Career Growth Advice from Mary Bows, Tech Marketing Leader | Career Tips for Women in Tech Marketing

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 53
Featuring Mary Bows

Episode Title: #53 Career Podcast Featuring Mary Bows, a Trusted Advisor to Global B2B Demand Gen, and ABM Channel Marketing Leaders

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Mary Bows



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you. Encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Thanks for tuning in. I am delighted to be joined today by Mary Bows. Mary is a connector. She finds joy in meeting people on planes, trains, boats, or even elevators, and helping them in business and life. Mary is a senior enterprise sales director for MRP, which is a predictive account-based marketing platform. In addition, she is a trusted advisor for global B2B demand gen and ABM channel marketing leaders. She collaborates with B2B marketing leaders to devise and implement full funnel account-based marketing programs that build targeted awareness, demand, and revenue via direct and channel. Mary, thank you for being here.

Mary Bows (Guest): It's so great to be with you, Mary.

Mary Killelea: Thank you. All right. Well, let's dive into ABM that are known as account-based marketing. I'm familiar with it sitting in the marketing chair that I am, but there's some probably listeners here that may not be familiar with it. So love for you to share your expertise on what it is, who benefits from it, and why it's becoming a go-to lever that you might pull.

Mary Bows: I'd be happy to talk to you about ABM because I'm super passionate about it. You know, it's really just about good marketing. ABM is really about focusing your marketing efforts on companies and decision makers and influencers at those companies who look like good customers. So, first step is looking at the customers you have, customers that use your technology, your products, your services well, and that are strong customers for your company. And then thinking about what size are those organizations, what industries are they in, what problems are you helping them to solve, and go out and find more that look just like them. That's account-based marketing.

Mary Killelea Walk me through how that becomes so valuable and how then ABM helps execute that.

Mary Bows: Well, it's interesting. Technologies like CRM and marketing automation are in most companies' technology stacks, right? So when most people think about nurture, they think about Marquetto, Eloqua, HubSpot, all great tools. But with ABM, ABM is really geared towards B2B companies, business to business. And particularly with large organizations, those buying committees can be really large. So a great way to do what is full funnel, which is really building awareness of your organization and the problems it can help solve. So acting as an educator and then from there, building consideration of your solutions and where it fits, your solutions fit in the marketplace and ultimately driving demand. And then selling in that solution to the customer. It takes a lot of touches and a lot of influence across a large buying committee. And you can't do that with email alone. You want to take an integrated and omni-channel approach. And whether it's using email or display banner advertising or targeted outbound calling from your SDR organization, direct mail, all of these things can be very effective at building awareness and consideration and ultimately pipeline. So my organization, that's what we're doing. We're helping with eight online and offline marketing solutions. And for some clients, they have a lot of capabilities. I talked to a customer today and they use multiple SaaS solutions, software as a service. So, they might use a company like mine to help identify the target accounts and do some of the marketing journey. But then they may also invest in other software solutions like an Alice, for example, for gifting, for direct mail and use that side by side with Marketo for email. So anyway, the idea is to build that relationship over time and surround the buying committee so that you can make that sale cycle shorter and those interactions more meaningful and targeted.

Mary Killelea: What was it about marketing that kind of led you down this path? If you could speak to kind of your roles and responsibilities.

Mary Bows: Sure. I'd be happy to. So, my little secret is that I actually started my career in marketing and then came over to sales. So, I started off actually in PR and marketing, direct marketing, and then came over to sales and media later. But the reason why I like marketing and marketers is because working with marketers is like a license to learn and create and collaborate. So in a given week, I can give you an idea. I talked to agencies and marketers about in a single week, it could literally be nuclear energy, cloud technology. I talked to someone about medical device marketing and internet of things. So you are constantly being tasked with learning even just a little bit about a lot of topics. The cool thing about marketing, there is some of the same processes in terms of discovery and building rapport and relationship using some of the same tactics, but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day what the message is. It's just about finding the right audience and then serving that message across some different channels to build that reach and connectivity and influence. And so that's why I like marketing them. She can get really creative.

Mary Killelea: So with dealing with the various topics that you're dealing with, how do you build your tech aptitude or acumen around and have confidence to do that? Because you've got to go in and you've got to present yourself like you know enough to carry on a good conversation even though they're the experts.

Mary Bows: Well, they do say fake it till you make it. To some degree, it's good advice, but I would say these days there's so many events and there's so much thought leadership on the web and people who are truly experts, most of them, or dare I say us, are happy to talk about what we do and what we're passionate about. So the number of times someone has asked like a super simple question like how does content syndication work or what is a cookie or why is it challenging what Google is doing about the cookies, the cookie apocalypse? I guess you just kind of pick it up through osmosis over time, and in my case I've worked with multiple of marketing technology organizations and each one I've taken learnings from people smarter than I am in product. Your product marketers are your friends and those engineers, even software engineers and product engineers, a lot of them can simplify the complex and help you understand the technology. So it's just a question of asking more questions and reading and listening.

Mary Killelea: So you worked with partners and B2B leaders to solve their business challenges. How do you draw out their challenges? What would you say would be like your superpowers that help you succeed in that?

Mary Bows: I'm really a business nerd. I genuinely love business. So, I would say my superpower is doing that research and homework up front. Before I walk in the door that I can establish credibility. Even if I don't know the nuances of their business, they know that I've cared enough and I respect their time and expertise enough to have some good questions. And at this stage in my career, there are very few industries or challenges that I haven't come across previously, which helps. And over time you just build that archive. And even if you're not quite exactly where you need to be, you can kind of triangulate that discovery process. And so my advice is definitely do your homework and don't ask basic questions. Go in and go in with some artillery.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. You had experience in sponsorship and business development. You were a national sales manager and you've been an account exec. How have you been able to make the role transitions over the years?

Mary Bows: It's interesting. To some degree, the role transitions have corresponded to growing responsibilities for revenue and also a respect, I think, for the skillset and the types of relationships that are high level that I've been able to build. I would say probably 15 years ago, maybe I consciously made the decision that I wanted to stay on the front lines, that I didn't want to be the top sales leader within an organization, that it wasn't my aspiration because I didn't like a lot of the things that they had to do day in and day out. And some of the things they have to do, frankly, are not my superpowers. So, I think just being true to myself and thinking about what I enjoy, what I enjoy is being out there talking to customers and learning and helping and then coming back and collaborating internally to come up with creative ideas, whether it's sponsorship or unique ways of approaching the omni channel media and so on. That's what really gets me out of bed in the morning and back on the computer and talking to customers and prospects.

Mary Killelea: I think that's so fantastic because I think there's some misconceptions out there that the top means success, but the top doesn't always define your success. If you know yourself well enough and if you are real with what fills your cup as far as passion, I hope that many listeners hear that.

Mary Bows: Yeah, I think it is really important because so often it's about the title or even it's just about the salary for some people or the income potential. And I think you have different needs during different stages in your career. And I can remember the first time that I reported to someone that was younger than I was and how traumatizing that was and what a drama. And I'm like, my current manager is over 10 years younger than I am and I love her. She's been one of the best managers I've ever had and is someone that I'll keep in touch with the rest of my life, I'm sure. So I think you just need to think about what you enjoy and be true to you. You'll be successful.

Mary Killelea: That's great advice. You're great at connecting people and networking. What advice do you have for those listening on the importance of networking and tips that they can implement or practice to be more comfortable with it?

Mary Bows: This is interesting because some of the best sales and marketing people out there are introverts. Not everyone is an extrovert like we are. I think you're an extrovert as well. So, it can be very uncomfortable for people who are introverted. Regardless of if you're an extrovert or introvert, I think the number one piece of advice, and this is in business and in life, is to make an effort to keep in touch with people that you enjoy. It doesn't need to be about business. You have a common interest. You've been important to one another day and during a small period in time. Keep up with them. Even if it's once a year, a note on LinkedIn or quick text or call, people really enjoy that. And most people aren't very good at keeping in touch. So if you just make an effort, like I was thinking about the ways I was going to enhance my life this year in 2022. And one of the things was making an effort to call a few people or send a few notes every single week. And today I actually talked to a guy that I worked with at Newsweek magazine 20 years ago. We connected on LinkedIn and we had a half an hour chat and it was so fun, so much fun. Haven't talked to him in 20 years.

Mary Killelea: I love that you looked at your year ahead and said, what am I going to do to make it special? So what other kinds of things do you do? Do you do visualization, visual boards, goal settings, like reflection, or is it just you pick a couple of things cause I'm all about trying everything. I'll pick a word for the year. I'll do that.

Mary Bows: That's a great idea. Word for the year. You know, this, I'm not a fan of the whole resolution thing, but I do think that things are seasonal and like back to school in September is a time to think about back to school, the new clothes, the new goals for learning. And January is sort of that time as well. But I think saying the word resolution to me is like setting yourself up to fail, which is why you'll notice that I was like, yeah, how am I going to enhance my year? I'm you know, being gentle and setting small measurable goals. And I think for me, they are very simple, like healthy, a little bit healthier. And I have a very specific thing that I want to do a few times a week, which is walk around my neighborhood three times. Now I'm telling you, that's three miles. So three miles of power walking sounds daunting maybe, but if I just say, I'm going to walk around the neighborhood three times and stop and smell the flowers and say hello to the neighbors on the way, a lot less daunting.

Mary Killelea: Right.

Mary Bows: And also things surround yourself with what's important to you. Unfortunately, can't see my bookshelf behind me, but it's everything that I love. It's my favorite childhood book, The Secret Garden. It's my Nancy Drew's. So, my vintage set of Nancy Drew is when I want to think about how to be creative and solve mysteries and business problems. I can just go to Nancy and look behind the hidden staircase. Or if I'm getting nostalgic for my years in Spain, I can take a look over my shoulder and see some ceramics that I bought and think about the funny story when I bought those ceramics and so on. So going back to your question about networking and kind of tying it together, I think it's really about, in all aspects of your life, thinking about what makes you happy and keeping doing more of that, remove toxicity out of your life, your personal life, your business life, and be willing to take risks. The name of your podcast really, really speaks to me because I think that some of the most rewarding experiences in my life have been because I've been really bold.

Mary Killelea: Where do you draw from to get that boldness?

Mary Bows: I'm lucky. I think my parents raised me to think I could do anything I put my mind to. So I'm blessed that I was given a tremendous sense of self and confidence from a young age. I just knew that if I wanted to do something, I would make it happen. And if it didn't happen, it's because I didn't want it enough, right? For example, when I was in college, I studied abroad and I lived in Spain for a semester and I loved it so much and it completely derailed my earlier aspirations, which were to go to law school. And that's how I ended up in marketing sales. I gave up on law school and I moved back to Spain and I lived in Spain for seven and a half years and got into marketing there. And so I started with international marketing and international sales and I moved to the US and I moved to a foreign country with $1,500 saved and no job and no apartment. And I had a job in three days in an apartment within four or five and changed my life.

Mary Killelea: What was it like doing marketing in an international company, being young and not knowing really what you were doing or not that you weren't skilled, but that you were just being bold and going and doing something that you love. But what is it? Because I'm curious.

Mary Bows: Yeah. I mean, you just have to be willing to learn and it is a little bit of a fake it, you make it because I was learning a foreign language at the same time.

Mary Killelea: Right.

Mary Bows: And I'm dating myself because that is pre-internet. Don't tell anyone. But anyway, it's still, I think it's thinking about what you think you want to do and being willing to fail. It's okay to fail too.

Mary Killelea: When you've taken different career jobs, career roles over the years, are there non-negotiables that you have?

Mary Bows: Yeah. It's interesting. I've been a little bit malleable on that point. And so it'll be a two-part answer. I think the number one thing is feeling like the product is top notch because people are buying a product, but first, before they buy the product, they're buying you and your integrity and your version of how you think you can help them solve their problems. So, I have to have a product that I can really believe in and I'm getting really excited about because then the rest just falls into place. And other non-negotiables, I would say in my next job, I will have equity. I will have equity because I've not had equity in any companies in a long time. And if you're a business builder, you want to be recognized with equity. Now it's not just about cash. It's about building and being part of the future and benefiting if a company is sold or merges, et cetera.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. No, that's so bright. What advice for career planning can you share with others based on your experience?

Mary Bows: I think ask for time. Ask people for those informational interviews or have a coffee. If something looks interesting, ask about it. People who are happy in what they're doing love to share what they're doing and ask them what they don't like about what they do. Don't just ask them about the flowers on their desk. Ask them about the journey that took them to where they are and what they like and don't like about it. What would they change about their day to day if they could? And that will tell you a lot.

Mary Killelea: When you reflect on your career, what are you most proud of?

Mary Bows: I think being fearless and embracing challenges and change with enthusiasm. And if something hasn't worked out the way I wanted it to, always looking on the bright side. There's always something that you learn every single time, whether that's in life or in business. And I would say being open to opportunities that have come my way. I've had sort of an uncanny ability to have opportunities present themselves because I've been receptive.

Mary Killelea: Let's talk about women in tech for a minute. What do you think women like you and me can do to help the landscape and open up the doors more for other women?

Mary Bows: I think by participating in the mentoring programs and showing an interest. I work with some amazing women at MRP who have got such a great attitude. And men too. I've got really good friends there, even in the short time. And being remote, think about it. I've only actually met in person three people from MRP in a year. That's saying a lot. And it's interesting at this stage in my career too. You meet people and the diversity of people is really fascinating too. So I would say though, back to your question, helping others. I think it's showing that you're willing to give people time, but it's also showing vulnerability. And not being afraid to admit when you've made a mistake or that you don't know something. Asking the questions when you know everybody sitting around you on the big conference call with the CEO or the CMO are afraid to ask. Asking the hard questions because you're not embarrassed. So, show them the way.

I think also when you're thinking about your career and what kind of career advice to give people, picking the right companies is important too. And look, do a lot of research and see how many women are in roles, in management roles, and talk to some men and women. And I would always recommend if you're looking at a company, try to connect with a couple of people through your network or through LinkedIn and talk to them about what the culture is like. The pros and the cons of the culture and the product and do that before you go someplace. Because companies aren't going to be open about what their weaknesses are.

Mary Killelea: What does to be bolder mean to you?

Mary Bows: To be bolder. It's just to embrace. It's to live with enthusiasm. It's to do everything with enthusiasm. Don't do anything halfway. To me, that's what's to be bolder. And be true. Be true to you. And you may not be everyone's favorite sales rep or marketing director or product person, but you have a lot to contribute and you need to share it. So to me, being bold is sharing. It's going and doing. It's experiencing. And going back to our earlier conversation, it's connecting and staying connected. And don't count. Don't keep score. When you're building these relationships, there are going to be people who adore you and would walk on nails for you, but never call. If you call them, they're going to be thrilled. And it's going to be like you're their long lost sister and they genuinely mean it. Not everyone has the time or they're pulled in a lot of different directions with kids and competing pressures. Just take payment. And the reward it is to fuel the soul with those relationships and those connections, both personal and professional. Because I don't know, for me, anyway, that is what brings me joy.

And in business too, only today, someone that I met, this woman, Joanne Dawson, actually, Boston marketing person, she retired like two and a half years ago. Out of the blue called me this morning and said, oh, so-and-so called me and do you know so-and-so? She needs help. And I told her that you could help her. Can I make the introduction? And I'm like, of course. I talked to her like right after the pandemic started. I called her out of the blue, even though she's retired. We're not doing business. I just liked her and was thinking about her. And when I think about people, that's the thing. I'm going to send the text. I'm going to send the note on LinkedIn. I might pick up the phone. If I don't have time, I'll do something. But I think nurture yourself by nurturing those relationships. And those relationships are the ones too that if you need to make a career move later for whatever reason, these are people you build trust with, who know you, they know your capability. And they're going to tell you the real deal about companies. So there's just a lot of reasons to keep up with people and, I don't know, nurture your business and your personal self.

Mary Killelea: What have you done over the years to build your personal brand?

Mary Bows: It’s interesting because I think that's something that I should do more of. So you're inspiring to me, Mary, really. I think being active in industry events is one thing. And I think just being my authentic self in the interactions that I have with people, I'm very much of what you see is what you get. And I'm not everyone's favorite, but they're going to get an honest, educated, thorough response from me. And I'm pretty dependable as well.

Mary Killelea: It has been such a joy to have you on the show. Thank you so much for this conversation. Where can someone get in touch with you?

Mary Bows: Well, I would say the easiest way is LinkedIn. Wonderful.

Mary Killelea: Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number two, little bbolder.com.