Career Rocket Episode #6: Dan London
“If you are waiting for someone to drag you along, it’s not going to happen.” - Dan London
Digital marketing guru
The goal for my Career Rocket series is to make an impact on people’s careers by sharing wisdom from successful folks with high integrity. You can also listen to the podcast of this post hosted in collaboration between DURMC and Empathetic Machines which dives deeper into the topics covered here.
Target audience for this episode: aspiring professionals in digital marketing
Today’s guest: I am pumped to have my friend Dan London, who is an incredibly successful and talented marketer with the most distinguished laugh of anyone I know. He has a very impressive career in the digital marketing field and I know the listeners will get a lot out of what he has to share.
We had a lot of fun with in this episode with lots of laughs so again, listen to the podcast after zipping through this post.
Professional background and highlights
Currently, Vice President of Revenue Marketing at Bandwidth
Director of Marketing at Ansible by Red Hat
Director of Marketing at Citrix ShareFile
Director of Marketing at Lulu
Copywriter at a local agency
Part of two local start-ups that ended up being acquired
VP of Marketing at a company that had a successful IPO
Spoke at Google for an Adwords advisory panel
Taught 6th grade English and History
Worked a number of full-time jobs while going through college (cook/waiter, warehouse/shipping work, construction, and retail)
How many people have you managed over your career? It has varied at each company with probably 60+ over my career so far. I’ve managed 3 person teams and 20+ person teams at various points. I’ve also been a one-person marketing team as well.
For each career stage, please share the most important characteristics to have in the field of digital analytics.
Entry level: 1-3 years
Desire to Learn. One of the most important characteristics at this level is to understand all of the areas within marketing and how they can work together. While you may be hired to help with social media marketing, understanding how that one piece of the demand generation plan works with the other areas such as email nurture or lead conversion is the key to advancing your career. While you may not be tasked with those items, understanding the full mix allows you to be more valuable and branch out as you advance. Tip: ask questions in interviews and ask ‘why’ throughout your work during this time
Patience. While I love when people jump in and want to run, the ability to present ideas and take feedback is the key to success. At this level, many of the tasks that are required have been done before. Learning the why and how helps ensure success and will assist in gaining the confidence of more senior leaders which will open the doors for more creativity.
Mid career: 3-6 years
Fearlessness. If you have spent time building trust early in your career you should have gained the confidence of senior leadership which will allow you to take more chances and bigger swings at driving leads and revenue. It is this stage of your career where you can start to separate yourself from the pack by being proactive and not afraid to speak out. It is fine to fail. It is not fine to fail and not learn from it. Tip: bring solutions not problems. Embrace the reality that you will fail and learn.
Mgr/Directors:
Empathy. Up until this stage you have most likely been focused on your own career and how to advance yourself. Your team members are in the mid-career stage and are looking to Managers and Directors for guidance on their career path and how they can advance. This is often a time-consuming task for senior management but essential to employee satisfaction and ultimately team success. Understanding the employee’s feelings around their career and using those to create a clear career path is the key to being successful at this level
Looking back, please share what you feel have been your biggest drivers to a successful career?
Taking on anything and everything. I’ve never passed on taking on additional responsibility.
Not sitting back and waiting. I have thought of ideas on the drive into work and launched them by the end of the day
If there was one thing you would like to tell someone earlier on in their career that you wish someone had told you, what would it be?
You need to forge your own path. You can’t sit back and wait for somebody to help you along. If the path in front of you is open, go for it.
Looking ahead, where do you think are the upcoming hot spots in careers around your discipline?
Marketing analysts who understand attribution and the marketing and sales funnel. People who can wrangle all the data and understand what and why it matters.
What are the interesting challenges you anticipate will be coming up in your discipline in the coming years?
There are a number of regulations coming that will impact the ability to collect data and also email leads. Finding ways to overcome losing that data and information will be essential for success.
Not only do you have a successful professional career, you seem to be genuinely grounded and happy. What does living abundantly mean to you and how have you carried it out?
Pay attention to Work/Life balance. Making some smart choices about where I work has helped me advance my career as well as work for companies that take care of their employees.
If you want to hear the in-depth dialogue of this post, check out the full conversation on the podcast !
Check out our full list of Career Rocket guests here
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