Episode #11: The Worst Business Advice We’ve Ever Received
As you build your career, getting advice seems like the best way to borrow “experience.” And often the advice is exactly what you’re looking for! But as we look back, we realize we’ve received a lot of bad business advice and, worse, sometimes didn’t even know it. In this episode, we call out the worst business advice we’ve ever received and discuss how we turned them into learnings and growth.
The Worth Business Advice We’ve Ever Received Episode Recap
In this episode of the Two Marketing Moms Podcast, Julia and Kelly discuss “The Worst Business Advice They’ve Ever Received.” Julia talks about her book project with the same title and how it prompted her to reflect on the bad business advice she received throughout her career. Kelly shares her experience with bad advice related to competition and withholding valuable information within a team.
They also touch upon the advice “you can have it all,” which they find unrealistic and misleading, especially for working moms. They emphasize the importance of prioritization and making intentional decisions rather than aiming for everything simultaneously.
The hosts highlight that not all ideas are good ideas, as some may be ahead of their time, and they stress the significance of timing when it comes to implementing ideas. Additionally, they discuss the fallacy of “put in the work, and you’ll earn it,” as success is influenced by numerous factors beyond mere effort.
The episode concludes with a fun discussion about other pieces of bad advice, such as “fake it till you make it,” the outdated expectation to wear pantyhose and nail polish during public speaking, and the once-prominent belief of being the first one in the office and the last one out. They also share humorous stories about dating co-workers, challenging the common advice to avoid workplace relationships. The hosts encourage listeners to take these experiences as lessons and reminders to think critically about the advice they receive.
Episode Transcript:
Julia
Welcome to the Two Marketing Moms Podcast — work and life strategy from two moms with 50 years of marketing between us. We talk about the struggles, the fails and the wins while balancing being a boss, home life and being a mom in the advertising and marketing.
So, today’s episode is one that I’ve been really looking forward to. It is entitled The Worst Business Advice I’ve Ever Received. And my experience my excitement is seriously bubbling over right now. Because you know, this episode is pretty self-indulgent for me. Kelly was kind enough to put together an episode on my little pet project, my first book with the working title of The Worst Business Advice I’ve Ever Received. I kind of picked that because it’s provocative and makes you think. And I really think that not only do we have a lot to say, but hopefully you can also relate and have more to include in the conversation. So, Kelly, when I told you about my book title a couple months ago when I started percolating it and kind of started writing when I was on vacation this summer. What did you think?
Kelly
I thought you were crazy. Because you don’t tend to think about the worst business advice. You only think about the best advice, and I just sat there and I racked my brain for the longest time. And I asked people that I know. Because you really have to think about it. Because usually the worst business advice you put to the back of your head, you know, it goes away. You don’t think about it. But after I spent some time and I sat down, people would give me really funny amusing ones, which I’ll share today. But it’s a tough question, a tough thing to think about. But I think it’s important because you can reverse that in your head and take those examples of the worst ideas and turn them into life lessons.
Julia
Well, it definitely is the perfect illustration of my half glass empty mentality. I am definitely a pessimist. But I think the reason why that is so funny…
Kelly
Because I feel like I am that way too. I like to say I’m more of a realist, but I’m always looking at the plan B. So that makes me sound like a pessimist.
Julia
You know, we were both INTJ is we are we know that right? It definitely comes from the negative. But I think the reason why I came up with that was because I was going on this journey to learn the lessons and put them into practice and perspective for my own life. And that’s where I kind of came out came with it. I’ll start out with a story. Before I let you dive into your worst business advice. A little bit more about how I came up with this idea. And this is for our listeners. I feel like this is a gift to our listeners, because it’s a journey. And one that I think most people go through as they have breakthroughs and have personal and professional growth is going back and re-evaluating the events, the things that people have told us the decisions that we have made. Hindsight is 2020. But I think it’s the reflection that helps you change perspective. And the reality is, I’ve been told a lot of bad business advice. I mean, don’t get me wrong, a ton of great business advice. And we’ll probably should do another podcast on that. Some of the bad business advice was maybe because I was young and impressionable. Or maybe I didn’t know the right questions to ask or maybe people just wanted to feed their own ego.
Kelly
Or maybe they were threatened by you.
Julia
I have a great I’m so many examples of that for sure. Or I didn’t know how to interpret the advice and the right way. You know what I mean? We talk a lot about right advice, right time, wrong advice, wrong time, but I started percolating this idea over quarantine. Obviously, I had so much time over 2020 to think, fortunately or unfortunately, and I experienced a lot of second guessing. During that time, something that I’ll talk about in our next episode, which led me to reevaluate kind of how did I get here? What was the business advice that I had received? How did it what part of its were good, what part of it were bad? Like, replaying in my mind saying, darn, I wish I had listened to that person, or oh, man, that was super misdirected. Or, I’m so lucky to have that person in my life at the right time, and with exactly the right thing to say, to help me get through whatever I was going through. And I started to get to a place where I was really grateful for all of it, super grateful, especially the bad pieces. And that’s where I started to synthesize this idea. And my entire perspective changed over the past six months about how I viewed my failures. And my triumphs. And really, it was the fuel that helped keep me going. And I’ve been really empowered by evaluating the device and turning it on its head. So, I do marketing audits for clients. And so, let’s just say I did an audit of the advice that I had received. And it really helped me create my own personal branding and company marketing plan. So that’s how I got here and to this crazy topic. And now we’re excited to share some of our best messages. And a few funny ones, Kelly has some really good one. So, I’m going to throw it to you, Kelly, to take it away.
Kelly
I had a hard time with this. But once I started really kind of digging into it, I figured out some good ones. And so, my first one is thinking a little bit about competition. And at the core of what we do in marketing is trying to understand the target audiences that we’re trying to reach. But we aren’t so good about trying to understand each other, account teams versus creatives and senior management. And most of the problems that we encounter in business are people problems, and a lot of that comes down to values and morals and company culture. And I know you understand this, Julia, depending upon the type of company culture that you have, what type of behavior is acceptable. Your team members have the same basic values and morals that you do. And many times, that’s just not the case. And that is where you encounter issues with company politics and power struggles. And so, my top two worst pieces of business advice stem from politics and culture. And we’ve talked a lot about politics in the past. And the first is about withholding valuable information from a team member. And the second is that all competition is good. So, let’s start with the first one. This one’s about withholding valuable information.
When I was in my 20s, I worked for an advertising agency. And I had a boss for a relatively important piece of business. And I had a boss who was very competitive with the media director who was about her equal, but very senior to me. And that particular boss had a piece of information about the media plan that she asked me to withhold from the media planner, she directly said, I don’t want you to tell her this piece of information, made it clear, she didn’t like her, so that the plan would not get approved by the client, and she would look bad in front of the client.
I knew they didn’t like each other. And there are specific reasons why they didn’t like or I don’t want to go into. But there were reasons why they didn’t like each other. And I could see this. I really liked the media planner. And I didn’t have that need to withhold the information. So, what I did, and I was young. I went to the media planner asked to see her, I shut her door. And I said, here’s what’s happening. And here’s the information that you need to know. And she was surprised, and thanked me profusely so that she got the information that she needed. And when she presented the plan, she had the right information that you need to know. Shortly thereafter, I was let go.
I still to this day know it was the right thing to do. And that’s kind of where the core of this whole politics things has come from that for one of the first incidents that I had, and why I don’t play politics. And I think we really all have to be playing on the same team. And if you’re withholding information from a team member, for a client that you’re all supposed to be working towards together. It’s a real problem. So that was something that really impacted me.
And then the second one is related to that. And that is this idea that competition is good. And I think as a whole I love the idea we’ve talked about this before about the Lincoln Team of Rivals where Obama hires Hillary to be on his staff, right, and really takes the overall intelligence of the team to a higher level when you’re hiring people who are smarter than you to bring other things to the table. But when you take that to a different degree, whereby you make it more of a cutthroat environment, where everyone cuts each other down, and you bring on department heads that don’t get along well. I had a boss that thought that competition was so good that he literally hired and we’ve talked about this before, one of my roles is not to hire a** holes, he hired a**holes in every single department head was an a**hole. And he would put one department head in charge of another and kind of let them fight it out. And then change his mind and put one another department head from in front of another and just watch us scramble.
Julia
It’s like Gladiator.
Kelly
Exactly. Last man standing. And he talks about us behind each other’s backs. And so, I agree that hiring different types of people is absolutely essential to get different points of view. And in that aspect, competition is really good. I don’t agree that hiring people who are not completely compatible, each with a different version of a peacock, and throwing themselves together to get them to fight for control without a master vision is not the right way to run a company. So, my top two are, is competition good? Yes. On some levels, and others it’s not. And never withhold valuable information from a team member. That’s just not the right way to go.
Julia
Those are so good. And we talked about, I think maybe on our last episode about how you can understand people better so that you can hire right and put teams together that really work and gel. And that’s when you get I think your best ideas, your best work, your best of everything, people feel good about it. And then they’re happy to do the work and work harder, etc. And that competition thing goes completely against that.
Kelly
You and I can even say we’re competitors, because we both have go in the same space. But we’re not we’re not threatened by each other. Because we believe we bring the intelligence up for both of us. And we’re both being smarter and making each other smarter. And I think that’s really the way it needs to be.
Julia
Yeah, and there’s more than enough room and in business and things to go around. And everyone has their everyone vibes differently with people.
Those are great. Okay. So, here’s my first one. “You should pay attention to me, as I do” advice. And I think people who want to be watched are the ones that really shouldn’t say that are the ones that are quiet and they lead by example. They’re not worried if people are watching or not. I feel like people that do say this are the ones quite frankly, are offering bad advice on the regular. Maybe they’re trying to relive their old glories, maybe they are looking down upon you and thinking, oh, this person could really use some of my great sage advice and experience. But I think people who give good advice know that they want to help someone’s journey, not just say like, do what I do. I think people who say this are all about themselves. I never found any value in someone who told me this.
Number two is a great one. This like pushes every button for me, “you can have it all.” Really, it pushes my button like a gun rages me and I recently had a very successful friend, post something like this on social media. And I thought to myself, how dare you like this is so triggering for women, don’t tell people this, especially if you yourself are a mom juggling a lot of things between home and work because fight having it all is just a terrible phrase, first of all. Second of all, it’s unrealistic. Because I think it’s an intentional system of decision making and prioritizing, and then reprioritizing and I made it happen for myself. Especially after becoming a mom, I didn’t whine. I didn’t complain. I didn’t act entitled when I had kids. I pumped in the in the bathroom in locker rooms where I needed to. I rearranged meetings to make it work. But of course, I drew the line when I had to. I blocked my schedule. I said no to things. And it was a journey. It wasn’t like you become a mom; you suddenly know what to do. No, it’s a journey to get there. And quite frankly, even right now. You know, my oldest is 10 years old, and I don’t think I have it all, you know, COVID. And being home with my family 24/7/365 days almost at this point has reminded me that balance can be a daily, hourly struggle as a working mom. So, by telling moms that somehow they’re going to reach the summit of Mount Everest where they can have it all. I mean, it just sets up everyone for failure. And I don’t find it to be a relatable thing I don’t really I did not relate to my, my friend when she posted this. Because what was behind the scenes is that she probably has nannies, she probably has help. She has a lot of things that go into what she considers for herself having it all. So, I don’t think it’s motivating. whatsoever.
Kelly
I agree. And we spend a lot of time talking about this in our balance episode on mom. So, I think that’s important. And I think that’s for women, too. We also have to be conscious of the types of pictures that you post and yeah, we might want to post the best pictures of ourselves and our kids and aren’t going to be hosting the ones where what’s really happening behind the scenes that what got us to even get that get the perfect picture. Right, there were plenty of frowns to even get there. So, I think being honest with them, our journey as moms is probably a lot more alluring for most moms to be able to relate to.
Julia
I remember Oprah once said, like, the reason why she never had kids, it was an intentional decision, because she was so dedicated to her work, that she knew that she could never be a good mom, that she would never be able to have enough time to be there and do the right things. And she would have felt like a terrible failure to herself and to her, her kids. So, she decided not to have children. And I thought, Gosh, what a what an insightful thing to do, she didn’t try to convince herself that she could have it all her all was putting it into work. So, what else do you got Kelly?
Kelly
Oh, my goodness, I have two or three that are all kind of related to each other. And they all have to do with ideas. And one is that all ideas are good ideas. Another one is about always being on the cutting edge. And the other one is about making your move immediately. So, I’ll try to string these three together. But the all ideas are good ideas is really we talked a lot about this when I gave you my background in the .com era in San Francisco in the mid to late 90s. And there were some tremendously wonderful ideas that should have done really well, that failed, because they were the right idea at the wrong time. Examples pets.com, who doesn’t want their pet stuff delivered? Webvan.com was an online grocery service. It just the times were not ready for it then. And then for me, I’m not sure if I told you that I worked at a website called here2listen.com. And it was an online therapy website that was a fee-based real-time chat service with real licensed therapists to help people with personal relationships and life stresses and they didn’t get prescription drugs. It was about listening and not prescribing. And it was one of those wonderful ideas that was before its time. People didn’t have cell phones, they had to do it on their computers. And now it’s completely normal for people to do online therapy, either by text chat, or by video, it just took another 20 years to be normalized.
And related to this as always being on the cutting edge. Sometimes the cutting edge is a mile away and you think you’re on the edge. But you’re not and that’s very similar to the right idea wrong time. Another dot com that I worked on what’s called Jotter Technologies or Jotter.com, it was an ewallet. It was one of the first ewallets that I worked on in the in the 90s. And it was a fabulous idea, be able to fill out all your online forms and pay your bills. And now people are paying with Apple Pay. But again, that took 20 years for people to get used to that idea. So, some ideas can be wonderfully brilliant, but people aren’t ready to get there because that they are adapted to that curve of technology. The early adopters to the mainstream might be 20 years to get from that phase over that hump.
And the next one is related. Some people want you to make your move immediately. Make your move and do it right away. And sometimes you just need to let things ride or play out before you make your move. And examples of this would be things like selling stocks or short selling or maybe someone has bad behavior. And you know that, ultimately, if you wait it out, they will hang themselves as people tend to do without any assistance from you. So sometimes, letting things play out is important versus reacting all the time. So those are my three additional ideas.
Julia
I have a question for you. So, I feel like people say, like, all ideas are good ideas, because they want more ideas, right, the more the better. And I’ve definitely experienced great ideas at the wrong time. So, I always kind of file these ideas away, like the ones that like, bounce off and just don’t stick. I sometimes get obsessed with them. I’m like, this is going to work one day. And I always get so much pleasure, years down the road, where I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this, this is ready for primetime. And then of course, I look like a total dork, because I’ve been holding on to something forever. But I think a lot about past good ideas.
Kelly
They can be recycled. And I haven’t been able to do that as much as I think I could have. But yes, I have plenty of those.
Julia
Okay, my next one is super personal. But I think I’m not sure if someone actually said this to me, or I just see this over and over, like on social media, like the gist of it is that growth equals success. And this is also something that really like pushes my buttons. Because it insinuates that when you’re achieving, you’re getting to the next level, and that is when you are successful. But I really prescribed to the small wins the small steps, the sticking with it, like you just said, that equals success. And of course, those things are less noticeable. We want some of those big achievements that that push us, but they aren’t. And they aren’t the ones maybe that gets the accolades. But I personally feel like I’ve built my career on being the tortoise and not the hare most of the time. Slow and steady, winning the race. And so, for me personally, I need the constant reminder that growing my business is not about growth, about billing more, getting more, doing more, but about sticking with my vision and letting it blossom. So, I can also think that this applies to like when you’re a mom, and you’re coming back into your position, or if you’re new to the industry, that growth equals success, and I don’t think that that’s necessarily the truth. Got to start with the small steps.
Kelly
I think that’s important, especially in 2020, because not many companies could claim growth in 2020, right? It’s true, it was just enough to kind of hang on and keep the customers that you had and maintain a steady profile. And if anything, maybe you’re lucky to at the end of the year to start seeing some peaks. So, you’re absolutely right on that.
Julia
Okay, here’s my next one, which actually happened recently. There was two people that just didn’t seem to get along, one of them just seems to kind of have it out for the other or they have a chip on their shoulder. And someone told the other person. Oh, don’t worry about it. Not everyone will like you. And I was like, I mean, I guess that’s true. But it was passing blame to that other person like they just won’t ever like you, we’re just personalities that will never get along. Your perspectives will always be different. But I felt like for the person that it was being told to like they actually could have dug deeper and figured out how to get along better with that person. Maybe they could understand their personality type better understand what the motivators of that other person was.
So, at the end of the day, yes, it may be all on that that other person may be a total a**hole and just never want to get along with anybody else. But I believe that introspection never hurt anyone, and it will help you figure out how to not only maybe try to be successful in that situation, but in future situations. Okay, my last one before you get to the good ones, Kelly, the fun ones, because I think we got to have some fun here is another piece of really bad advice is put in the work and you’ll earn it. And so, I think putting in the work, and I’m just making this up, but putting in the work will help you earn it 33% of the time, right? It comes down to so many factors. And again, I think we talked about this on another podcast, but being in the right place at the right time, having a boss that champions you, having the resources to make an idea or a thing happen and pushing it to fruition. And so, I sometimes feel like people say that just to kind of make you work harder or to help you find the motivation to keep going on. And I think it’s bad advice, because sometimes it comes down to other factors other than just putting in the work, right. So being at the right place at the right time, having a boss that champions you having the right resources, a client that’s or, a team that’s ready to go, sometimes environmental or economic factors. I think we mentioned some of these in another podcast, about like getting a promotion, but I just don’t think that if you will put in the work, you will earn it. It’s not a this and then that. It’s a sometimes and either you have to be okay with that or you’re going to be disappointed. That’s why I think it’s bad advice. Don’t set yourself up to be disappointed.
I want to hear some of the bad fun ones.
Kelly
So, first of all, you had one that you didn’t talk about, and I had it on my list, but I think we should talk about it, which is fake it till you make it.
Julia
So how do you feel about fake it till you make it?
Kelly
I mean, there’s parts of it I like because there’s an idea of I think I called it “act as if|, as if you’re the Vice President, because that’s different than fake it till you make it because you can’t fake knowledge. You can only pretend to know things for so long, or you’ll get called out for it. And also fake it till you make it can mean many different things. It can mean how you dress. And in advertising, everyone wears jeans now. So that’s appropriate. It can be how you present yourself.. Are you striking a balance between being humble and confident? Are you coming across as arrogant or you dismissive to other people? So, there’s a lot of different things to be able to look at when you say fake it till you make it. So, I don’t like the way it’s written. And I prefer to say, act as if, because that makes you think about your decision making process.
Julia
I almost feel like, the reason why people say fake it till you make it is to instill confidence in someone, it’s trying to say, be confident with what you know, you actually think more than you do. So, confidence sets the stage, if you go in confident, and then you can be you, then I think that’s what people are trying to get to with fake it till you make it because I certainly have said this to people. But I feel like I’ve given it more context. If if I’ve told someone, you got to fake it till you make it like, it means, Girl you got you know this, you know what you’re talking about, you know the client, you have a great relationship, get the confidence, if you’re not confident, outwardly, just muster up the strength internally and go for it. I think that’s what I kind of mean by this one. So yeah, I don’t I don’t like it. Bad advice.
Kelly
There was another one that you and I, I think we’re both talking about one was do something that you’re not passionate about. We’ve talked about that before. That was another of your triggers.
Julia
I mean, I’m all about aligning with my passion. And, I don’t, we can probably talk about this next episode. But I don’t take a lot of risks. And I don’t make split second decisions. And so, I have to be really calculated about it. And so therefore, I’m not going to do anything that I’m not passionate about.
Kelly
That includes client businesses that you work on, you have to be interested in the category it comes out somehow, if you’re not.
Julia
I’ve worked on a couple of accounts that over my career that I definitely was not into. But I was able to find pieces of it that I could learn from and that were different enough where I took something out of it. Thank goodness, they weren’t long term. But I think there you go; you try to find at least a little nugget. If you’re not totally passionate about it.
Here’s another one that I didn’t say was. Some people say, well, you just need that one big win.
Kelly
Oh, yes.
Julia
You just need to win that award. Or you just need that one thing. People get this kind of goes back to what I was saying about like, put in the work, you will earn it. A lot of the times people who have that big win usually started off by winning, winning small things. And I think it’s important as you build your career, to avoid making the mistake of only wanting to take the big bets. And those don’t come to your door very often. But some people are really opportunistic, and just go after those big thing after big thing after big thing because they think that that’s going to be the thing that, you know, gets them to earn their way to the next level. And I don’t know, I like someone who is much more consistent. That’s who I like to work with consistency, commitment to excellence, I think is way, way better than to go after the big win.
Kelly
All right, what about money is the most important thing.
Julia
Well, that goes back to growth equals success. Yeah, money isn’t everything. I think we know this from the movies, right?
Kelly
Well, we know this from being moms. We know that sometimes you’re happy to take lesser money so that you can have more time with your kids or a flexible schedule or
that sort of thing.
Well, I’m going to give you a couple of fun ones. I have my Grey girls, the Grey advertising girls, we have a fun little group that we text back and forth about different things. And so, I texted them and we have fun coming up with ideas. Some are not for primetime. But I’ll give you the ones that are because to be honest with you, things were kind of rough in the late 80s, early 90s, if you think about the way, equality of the sexy and how women were treated and that sort of thing. So, one example is a company came in and gave public speaking training in the 90s and told us that women should wear pantyhose and nail polish when they’re presenting. That wasn’t that long ago.
Julia
I love this one, like so much.
Julia
And, and also at the time, there was no real protocols for how to handle misbehavior of men in the office. And I will admit that one time, I mean, there were multiple incidences that we could both go through in terms of men’s behavior, but I remember specifically complaining about a man’s behavior in the office, and I went to the head of HR. And her response was so shocking, I didn’t know where to put it. Her response was, you’re the 29th person that has come to complain about this guy. And I was “the 29th?” At what point,, how many complaints does one need to give for you do something about it? And she was not empowered to do anything about it. And so, the behavior continued, and that wouldn’t happen today. But there were a lot of crazy things that happened way back in the day.
But the other funny ones were — be the first one in the office and the last one out. That’s a normal one, actually, that was very big at Grey advertising. In fact, the president of Grey Advertising would literally have a pencil and paper and he would do bed checks in the morning. So, if you weren’t in the office by 8:30, or if you had left the office by six o’clock, he would go down and write names to see who was in and who was out. And that’s kind of how he confirmed whether or not people were working and then he would talk to you if you were not there and didn’t meet your bed checks.
You can’t always be the first one and the last person out. That mentality is not around anymore. In this new world of work from home and parenting and flex time. Not all good ideas happen between nine and five, right? I mean, ideas happen at different times, usually at night and outside of work hours. So be the first one in the office and the last one out is no longer a recommendation that that people make anymore.
The funniest one that my friends and I talked to talked about was, I can’t believe I didn’t think about this myself — don’t date or sleep with your co-workers. So that seems like a basic one, right?
Julia
The forbidden fruit.
Kelly
However, I met my husband at work and married him and have been with him for 20 years, my best friend met her husband at work and they’ve been together for 25 years. Three or four of the women in my little group met husbands at work. They weren’t supervisors or anything, but they met at work and, and married them and have had successful marriages for decades. So, I agree that that’s one that you have to be careful with. But at the same time, it happens because it is difficult to meet people and back then there was no cell phones and no online, dating etc., So that’s one that you kind of have to go – It works sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t.
Julia
Well, thanks, Kelly for such a fun episode. I loved all of these terrible pieces of advice. Hopefully this was worth a laugh and also, helped you also identify maybe some bad things that you’ve heard and hopefully leads to some, you know, reevaluation about maybe I took it maybe I didn’t, what did I learn and, and how did I get here now? I think that’s always a good exercise.
Kelly
Thank you so much. See you next week.
