Switching Careers! w/Dir B2B Marketing Choice Hotels Judd Lewis! Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable! | Ep. 317

0:08Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately. You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. We'll also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwetelson. Let's do this, not that.

0:40we are back for do this not that podcast presented by marigold and we have an amazing guest here today who's here we got judd lewis now judd is the director of b2b marketing at choice hotels and besides for judd just being an awesome dude choice is like a really big thingamabob right they got about 7 500 hotels 22 different brands about 630 000 rooms everybody listening has stayed in a Choice Hotel at least probably 10 times in their lives. So we're going to get into all sorts of stuff about careers and getting comfortable being uncomfortable, all sorts of action. Judd, thanks for being here, man.

1:17Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. All right. So we're going to try to talk about career pivots and stepping out of our comfort zone and all this stuff. But maybe you could lay the groundwork for everybody. What is your career journey been like? How did you wind up where you are now? Sure. So I went to college not with a real idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up. Right. So I ended up becoming a motion pictures and anthropology major. I loved learning. I've just been kind of a naturally curious person my whole life. So I love the fact that I was able to kind of cover a couple of different, very different educational paths, which was great.

1:58From college, I quickly realized, you know what, I'm not going to be a filmmaker. I'm not going to be a director. It just wasn't in the cards for me. And I was lucky enough to land an internship at Under Armour right out of college. And that's really where I got my foot in the door of marketing. It led to a job like very quickly after that. And at Under Armour, I was doing retail marketing, which was a great way to really understand the consumer, right? And I think this kind of becomes a theme of my career. Really seeing the stores and understanding the people walking through those stores every single day became really important.

2:37From there, I shifted again. I got an opportunity to work at a nonprofit in Rwanda. We worked there. My wife and I, girlfriend at the time, lived together for the first time. That was our own adventure kind of together, which was amazing. While in Rwanda, I got to do, you know, teaching kids, you know, English. I even got to do some screenwriting courses, which is really fun to tap into college stuff. And then working with the corporate office in New York to help drive donorship to the nonprofit. It was called Aguhozo Shalom Youth Village. It's still around today. It's an amazing place. From there, we're making our way back to the US.

3:22And my wife and I say, what's next? So I'm able to get a job at Discovery Channel, again, kind of in this marketing space, where at the time it was a heavy focus on linear television. And it was really fun. It was a time where they had shows like Gold Rush and Naked and Afraid and Street Outlaws and Fast and Loud. And for me, it was actually really interesting because it kind of fused the motion pictures and anthropology of my college years in this documentary reality content. And it was really easy to kind of get behind. And that's really where I started to learn to develop campaigns and strategy development and really, again, continue to get into the head of the consumer.

4:08Within Warner Brothers Discovery, I then shifted over to Motor Trend, which at the time was called Velocity. We then rebranded it. Motor Trend is the automotive-focused niche brand at Warner Brothers Discovery. And that was the time when Streaming Wars was really popping up, right? So we actually ended up launching our own direct-to-consumer streaming app called Motor Trend Plus. Since then, it's been kind of looped into this larger max streaming platform. And that's really where I started to develop my leadership skills and started to build out a strategy team and had some really great opportunities.

4:43Was kind of at Warner Brothers Discovery in that environment for over 11 years. And then last June, I pivoted. And now I'm the director of B2B marketing at Choice Hotels, which has been an interesting transition into a new field. But again, being able to use kind of the skill set and this toolbox of marketing skills in this new environment. First of all, your journey is incredible. I mean, not many people can check the box of doing naked and afraid, nonprofit in Rwanda, Under Armour. I mean, like, that's a lot there. So I'm curious about something, though. A lot of people that are listening, they think they're too far down in a particular category and they can't shift.

5:26You know, oh, they're working at this consumer company. I could never go into B2B. I don't know the first thing about it. I've been already in consumer for three or four years. This is my lane. But here you are. You were easily, you know, 12, 13 years into your career, consumer guy, right? And then you make the kind of 180 shift to business to business marketing. What was your thought process? Did you have any concerns? Now that you're on the other side of it, is it harder, easier? What happened? Sure. It's a great question. For me, I have always been a naturally curious person, right? And that's regardless of my personal life, my work life.

6:08And I kind of viewed my time throughout my career as just trying to be a sponge. And I was always trying to absorb different skills and different understanding of how you can accomplish your goals in this marketing space. So I had the privilege of working with really good email marketing teams, really good paid media teams, really good social teams, really good content marketing teams. and I was kind of always in the seat of the strategist, right? And usually from like a campaign perspective. So I was kind of at the middle of this wheel, right? Of being able to kind of tap into the subject matter experts to launch and sustain and be successful with these campaigns.

6:49So seeing this opportunity in B2B, that to me was the one spot that I didn't have necessarily direct experience, but I knew I had the toolbox and the skills, the drive and the curiosity to get there. While I was in my previous roles, I always was working with a sales team. It just wasn't in this direct of a fashion. And changing industries is a whole other thing too. We're talking B2B shift, but we're also talking industry shift. I got to say the industry shift is actually a lot harder, in my opinion, than the marketing role shift, right? That's been my experience, at least. So why is that? So you went from kind of broad consumer to business, business travel experts, and I guess business travelers have been, why was that industry so different?

7:46To me, just like hospitality as an industry is a challenging beast. I knew when I was transitioning into this role, I always wanted to market something that was tangible, right? I'm not the type of guy that wanted to be marketing something that I couldn't understand. I've stayed in hotels. I've stayed at awesome choice hotels before, right? So I kind of knew the tangible consumer end goal of what we were doing. So that made that transition a lot easier. I think the hard pieces are kind of how the sausage is made. Right. And that's that's the that's just the experience you need to build as you kind of change industries is just always being willing and open to learn new things and make deep connections with your peers and your colleagues and kind of just being willing and open to start fresh, but then also have the confidence to come to the table and say, I'm a marketing expert and I know how to do this.

8:45through my past experiences, I just need to change the lens in which I'm kind of coming to the table each day. You know, I'm curious your take on something, because I think you're, you're kind of lucky to come from the consumer world into B2B, because I think that the world is really shifting where there's this kind of crossover, like B2B is almost becoming consumer, we're all wearing our, you know, one hat at all times. And I say, you're kind of lucky that were you able to take tactics that you did when you were a consumer marketer. Now you're in this B2B role and say, you know what? I know you guys have never tried this stuff, but this crushes it over here.

9:20These are still people. We should try this. And then you hit a couple of home runs. Did that happen for you? Absolutely. I think what Choice was looking for in this role was less a hospitality expert and more a marketing strategist expert. And I feel confident in saying that's kind of what they got. And I have been able to take those consumer tactics and kind of bring them or rework the use of them into this space. And for me, B2B, similar and in the same way to B2C, is always starting with who you're going after, right? It doesn't matter if you're B2C, B2B, B2G, whatever it is, right? You just need to know who the consumer is and you need to start there before you're actually building out these campaigns.

10:09And I feel really good about the fact that now as we're kind of launching new campaigns and new initiatives in the B2B space, we're taking that strategic pause and working with our analytical partners to figure out who we need to actually be going after. And that is the way that we back in and craft our campaigns in the marketplace. Yeah, I think it's a unique moment in time where if somebody is thinking about a career shift from what's a B2C consumer to B2B, this is the moment because so many tactics are bleeding over and the same thing vice versa. If you're in B2B and you want to get into B2C, you know, I don't know why these tactics all live in silos and they're not being leveraged.

10:50So I think Choice Hotels made a good move. So I think you did too. So speaking of moves though, there's something else, you know, in preparing for this episode, I'm like, all right, let me go find Judd Social. I'm going to LinkedIn. I'm going to go deep on everything this dude thinks about. And there wasn't a lot there. You don't post a lot. OK. And I'm like, well, this is going to be tough. And I feel this sense that like, you know, you're you're doing more of this stuff. You're putting out more content recently. You're trying to kind of be out there as a voice more. Is that your jam? Do you love being out there or is this kind of new for you?

11:25I am a proud introvert that is trying to be more of an extrovert in 2025. You know, at the beginning of every year, you make your goals, go to the gym, eat healthier. For me personally, I'm really trying to put myself out there more, which I think kind of in turn encourages and pushes me in the next phase of my career. Right. So the fact that you guys reached out, I'm not going to lie. My first initial take was, oh, that's not for me. I can't do that. That's not right. But I now, again, taking a strategic pause, said to myself, this is good for you, Judd. You need to keep pushing the envelope.

12:05Keep getting yourself out there. This is a good move for you. Well, first of all, thank you for doing it. But second of all, and you're very good at it. But third of all, I think it's really important for everyone to hear that. Here you are. You're the director over there at Choice Hotels. You're doing big things. And you yourself have to give yourself that kind of that push that, hey, I'm not super comfortable being out there and doing all this stuff, but I know the impact it could have for my career and my trajectory and all this stuff. So I'm going to do it. And do you subscribe to kind of this idea of getting comfortable being uncomfortable?

12:41Absolutely. And honestly, going back to the career transition, I'm still kind of feeling that here and there of being okay and being uncomfortable, right? When you get out of that comfort zone, to me, that's the place where you learn the most, honestly. And that's the way that you can catalyze that evolution of your career or of who you are as a person, frankly, right? I think it's the moments in time that push you out of your comfort zone in a safe, calculated way, right? That's where you can be successful and that's where you can kind of keep your journey going forward. I couldn't agree more.

13:21And I think sometimes people feel like they're stuck and they don't have to be stuck. And you also don't want to finish your career and say, you know, and have any regret. Like, why didn't I try to do this, that, or whatever? Because to me, regret is so much worse than failure. And not that you fail. You always learn from something. So I'm curious about speaking of learning where you got your education, I think was the University of Miami. Do I have that right? That's right. Are you like, are you a diehard cane or are you, or you don't care? I'm pretty agnostic to be honest. And I realized this is being recorded.

13:50So I probably shouldn't have said that, but it was, it was a great, it was a great college. It was really fun. I'm not going to lie. The years I went there, we sucked in football. You're good now. We're good now. um uh but no it was it was a for me again getting out of the comfort zone i was a maryland born and bred i still live in maryland why did i go to college in florida for four years i maybe that was me talking you know from the past like pushing myself out of my comfort zone right and i look back on those years fondly and part of it was fresh start new people new place new experiences, trying something new.

14:27And I, you know, this is more, I guess, of a therapy session now, because now it's kind of all coming together, right? Right. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to take the clip of you saying that, you know, I'm not diehard Miami saying to all your college friends, and then they will shred you appropriately. Well, this has been awesome. I think you've really helped a lot of people to understand that they can make shifts, they could test things, they could try things. And usually I tell everyone, go follow this person on social media. Should I still tell everybody to go follow you on LinkedIn and connect with you there?

14:55I think LinkedIn is the place for a professional connection. I look forward to it. Okay, good. We're going to put it all in the show notes. This is amazing. Judd, thanks for being here. Thank you so much. It's been great. All right. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over. Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. and hook us up with a five-star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time. Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100 % free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart, and me.

15:39Guruevents.com. Check it out.