“Everything we do just goes back to helping, and if we just do that authentically we know that…the value will come back to us.”

Chelsea is a former journalist turned empathy-driven marketer who leads content marketing at Lavender. Her 11+ year career spans diverse industries, from agencies to publishing, branding to SaaS. She draws on her multi-faceted experience and journalistic roots in her content approach and principles, which are hyper-focused on human-centered marketing.

She was also the Director of Content Marketing at Chili Piper back in 2022.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• When is the right time to do a career pivot?
• The competitive advantage journalists have when switching over into a marketing career.
• Should marketers be worried about AI replacing them? (Here’s where Chelsea explains what Human centered-marketing and AI looks like)
• The evolution of content marketing teams this year…
• When to recruit content marketers and Chelsea’s approach to recruiting
• How B2B organizations can dive into the world of video
• How the Lavender team uses Lavender
• How to scale engagement on LinkedIn when growing a personal brand?

And more!

Say hi to Chelsea on Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseacastle/

Say hi to Chelsea on Twitter – https://twitter.com/ChelseaCastle

Check out Lavender here – https://www.lavender.ai

Our Podcast Partner – MarketerHire

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Full Episode Transcript:

 

Kenny Soto 0:00  

Hello everyone and welcome to the people digital marketing with your host Kenny Soto and today’s special guest, Chelsea castle. Hi, Chelsea, how are you? Hey, Kenny. I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me today. Awesome. So, today’s episode is very exciting for me, because of the organization where you work. It’s very cool. 

 

But before we dive into that, I like to start every single episode the same way just so that the listeners know who you are as a professional. So my first question for you is how did you become a digital marketer in the first place?

 

Chelsea Castle 0:38  

A good question, okay? I have a bit by happenstance, I was actually a journalist by trade. I went to journalism school, I worked in newspapers and magazines for a while. And I was actually like an editor of a magazine and to magazines my first job out of college. So after I did that, loved it, and did it for a few years kind of felt like I hit my ceiling. 

 

And it was like, what next? Now? What do I do? Do I go be a reporter? I really love journalism. But I never wanted to be pigeonholed, pigeonholed in journalism. So I pivoted to the agency side and worked at a marketing and branding agency, worked on the marketing side. And then I pivoted to the client-facing side building websites for clients. Relays, I really love check. This was like 2013, no, 2016. 

 

I like learning about email automation, and all the cool things that you could do with different tools out there really loved it. And then I started just kind of fell into tech from there. So a little bit of intentional movement and then wanting to grow and do different things, but just kind of a bit by happenstance, too. 

 

Kenny Soto 1:44  

And can you describe for the listeners what you’re doing right now?

 

Chelsea Castle 1:47 

Yeah, so I’m leading content, at a company called lavender AI. So lavender is an email writing tool. So we like to call it a sales email writing coach. We don’t just help you write better emails faster, and get more positive replies, but we also help you. In users, anyone who writes emails get better at writing emails over time. So AI is not just AI never replaces you AI is helping you grow and get better, and improve.

 

Kenny Soto 2:15  

So before we get into that, I want to talk about the narrative of your career, and how it’s evolved over time. And it falls perfectly with an unfortunate theme that’s happening this year, which is a lot of macro layoffs. And a lot of people trying to figure out how to pivot in their careers, when is the right time for them to switch? They may not have been laid off, but they may suspect that they might have to find a new team. And they’re just mulling over the idea, the concept, etc. How would you suggest or what do you suggest listeners take away when it comes to considering a career pivot?

 

Chelsea Castle 2:52  

Good question. And I guess for listeners out there and this similar position to what you described, I was impacted by a reduction in force last year. I know how difficult that can be both emotionally. And also you’re like, Okay, well, like now what? I think nonlinear career paths are definitely becoming more and more common, whether that’s by happenstance, or by choice. 

 

And I guess to illustrate to people, I would say that it’s always a competitive advantage, right? So I started in journalism, and I’m now a marketer, there are a lot of things from journalism that make me a better marketer today. I also have a friend who made I don’t even know maybe like a 20-plus career change. She used to be a marketer and a writer, and now she’s actually going back to school to be a nurse. 

 

So it’s really interesting to kind of take a step back and think about, okay, what skills does she have as a writer and a marketer that will help her be a better nurse and maybe apply a unique lens to what she’s doing now? So I think for those people who are in that position, the sky’s the limit like I don’t want to, I think there’s a balanced CVS struck with like, being overly optimistic and just being realistic. 

 

But you’re in a position where you can say, Okay, what skills do I have? What are my strengths? What do I want to do, what fills me up? Or what satisfies me? And where do I want to spend my time and work like we all have to work? And then what’s going to be fulfilling and then maybe there’s something different that you can kind of pivot to or maybe you want to do the same thing, and there you might have a different lens on it as well.

 

Kenny Soto 4:19  

What specific advantages do you think being a former journalist gave you to the role you have today?

 

Chelsea Castle 4:26  

Yeah, so I love this question because a lot of my likes, favorite, and some of the best marketers out there I think are from former journalists. So there’s a lot right so a lot of what I see content creators saying these days in terms of like when they’re giving advice or journalism basics, so show don’t tell us the inverted pyramid. 

 

What’s the so what factor you know readers are selfish so like, so what like what value are you giving in your content? Always get the name of the dog is one of my favorite lines that former professor One friend used to say. And that’s just to say like focus on the details focus on things that you may not pay attention to. 

 

So all of that to say, journalism requires a lot of critical thinking and a lot of taking a lot of data. And not just numbers, like research articles, qualitative, and quantitative data, and records, taking a lot and distilling it into something that’s simple. It’s hard to express complex ideas in simple words. 

 

So journalism at its core is really focusing on writing and taking a lot and turning it into something that’s simple, concise, but also compelling, and kind of draws on like a shared humanity of Why are you asking someone to take time out of their day to read whatever it is that you’re writing. So those are a few of the things that as a journalist you, like, are, like really beat into you. And like, you just get a lot of experience or like repetition. I think there’s also an advantage to being a good interviewer. 

 

And as a journalist, you have to write about subjects that you may not know a lot about, which as content marketers, you might enter a job or honestly, like not just content marketing, I think any role in sales or CS or all sorts of roles, you might enter a new job, you’re like, Okay, well, I’m selling data software, but I don’t know the difference between data or metadata. Journalism and probably a lot of other skills and disciplines out there help you understand the right ways to learn more about a subject in order to then write about it, sell it marketed, etc.

 

Kenny Soto 6:30  

You are touching on a hot-button topic that I’ve been trying to debate, both internally in my team, but also just internally with myself, which is now that we have these tools, chat GPT, and all these other tools that are built off of their language learning model. There’s this debate on whether or not marketers, writers, etc, are going to be replaced. That might be a very extreme question, but it does beg an answer, which is, Should we be worried about AI tools? Or are there still going to be unique use cases where a human needs to be involved in the content marketing process?

 

Chelsea Castle 7:12  

Yeah, I’m really glad you asked this question. It’s something that we’re talking about a lot internally, as you might suspect, as an AI company. And when I started, one of the reasons why I wanted to work at lavender was to better understand AI and DBT, 3d and machine learning, like, what does all this mean? How does it work, I’m still learning, and I’m going to share my personal opinion, but also alliances with the product. 

 

Something that’s really important to me is always thinking about the human on the other end, as a marketer. So when you’re emailing someone that’s an actual human, when you’re cold, calling someone that’s an actual human, you’re interrupting them in their day. That’s one thing that AI tools can’t do, and I don’t think we’ll ever do. AI tools are important. 

 

GPT three has been baked into lavender as a tool for several years, I think we’ll start to see TPT three and GPT, five, and all sorts of machine learning integrated into so many tools just for the rest of our lives, I think, at least for now, you know, from where I sit and like a learner’s seat. I think it’s really important for people to start educating themselves on what it means. So like, when chat TPT three came out, or GPT, so many acronyms, and numbers, when it first came out, you know, I had my mom sharing things like, oh, Canva has an AI tool. 

 

And there’s just like a lot of people, there’s not a shared language around it. So not everyone really understands it. So I’m looking forward to that evolving over time. To get back to your question. I don’t think we should be worried. I think people just need to learn how to use it and use it to their advantage. I’m seeing a lot of content writing agencies, for example, coming out with their stances on what we think it’s a competitive advantage. 

 

And here’s how we’re going to use it, and what replace us but here’s how we think it can help. And then I’ve seen other people say, we’re not going to use it at all. We think it’s plagiarism, blah, blah, blah. There are pros and cons, right? So the actual chat GPT is a tool. It’s not always accurate. It’s like you have to fact-check. There are pros and cons. But I think it does everyone a service I think you’re actually doing yourself a disservice if you don’t try to educate yourself on it and learn how you can use it to your advantage. 

 

But also, some people will be fine without using it. So I think it’ll just be really interesting to see how it evolves. But I don’t think there’s a world where it will completely replace us because I can’t be human. Right? Like if you think of movies with robots. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Robots always want to be human. Like they always want to feel they always want to cry. Like they always want to be human. So I think you need both. It’s like an input. So we always say, lavender can help you with 80%. But in order to make sure you’re expressing value and you’re still remembering that shared humanity and human connection, you need to do the other 20%

 

Kenny Soto 9:55  

Yeah, and that other 20% Is what I’m always interested in. I always try to equate it back to my role. So I’ve worked in SEO, and there’s always this concept of E, which is now an extra E, the extra e being expertise, and having actual experience with the subject matter. So you can, and I’ve been playing around with Chuck GPT and other tools internally for the blog that I manage, you can at least at the very least, beat blank page syndrome, where it’s like, okay, I don’t know what to start with. 

 

But even before then, you can always just look at what are your competitors writing about. What are your customers discussing on Reddit, Quora, and YouTube comments love looking there, too, and just start compiling, gathering as much information that helps GPT kind of speeds up that process now. But at the end of the day, it’s always like a C minus the first draft, if you take that out of the door and show it to your users. 

 

Probably gonna get little, if any engagement, you’re not going to really convert anyone, and it’s going to miss that voice. I don’t see any of these tools having like, a unique voice. Some are, some are kind of claiming that you can bake in brand guidelines into like custom rules for editing and style, which even then is somewhat impressive, but it’s still missing that mark of at the end of the day, I’m trying to connect with someone, I’m trying to find a way to if I’m a reader specifically gained some kind of insight that I can’t just get from another source. 

 

Because if I can get it from another source, I’m gonna go to that source instead. And I think that’s the main challenge here. It’s like, at what point of the threshold or spectrum or however you wanted to find it? At what point? Do we still need to rely on people? Because at the end of the day, it’s just a tool? Like, we had calculators that didn’t stop us from learning and having to do the math. So we just have like a different version of the calculator. But this time, it’s in English and with words.

 

Chelsea Castle 11:53  

Yeah, 100%. And I think it’s interesting to people who were so impressed by it at first and not because it wasn’t impressive, but like, Oh, here’s a prompt, and then it would regurgitate a poem. And people were really impressed by that. But if you if a human wrote that it was like, pretty mediocre. But then also, if you think about all the other things that technology and machine learning do for us. Is it that impressive, it was almost just kind of like it just was a bit of a fad effect at first. See, I totally agree with you if it’s a tool at all, never replace it, I think it’s meant to help.

 

Kenny Soto 12:30  

Yeah, before asking the next question. There’s another tidbit, I want to just touch on. I saw in Washington Post that there’s this new role, which may be temporary. It’s called prompt engineer engineering. Yeah. And in San Francisco, they’re cheering. They’re paying some people around $325,000 a year. 

 

And I think it’s just hype. At the end of the day, like someone getting paid that much, they have to be providing more than just creating a database of prompts to use for whatever output. So I say this to say, and to lead to my next question, which are our content teams going to change now? Or are roles in general without content marketing going to change? What do you think about content teams recruiting? Let’s start there.

 

Chelsea Castle 13:14  

How do I think about recruiting in general before thinking about AI? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s a good question. So building teams, and being a people leader, like one of my favorite parts of my career, I’ve always, like had the opportunity to manage people and lead teams, that’s one of my favorite things to do. When I think about recruiting, you think it has a lot to do with like a content engine that’s already built, right? So before I’m trying to bring people on, I want to make sure I have like, a train running already for them to get on. 

 

And I know where it’s going. So I like to look at where are the gaps in skills that we need in order to meet our business goals. Like this is like very, like, I have like a bullet point list in my head. I look at the gaps, right? Like, where are my weaknesses? Where do I want to spend my time? Where are the biggest needs that we need to be filled in people think that smarter people than me do, but I need to like, ensure that we’re meeting our content goals and really scaling. 

 

So right now, for example, I’ll kind of use my experience right now, with lavender as an early-stage company. It’s just me. We don’t need to crawl, walk, or run as a strategy like the company has already gotten pretty far in two years. It’s content lead, marketing lead, we need to walk a little bit and then run. There’s only so much output that I can execute. But we’re not really at a point where it makes sense to recruit an internal content marketer. So we need to focus on volume. 

 

When I was at chili Piper building a team it was the opposite. We had a foundation we had an engine running, I was executing. Now I needed to build a team. We really needed someone to stay focused on SEO. So that’s where I started. And then we needed to increase the quality and quantity of SEO content. 

 

So we try agencies, we tried freelancers, we tried to experiment with it and then a lot of different ways, and then the recruiting Focus then really shifted we needed somebody who’s been a salesperson than a marketer been like our ICP, who understands content understands SEO, and bring them internally so that they’re ingrained in the organization and the product. And that’s what worked best. So I feel like that’s just like a long-winded way of saying things about recruiting, but you think about goals and gaps, essentially.

 

Kenny Soto 15:23  

Touching on goals and gaps. One thing that I’ve noticed, and this is me assuming So correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like one of lavender’s best top-performing channels right now is LinkedIn. And your use of video is one of my favorite, like, I’ve been trying to find use cases, when I’m speaking to clients of like, here’s how you use video if you are b2b. And now lavender is one of my number one examples. 

 

Can you touch upon how you thought about the launch? Or not? Maybe not the launch, but starting to use video more? How do you think about going about doing that? Are you using vendors internally? Can you explain that, that kind of practice that you’re doing right now?

 

Chelsea Castle 16:06  

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you so much. Um, a lot of that is like the marketing team and our co-founders, obviously, who built a lot of our marketing before they even hired a marketing team. Even just amazing job of building a really natural organic audience on LinkedIn just by and I think the biggest thing, there is an answer to your question, but also just like something so much bigger is they just have always understood the why and the purpose. So when I say they, I mean, the co-founders will all read what balance and kisi qubino. 

 

And the Wild Lavender and why we do what we do and why video is a big component and why LinkedIn has really gotten them. The business where it is, is we just give we’re not gating we’re not interested in creating friction. We’re not interested in like pay walling any of the value that a lot of other people would be doing. Or just giving and helping. And a lot of that then is like video and just having fun and not being boring and just having fun with it at the same time. 

 

So the video has always been a big part of it after I think a lot of the helpful content and educational content has been received really well. Now we’ve got some folks on board to shout out to talk calls here. And we’ll Aiken who are just like, video masterminds, and then our CEO actually is lead lavender Joe, if you haven’t seen those videos, listeners are definitely worth checking out. So it’s, it’s a really big part of everything that we’re doing. 

 

But now that I’ve joined, and we’ve got Janelle, on onboard to the help of the community, we’re all feeding into each other essentially, and our content, whether it’s written, whether it’s video, whether it’s on Tik Tok, or LinkedIn, or YouTube, or on our website, everything will feed into each other so that we’re providing the same value that the videos and LinkedIn content does, but for meeting people where they are, and you can consume it across any platform, like me, for example, I want to read a blog post or an article, I don’t really want to watch a video. Other people are different. So we want to make it as accessible and frictionless and helpful as possible. And that’s a big part of the video strategy too.

 

Kenny Soto 18:04  

How does lavender use lavender?

 

Chelsea Castle 18:09  

I mean, pretty simply, we use it in our own emails, right? So we have our own dashboards where we can see each other scores. So for those who don’t know, lavender also gives you a lavender score, which looks at your subject line, your clarity, the words, you’re using in the sentences, signatures, etc., and gives you a score based on all of that and tells you where you need to improve what things need to be fixed and highlighted and also how to fix them. 

 

And then the score if you get 90 or above our data shows that you have at least a 20.5% chance of having an error, sorry, you have a higher chance of getting a 20.5% reply rate. So if you always send an email that’s at least 90 or above, you’re most likely going to get a reply. So we use it for our own emails, and we use it also for coaching. So even our co-founders and everyone on our team do a lot of coaching. 

 

So we can actually split the tool, show people their emails, rewrite them, tear them down, and build them back up. And then we have the product right there to show you how it works and why it works and what needs to be improved and how we’ve also been using it for other pieces of content. So I and a lot of team members. You can use lavender anywhere where you can plug your LinkedIn post or blog post even and you can plug it in there and it’ll assess it. 

 

So picture something like Grammarly, but obviously a lot more intelligent than that, and looking at different elements of personality and, and data points. even I’ve been using it and even chat GBT sometimes just to experiment, right? And a lot of the same ways that you were saying it’s been super helpful for me, chat DBT has that been super helpful for me as a writer? Sometimes it’ll like give me a word like, oh, that word gives me an idea. It’s like having someone in your office next to you to kind of riff ideas off of so I always like the best and lavender at least like I’ve been using it for content to kind of like refine it, make sure it’s more concise, and those sorts of things. So anytime we’re writing something we use our tool.

 

Kenny Soto 20:09  

Yeah. source material definitely matters. A follow-up would be, how is lavender how and why is lavender helping job seekers right now?

 

Chelsea Castle 20:21  

So it goes back to the why, right that I mentioned earlier. So the ethos of the company and why they started is to give first and work hard and well balanced says is our CEO, he has this idea. And it feeds into everything that everyone does just pretty organically and authentically, that if we give, then the value will come back to us. So even when we’re doing marketing programs, I’m not doing email nurtures where I’m trying to get people to buy, buy lavender or install right away or give a demo. 

 

I’m saying, hey, like, what questions do you have about email? How can we help you? And then that spurs conversations, people who actually are in buying mode will then respond like, hey, like, I actually am interested, we had some hand raises for demos without me prompting it. But that’s why job seekers are really important. There’s also an element of bootstrapping, right? So the cofounders worked really hard to bootstrap the company. And their words, we’ve talked about, hey, like we didn’t have a whole lot. 

 

And now they’re just really humbled by being able to have a product that helps a lot of people. So the end of the day, everything that we do is about our users and helping them. jobseekers, especially using a tool that helps you with outreach, you know, anything can be a sales email, if you’re recruiting, if you’re emailing a hiring manager, that can be really hard, right? That can be intimidating. 

 

What words do I use? What words sorry, not use? How do I communicate effectively? How do I represent myself and an email to try to get this job? We just care a lot about helping those people and everything we do just kind of goes back to help. And if we just do that authentically, we know that I guess it’s like a Karma thing. They don’t express it that way. But everything that is like the value will come back to us, you know.

 

Kenny Soto 22:03  

Before asking my last two questions I just want to touch upon them and I love giving kudos, where kudos are due, and lavender and the whole team. They deserve it. I think Karma is a tactic, if you will, it’s something that definitely could be leveraged. I always used to think that, especially with b2b SaaS, but also just martech in and of itself, like you’re not selling a product, you’re selling a skill. Yeah. And one way to get embedded is to be at every stage of someone’s career, right? So I’ve been using, for example, sidenote, Sprout Social, since I became a marketer back in 2015. 

 

Every single time I get the chance to have a, say, in a tech stack. And it’s about social publishing, I always mentioned Sprout Social, because I’ve been using it for so long. It’s not just a product anymore. It’s a skill I have. And I think being there that touch point of someone trying to get a new job if they get that job, and they just so happen to have a say that tech stack and they’re like, What should we use for email? Lavender is gonna be top of mind because it helped them get that job in the first place. So it’s just a perfect tactic to leverage.

 

Chelsea Castle 23:08  

Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s a really good point to highlight, especially because I don’t even think about it that way. And I don’t even I mean, they may not either, like in terms of the team, like we just cared about helping people. But that’s a really good point. 

 

And even like, that goes back to I think, just being human and our jobs in general, like, to your same point, if I ever have the opportunity to get to bring on a certain type of tool, I always recall the experiences that I had with those salespeople and CSMs. And the relationships and rapport that you cultivate with other people, again, just focusing on being human like that can have a lasting effect on everything.

 

Kenny Soto 23:45  

Yeah, sticky value, is how I coined that. Now, when it comes to your personal LinkedIn. How are you thinking about scaling engagement over time? Is it does have any value to the team? Is it mainly for your personal brand? What are your thoughts on that?

 

Chelsea Castle 24:04  

Yeah, so I do want to shout out my teammate, Todd Clauser here where, when he was brought on to the team, he’s had this idea of helping everyone on the team be a creator if that’s what they want to be. He said a really good job with that, as well as other people on my team. For me personally, that’s not my personal goal. 

 

Like I’m hardly an expert on telling anyone how to scale. I am however, like, I like a sponge, I soak up definitely insights and patterns from other people when I see and also like, everyone, I’m surrounded by lavender. So I’m happy to give some tactical tips there. But at least for me, I really focus on my why, like, why am I doing this? LinkedIn and like creating content for LinkedIn, depending on who you are and what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it. 

 

It can take a lot of time, right? So when I first started at lavender, I was really inspired to ramp up my LinkedIn content. And then I was like, this is taking a lot of time and then I started getting like, hate DMS and I’m just like, Well, why am I doing this? Like, what do I want to do? Like, I’ve been posting content on Twitter and LinkedIn for a while, like, that’s how you and I connected right Twitter. So I started just focusing back on, why am I doing this. growing an audience isn’t my goal, I just want to write hot content that helps people. And also for myself, I’m a writer, and I’ve always, blogged online. 

 

I really love the idea of sharing thoughts and questions and insights and learnings and then having a conversation about it. So that’s my why. But I would encourage people to think about, what are you writing about. Who are you writing for? What are your goals? How are you doing it? Like, what’s your format? And I think being clear on all of those things will help you scale, but also keep your head on straight. 

 

And it also helps you set boundaries so that you have a healthy relationship with social media while you’re making the most of it. I think that’s something that people don’t talk about enough. If you’re caught up in scaling and growing. And not just having some sort of set boundaries for yourself, it can become like a beast of its own.

 

Kenny Soto 25:59  

Yeah, if you don’t have the right why. And I’ve experienced this myself, like back in 2016 and 2017. My Why was, oh, I want to go viral. So I’m going to create a blog. And that was the wrong way to have that why I made it so that I was being very self-centered one and two, when things get tough, which they always do if you’re trying to scale a personal brand, you quit halfway. 

 

When you have your y focused on, I want to serve XYZ person in XYZ way. In this case, I want to serve early entry-level marketers, by sharing insights from experts like yourself, now I’m almost at what this is gonna be Episode 125, right? There’s no quitting anymore. Because the Y creates that boundary, that makes it very easy to keep going. 

 

The moment your Y is centered on yourself, trying to make money trying to become an influencer, trying to go viral, like, those are the wrong wise to have, you’re gonna quit by the time you’re on like the sixth iteration of your content scheme, or whatever you’re doing. And it’s just not gonna be fun. And if you’re doing something, especially on LinkedIn, where it’s like, the conversation is very industry-focused. You want it to be fun, because if it’s not, then you’re gonna quit. And then it’s like a waste of time. Why are you even doing it in the first place?

 

Chelsea Castle 27:13  

Exactly. And can start to feel like a job. Yeah, fine. Point is important, especially when doing it in a way that’s authentic to you. Yeah, I can totally get away from it.

 

Kenny Soto 27:23  

Yeah, my last question for you Chelsea is hypothetical because time machines do not exist. But if one did and you can go back in the past about 10 years, knowing everything you know, today, how would you specifically accelerate the speed of your career?

 

Chelsea Castle 27:38  

How would I accelerate the speed of my career? Man, so my first thought, I’m just gonna call the ref. Since I have never thought about this before. I wouldn’t want to, I wouldn’t want to accelerate the speed of my career. So I answered this in two portions. A, I wouldn’t really want to do that. But then, I’ll think about some tips for maybe somebody who’s listening to this and doesn’t want to do that. 

 

Me personally. I love the idea of, regrets are not a good thing. Because having sorry, and having no regrets, is not a good thing. That’s kind of like a thing you hear a lot, especially in music, like no regrets, no regrets? Well, actually, it’s not a bad thing to have regrets. Because that means that you’re taking time to reflect on an experience and learn from it. So in this context, I think it’s important to know like, everything in your life, every single Domino, whether it’s been good or bad, you know, relationships, career moves, it’s gotten you where you are. 

 

So I wouldn’t be the marketer I am today without every single experience I’ve had in my life, 11-plus year career. And that all has given me skill sets and mindsets that enable me to be the best version of myself as a mom and a human and podcast, guest, and marketer. And that’s all really important. I wouldn’t want to accelerate anything, because I think everything just kind of led to how it was supposed to map out for me if someone does want to accelerate their career. 

 

Goodness, kidding, this is a hard one. I think you’re at an advantage today because you can lean on networks and community on social. So for example, when I was impacted by a riff last year, LinkedIn really stood up for me, I will forever be grateful for that just people coming out and helping each other. And despite the climate today, there are a lot of people hiring and a ton of even more people who are willing to help each other out. 

 

So this is less about accelerating your career in the way that you ask the question and a little bit more around just the idea of like, leaning into other people, people around you, and asking for help. And learning from how other people have approached and failed and like the mistakes that they’ve experienced in their careers. Every time I have a conversation like this, or I’ve been especially lately, I’ve been meeting up just having more zoom calls with people I’ve known on Twitter for a long time, and just having those conversations, and soaking all that up like is astronomical. disadvantageous, he and you learn a lot. So that’s my top answer.

 

Kenny Soto 30:14  

No, that was perfect. That’s why I love asking this question because when you mentioned community, one thing I’m noticing as a benefit if you take it seriously is, obviously, you’ll learn a lot as a marketer from your team. But you can also learn outside of your team if you take the time to join slack communities, and Facebook groups, and find ways to do ie meetups if you will, where you’re joining a webinar or joining a workshop. And those opportunities are always going to be out there. 

 

Sometimes they’re going to be kind of like rug pools where someone’s trying to sell you something, but there’s still value there. And if you’re not taking advantage of that, then you’re still going to learn, but you’re leaving so much opportunity off the table that is available to you sometimes, if not most of the time for free. And it’s just sometimes as simple as hey, can I get five minutes of your time, I’m just trying to figure out how to be a better email marketer or I’m trying to figure out where’s the best resource to learn about PPC? And sometimes, you got to know but the answer is automatic No if you don’t ask. 

 

So at the end of the day, you gotta leverage community, it’s out there. There are more than enough people who are organizing the community now. And they’re always trying to promote trying to get new members, so why not take advantage of it if it’s available?

 

Chelsea Castle 31:35  

Yeah, 100%. And I think, kind of going back to a lot of the themes that we’ve been talking about understanding that why so like, if you want to accelerate your career, like, why why are you trying to get to x or B, place faster? So learn from those around you and engage in communities, but then also just kind of like take the time to reflect on like, why you’re wanting to do that in general.

 

Kenny Soto 31:57  

Chelsea, if anyone wants to say hello to you online, where can they find you?

 

Chelsea Castle 32:01  

Yeah, I encourage everyone to say hello to me online. You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter. My handles are just my name Chelsea castle.

 

Kenny Soto 32:08  

Awesome. Thanks for your time today. And thank you to you the listener for listening to another episode of the people Digital Marketing podcast. And if you haven’t done so, please rate us on whatever podcast app you’re listening to this on, and subscribe for more episodes in the future. And as always, I hope you have a great day. Bye. Thanks, Kenny.