability to stay generalist

00:30:14.520 | and to know what I want and being willing to stick my nose

00:30:17.200 | in other people's business,

00:30:18.360 | that's how I switched teams internally a couple of times

00:30:21.840 | at Atlassian because I've worked with a team

00:30:25.240 | and they're like, should you do this?

00:30:28.200 | Like, do we need this all the time?

00:30:31.680 | Maybe let's bring that over or let's add this to your role

00:30:37.320 | or let's combine these two things so that it becomes a role

00:30:41.880 | for you or something like that to say, hey, we need this.

00:30:44.320 | We had somebody who's doing like three out of the five,

00:30:47.040 | you can do all five.

00:30:48.040 | Like we're gonna restructure this a bit.

00:30:50.040 | So it's been an interesting journey,

00:30:52.840 | especially in a bigger company where I am surrounded

00:30:55.720 | by phenomenal specialists in a variety of different areas.

00:30:59.480 | And so that ability to keep connecting the dots,

00:31:02.600 | having a variety of different crafts and skills

00:31:05.960 | and expertise on my team and helping them grow.

00:31:09.720 | And then being somebody, the other nice thing about it

00:31:12.280 | is that I can play as a team.

00:31:14.560 | That's one of our values really well

00:31:16.880 | because my goals are horizontal.

00:31:20.520 | And so if you have something that you can't really get done

00:31:25.120 | because it doesn't achieve your goals,

00:31:27.680 | it probably helps achieve my goals.

00:31:29.480 | And so I can help you get stuff done across the organization

00:31:33.360 | because I'm not beholden to a single vertical goal.

00:31:37.800 | So it's actually a superpower

00:31:39.160 | to have a mix of generalists and specialists

00:31:41.640 | because the specialists are doing amazing work

00:31:44.560 | on this one goal.

00:31:45.880 | And the generalists are connecting across

00:31:48.640 | to do amazing work across all of these goals.

00:31:50.800 | So it's actually a really nice pairing.

00:31:52.560 | Again, I'm not trying to hate on specialists.

00:31:55.880 | I'm trying to combat a little bit of that like,

00:31:58.680 | ah, specialists own the world.

00:32:00.480 | You can only succeed as a specialist.

00:32:02.240 | And I'm like, I don't know,

00:32:03.680 | I feel like you can succeed as a generalist.

00:32:05.440 | And here's how they pair really well together.

00:32:08.840 | Where you are in terms of your career maturity,

00:32:11.080 | your company maturity, your team size, your goals.

00:32:14.760 | Yes, that's gonna depend on the mix that you need,

00:32:17.520 | but you gotta have some generalists in there.

00:32:20.840 | Like it's so helpful.

00:32:23.120 | - Is there a dark side to being a generalist?

00:32:28.200 | And I'm gonna make up an example and maybe this is real.

00:32:32.720 | The fear of if I'm potentially spreading myself thin

00:32:37.720 | or reaching beyond where I have legitimate experience

00:32:42.000 | as I'm poking my nose into stuff, can it ever backfire?

00:32:46.040 | You know, it could be a lack of executional expertise.

00:32:48.600 | And so now I went far, but kind of backfired

00:32:51.280 | or maybe I went somewhere that I shouldn't have.

00:32:54.080 | And now kind of, again, it's not going my way.

00:32:56.000 | Is there the downside to this?

00:33:00.240 | - 100% there's a downside to this.

00:33:01.840 | So if, I mean, LinkedIn is an excellent example, right?

00:33:06.680 | Numerous people have asked me why I don't niche down

00:33:10.840 | and has said, if you wanna keep growing,

00:33:13.000 | you've gotta niche down.

00:33:14.360 | What do you do?

00:33:15.920 | What do you want?

00:33:16.880 | Who do you serve?

00:33:19.040 | And I'm like, well, I do all the things

00:33:20.960 | and I serve all the people and I want all the things.

00:33:23.200 | And they're like, okay,

00:33:24.440 | but at some point you have to pick, right?

00:33:28.000 | I would say that to your point

00:33:31.040 | about spreading yourself too thin,

00:33:32.400 | that is something that is a continued growth area for me

00:33:35.680 | in terms of prioritization, saying no.

00:33:38.800 | I get excited about kind of the next new thing.

00:33:42.360 | And so I'm constantly like, what's going on over there?

00:33:45.040 | Could we somehow bring it in over here?

00:33:46.800 | And can I just like do that?

00:33:49.960 | And sometimes the answer is, yeah, sure.

00:33:51.640 | Low consequences, get it done, try it out.

00:33:53.760 | We'll see if it works.

00:33:54.960 | Obviously there are other times

00:33:56.800 | where that might have high consequences.

00:33:59.800 | And if you are not cautious and saying,

00:34:03.240 | okay, let's look at this.

00:34:05.720 | Does this actually require a specialist?

00:34:08.280 | I think that can be hard.

00:34:10.560 | You can not go deep enough, not explore enough,

00:34:14.840 | potentially get yourself into hot water.

00:34:16.800 | I have been very fortunate

00:34:18.080 | to have some excellent specialist partners

00:34:20.680 | that if I'm coming in and it's something

00:34:22.560 | that is a solved problem within another specialty,

00:34:26.600 | but is maybe new to the organization

00:34:28.560 | or it's a new use case, then I'm able to pair.

00:34:31.920 | If it's completely not new, that's a separate issue.

00:34:34.040 | And I'm a great person to do that.

00:34:35.640 | 'Cause I'm like, can't mess it up that bad.

00:34:38.520 | Like probably gonna be okay, right?

00:34:40.440 | And then I think in terms of,

00:34:46.080 | particularly if you have a very specific niche skill set

00:34:49.800 | and you are very rare in how you provide that skill,

00:34:55.720 | yeah, you can make a lot of money

00:34:57.480 | if you can tell that story and you can say,

00:34:59.120 | hey, I'm like one of five people who can do this one thing.

00:35:02.760 | You can make a boatload of money doing that.

00:35:05.080 | And it is a harder story to tell as a generalist,

00:35:09.160 | particularly if you're in your early or mid career.

00:35:12.000 | Think once you start getting into leadership levels,

00:35:14.160 | you've seen it all,

00:35:15.000 | you've managed different types of people,

00:35:16.320 | you've run into different types of problems,

00:35:18.120 | that's an easier story.

00:35:19.400 | But for early to mid career folks,

00:35:22.280 | the general story is harder to tell.

00:35:24.280 | And so maximizing your compensation and your offering

00:35:28.840 | can be a lot more difficult than if you come in

00:35:31.080 | and you're like, I've literally seen every permutation

00:35:34.080 | of this specific problem versus saying,

00:35:37.640 | I can connect the dots, I can learn,

00:35:39.680 | I'm curious, I'm adaptable.

00:35:41.600 | I've seen a bunch of different types of problems.

00:35:43.880 | Here's a bunch of different types of solutions.

00:35:46.800 | That can be a much harder story to tell.

00:35:49.680 | And so from a compensation

00:35:52.000 | and a career trajectory standpoint,

00:35:55.000 | you have to be strategic

00:35:56.600 | about how you're telling that story.

00:35:58.560 | You can't just flop around and be like,

00:36:00.600 | yeah, I can do any job.

00:36:02.320 | That's not a generalist.

00:36:03.960 | That's a different,

00:36:05.600 | that's not a story that's gonna resonate.

00:36:07.440 | I don't know, any job will do, right?

00:36:09.200 | I'm gonna apply for a head of brand

00:36:11.360 | and a head of product marketing

00:36:12.600 | and a head of communications

00:36:14.120 | and a head of social media.

00:36:16.400 | And it's like, that is a lot of head ofs

00:36:19.880 | that you're just gonna apply for all the jobs here.

00:36:24.000 | That is a much harder story to tell

00:36:25.680 | than either smaller companies,

00:36:28.400 | like a director of marketing

00:36:29.600 | or VP of marketing of a smaller company

00:36:31.480 | where they want that breadth of experience.

00:36:34.240 | - Yeah, I totally agree with all of that.

00:36:35.840 | And I think the trap I fell into early in my career

00:36:39.720 | in a mission to become a generalist,

00:36:42.280 | so the intent was good,

00:36:45.160 | I spread myself way too thin as well.

00:36:47.560 | So I ran out of hours in the day

00:36:50.080 | and I started burning the midnight candle.

00:36:52.320 | And so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy

00:36:55.920 | where like the more success I gained,

00:36:58.040 | the more work I added,

00:36:59.200 | and then things start suffering

00:37:00.600 | 'cause then people are wondering,

00:37:02.200 | oh, Tim, are you supposed to be doing this?

00:37:03.640 | Well, let me give you more of that then.

00:37:04.720 | And it's like, okay, well,

00:37:05.560 | that's taking me away from my core job now

00:37:07.480 | because to your point, there is a need.

00:37:08.960 | Someone needs that help

00:37:10.400 | and I'll take all the free need I can get,

00:37:12.600 | but it put me in conflict with my manager at the time.

00:37:14.520 | They're like, why are you doing that?

00:37:15.920 | Like, I specifically told you to do this thing,

00:37:18.040 | now you're doing this.

00:37:18.880 | And so that looked poorly on me early on in my career.

00:37:22.400 | So I think you're right.

00:37:23.240 | I think having a really good point of view

00:37:24.440 | on what you're trying to do,

00:37:27.280 | so even though you're a generalist,

00:37:28.480 | there's still gotta be some kind of direction.

00:37:31.400 | I think the storytelling piece of that,

00:37:33.200 | well, that comes with age as well.

00:37:34.640 | Like as we mature, we have more context,

00:37:36.400 | but I think, again, for those who are early in their careers

00:37:40.080 | hearing this, start thinking about that story

00:37:42.760 | and how you're crafting your journey

00:37:44.040 | 'cause people will be interested.

00:37:45.000 | But again, how you're getting from A to B

00:37:47.240 | and the decisions you make become really, really important.

00:37:50.360 | So these are all kind of foundational pieces of that.

00:37:53.240 | - Yeah, I think the other thing that's funny,

00:37:56.120 | I have these conversations fairly frequently now

00:37:58.280 | where people are like, you've done all this different stuff

00:38:00.360 | and how did you decide and how did you do it?

00:38:02.840 | Yeah, sure, I can look back and be like,

00:38:05.640 | oh, this was the common thread, right?

00:38:08.120 | I can look back and say, this is the common skill.

00:38:10.720 | This is the thing that made it happen.

00:38:13.840 | I didn't know that 10 years ago.

00:38:15.400 | I didn't know that 15 years ago.

00:38:17.680 | I'm looking back on that and drawing those threads

00:38:21.000 | and drawing those parallels.

00:38:22.480 | And I think that especially for folks

00:38:25.360 | who are earlier in their career,

00:38:27.320 | it's gonna take you some time.

00:38:30.080 | And this was something I actually did an Ask Me Anything

00:38:32.960 | with some high school students at one point.

00:38:35.560 | And they asked me, they're like,

00:38:36.400 | how did you know that marketing was your life's purpose?

00:38:39.360 | And I was like, whoa, I'm gonna stop you right there.

00:38:42.800 | Marketing is not my life's purpose.

00:38:45.240 | You're 17 years old.

00:38:49.640 | You can switch majors.

00:38:52.000 | You can pick a major and never work a day in your field.

00:38:55.480 | You can go and work in that field

00:38:57.800 | and actually decide that it turns out

00:38:59.480 | that the work is not interesting.

00:39:01.600 | You can go back to school.

00:39:03.720 | You could become an entrepreneur.

00:39:05.240 | And they were just like, thank you, right?

00:39:08.800 | I was like, this idea that we go on this linear journey

00:39:13.800 | and we get good grades and we pick our major

00:39:16.080 | at 17 years old, 'cause you have to apply to college

00:39:19.280 | like the summer before or whatever,

00:39:21.400 | like summer after your junior year.

00:39:24.120 | You don't freaking know anything.

00:39:25.640 | I started college as a musical theater major, right?

00:39:27.960 | Like you don't know things at 17, right?

00:39:32.960 | I'm an oddball because I actually got

00:39:34.800 | an undergraduate marketing degree

00:39:36.320 | and I've worked my whole career in marketing.

00:39:38.440 | People are like, what?

00:39:39.840 | You did the thing with your degree?

00:39:41.720 | This is fascinating.

00:39:42.760 | So I think that's the other thing I would say

00:39:45.040 | is that looking at a journey like mine,

00:39:47.800 | and I'm sure it sounds like you've got the same thing

00:39:49.800 | where you're like, oh, I can look back

00:39:51.000 | and here's all the lessons that I learned.

00:39:52.600 | And it's like, wow, that Tim guy,

00:39:55.240 | he really crafted a great career.

00:39:57.600 | And you're like, I mean, I tried to make smart moves,

00:40:01.200 | but it was in a recession and I took the job I could take

00:40:05.600 | and I made money and I tried to make the best of it.

00:40:07.440 | And there's not a perfect path.

00:40:11.360 | And as much as, I mean, I still deal with this.

00:40:13.200 | I look at people who are further along than me

00:40:15.920 | and I'm like, man, they've got it figured out.

00:40:18.480 | If I could just do what they did,

00:40:21.040 | but I can't because that's not my journey.

00:40:24.000 | My journey is my journey.

00:40:25.520 | And looking back on it, I can draw the threads,

00:40:27.600 | but I don't know.

00:40:28.560 | I think every so often,

00:40:30.040 | I'm managing some early career folks now

00:40:31.680 | and I just wanna tell them like, it's gonna be okay.

00:40:34.040 | Like you're doing fine for yourself.

00:40:38.360 | I'm happy to help, I'm happy to answer,

00:40:40.280 | but get a long career and it's gonna be okay.

00:40:44.240 | - Yeah, that's so funny.

00:40:45.880 | I love that 'cause you're totally right

00:40:48.120 | in terms of like that being my career story as well.

00:40:50.600 | 'Cause I wrote, it hasn't been released yet,

00:40:52.720 | at least at the time of this recording,

00:40:54.720 | but I recorded a podcast specifically

00:40:57.120 | on all around my failures of my career.

00:40:59.840 | 'Cause when I thought about it, I was like,

00:41:00.760 | man, it was a lot.

00:41:02.440 | And ranging all the way back to like academic choices

00:41:06.240 | and it's all those small pivot points

00:41:09.840 | that you kind of figure out.

00:41:11.120 | It's like, okay, that didn't work.

00:41:13.520 | Maybe I need to swallow my pride a little bit.

00:41:15.360 | Let me try something else.

00:41:16.760 | And again, the accumulation of all those micro decisions,

00:41:21.480 | good and bad, all should hopefully lead

00:41:24.480 | to something positive.

00:41:25.320 | And I think it's easy to focus on let's say failure

00:41:28.480 | because you tried all these things and they fail.

00:41:30.240 | It's like, oh man, the common thread you see

00:41:32.520 | so far is failure.

00:41:33.360 | It's like, well, actually like all of those have,

00:41:35.520 | like if you can figure out what the underlying problem is,

00:41:37.960 | maybe it's a person, maybe it's a point of view thing

00:41:40.240 | or your outlook or attitude or something like that,

00:41:42.040 | like that can be a micro turning point

00:41:44.160 | where it's just like, if you're 15 years later

00:41:46.320 | and you reflect back, it's like, oh man,

00:41:47.520 | that failure was the best thing that ever happened to me

00:41:49.200 | 'cause it forced me to swallow the pride and whatnot.

00:41:53.040 | And I think you're right in today's age,

00:41:55.120 | like man, being a student right now

00:41:57.960 | with all the information available to them.

00:42:01.040 | And like, I got two kids, like eight and 10

00:42:04.040 | and the academic expectations are so high.

00:42:07.800 | And like some of it for me is cultural as well, right?

00:42:10.160 | So like being a journalist and in this case being Asian,

00:42:13.160 | that almost like, that doesn't sound like a doctor

00:42:15.560 | or whatever it is.

00:42:16.400 | - Right, it's not a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer.

00:42:18.640 | - Yeah, that's exactly it.

00:42:20.720 | I tried all three in college and I failed all three.

00:42:23.120 | Marketing is the only thing that made my grade,

00:42:24.800 | like graduate, like I can graduate.

00:42:26.680 | Otherwise I would have flipped out of school.

00:42:28.480 | But yeah, it's the willingness to, again,

00:42:31.840 | maybe it's not the straight path.

00:42:33.960 | There are some careers you do, it's more linear.

00:42:36.400 | Like if you're gonna do like sciences or medicine,

00:42:39.040 | there is definitely an academic path.

00:42:41.600 | That just didn't happen to be my path.

00:42:43.520 | My parents described me as street smart

00:42:45.880 | because I kept, my GPA looked like this.

00:42:50.120 | Whereas my brother, like he went the dental path

00:42:52.360 | and he's academically successful.

00:42:54.600 | But like we're both happy

00:42:56.080 | and we would both describe ourselves as accomplished.

00:42:58.280 | And that's not a financial conversation.

00:43:00.040 | It's a career satisfaction statement, right?

00:43:02.480 | So yeah, I love that.

00:43:04.720 | So power of general marketing or even generalist,

00:43:08.680 | regardless of your field, doesn't even have to be marketing.

00:43:11.160 | It's the mindset of willing to try things and learn things

00:43:15.360 | and make something of it.

00:43:16.480 | I love, that's powerful.

00:43:17.720 | Well, Ashley, I just wanna thank you for this time.

00:43:21.080 | I really had a lot of fun.

00:43:22.400 | And especially hearing about your career journey,

00:43:23.880 | it's always, I feel like we're in the same tribe.

00:43:26.400 | - I know, I know.

00:43:27.240 | Like I found my people, me and Tim, we're in the same boat.

00:43:30.600 | - Well, thank you so much.

00:43:31.680 | Is there anything for people to follow you on

00:43:36.000 | or are there any kind of,

00:43:36.840 | you mentioned like you have a,

00:43:38.480 | obviously a very spiritual life outside of work.

00:43:40.480 | Is there anything that people can follow you on

00:43:41.960 | or discover about you?

00:43:43.480 | - Sure, so I would love to connect with folks on LinkedIn.

00:43:47.120 | I'm very active there.

00:43:47.960 | I post and comment and try to keep up with my DMs

00:43:51.240 | and all of that kind of stuff.

00:43:52.360 | So yeah, LinkedIn is a great place.

00:43:54.160 | You can sort of catch me on Twitter,

00:43:57.600 | X, whatever we're calling it these days,

00:43:59.840 | but yeah, primarily LinkedIn.

00:44:01.880 | - I think you are doing a clinic on social selling,

00:44:03.840 | by the way.

00:44:04.680 | I love your posts on LinkedIn.

00:44:05.880 | - Oh, thank you, thank you.

00:44:07.320 | It's fun, it's fun.

00:44:08.800 | - Cool, well, thanks a lot, Ashley.

00:44:10.320 | - Thanks, Tim.

00:44:11.160 | (upbeat music)

00:44:13.740 | you

The Power of the General Marketer: Insights from an Expert at Atlassian

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