If you are a marketing or sales leader, or just want to learn from the knowledgeable authors writing the latest books on the topic, you should subscribe and tune in to The Marketing Book Podcast, hosted by Douglas Burdett. I had the honor of being an invited guest back in 2017 to discuss my book, Smart Marketing for Engineers: An Inbound Marketing Guide to Reaching Technical Audiences.
Douglas has likely contributed thousands of hours producing TMB podcast, where he brings authors together to offer insights from their work, helps them promote their books, and in the process, builds a marketing and sales community centered on sharing, learning and supporting each other.
It was yet another honor to be invited back to talk with Douglas on his new (and we all hope, temporary) podcast, Authors in Quarantine Getting Cocktails, where he invites authors from TMB podcast back to talk about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their work and personal lives. I spoke to Douglas in June - you can listen to the episode here and read below for a few key takeaways from the current times we’re in.
Q&A Highlights
What have you been up to so far this year? Personally, it’s been a busy 2020. I am co-authoring a university textbook that will be the first research-based text on content marketing to teach the next generation. Several past podcast guests including Joe Pulizzi, Robert Rose & Adele Revela have helped me with valuable material & insights, and we’re hoping to finish it up later this year.
Most recently I joined a three founders of a software startup in the chemical industry, ChemVM Technologies, as the CMO to build the brand & marketing function from the ground up. The website was just published at chemvm.com.
2. How has the pandemic affected you? With fewer meetings and social obligations, and because of my new executive role in a startup environment where we’re making strategic decisions on a daily basis and I’m wearing many hats, it’s been a great opportunity to use my downtime to learn and grow as a marketer and business leader through listening & reading content from valued people and sources. For example, I’ve been listening to specific episodes of TMB podcast most relevant to my current marketing challenges, reading books about the software industry and disruptive innovation, and spending more time on LinkedIn for interesting news and articles my network is sharing. Even though I’ve been doing B2B marketing for coming up on 30 years, I still frequently face challenges and can always learn and become better in my craft. So podcasts like TMB and books by authors featured on the show are one of my primary sources for learning and improving, and even more so right now.
3. Change and challenge bring opportunity. We’ve experienced more change in the last several months than in generations. While we may feel change fatigue, in reality, as the pandemic continues, it remains a great time embrace change & challenge to create new opportunities. In March of this year, as the pandemic was taking hold, our executive team met and we asked each other, “What do you guys think about moving forward? Things are going on lock down, the economy is going into a level of uncertainty we haven’t seen in generations. How are we feeling about things?” We were 100% in - more than 100%. We are coming into a market that has been slow to change and benefit from the digital transformation we’ve seen in travel markets with companies like AirBnB or home services like Angie’s List. What better time could there be than now to introduce digital efficiency to the the currently analog and manual sales process of connecting chemical customers & service providers?
So, for ChemVM, we actually see this as the start of creating an even bigger opportunity. And I firmly believe opportunity is all around for every team & company and for that matter, even friends & families.
Personally, because of the pandemic and my gym closing, I’m now doing Zoom workouts in my backyard in Austin led by my dear college friend Kelly Sullivan, owner of Scorch, who’s in Boston. And my childhood best friend joins me from Oklahoma City. I am in better shape than ever thanks to her, and it’s a blessing to share this time getting healthy with two dear friends while we workout and stay healthy together.
My husband has embraced this time of change to grow as a musician. He and his bandmate did a house concert from our front porch and our neighbors and friends brought chairs & coolers and listened to great music on the lawn. It was a wonderful sense of community that brought everyone together and for an evening, we forgot about the pandemic. Here’s a video of the concert (watch til the end to see how boys will be boys).
