As you build your career, getting advice seems like the best way to borrow "experience." In this episode, we call out the worst business advice we've ever received and discuss how we turned them into learnings and growth.
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.
Kelly shares two interrelated pieces of bad advice stemming from politics and culture. The first involves being told to withhold valuable information from a team member to make them look bad in front of a client. Kelly did the right thing and shared the information anyway, though it cost her the job. The second is the idea that all competition is good — while hiring different types of people for diverse perspectives is valuable, creating a cutthroat environment where department heads are pitted against each other is destructive.
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. Kelly shares examples from the dot-com era of brilliant ideas that failed because the market wasn't ready, including pets.com, Webvan, an early online therapy site, and one of the first ewallets.
Julia challenges the notion that "growth equals success," advocating instead for small wins and consistency. 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 The episode concludes with a fun discussion about other pieces of bad advice, such as "fake it till you make it," the outdated expectation to wear pantyhose and nail polish during public speaking, the once-prominent belief of being the first one in the office and the last one out, and humorous stories about dating co-workers. The hosts encourage listeners to think critically about the advice they receive.
Key Takeaway: Bad advice can become valuable learning experiences when we reflect on what went wrong and apply those lessons to future decisions.
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 INTJs, 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 up 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 20/20. 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 so many examples of that for sure. Or I didn't know how to interpret the advice 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 parts of it were good, what parts 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 advice 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 ones. 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 each other, 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. 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 thing has come from, 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 negative people, he hired them in every single department head position. 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 another department head in front of another and just watch us scramble.
Julia: It's like Gladiator.
Kelly: Exactly. Last man standing. And he talked about us behind each other's backs. And he would call in the senior management team and say, okay, who do we get rid of next?
Of course, you know, your name is going to come up eventually. So, any miss on revenues have to be someone's fault, and no one was safe, and he would really pit us against each other. But this time, I had learned my lessons of the past. And I was very verbal, I did communicate my concerns to the CEO. I did communicate my concerns about the culture, about the people about the turnover, about how much staff I needed to do the work. And how important the role of our department was in terms of building relationship within the agency. He did not approve the addition of other people.
So, the strangest thing happened and it's hard to even recount it now. He replaced me while I was still at the agency. One day a new guy started and I didn't know he was coming. And he had an office next to mine. And he kept coming into my office asking me all sorts of questions about my accounts, and I didn't understand why and finally he came in and shut the door and he said, Look, I was hired to replace you. I didn't know you were going to be here when I got here, and all of your accounts are in my contract. And I was like, Okay. And he told me to expect to be let go, which I was shortly thereafter. And as my replacement he didn't last very long in that situation either.
And there's a lot of lessons learned from this and I'm going to start with one we've talked about many times in the past which is never work with negative people. My Dad has a funny quote, he says, if someone's a jerk on Monday, they're going to be a jerk on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, you know, just don't work with them. Bottom line. Not only are they bad news, they create an environment where other negative people are also acceptable. And this was the scenario there.
But the bigger more important thing was integrity and culture are extremely important. And if you're not aligned with that particular work culture, you're not going to fit in. And a company that has a high turnover rate, which you can find out really from looking at Glassdoor and other types of third party sites, is a serious red flag. And I failed to see the warning signs while interviewing. I mean, clearly, I should have asked a lot more questions. When I found out that all the people that were going to report to me were gone. But I'm never going to again, work with a leader who doesn't respect their employees.
So that one was one that was really a big challenge for me to get over being replaced by a man who had less qualifications than I did in that arena. Oh, you can't make this stuff up. So that was a challenge. And one of my biggest failures, because I was unable to see what was right in front of me, or I saw it and I didn't acknowledge it in the way that I should have, I should have left way before, or perhaps not even accepted the job in the first place. So those are my two failures. And I think we've got a lot of themes to talk about, do you want to give me your themes, and I can talk about mine as well.
Julia: There's so many. And I feel like we've talked about some of these on other podcast episodes. I think one of them for me, related to my first failure is that I truly had a clear appreciation for mentorship. And I realized that I had a lot of mentors around me. And I hadn't necessarily acknowledged them. I hadn't thanked them; I hadn't really maybe tapped their full potential. And so that was a huge learning for me that came in on that first failure is, I was so kind of maybe, selfishly in my own head, trying so hard not to make a decision, that there were a lot of people around me that were rooting for me to make the decision, that I ultimately did. And they saw the vision way before I could acknowledge it. And so, since then, I have really put in a lot more effort to ask for mentorship, ask for advice. Like I said, a couple weeks ago, when I reached out to someone to help me get through kind of a roadblock like that is such an important tool to getting through your failure is mentorship. And going along with that is that I also finally understood the value of my network. So maybe if they weren't necessarily mentors, but just the value that other people bring to your journey, like, I'm kind of sometimes can be like a lone wolf, and I like to be on my own. And I need to also acknowledge that the people around me are willing to help, and they really bring a lot of value. I mean, once I'd made my decision, I also talked about this on an episode, I had no plan B at that time, because I was so against making a decision. I had no plan B. So, when I went with my gut and said, Nope, this is not the right decision. I am not going to pursue this. It led to me having to end my employment. Because it was the dead end that I got to. Which maybe if I had made a decision earlier, it wouldn't have been a dead end. But obviously, I'm happy. I'm happy with the decision. But, that was huge. Once I got there, I was like, Oh, great, I have no plan B and so I started reaching out to this network, and these people stepped up to the plate for me, and I'll always be grateful. So those were like two really great things that came out of that and things literally, that I think about every day, I will never take them for granted again.
Kelly: Wonderful, wonderful. To recap, don't quit a job before you have a new one. We keep saying that over and over again. Stand up for yourself. And I even tell this to my staff, if they disagree with something, let me know, I might push back and say No way. But I'm never going to say it's my way or the highway. You need to stand up for yourself. Always. And I listened to this podcast the other day with a business coach named Scott Anderson. And he was on the podcast talking about the theme of being 10% braver. And he argues that failure stems from not being 10% braver, and if I had been 10% braver, I would have taken another action. And I like that. Because I think that's a great way to think about the actions that you're taking in your life. Because if you really just push yourself a little bit more to be braver.
Another one that you and I have in common is that we don't suffer fools lightly. And so, communication is extremely important. And if I look at the commonality of some of the bosses that I've had issues with, they were really, really poor communicators. And they ended up using me as their mouthpiece, because they couldn't communicate well without acknowledging it, necessarily, but pushed me to do so. And communication is so important in what we do. We're in marketing, it's a communication business. And if you have a manager who's a lousy communicator, then they're in the wrong line of work, and you have a red flag. So, you need to ask yourself, and this is important. Do you admire your boss? Are they someone you want to emulate or learn from? Are they someone that you're going to have to adapt to and work for someone who's going to make your life worse? And if so, then you're in the wrong place. And so, buy yourself some time and find a new job and get out. You should admire your boss. Right?
Julia: Yes. You're going to spend more time with your boss, then maybe your family?
Kelly: And again, you're not going to agree with everything with your boss. And of course, there's going to be things that irritate you, I'm quite sure there's things about me that irritate my team. But I would hope that at least, there's some basic respect and admiration for some of the things that I do in the hustle that I have. And, lastly, it's not always your fault. So, you and I can look at these things. And there's so many different factors, that it's not always our fault. Sometimes failure is the boss, or the culture, or the failure of a superior to listen to feedback that can make things better, or a job that's made impossible for a number of reasons. And so, we need to learn to recognize when we could have done better, and then get over it. And because maybe at that time, in that situation, where we were in our lives, there's really nothing that we could have done to make it work. And I think the main thing that you and I need to acknowledge is that every failure that I've ever had, and I believe you would agree with this, I've always landed in a better place than where I was before.
Julia: Oh 100%.
Kelly: And I'm grateful for the failures because whether I knew it or not, it was right to end things when I did and move on to the next chapter.
Julia: 100% no regrets.
Kelly: I agree with that. I absolutely agree. Yes, I could have done things better, but you can't regret it. The mistakes made you who you are.
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 identify maybe some bad things that you've heard and hopefully leads to some reevaluation about maybe I took it maybe I didn't, what did I learn and how did I get here now? I think that's always a good exercise.
Kelly: Thank you so much. See you next week.
