“Marketing touches every part of the business. Marketing is…equally as important to sales organizations as ‘sales’ itself.”
Justin Mink has spent a career in leadership and founder roles at companies that have grown from 0-1000s of employees, raised millions of dollars in capital, and that have been valued at over $1B. In 2007 he moved to Dallas from the Washington, D.C. area to launch the Franchise Division at digital marketing firm ReachLocal, helping take the company public while pioneering digital marketing best practices for franchise brands.
Today, as a Professional Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) Implementer, he helps entrepreneurs and leadership teams solve root problems and lead more effectively through a simple set of proven, practical tools. He lives near White Rock Lake with his wife, Kate, son, Jude, and a very old and well-fed dog named Titan.
Questions and topics we covered include:
And more!
You can connect with Justin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmink/
You learn more about Justin’s services here: https://www.eosworldwide.com/justin-mink
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Kenny Soto 0:00
Hello everyone, and welcome to the people Digital Marketing podcast with your host Kenny Soto. For those of you who are looking at this video live either on YouTube or on any other platform, yes, I have a new background courtesy of my lovely wife, Marie Soto, shout out to her for the vision that is the manifestation that’s behind me.
And without further ado, I have a very, very special guest today. His name is Justin mink. We’re going to go over his career path and the career advice they had to share with us today. So hey, Justin, how are you?
Justin Mink 0:43
Kenny? Thanks for having me. I’m doing good.
Kenny Soto 0:45
Awesome. So I like starting each of these conversations out the same way. Because it’s the best way for the listener to get context about who you are as a person and as a professional. And everyone’s career is different. So my first question for you, Justin is how did you get into marketing and sales?
Justin Mink 1:04
So my dad was a marketer. He was head of the advertising Association. He was the head of marketing for the American AARP Retirement Association. He worked for CBS as a marketer. In fact, after my dad passed away, almost exactly eight years ago, I ran across a stack of his old papers. And he wrote a memo at the office of CBS and Manhattan, essentially predicting the internet.
He called it the magic box where all advertisements would be served based on behavior. And based on the individual’s psychographics and demographics I was, I was absolutely blown away. So it’s kind of in my blood. And, you know, I was a poli sci major in college. So it was either go to work on the hill or, or figure out something else to do with kind of an analytical brain. And I really just liked the fact that marketing is a combination of creativity. I’m kind of a creative person, by nature, kind of a right-brain thinker.
With, you know, the opportunity to explore the business, you know, business acumen. So, yeah, the long-winded answer to your question, but that’s how I got into marketing and why marketing, I still feel like I’m a marketer, and to this day, I always will be.
Kenny Soto 2:25
And for a little bit more context, can you tell the listeners, what is it exactly that you do today?
Justin Mink 2:31
So I’m a business coach, today, I coach, leadership teams on essentially how to get more of what they want, from their business, live a more balanced life run a better business using a simple set of proven practical tools called the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS.
Kenny Soto 2:48
The dive into what the EOS is.
Justin Mink 2:52
Yeah, it’s, like I said, a simple set of practical tools, like a framework for running your business. And essentially, if you had to boil it down to its most basic essence, it’s helping leadership teams get strong, and the vision of the company aligning them on exactly where they’re going, and how they’re going to get there together, what we call traction, which is making sure that everyone’s aligned kind of rowing in a singular direction, with accountability and discipline toward the achievement of that vision, and healthy, just creating teams that are open and honest with each other.
Lack of politics, no ego. With a lot of team times, teams just don’t work together cohesively, and their self-interest in politics. So creating teams that just enjoy being around each other and are great at solving problems. So that’s it a vision, traction, healthy at its most basic essence. Yeah.
Kenny Soto 3:43
And you weren’t always a coach, you were a marketing leader in the past, correct?
Justin Mink 3:47
That’s right. Yeah. marketing and sales have been primarily in entrepreneurship has been my career arc.
Kenny Soto 3:53
That’s, that’s interesting that you mentioned that, because when I think of a marketing leader, and this is just my own frame of reference, obviously, it’s not a size fits. kind of role, if you will, but when I think of marketing leader, in most instances, I think of a marketing leader who just knows marketing. And of course, as they progressed throughout their career, they may just stay CMO.
They might do things as far as creating content, becoming a coach, or starting their own business. What made you make that transition from previously being a marketing leader at several organizations to then being a coach? Was there a moment in your career? Was there an inflection point that you can reflect on?
Justin Mink 4:43
Yeah, there was, as a matter of fact, I joined a small startup digital agency as the chief revenue officer. And I come from a really large enterprise 1000 plus people. There was a private equity transaction and a lot of changes occurring and I wanted to come to Gotta get back into a more entrepreneurial environment. And I read this book called traction, which is called Traction get a grip on your business by a really well-known business leader entrepreneur named Gino Wickman. And it outlines the whole model of Eos.
And it was such a simple actionable framework. And I’ve, in my past career as an entrepreneur, there was so much chaos and stress, and it felt like the business was in control of me, not the other way around, I didn’t feel in control. So this framework was so elegant. I wanted to try using it at an entrepreneurial startup. So as the chief revenue officer, I came in and said, Let’s try this. And the CEO founder said, Let’s do it sounds great. When we deployed, it took about six months for us to really stitch it into the fabric of how we operated, the business kind of changed the model a little bit.
And over that time, our monthly recurring revenue velocity doubled. And some leaders who are working, you know, the 70-hour-a-week grind and startup life, we were all working 40 hours or 40 hours a week by the end of that deployment. In fact, that became a value of the company’s work-life balance. And we kept hours at 40 hours. And we wanted to make sure that anybody who worked for the company to not work any more than 40 hours. So that was such a transformative experience.
I wanted to help other leadership teams experience that same upgrade to their business and quality of life. And as I’m sure your audience knows, as a marketer, people who don’t understand marketing tend to pigeonhole the skill set of marketers, but today, it’s a multidisciplinary skill, right? There’s marketing touches every part of the business. Marketing is for all intents and purposes. Equally as important to sales organization as set quote unquote, sells itself because of so much inbound branding, that reputation in the marketplace trust building isn’t contingent upon marketing.
And I think that’s why you see so many CMOS now elevate to CEO positions. You didn’t use to see that. So yeah, I think marketing entrepreneurship really runs hand in hand and running a business using that marketing background skill set, has that there’s a lot of synergies there. I think.
Kenny Soto 7:17
Here’s an educational moment, not only for myself, but I’m sure if I have this question. Other people might be thinking, I still don’t know the difference, or even if there is a difference between Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Marketing Officer.
Justin Mink 7:35
Yeah, yeah. So so as far as I understand it, as a former CRO, CRO, is responsible for both sales and marketing. In, most so all revenue, which makes sense. And today, I think why CRO became a thing over the last decade, like 10 years ago, you sell you tell somebody your car, and they blink at you, right? I don’t think there was such a thing. But now that MQLs SQL is right, inbound is such an important revenue channel, in some cases, a lot of cases are more important than outbound if it is outbound at all.
So marketing was so kind of intrinsically tied to revenue generation, that the CRO position was just a natural evolution of marketers. So now in the organizations that I’ve been a part of when there’s a CMO and head of sales, sales, and marketing are treated as their partners, but they’re two different things. Whereas CRO is responsible for both.
Kenny Soto 8:34
So let’s say hypothetically speaking, I was aware of that. And I’m planning on setting myself up for the next 10 years to learn the skills and gain the experience to become a CRO, but I only have marketing chops right now. Yeah, what sales tactics or frameworks, even resources, etc? Should I be considering eventually getting that seat at the table where I’m not just the marketing guy or the marketing leader in this case, but I’m also the sales leader, and I have that CRO position?
Justin Mink 9:15
Yeah, good question. I mean, I think if, if you’re a marketing professional, and you’re interested in exploring a career path, along the lines of at some point, elevating to become a chief revenue officer, I think partnering hand in hand with the sales organization is so key. And I think, you know, I’ve certainly been a part of organizations where I’ve been on the sales side of the aisle. I’ve been on the marketing side. In some cases, I’ve done both at one point or another in my tenure at an organization.
And so I can kind of understand both parties’ perspectives and a lot of times marketing’s sort of charter will come from the executive leadership. They Have a narrative or story, and they sort of dictate that marketing does the creative the production, and hands out the sales, but there’s a disconnect between the reality of being on the front lines with the customer. And then marketing is kind of caught in between sales and executive leadership. And a lot of times all that collateral all that hard work will go to waste because sales just ditch it, right? Sales just take it goes, this doesn’t really have value, this doesn’t help tell the story, and this doesn’t really show empathy with the customer.
So I think as a marketer, if you want to take that track, really partner with sales, getting their brains, go on a ride along, if you want to call it that, spend time with them, really understand the customer through their eyes, interview them like they’re your customer. And if you can kind of embed yourself in with your sales organization really understand that world. And then and then partner with them to do the work on the marketing side that sets you up to have an understanding of both revenue and marketing in the traditional sense, I think
Kenny Soto 11:04
This may be a direct follow-up. So the answer might be the same. And we can expand upon it or it’s different. But I want to talk about the concept of an intrapreneur. Someone who doesn’t necessarily want to create their own business, but wants to take an entrepreneurial lens into the team that they’re currently working with. And they want to become an internal leader. Right. But that in and of itself could be a catch-all term. Because it’s different for everyone. So my question for you is, what does someone need to achieve over time to be considered a leader in their marketing team?
Justin Mink 11:47
Yeah, I mean, if you think about what leadership means, leadership has nothing to do with the title. Nothing, right? Leaders can be, you know, some of the quote-unquote, leaders in the organization could, you know, nobody could, you know, everybody kind of smirks at them, whereas some people in the lower tiers of the hierarchy might have more influence. And I think that’s what leadership is influence. Right. And so if you want to pursue an intrapreneurial type role within your organization, you have to carry influence, and you have to be able to tell a story and share a vision that’s compelling.
And that convinces people of the value of seeing things in a different way, or in a new light, interpret entrepreneurship as all about doing things in a new way, right, creating a new market, creating a new product, creating a new service, identifying a problem or a need in the marketplace, and creating a solution to solve for that problem or capitalize on an opportunity. And so when you’re doing that in an organization, by inherently you are saying, look, there’s a different thing out there, there’s an opportunity we’re missing. Or there’s a problem that we’re positioned well to solve that we’re currently not solving.
So you have to go explore that you have to pound the pavement, you have to kind of create demand before you even have a product. In some cases, with a customer base, you have to understand what customers what their problems are. And then you have to go internally, and influence the stakeholders in your organization, create champions, create that influence, and then convince the company to make the investments and take the bets on pursuing that avenue.
So it’s fun, it’s challenging, you have to be patient, I’ve, I’ve done that exact thing at some organization. That’s why I’m kind of smiling. And you’re kind of in the middle, you’ve got to go out and interview customers and create demand. And then you’ve got to convince all the people in your organization that are stakeholders, then the wisdom and the value there. It’s a tough row to hoe, but it’s a lot of fun when you can do it.
Kenny Soto 13:55
So that lays the scene and sets the scene, if you will, for what it means to be a great internal leader. I find that it also is helpful to know what things to avoid. So what would be your definition of a horrible leader, a terrible leader that people just don’t follow?
Justin Mink 14:18
Yeah, yeah. Someone who tells you the what but not the why. Someone who micromanages is, right, someone who’s more interested in theirs, their own self-interest versus the interest of the team. You know, someone I think, someone who’s not interested in someone who takes all the credit and hands out all the blame, right? Someone who doesn’t allow others the opportunity to blossom into leaders. I think those are some of the characteristics of bad leadership.
Kenny Soto 14:57
I’m glad I asked that question because it helps mean, as someone who’s in like mid-manager level, have that, that lens, that frame of reference so that if I can catch the red flags, I know to jump ship if necessary, but there are other red flags that don’t necessarily have to do with one specific individual. You’ve been with companies from the beginning all the way up to where they IPO.
And you’ve seen firsthand what the grading company culture looks like, and how that changes performance over time. Could you paint a picture for the listener? Where it gives them? The warning signs, they should look out for that we know what the red flags are if they’re working for a horrible manager or boss. What are the warning signs to look out for, when a company’s culture is degrading? is getting worse over time as they scale?
Justin Mink 16:02
Yeah, that’s a really great question. You know, I think leaders who don’t want to be challenged. That’s a very good early warning sign, right? I’m sure there are a lot of people who are nodding their heads to those who’ve been in meetings with the leaders who just want to be around a brown a bunch of yes, people who nod their heads in agreement, right, and want to tell you exactly how it is.
And I think really great leaders want to be surrounded by people who are in their functional areas, way smarter than the leader themselves and rely on and as a leader kind of orchestrate and harmonize all the moving parts and pieces to make sure everyone’s aligned, rowing, kind of harnessing all that human energy, that human capital to row in the direction of the achievement of the vision, but they trust that the functional leaders and the subject matter experts, they’re the experts.
I’m just making sure all the pieces are synced up. But you guys tell me what I need to know. And if you’re in somebody’s just barking orders and telling you exactly, this is what needs to be that’s a really great early warning sign. You know, and I think someone who’s kind of constantly putting the pressure on always feels like a pressure cooker for performance. And not like we’re all in this together. How do we improve? Right? That’s, that’s a sure sign of bad leadership. Oh, man, there are so many I’m just touching the surface. I mean, it’s one of those things where it’s, it’s, you always feel it in your bones before you even realize it.
I’ve been a part of organizations where this that but that badly another. Here are some great other examples. I think we’ve all anyone who’s been a professional long enough has been a part of those annual meetings where there’s a lot of fanfare around some big strategic announcements, right? We’re doing this next year and this and everybody gets fired up and pumped up, and there are balloons and a party and, and then like four months later, some decision is quietly announced, that totally runs counter to what was announced with a big deal four months ago, but like, no, it’s like kind of under the underground no explanation. It’s kind of like Don’t ask why just do it stay in your lane.
Right. So not sharing that compelling vision and keeping Trent’s lack of transparency is another sign and that creates a lot of toxicity, distrust, cynicism, and accompanies so god, that’s just a few examples of so many.
Kenny Soto 18:28
Yeah, I’ve back in, I think 2016-2017, give or take, I experienced that firsthand. And the key takeaway that I took away from that experience was, you should give your team the benefit of the doubt. Like if you need to change something strategically, you could probably tell your team, hey, we’re making a pivot, and everyone will be okay with it.
Especially if you are doing it ahead of time letting people know, hey, we’re considering a pivot, hey, we’ve consulted with external stakeholders, we’ve consulted with internal leadership, this pivot is most likely happening, Okay, everyone, this quarter, the pivot is happening. If you’re transparent all the way through as opposed to, again, having people stay in their lane. It that’s not only bad for a marketing team, but that’s also bad for company retention. It doesn’t make an organization a great place to work. And it doesn’t make work enjoyable. So I’m glad you shared that now.
Justin Mink 19:32
Yeah, I mean, if you trust your team, all you do is I think so many leaders don’t give their teams the benefit of the doubt just if you tell people why. And just say this is why we’re doing what we’re doing. That’s all so many people need to know they just need to understand and feel like you’re being transparent in sharing with me. I mean, I will never forget I was part we part of an organization when I was on the marketing side and there we were engaging in the category design. Right.
So we were trying to create this whole new category In this, you know, I spent six months on this exhaustive process of research and creative and production and telling the store and like, what are the sales story and, and one day No kidding, Kenny, we’re not doing that anymore. That was it. Yep. That’s scrap, like wild. And it’s to me, it seems so intuitive that a team, a leadership team would say, we’re probably going to lose good people who don’t feel good about this when they put so much of their heart soul but blood sweat, and tears into doing this, and we just do something else. Like, that’s like breeding someone who’s just there to collect a check. So, but it happens, it’s, it’s crazy how often that happens.
Kenny Soto 20:45
Yeah, you gotta you got to show your team, that you’re grateful for their work. And if a strategic move needs to be made, that’s fine. But if you’re not transparent, you’re not showing that gratitude, I feel like they go hand in hand.
Justin Mink 20:59
100% 100%.
Kenny Soto 21:03
Now, flipping the script here, we’ve been talking about what it means to be a leader, the warning signs of bad leaders, etc. Some of the listeners, if not, the majority of them, aren’t leaders per se, if they are, they’re mainly managing a channel, and not necessarily a full-scale marketing department. But some of them also, unfortunately, got laid off recently.
Or they’re just trying to, excuse my language code their ass. So they’re not in a sticky situation in the future. So with that being said, what should marketing candidates be doing now, to impress recruiters, and impress hiring managers to stand out from the growing competition that is growing every single day, month year? What should they do?
Justin Mink 21:55
Yeah, great question. And, you know, tech is such a bloody ocean right now. I feel real, I had a lot of fun, and I came up in tech. So a lot of my network and friends are coming out of tech roles and experiencing layoffs and struggling to find a new position that they’re, you know, that they feel like they can grow into. So I think all, you know, building a personal brand is something that anybody can take control of, and build with a lot of using a lot of the marketing disciplines, and skill set that would apply for a business or an enterprise.
So I think if you can walk into a hiring manager’s office and if they Google your name, they are seeing all kinds of good stuff. Right creative stuff. You know, I think the resume is such an old-school thing they don’t even need to see, especially for a marketer right now, they don’t even need to see a resume, just Google my name and see what comes up or look at my profiles.
And so you know, I think someone who’s currently in between positions and thinking about what can I do to stand out from the crowd, you can spend very little, no money, just some time and effort and create a personal brand and really put out good content every day across all the platforms that you have control over, create that brand, position yourself and your expertise. So you have complete control over that and should give people a lot of confidence, they can go out and do that, without any help from anybody.
Kenny Soto 23:37
One, though, that is out there as in the scenario, the scenario that I’m assuming both of us hope for Justin, that the candidate, the listener in question, creates that good personal brand and they get the job. One thing that I’ve found is, you need to shore up your defense, if you will, you never know when you’ll be out of a job. And sometimes it has nothing to do with your work, it doesn’t speak to the value you bring to the table.
Sometimes the p&l just doesn’t match up and then the manager that you have can’t make a case to keep you and you’re gone. And that’s the unfortunate reality of business. However, if you successfully built a personal brand that got you a job once you can do it again, and it becomes stronger, stickier more memorable over time. So if you think about creating a personal brand, don’t think about it as part of a season.
It’s for the rest of your life. Your personal brand is something that should replace your resume. You’re still going to need it because it’s part of a formality. I don’t think it will ever go away. But at the end of the day, use your personal brand as a tool so that you are always keeping opportunities on the table even if you love the job you’re currently in.
Justin Mink 25:00
Man, that’s a great point, you know, every time you put anything out there, in today’s world, it’s an asset that will have legs forever, I was laughing because I was thinking about, I’ve been laughing about this for years, like the first presidential candidate where there’s a scandal because on Facebook from like, 20 or 30 years ago, there are pictures of that man or woman doing like kickstands, you know, or that’s gonna be out there, you know, kids who came up in the age of social media are gonna be, you know, running for president like, very soon, and their whole lives have been documented on social. So I just think that’s, that’s inevitable. But everything you put out there as an asset, and will serve you or not serve you for years to come.
Kenny Soto 25:46
What is one marketing challenge you’re facing this year, Dustin?
Justin Mink 25:51
For me, it’s getting it, it’s marketing at scale to a very niche audience. So, you know, I put my personal brand is primarily the audience that I’m trying to appeal to our executive leaders and entrepreneurs of companies that are, you know, by and large, somewhere between 10 and 250 employees doing two to 50 million in revenue. I also do a lot of work with franchise brands, and I lead teams, working with franchise clients in the past.
So there’s a double-edged sword to putting my brand out there and putting a lot of content out there because a lot of the interest that’s generated inbound is not really qualified to work with me. And I definitely take a health-first approach. And I want to make sure that I’m serving anybody who gets value from what I’m putting out there into the world. But you know, it’s like the old it’s like the airplane, you got to put the oxygen mask on your own face to help any first before you help anybody else.
So it’s very easy to get sucked up and spend a lot of time engaging with people who I can’t really help or who are not qualified to work with me. And so it’s like, how do you put your brand and message out there in the world at scale, but also make sure you’re appealing to an audience and the audience knows who they need, who they are? Right? You’re kind of educating them on who they are? The ones who should engage you. So it’s a kind of a push pill, that’s a hard balance to find.
Kenny Soto 27:19
Yeah, I think that that kind of falls in line with a lot of content creators who may not necessarily be selling a coaching product or coaching service in this case. But if you have a very niche customer you’re targeting, sometimes the total addressable market isn’t large, even if it is somewhat large, and there’s a lot of room to play in, you still need to qualify your clients that are coming in. Sometimes it’s just not the right fit. Sometimes the vibe is off. Sometimes they can’t afford you. And yeah, that’s always an issue in and of itself.
Justin Mink 27:55
Yeah, it’s funny because we’re talking about the blending of marketing and sales. And it’s much easier. When you’re in the traditional sales role. You’re doing outbound to be laser targeted, you know, your ideal customer profile and you’re only calling on those folks. When you’re putting stuff out there and the world and creating an inbound engine, that’s when it becomes a challenge because you have this big funnel at the top.
And you can waste a lot of time and energy with a big pipeline of unqualified folks. So you want to narrow that funnel a little bit but not so narrow. It’s like it yeah, that balance is hard to strike. So that’s, I guess that’s one of the caveats of today’s you know, the evolution of revenue generation via marketing.
Kenny Soto 28:38
Before I ask my last question, Justin, this prompts me to share with the listener, if you haven’t listened to it, I believe it’s episode 109. Just go on the podcast and search Arlen Davidge. She is a fractional CMO. And she owns a firm called Little Fish, which connects clients to rational CMOS, same issue, right? It’s like you want to do the service that you want to get paid for. But a third, if not half of your time is spent on business development, which is annoying, but it’s part of the game.
Justin Mink 29:14
It is it’s the nature of the beast. You know, if somebody can crack that code, they will, they will have a highly, highly marketable service. And then they’ll have to figure out how to make sure that they’re marketing to the right people. Right. So yeah, yeah, it is the nature of the beast, for sure.
Kenny Soto 29:31
Absolutely. Now, my last question for you is hypothetical, because time machines do not exist. But if one did Justin and you can go back in the past, knowing everything, you know, today, let’s say 10 years, how would you specifically accelerate the speed of your career?
Justin Mink 29:50
Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I would take care of my health. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think self-care. It’s easy when you’re younger, and you’re achieving to go hard, right to go hard. And you think that you have the capacity to do it forever. Right? You know, I think if you talk to any senior citizen, and I was like, Oh, if I only knew, I mean, anybody, I’m 47, right? I’m getting up there.
And if you always, if I only knew now, then what I know now. And so, I used to go hard, and I worked hard, and I played hard. And I kind of burned myself out. And I ended up part of my own personal story and the journey is getting sick when I was founding and launching a company and working so hard, and getting chronically ill as a result, and cascading health problems that became systemic and chronic. And, you know, if I had to do it all over again, I would slow myself down, you know, go a lot less hard. Make sure I had a self-care practice that I was took just as seriously and protected just as much as I did the work that I was engaged with. So yeah, I would take much better care of myself. Gotta go slow to go fast. Right? Slow is smooth. So and sustainable. Yeah, that’s the big thing for me.
Kenny Soto 31:23
You’re the second guest to mention going fast. Just go slow. Yeah, make fewer mistakes and things won’t be as stressful.
Justin Mink 31:32
Yeah, and you have to be you have to protect yourself from yourself sometimes because type achievers it’s very easy to overextend and not respect one’s own limits. So I would have been much more intentional about understanding what my limits are and respecting that. Yeah.
Kenny Soto 31:52
Justin, if anyone wanted to connect with you and say hello online, where can they go?
Justin Mink 31:57
Yeah, my microsite is EOS worldwide.com. Forward slash Justin dash mink, or look me up on LinkedIn, I post daily on finding balance in life and work and you know, business leadership, recommendations, tips, and ELS. So LinkedIn or my website are the best places.
Kenny Soto 32:17
Thanks again, Justin for your time today, and thank you to you the listener for listening to another episode of the people Digital Marketing podcast with me your host, Kenny Soto. And as always, I hope you have a great week. Bye.