Michele Grieshaber — Trust and Shared Purpose Create Community Marketing Unplugged

Michele Grieshaber is a CMO Advisor to various groups as an independent business and marketing consultant. She has an impressive background working with IBM in executive marketing roles for almost 20 years and later on transitioning to smaller organizations where she held the CMO role for companies like Silicon Labs. In this episode, Michele talks about how to create culture and community in an organization, as well as the harmony between customer-centricity and being product-led.
 
Key Takeaways:
[3:45] Getting into consulting, Michele shares how she learned to manage her time and set her boundaries so she would not overcommit herself.
[7:50] How does Michele determine the time to dedicate across the diversity of interests and commitments she has?
[9:25] Michele also shares her journey from having a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering to becoming a CMO.
[11:45] Working with huge organizations, Michele shares that company culture determines whether a company can thrive just as much as the service or technology that it offers.
[13:55] There are two things that companies have that create the best cultures. Michele shares her own experience with these.
[15:00] A sense of community is all about trust and shared purpose.
[16:25] What made Michele shift from being a consultant to in-house?
[19:50] Michele shares some of her experiences being a consultant and the different strategies she advised the companies she has worked with.
[23:20] With an organizational culture issue, do you change your strategy to match the people or do you change the people to match your strategy?
[25:40] Being a guest lecturer at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, Michele shares what schools are now doing to prepare students for a career in B2B marketing.
[27:25] Besides understanding how to set up and analyze campaigns, students need to also understand more about the technology that is being used today.
[29:30] Can these types of skills be taught or will they only learn along the way? Michele shares her insights on this.
[30:55] Michele also shares her experience with IBM traveling to Vietnam, as part of their corporate service corps. What did she learn through this experience?
[33:15] Everyone has a different set of skills and tools but that diversity also brings a different level of excellence when your team comes together.
[34:55] How can smaller organizations also apply corporate social responsibility and create an impact? Michele shares an example with one of the companies she worked with in Texas.
[39:15] How do marketers take a stand in the brands they represent?
[42:00] Michele shares her insights on the following topics: artificial intelligence in marketing, talent mobility, and product-led.
[49:15] Being a science geek, Michele recommends reading The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes and Where Good Ideas Come From, by Steven Johnson and shares why she finds them fascinating.
[51:40] Michele also talks about green building, sharing her experience in renovating their house in Austin, making it more sustainable.
[55:20] Michele and “This or That” with her range of interests and diversity, which would she pick one over the other?
 
Mentioned in This Episode:
The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, by Steven Johnson
Michele on LinkedIn