⁠Jessica Kogan⁠, a visionary digital brand innovator, began her illustrious career launching strategies for brands like Donna Karan, Urban Decay, and Elizabeth Arden. Over the years, she’s carved digital niches for powerhouses like Prada, Giorgio Armani, and Chevron, and co-founded the digital-native business, Cameron Hughes Wine. As the force behind Vintage Wine Estates’ digital transformation, she cemented its position as a leader in DTC adult beverage sales when she was their Chief Growth & Chief Experience Officer.

Now as the Founder & CDO of “⁠The Digital Voice⁠“, Jessica along with her cofounder Jennifer Kowskie, continues to shape digital-first brand narratives. Her expertise, recognized in Wine Business Monthly and featured in Forbes and Fox Business, makes her a sought-after voice in the industry. Other notable clients that Jessica has done marketing for in the past includes Anheuser-Busch, Diageo, Heineken, Tito’s, L’Oreal, LVMH, and Nike.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The role of Chief Experience Officer defined and how it differs from CMO
• How has the DTC market evolved over time—from user behavior to industry trends, marketing strategy, and more?
• How is the brick-and-mortar store going to compete in the future?
• How does a business’s brand affects their retail strategy and how it stays consistent both in digital and physical experiences?
• How to change a brand’s messaging over time, based on changing market dynamics?
• How can brands identify, maintain, and capitalize on customer advocacy over time? 

And more!

You can connect with Jessica here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-kogan-43a455/ 

Connect with me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

 

Full Episode Transcript:

Jessica Kogan  0:00  

A chief experience officer is really an advocate of brand across the organization across the multiple business units within an organization. So, essentially my role is to be kind of agnostic when it comes to who’s generating revenue and influencing them with digital.

 

Kenny Soto  0:22  

Hey there, welcome to the people digital marketing, the number one resource that marketers can use to impress their bosses and eventually become their bosses. And you just heard a clip from our latest guest on the show, Jessica Cogan, Jessica, a visionary digital brand innovator, began her illustrious career launching strategies for brands like Donna Karen urban decay, and Elizabeth Arden. Over the years she has carved digital niches for powerhouses like product, Giorgio Armani and Chevron and co founded the digitally native business. Cameron Hughes one as the force behind vintage wine estates digital transformation, she cemented its position as a leader in DTC adult beverage sales when she was their chief growth and chief experience officer. Now as the founder and CTO of the digital voice, Jessica, along with her co founder Jennifer kowski continues to shave digital first brand narrative. Other notable clients that Jessica has been marketing for in the past also includes Anheuser Busch, the Azio Hynek, Heineken Tito’s Lauria, LVMH and Nike, to say that she’s a master of marketing and digital experiences, is putting it lightly, especially after just reading out her bio. On this episode, we talked about direct to consumer marketing, but also retail strategy, the evolution of DTC over time omni channel tactics as a way to leverage brand marketing, how to build customer advocacy and capitalize on it, and much more. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this conversation. Hey Jessica, how are you?

 

Jessica Kogan  2:11  

I’m dong good Kenny. How are you?

 

Kenny Soto  2:12  

I’m doing great. We had an awesome 10 minutes. I kind of wish I recorded some of it, but it’s fine. This is gonna be a great conversation. And you have a very impressive career. I want to make sure that I capture all of it in its its essence. And I want to start off this conversation that we’re having today just to get a lay of the land. And I want to ask you, how do you get your start in digital marketing.

 

Jessica Kogan  2:43  

My first job was probably before you were born at a company called Razorfish where I was there with the founders building out the first transactional website to buy stocks. And Bob Bell comm which was a revelation and a revolution back in the day. Prior to that prior to actually building the software leading teams that build software. I was on the PR and marketing side and I launched a really incredible company that unfortunately, was ahead of its time called blue.com. And Buddha calm was a global sportswear etailer. So basically selling Helly Hansen and DCad y and Calvin Klein, and Patagonia online, were just like, oh, that’s totally normal. Back in the day that was not in 1997, that was not normal. On a multi currency multi platform, global delivery system with an avatar, a dressing room avatar called Miss boo, it was built by organic the site was built by organic and when the site launched, it was just a huge, big deal. The only problem is that the site was built for to one connection. dialog. And at that time, we most Americans were still on dial up. And so it took like five minutes to download each page. So it had big dreams, it was like kind of like I this is way before your time like cosmo.com You know, like, I guess the grandfather this point are great grandfather of like DoorDash there are so many startups back in the in pets.com 9798 99 that I was lucky enough to work on. Some made it some evolved and some are still here. And that’s how I started.

 

Kenny Soto  4:43  

Amazing. Can you give some context into your role and the team you are in today?

 

Jessica Kogan  4:51  

Sure. So I am actually in the wine industry or adult beverage and I am the chief growth that experience off Sir at vintage wine estates, vintage wine Estates is a large wine holding company, they do also produce some spirits the company is I think it’s the 10th largest adult beverage company in the US with a very specific focus on direct to consumer and direct to consumer and our universe extends from tasting rooms like hospitality, anything that is talking to a customer, to our E commerce business, to our total digital engagement to our E grocery business, where we’re kind of revolutionising the digital shelf progress, right. So it’s essentially the world my role is essentially living in the digital universe. But we’d like some serious marketing chops.

 

Kenny Soto  5:49  

And we talked about this prior to recording. So I want to touch on this, your title was formally CML, correct?

 

Jessica Kogan  5:58  

Yes, it was, yes. And it changed.

 

Kenny Soto  6:03  

Because,

 

Jessica Kogan  6:04  

yes, I changed it to where I requested and was approved. For the change to Chief growth and experience officer and growth, I think is part of it. But really, for me, the title of chief experience officer was really where I really see the role evolving of the CIO of a traditional chief marketing officer. When I think of a traditional chief marketing officer, somebody who is, you know, great brand strategist, awesome, in your view on marketing platforms, communication platforms, branding identity, and, you know, basically pushing that out above the line, sometimes below the line style marketing, a lot of CMOS don’t really have true digital experience, true e commerce experience. And that’s, that’s really not like what most chief marketing officers are trained for. And honestly, we shouldn’t be training them for that, because there has to be somebody who protects the brand. And who is always thinking about how the brand is engaging with the customer, how it’s being received by all the different constituencies. And so a CMO is very important. A chief experience officer is really an advocate of brand across the organization, across the multiple business units within an organization. So essentially, my role is to be kind of agnostic, when it comes to who’s generating revenue, and influencing that influencing them with digital. So for example, in the wine industry, there’s a very significant wholesale business in the wholesale business, because of COVID, we’re seeing a lot of transformation, a lot of change. And we’re seeing, you know, grocery stores, investing billions of dollars in their websites and their delivery mechanisms. And so, a CMO, while they understand kind of, from a brand standpoint, how they want their brands to be articulated on the retailer’s website, they don’t necessarily know the conversation that they need to have with the retailer, and with the wholesaler, over how to get yourself on the website of how to programmatically make a difference of what the digital shelf really looks like. And so that’s where, like, I come in with experience and add value, you know, with digital on the brain. The same thing with E commerce, right, the EECOM team is in our industry has kind of three prongs, you have your hospitality, which is your tasting room. So your POS, you have your traditional ecommerce, so your your estate website, and then you have your telemarketing piece, which is the three channels of connection with customers. And that’s facilitated primarily through digital systems through software systems through a great EComm system. And so my role is to come in, and really be like that point of experience to the team of this is what you need to be thinking about. This is what we need to be looking for. This is the type of performance we want, and really working with the CTO or the CIO, and the CMO and help in bringing their interests together and aligning trust. So very long winded way of explaining what I do.

 

Kenny Soto  9:31  

You mentioned the term, the digital shelf. And you’ve you’ve seen how it’s changed throughout the years. Can you paint for us the picture of how direct to consumer how that market has evolved over time. And some scaffolding here would just be general user per user behavior and habits that a consumer has today that they didn’t have 510 15 years ago, industry chain trends that you’re seeing Use me, and just general changes in how you viewed marketing strategy back then, to how you view it now.

 

Jessica Kogan  10:08  

Oh my God, there’s so many questions within this question. So if I forgot anything? Yeah, I got you. Well, let’s just talk about the digital shop for, and you’re in the question about changing consumer behavior, right. And I would date prior to COVID. In traditional direct to consumer, right, in businesses that, you know, we call digitally native like Warby Parker, or, you know, but no bows or, you know, I always thought of many different digitally native businesses, we never referred to their product pages as digital shelf, right? I mean, it was just kind of like, they were building websites that connected with customers. And they were engaging with customers directly with the idea that they were disintermediating on one hand, right, like selling amazingly good products at a really good price to a customer. It was really kind of like the genesis of direct to consumer in many ways. SEO became part of that SEM, etcetera, like, you know, digital advertising, all of that stuff, you know, Facebook, all of that stuff. COVID happens, right? And COVID. Literally, and I know you’ve talked to probably to a lot of people about this, like it changed the trajectory of the evolution of direct to consumer that knew it was going to become digital shelf, it just basically fast forwarded. Some people say seven years, some people say seven years, 710 years. I personally, I think it’s 15 years at this point. Because the radical shift, it’s a radical shift that we have seen with consumers. Now, you are probably seeing a lot of people saying, well, you know, like, it’s not like the heyday. Now, a lot of consumers are not online, they’re going to they’re doing physical shopping, and you know, our revenue is just not at the same level. Well, it’s not below 19. And it’s not below 20. And it’s not below 21. It may not be what you have for 22. But it’s still going up. And basically, what’s happened is that the customer across the United States, no matter regardless of cohort, has some degree of comfort, shopping online. What does that mean shopping online, it could be on their computer, on their browser, it could be on their phone, it could be on their tablet, it can be anywhere that they are connected to the internet. And that is radical. That’s radical. Because prior to COVID, you basically had 20% of the population that knew how to buy things online. Now you have 80% of the population. That’s huge. So you had mentioned Canada, you were living you lived in China, and their sophistication when it comes to technology is is just your like, it’s your the I always hear this from people who live in China. It’s the future. It’s the future. And America really can is it feels like we’re like, probably like five years behind. But I bet like before COVID It felt like we were 20 years behind.

 

Kenny Soto  13:33  

Yeah, I can attest to that. I feel like, just from my two years of living there people adopt technologies extremely quickly. And I think part of it is just that. And I don’t want to go into too much of a tangent here. But I think part of the thing is, is that the economy and the government work hand in hand. They do and and regulation happens. Wait, like in a faster pace? Yeah. Then that happens here. Yeah.

 

Jessica Kogan  13:59  

Well, they’re moving people, you know, they are the government is they have a huge population that they have to manage. And technology enables a lot of that control, like, you know, we can talk about the downside of, of technology, which you and I were talking about before. And so like Americans are going to come to it a little bit slower, because regulation is always going to be behind where we need regulation is very important to have regulation, especially when it comes to privacy and technology. So it doesn’t bum me out that America is a little bit behind, but they are moving very Americans are moving very fast. And that customer journey has dramatically changed, right? So customers who before you were working really hard to get them to just like, go to the website, like they’re way past that, you know, they’re like on YouTube, clicking on an ad and going to the website and just like willing to try it, you know, willing to try willing to buy stuff off events. Grab willing to buy stuff. I mean, that is like radical radical before I’m before COVID It was you just serve ads up. And you know, hope they would click through and you know, do a cost per lead campaign and just get email addresses and then drive it to our email marketing. And now it’s like, email marketing is still important, that personalization is still inborn by customers, they are, people online, are wanting to be influenced, wanting to be taken through a journey to a digital shell, where they can have an interaction that is, you know, easy, and frictionless. You know, the, the term frictionless that we always use in digital and frictionless throughout the entire experience. So you have people right now, in our industry, who are really trying hard to figure out, how do I make it super easy for the customer who wants like three clicks, how do I make it’s, you know, super interesting for the customer who wants to dive deep, and get really deep into information, because the beauty of the internet is the depth of information, you know, like the detail that you can get into. So, things have radically changed. And again, just going back to the concept of the digital shelf, if you think about your grocery store, the simplest way to think about it is your local grocery store, whether an urban setting or in the country doesn’t matter where any grocery store you go to that grocery store is basically has been brought to life online. And when you go to a safeway.com when you go to a hgb.com, where you go to piggly wiggly.com, the minute you enter their site, they are merchandising in a way that they did it that they applied in Theory and Practice, or 75 years in their physical stores, they are now applying that to their digital stores.

 

Kenny Soto  17:11  

Hey there, if you’re enjoying this episode, and you’re a first time listener, when I hit the Follow button, my goal with each of these episodes is to introduce a new marketing concept, or dive deeper into one so that you can become a better digital marketer. Hopefully, through these episodes, you join me on this journey, the path to CMO. So I’d love it if you subscribed. Thanks for listening so far. When you make a mention of that, Jessica, what comes to my mind is obviously, buyer behavior is changing. But it’s always I mean, it’s gonna change in the future as well, even after this, this podcast gets published, but organizations need to figure out how to stay nimble, right, and go where, where the puck is going, not where it is right now. So you’ve been able to see transformative changes throughout the entire history of your career. And, and it comes to my mind that like, maybe not necessarily for a small business, but for any retail organization that has a brick and mortar store. Yeah, do they compete?

 

Jessica Kogan  18:25  

Yeah, I mean, you have to have a web presence is just is you just you have to, in my mind, because I preach this constantly, whether it’s to my own company, or to people who are, you know, asking for coaching, like the physical does not live without the digital and the digital does not live without the physical, the two together are better. And just because you have a physical presence doesn’t mean that you do not care about your digital presence. No, in fact, it’s super important to you don’t have to be selling your products. Like if you’re a small business, you don’t have to sell your products, but you do have to have a curated sign that says I’m open for business and that I care and that I know that you are gonna go online, and just maybe check my credentials. You have to think like I always advise businesses to think of your digital presence as your LinkedIn. Right? Like, we all have LinkedIn, we we employees have LinkedIn, well, your business needs to have LinkedIn if EBIT, you know for just for your to explain why you are why you do what you do, and to direct customers to contact you and reach you. It doesn’t have to be complicated, like it could be you have one page, you know on Squarespace with like your social icons, but you just need to have something otherwise you are really it will be very difficult for you to compete. It’s just it’s just spot Mind like you just gotten?

 

Kenny Soto  20:01  

Yeah, there’s a set of expectations that customer has now, when they’re purchasing from a business, one of those expectations is a clearly defined brand. And this leads me to ask you, essentially, when it comes to a business’s brand, how does the brand affect retail strategy?

 

Jessica Kogan  20:21  

I mean, it just really depends. It really it depends on what you’re settling. It depends on what industry, you know, depends on what industry you’re playing in. It depends on the product. It depends. And there’s so many factors that go into

 

Kenny Soto  20:36  

merely ask you this, Jessica, how are you considering the brand that you’re leveraging to compete in the wine industry? Let’s let’s get specific here

 

Jessica Kogan  20:45  

for the on the digital shelf for retailers, versus a versus a direct to the actual brands? Yeah. So it’s, I mean, this is I’m sure you’ve heard the term omnichannel. Yep. And basically, the way I think about it, and have always thought about it, is that our job as marketers, our job as people who sell products, is to make it easy for customers to buy the products we are selling. And so why wouldn’t we have our products available wherever a customer chooses to shop, unless your strat your your, your go to market strategy is one of you know, kind of replenishment and you’re being out of stock or managing availability, if you’re a product that’s pretty much available to that you want to be available to customers, you should be everywhere that they’re looking to buy your product. It’s a bottom line. And when it comes to, like specificity of retailers, like we online can sell certain things that are unique to our own ecommerce site. But we can also sell some of our products that are custom specific to a partner retailer like that. The same principles apply prior to digital, you know, we used to like for Donna Karen, we used to make a special collection for Bloomingdale’s. Like the collection we didn’t sell at Saks it’s the same concept in wine, you know, you don’t necessarily like a lot of retailers don’t want to sell, you know, your specific, you know, VR con silver label at their, at their store, if a competitive retailer five miles away is selling the same wine. And so what we’ll do is create another flavor with the same label. It’s this is how it’s been done for years, hundreds of years. And, and digital isn’t changing. Digital is is giving you a new frontier,

 

Kenny Soto  22:53  

when I’m trying to get better myself as a marketer, one of the things that I’m constantly thinking about his messaging, I feel like I have a better understanding of what messaging is. But something that I don’t understand that perhaps you can help here is when to start thinking about changing messaging based on customer feedback based on the competitive landscape. And we can keep this specific to wine so that we have a tangible example, when there is a moment where a brand’s message needs to change. What are those signals? And how do you approach facilitating that change executing on that change?

 

Jessica Kogan  23:34  

So there’s I mean, so in wholesale, that change takes time, right? Because there’s just it’s, I would say it takes years. But with with digital, it takes maybe months. And the way and the difference is that you can see very quickly, who’s buying and who’s aren’t buying, like who’s repeating mine and who’s not repeating buying. And you can see very quickly, kind of what customers are gravitating towards, why they’re gravitating towards it, and build kind of a narrative out of that. So I’d say the beautiful thing about living digitally is that you can kind of tweak your messaging all the time and perfect it so you can rule out at the wholesale level, knowing that there is a customer out there who is going to love what you’re selling. So, to me messaging is fluid. Now, people who have strict very disciplined brand training will say it is not super fluid. It is you know, you have to keep it on message on point. But I believe that you can have you know, there’s the platform right, which is for the company I founded camera use wine which is digitally native business. Our message has always been In amazing one at an affordable price, right? How that is communicated and message is executed in multiple different ways, right? It can be in for us, it’s executed in the quality of the product, right? When you taste the product, there is a total value difference, there’s an absolute difference in the taste that you get of the wine and the price that you pay. But for people who can’t qualitatively test that, it’s then going to brands that they trust, right, doing partnerships with like room and board, a partnership with, you know, Jenny’s ice cream, doing a partnership with other brands that people trust, from a taste standpoint, that you also believe has a very similar message out there may not be about value, but it’s about quality. So that’s, that’s, that’s really tactically how you would, how I see about executing against, like fluid messaging. And then when customers feedback to you like I, you know, I just, I don’t really see that your value like I ended up like, not not not getting that. And then the, the thing I love about online is that you can have like kind of a deeper discussion about that, which is like why, why don’t you see it as valuable? There are multiple reasons they live in a state where, you know, their access to wine is like tremendous, right? If you live in California, cannot axon wine, your Oklahoma like so Kendall Jackson, Chardonnay is probably like 12 or $15. At your store. In California. It’s like $8. So there’s also that, that plays in plays plays a big part,

 

Kenny Soto  26:43  

market dynamics are very important to consider, regardless of whatever industry you’re in. You mentioned feedback. And sometimes feedback is negative. However, when feedback is positive, is there, one thing that some marketers might be challenged with is figuring out how to capitalize on positive feedback? I define this as customer advocacy, if there’s a different term for it, please let me know. But my question now is, when it comes to customer advocacy, how do you identify it? And then how do you find ways to maintain it and capitalize on it?

 

Jessica Kogan  27:26  

Kenny, you’re so wise, you’re such a young person

 

Kenny Soto  27:29  

is the podcast, it’s not me, it’s literally the podcast?

 

Jessica Kogan  27:33  

Yeah, can you come work with me? So customer advocacy is actually a real and true powerful marketing tactic. It’s a very, I would say that it is possibly the most important part of your marketing program, when you are a DTC marketer, like the most ROI, highest ROI, most valuable, most meaningful and most connected, because what you’re doing is you are utilizing a system that is built around the concept of community, right. And those third party voices, who are writing or talking about your product, giving you feedback, whether it’s if feedback to the company, or feedback to the community, which is what you want to nurture, is unbelievably important. It is the secret, it is truly like the secret sauce. Now you have a lot of companies that now have, you know, have literally just focus on, you know, modules that drive customer reviews, companies that send out products to, you know, hundreds of customers who have signed up to receive products to write reviews,

 

Kenny Soto  29:00  

but these are just tactics at the end of the day, they’re not necessarily something that is like, for the most part strategic, the there has to be something that leads to overall, the mission for creating advocacy equals x.

 

Jessica Kogan  29:14  

I mean, it just depends on how you utilize it. Right. So I mean, it just really depends. And I think just using the wine industry as an example, in terms of like customer advocacy, in the wine industry, it has always been about the critic scores and not your pure scores. And so it’s actually been a massive breakthrough in the wine industry, in which we’re seeing a real, like power shift and a real dynamic shift. That is extraordinarily welcome. Because it it helps people, regular people who don’t study wine, you don’t spend their days you know, like who aren’t Like in my I started my career in fashion who are fashionista as we call them. In the wine industry, cork dorks, not people, not like 99% of us are not cork dorks. It’s like 1%. And so it just, you know, opens up that entire world, to people who are just like curious and interested in wine. And they can read reviews from people that are legit, because you can’t fake it, when you write about why you kind of gotta like, if you just say like, it just was had good body, it tastes good. Like, they’ll give you whatever. But like, we can see customers really read and pay attention to what other customers are writing. And and particularly in our industry, does it matter in other industries? I think it matters, is it as important? I don’t know. But in the wine industry, it has become very important.

 

Kenny Soto  30:58  

I’ve been obsessed with frameworks. And honestly, like I’m on the cusp of making my own. Finally, I’m going to call it amre, which stands for acquisition, monetization, retention, and advocacy, essentially, job of any marketer, regardless of the job title. In a team, your job is to get customers, see if you can cross sell down sell, upsell, see if you can retain them, ideally you are and then figuring out how to convert them into advocates. But one thing I didn’t consider with this framework is the fact that sometimes your advocates may not even be a customer. It could be a partner, it could be a critic, it could be a journalist. And that in and of itself is like the light bulb moment for this episode is right here, where you’re mentioning this for the wine industry, I suspect that there’s other verticals and other industries out there where your advocate may not be your customer, it could be someone who’s an indirect competitor, potential partner, etc.

 

Jessica Kogan  31:56  

Yes, and that is part of the chief experience title, which is your job is to turn your vet not just your customers, but your vendors, anybody within the ecosystem of your business into an advocate.

 

Kenny Soto  32:12  

I see this is I feel like we can do a whole deep dive in just advocacy in and of itself. I do have two more questions for you, Jessica. My next one is all about failure. I feel like once you get to a certain stratosphere, a certain level in your career, you have tasted enough failure for a lifetime. And when you hit that chief role in, in an organization failures is commonplace. So my question for you is, essentially how do you brace failure? How do you accept it as part of being a professional? How do you make it so that you expect it but not necessarily just to say that I’m going to fail, and not try my best, but more. So it’s part of the learning process?

 

Jessica Kogan  32:59  

I mean, I have always ascribed to the concept of fail, fail better, I believe that part of this new territory that we’re in, because we are in a new territory, I mean, there are I don’t know about you, but like, I haven’t seen 50 years of information about digital marketing and the evolution of digital trends, you know, I haven’t seen, so we’re kind of charting, we’re charting the course. And in charting that course, we are going to screw up, we are going to screw up a lot. Because we don’t there is no there are no instructions. And so when there are no instructions, you have to be willing to jump off and know that you’re going to go in directions that are going to deliver results and directions that like we are just a total fail. And using that fail as like, you know, yeah, I hate when people say like, it’s just like a learning experience. Like no, like it’s sods it’s like every we all want to like, we all want to rock it all the time. But the why failed. How it failed. It’s it is good to understand what aspect of that moment did it work and why not. And then really just taking those bits and pieces and just reprocessing it and trying it for something else. Like, I really don’t believe that, at that. I believe if you are into it, and you are trying and you fail, the fact is like you haven’t lost anything, you’re actually like, you just you’ve just learned something and you’re gonna take it and try it with something else. And so that’s kind of like the way I think about it. Also, I would say when you are I know that you’re I have a chief executive title, but it was Have you it really, it’s a reflection of age and not a reflection of, in my mind, the curiosity and like passion that I have in getting inside of programming, because you are not a good, you cannot be a good chief if you don’t understand the mechanics. And so I always say to my friends are like, well, you’re cheap. And I’m like, I could just as easily, I hope just as easily go in a starter in a starting position, like in SEO, and I may not be the best at it, but I will learn it and I will pick it up. And I will, like, take it to the next level. So my guess what I’m trying to say to you, Kenny, use it, I think you’re ready for chief executive level work? Like it’s just a mindset, click frankly.

 

Kenny Soto  35:55  

And to mindset. Well, speaking of mindset, let’s talk about a hypothetical situation. My last question for you, is all about having access to a time machine. And this situation, this time machine can take you only maximum 10 years in the past, but you will retain all the knowledge that you have right now. And my assignment, if you will, as you go back in time, 10 years, is figuring out how to accelerate the speed of your career. What would you do?

 

Jessica Kogan  36:34  

Um, let’s see. First of all, I would have invested in Slack, which was like such a, my dear friend of mine

was part of the CO founding of that company. I was like, an amazing company, but I all my money and my Ellen little company that it was starting, what would I do? I don’t know, I just, I’m really happy with like my trajectory. And I would change quite frankly, like, the fear, like the fear, constant fear, you know, just fear of not doing it, right. Fear of like, you know, fear of like squandering opportunities, fear of you just a lot of fear, I guess I would say like, and that’s really like, age related. I mean, I, I wish, you know, how they say like, if only I would have known, like, when I was born like it, there’s such truth to it. I hate to say it, but it’s just like, you as you get older, you just operate with more confidence, because you’ve had more life experience, and, you know, more hard times more good times, like all of it. And I would say, you know, it falls a little bit upon deaf ears and my even when I was younger, like just walk in the room. And even if you don’t know the answer, pretend like you do. Pretend like you have an answer. Because or cut or say, I don’t know yet, but I’ll get right back to you. Like it seriously? Nobody knows. Nobody has the answer. You think that everybody has an answer? But nobody has an answer. And so I would say I would go back and go back to all of those meetings that I did, and sat with all those scary people and just not be scared by them.

 

Kenny Soto  38:35  

Yeah, I to add to that, I’ll give my own anecdote. Yeah, I’m, I’m having this mental thought, as you say this, of like, your heart settles down as you go. And I say heart because a long time ago, I want to say this is at least it was episode 60. Something. So I think two years ago, I had the person who manages social for John Deere, huge fortune 500 company, Jennifer, Jennifer Hartman. And right before she joined zoom, my heart could not stop throughout the entire interview. I don’t remember saying a single thing. But there’s a recording and there’s a podcast that’s a bullish. So there’s that but now I’m having conversation with you. And I feel fine. I had a conversation with the former CMO of slack, Bill Messias. Yeah, normal conversation, other marketing leaders and it just goes to show that you just got to keep going. You just got if your heart is pounding, it’s a good sign. It’s sometimes not fear, it’s excitement. That’s another thing to tell yourself. You’re not only scared, you’re excited, forward leaning, keep going. Eventually it’s going to be come so like happenstance and casual that then the challenge will be not to make it trivial. So that’s the other side of the coin. Don’t get comfortable. Don’t Don’t think of it as a trivial you trivial experience. Go into it each time holding on to the excitement, and just it’s always a balance. between the two excitement and just not getting bored, this could be right in the middle so perfectly.

 

Jessica Kogan  40:05  

So perfectly set. The so perfectly set. I couldn’t agree with you more and the heart beating like I like out of your body sometimes.

 

Kenny Soto  40:16  

Yeah. Yeah, I just want to express my gratitude for you being on on this episode. If anyone wants to say hello to you online, where can they go and and find you.

 

Jessica Kogan  40:28  

They can find me on LinkedIn at Jessica Cogan or they can check out my wine company that I founded that is now owned by vintage wine estates called ch wine.com. And they can check me out listening to you.

 

Kenny Soto  40:44  

Awesome. Well, thanks again for your time today, Jessica. And thanks to you, listener for listening to another episode of this podcast. As always, here is the request that I have for you. If you’re still listening to this episode, please rate us on any podcast app that you haven’t. If you haven’t done so already, and share this with a co worker. If you have found value listening to this interview, and you think you have a co worker who would benefit which I’m guessing that you do share it with them. And hopefully they can join this community of people who are African market exactly the people digital marketing isn’t just the guest, it’s the listeners as well. And with that, I hope everyone has a great week. Thanks again for listening to this episode or the podcast. If you enjoyed listening to our conversation with Jessica you will enjoy the next Episode Episode 137 with Jacqueline Mullen. Jacqueline has mentored close to 1000 marketers throughout her career. And she used to be a teacher at General Assembly she used to do speaking engagements at USC is masters of marketing science program. And she has more than 15 years in digital marketing. Currently as the head of marketing for the loops and AI platform improving customer experience. I just had to have her on the show. She shares a lot of information that we can all use as marketers to be better at what we do and have better careers. So if you enjoyed this episode with Jessica, you will definitely enjoy this conversation I’ll have next week of Jacqueline and as always thanks again for listening