What Marketers Get Wrong About Success with Harvey Lee, Founder at Product Marketing Career Accelerator | Ep. 364

0:00Harvey Lee:Tired of robotic marketing? Customer.io helps turn cold, hard data into real human connection. Email, SMS, push, webhooks, and more. Join 7 ,800 plus brands using AI-powered journeys that connect, convert, and don't annoy. Visit customer.io to start your free trial today. Hi, besties. Welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Millennials. I'm Tamara Griminski, and I'm stepping in as your guest host while Daniel's out on paternity leave. I'm a career product marketing leader and the former VP of PMM at high-growth startups like Kajabi and Unbounds. Now, I'm the founder of PMM Camp, a community and newsletter for product marketing leaders.

0:42Harvey Lee:And while Daniel's off doing dad things, I'll be here bringing you fun conversations with some of the smartest marketers I know. Today's guest has had one of the most unconventional marketing careers you'll ever hear about. Harvey Lee went from touring the world with literal rock stars to launching the first version of the Xbox. And along the way, he's built a career entirely on his own terms. In a world that tells marketers to climb the ladder step-by-step, Harvey's story is proof that there's another way. We're talking about how to define what success looks like for you, how to design a career path that actually gets you there, and why thinking beyond the standard path might just be your biggest advantage.

1:28Harvey Lee:Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray, and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests, stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the f*** up. Harvey, welcome to the pod.

1:56Tamara McCleary:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

1:58Harvey Lee:Super excited to have you here because I think there's so many things that our listeners are going to be able to learn from you today. One of the things I've always loved about you is that your career does not follow a straight line. You started by literally traveling the road with rock stars and you've also launched the first Xbox and done a ton of stuff in between. And so I was wondering if we could start today by maybe just you sharing a little bit about what was the through line of that journey?

2:31Tamara McCleary:Yeah, it has been a crazy ride and it continues to be a crazy ride after all these years. And the through line question, it's a great question because I always get this, either the sentiment or the question directly from recruiters. when I used to look for jobs in corporate or jobs in startups I always got the same question which was I've been looking at your CV been looking at your resume and it doesn't make any sense to me and uh and and I would be scratching my head it's like well why because of course it makes sense to me because it's my lived in experience but through recruiters eyes they would see that I moved from the music industry to video games, to cybersecurity, to print back to cybersecurity, to community, to consulting.

3:18Tamara McCleary:And they're like, there's no consistency here. So why are you interested in this job? And the more I got that question, the more it actually forced me to look within myself and be able to answer it. Right. And there's two key attributes to the answer. One is I'm inherently curious, right? Everything I look at is through the eyes of curiosity. And I look at everything the same way, whether it's music or tech. And that is, how can I make this better, right? And I mean, with that curiosity, it just breeds things popping off in my head and all the possibilities. I like to see the possibilities. And the second part is my ability to translate those possibilities into market outcomes, right?

4:06Tamara McCleary:So whether it's complicated tech or something difficult to be able to articulate to a customer that may not have ever heard of your product before, I'm able to translate it into language that they can understand. And that's not just about copywriting, but it's about defining and articulating the value proposition, working on the copy, working cross-stakeholder, so on and so forth. So there's that translation piece. And where those two attributes have always landed me is the through line. And that is, I've always ended up in organizations in need of innovation. So I always end up in organizations that need either help with innovation or help rescuing where they're at right now, because they've got a big pivot coming, right?

4:54Tamara McCleary:Not everyone's an innovator. Some people have been in the market for decades, and they're like, the market's moved, we have no idea how to shift with it. in a way that's their own innovation they have to innovate their way out of it but they're not used to it they have to unlearn how to do it so I've always found myself going into organizations that are in need of that kind of help for example in my music days I launched the first interactive single um from there uh from my music career in record business I went into marketing into product marketing and from there long story short I ended up at Microsoft launching the first Xbox Microsoft were going head to head with Nintendo and Sony and they were at the beginning as well so they were at that juncture too the next job after that 12 years later albeit was at Kaspersky Lab where there was a massive market shift and they found that there was no demand for their products anymore and they needed to pivot so I found myself at the juncture of always starting with something new because I could always see the possibilities and the reason that I could see the possibilities is i had this in order of curiosity it was like a scratch and each that i just had to scratch but i was able to package it for organizations so they understood the value so once i started articulating this with um uh recruiters they they they were like oh yeah of course i get that but when you look at the actual resume itself just because of the way resumes and cvs are listed it's just a list right they look at the list and go there's no sequential order to this, but they don't see it.

6:30Tamara McCleary:But if you look at it retrospectively and understand the virtues of curiosity and translation, then all of a sudden the penny drops and we move on to the next question.

6:39Harvey Lee:Yeah, I love that. And I think you just mentioned there at the end, it's like, yeah, in retrospect, and I think in hindsight, you can clearly see the through line. I'm going to assume that while you were actually moving through that journey, perhaps it was less clear in the moment. But I'm curious, was there an actual moment in your career, maybe earlier on, when you realized you didn't have to follow kind of the standard marketing path? Because as you mentioned, you've really explored a bunch of different roles in marketing.

7:10Tamara McCleary:Yeah, well, there was two, but actually just to your previous point about retrospective, it's always easy to look at your career retrospectively and have that epiphany moment of, well, of course it was that way. But you actually just touched on something that's really, really important because when you're in it, it's never clear. So when you're looking forward, you can't see it. When you look back, it seems blindingly obvious, right? So being able to get to a point where you can see things looking forward is incredibly empowering, right? But anyway, we'll come back to that anyway. So the question is, you know, understanding that I didn't have a traditional path in marketing.

7:53Well, there's two answers to

7:54Tamara McCleary:that question right the first one the first one's somewhat not hilarious but it is what it is I left school in 1984 and I'm sure that some people listening to this are thinking my parents weren't even born then um I left school in 1984 and it was a very very different world right and so I left at 15 most people didn't go to university when they left school about 10 % now I think it's 50%. But I left school not covered in clover or glory, but I left school with very little in terms of qualifications or glory. So I didn't have a choice. There was no offer of a standard career available to me. So I had a choice.

8:38I could either fight or flight.

8:40Tamara McCleary:It was either I was just going to be able to take what was available for someone in my situation, a teenage school leaver with very few qualifications and not much hope or I could try to forge something for myself and I spent a few years not many but a few years and I wrote about this in my first book backstage pass about trying to forge my way and try to conform to what was expected of me in society by you know no less my parents at the time as well and you know I took jobs and training training schemes at the department store, Marks & Spencer, which in the UK is a huge institution. And it was okay, but it just didn't light me up.

9:24And, you know, I spent maybe two or three years doing that.

9:28Tamara McCleary:And by the time I was 17, I had this calling of a realization, really, that I am not going to conform. I'm clear I'm not going to conform to the standard path that all my friends were on or my peers. But I wasn't quite sure what it was going to be. but I knew what I wanted it to be. And that was a career in music. But being a 17-year-old living at home with your parents in Manchester, 200 miles away from London, makes it somewhat challenging. Anyhow, long story short, I set out on the path in music, as many people know, but there was a major moment that I think most people probably will identify.

10:04Tamara McCleary:And it was in a meeting, actually, when I was at Microsoft in the Xbox team. and we were sitting around in the boardroom and the executives were talking about challenges they were having with our messaging, reaching an audience in Germany, for example. And everybody was looking at frameworks and trying to look at the problem through the same lens, right? And no one was getting any answers because we'd already tried that and failed. So it's like, well, what else you got? And I came up with, well, you know what? And I came up with some very human-based facts, human behavioral factual ways to address the messaging challenge to the teenage audience in Germany.

10:47Tamara McCleary:And it came out of my human behavior background in the music industry, studying audiences, studying record buying public. and what i did is that i transferred my knowledge from that industry sideways to a different industry and not rubber stamped it but imprinted it on this problem and the execs were like that's exactly how we should be handling this and from that moment onwards i realized that actually skills can work upwards they can work vertically but they can be more effective if they work laterally or you know but sideways. So taking your skills and being able to put them and transfer them sideways to a different situation, different problem, same solution, right?

11:38Tamara McCleary:Was incredibly enlightening. And I realized that actually, if I think the same as everyone else, not only am I no better than anyone else, and I don't think I'm better than anyone else, I'm not that kind of person, but it's not going to differentiate my career or my prospects. So I can make a choice to think differently. And sometimes it's going to work for me and maybe sometimes it's not. And I've got both experiences. But more than less, it served me really, really well. And it's differentiated me and it's helped me position into all the positions and all the opportunities that I've had ever since.

12:15Tamara McCleary:So I stayed with it.

12:18Harvey Lee:I love that. And I like that you mentioned conformity and almost conforming to what you mentioned society had in mind for you or your parents or whoever, probably even originally your own, once you got into a career, your own vision of like, this is what success might look like. And I know because we've talked about this before that you've kind of had to go on that journey of redefining what success has looked like. You know, when you started out in your career to where you are now, I'd love to hear just a little bit more about that journey. And specifically within the lens of for marketers listening today who are trying to figure out what their version of success is.

12:56Harvey Lee:Not what society wants to define as success for them. Not what their parents do. Maybe not even what their boss wants to define for them. I'm like, how can they start to really get down to what does success look like for me? Not just what looks good on paper.

13:10Tamara McCleary:Well, I think that we've got to actually accept some of the facts in today's world, right? And today's world doesn't match yesterday's world. Let me explain briefly. The standard path for careers is frankly pretty much extinct. It doesn't exist anymore. So if you think about the marketing ladder as maybe we've come to accept it, or we've been come to be taught it actually was for a different world it was for a world 20 30 40 years ago where you'd follow the educational path you would leave university you'd have your marketing degree you'd go work at you know in normo corp or whoever it was and you'd be there forever and then you'd get your gold watch you'd go fishing and have me ever after but that world doesn't exist anymore that that world hasn't existed for a very very long time in fact that world is dead right it's dead it has been dead for a while but lockdown killed it off once and for once and for all really um today's marketing careers really requires people who understand nuance understands audiences community micro audiences um cultural nuance and and really it's an exercise in the humanities more than anything and it's less about understanding metrics it's understanding human behavior because fundamentally marketing is human behavior it's the study of human could call it marketing psychology really and actually rory sutherland makes makes a great point that actually marketing shouldn't even be called marketing it should just be called customer psychology because that's fundamentally what it is so we're all students of customer psychology, but we call it marketing and we measure ourselves with hard numbers.

14:57Tamara McCleary:But actually, even though that does have a place, the best marketers understand all these sort of collective experiences that we all have as part of the human condition. And the best marketing and the messages that resonate the greatest with people are fundamentally deeply human traits, right so if you want to get on the ladder and i hate that word i've used it a thousand times on linkedin i hate myself for using it if you want to get on the marketing ladder the reinvented one then start studying the human condition right that is the path that will that will take you far and from there you will be able to niche out or you know specialize or generalize in any direction you want.

15:43Tamara McCleary:But without that, you're going to find it very, very difficult to progress. And you'll just be stuck in the old world that unfortunately is already dead. Yeah.

15:53Harvey Lee:I mean, you mentioned a couple of interesting things there. I want to talk about niching down, but maybe we can talk about that in just a bit because I want to just dig a little deeper into this idea of defining success and then kind of designing your own path to get there. So let's say that someone recognizes what you've just said, which is, you know what, we're really focusing here on customer psychology. I have an understanding of what success looks like to me. How do you start to actually even build a plan that lets you figure out like, what roles should you be applying for? What projects should you take on or not?

16:32Harvey Lee:Because I think in my experience talking with people, on all stages of their career, even like director level, folks feel like they just need to take the first job offer that comes to them. And I don't feel like there is a lot of intentionality around saying, you know, all of the things you just said, which is like, what impact do I want to be having? What ladder do I want to be climbing, first of all? And then what's the best way for me to do that? So I'd love to just hear your perspective on that and how people should be thinking about that?

17:02Tamara McCleary:Yeah, you know what? It's a great question. And there's so many layers to this. The thing is, when I was maybe 25, I moved to London, I got a job in Record Label, and I thought that I'd hit the jackpot. And in relative terms, I had, you know, because I left school 10 years earlier with like nothing. And that was my dream. So I hit my dream. And success looked like a corner office, a location on the king's road in chelsea in london which if anybody listening knows london is quite the postcode uh a company car expense account you know all the all the glory hunting and the title right um and also my parents could stop asking me when i was going to get a proper job which for 10 years that was the only question they ever asked me hello harvey how are you have you got a proper job yet so finally I was able to lay that to rest after 10 years but guess what all these decades later success looks completely different right so how does it look now it looks like working with the people that I really really want to work with it's taking on projects that empower not just empower me but energize me it's allowing me to take a whole month off and take a vacation with my family that's wealth that's real wealth that's life wealth right it's not just about money and that's that's the shift that happens gradually for most people if it actually ever happens but fundamentally it really comes down to two things right what people think success is and what success actually is.

18:42Tamara McCleary:So what people think success actually is, is called acquisition. And what I mean by that is, what can I get? Can I get the title? Can I get the salary band? Can I get the office? You know, all these things, all the stuff, can I get it, right? So people approach their careers from an acquisition point of view, but the reality of the matter is that they should be approaching it from an alignment point of view and that alignment is does this align with my values does it create the kind of life that i and or my family want to have does it allow me to do what i would like to do in and out of work i've heard you talk about this on stage as well right it's like what is what is wealth and the fundamental part of this even though it's about impact and autonomy is that that alignment really has is really an individual thing so society and careers and everybody has an opinion about what success looks like but the reality of it is it's a very very personal question right success is what you as the individual define it to be and it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to acquisition it doesn't mean the title it doesn't mean the salary banding it means what you want to build the values that you want to put down and live by and stick to right some people put values down and then fall back into the acquisition mode and go well this job came up and it had this huge title and i thought i would take it guess what six months later they're back they're back in the market for another role again it never works out so for me defining your own success is about moving away from acquisition and moving towards alignment and defining that alignment on values that are key for you.

20:30Tamara McCleary:And don't worry about what anybody else thinks.

20:33Harvey Lee:That framing makes so much sense for me. And I like how concrete you've made it because I would agree. I think most of us are taught to acquire things. That's literally how we're grown up.

20:44Tamara McCleary:And I've been there as well. And you think it makes you happy. And it does for about 10 minutes it's like a sugar rush and then you get the blood sugar crash it's like the reality it's like well i got the office i got the salary and then you know your boss or the cmo whoever it is comes in with this huge stack of papers and go there's your workload and all of a sudden you get this sinking feeling going i'm empty inside right that's because you're not aligned to your values

21:11Harvey Lee:we are all marketers here so i'll say it i hate batch and blast messages it's not 2010 anymore We've got data, let's actually use it. That's why I love Customer.io. It helps you turn first-party data into personal messages across email, SMS, and push. Build it, automate it, and make it not suck. Start a trial and join 7 ,800 plus brands already doing smarter marketing with Customer.io. Visit Customer.io to start your free trial today. and i think earlier in your career there is some value in acquiring different experiences

21:48Tamara McCleary:i agree i agree yeah i think time plays a huge part of it and i think you know from the age of 20 to 30 go and experiment right you're not your career is not going to be defined in those 10 years go and make the money get the promotions do you know do whatever you have to do right but by the time you get into your 30s or 40s, that alignment part is going to be, whether you feel it or not, it's going to be at the back of your head screaming at you going, this is not working, this is not working, this is not working. And you will feel extremely conflicted. I think anybody who's been working 15, 20 years plus will recognize that sort of inner wrench inside them going, this is leaving me empty inside, or this is very conflicting.

22:32Tamara McCleary:And that's because they're not aligned to their values.

22:34Harvey Lee:Exactly. I think one great book for that is Sahil Bloom's new book, The Five Types of Wealth. It talks, the nuance of what you were saying there, which is, you know, I think again, in our careers, we often think that money is the main type of wealth. And again, when you're starting out and you're like, oh, I need to pay my rent and I need to be able to do these things. It is the most important thing. But as we kind of progress, we start to realize, okay, well, maybe my health is equally important or where are the dials and do I need to dial one thing up or down to accommodate for the other?

23:07Tamara McCleary:I can tell you that after multiple trips, and it's not a badge of honor in any way, anybody who's been burnt out will know this, right? They will feel it and they will have been through it. Once you've had a BP of 171 and a doctor phoning you to tell you to go to the emergency room straight away, you suddenly realize that you've got it all wrong.

23:27Harvey Lee:Yeah.