How a Corporate Marketer Became a Marketing Professor with Dawn Edmiston

Dr. Dawn Edmiston is the Clinical Professor of Marketing at the College of William & Mary and has a personal mantra to live with an open heart and an open mind. She has served as a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia and is the recipient of numerous teaching awards. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Edmiston held marketing management roles with Discovery Channel, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and IBM. She is co-author of "Marketing Management: A Strategic Framework and Tools for Success" (Cognella, 2022).

You can connect with her on LinkedIn at: www.LinkedIn.com/in/dawnedmiston.


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If you'd like to talk to Terry McDougall about coaching or being a guest on Marketing Mambo, here's how you can reach her:

https://www.terrybmcdougall.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrybmcdougall
Terry@Terrybmcdougall.com

Her book Winning the Game of Work: Career Happiness and Success on Your Own Terms is available at Amazon. 

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Here's how you can reach host Terry McDougall:

www.terrybmcdougall.com

www.linkedin.com/in/terrybmcdougall

Terry@Terrybmcdougall.com

Her book Winning the Game of Work is available at Amazon

Transcript

Hey everybody. It's Terry McDougall with marketing Mambo. And 20 years ago, my guest today. Dawn Edmundston professional path was on the rise. She had a solid job in marketing at IBM. Which she joined after working at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. and a stent trotting around the globe with the discovery channel. But Dawn found herself looking for something new. 

She discovered that she wanted to be an educator. So today, Dawn is a marketing professor at the college of William and Mary. And so we are going to be discussing a full range of topics, everything from. What it took to make that big pivot in her career to what it's like for higher ed and how higher ed is finally embracing modern marketing and a whole host of other topics. So I hope you enjoy our conversation and now without further ado let the mambo begin.
 

Hey everybody. It's Terry McDougall, your host at marketing Mambo. And I am so honored to have our guest today. She is a professor at the Mason school of business at my Alma mater the college of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. And she is a professor who teaches digital marketing, marketing research, and marketing strategies.

So obviously she has. Uh, great perspective on the whole world of marketing, but not only that before she became a professor, she had a very impressive professional career in marketing as well. I want to introduce Don Edmundston, Don. Welcome to marketing Mambo. How are you today? 

Thank you, Terry. It is such a pleasure and I'm privileged to be here. Thank you.

Well, you are quite welcome. I'm thrilled to have you. As my listeners know, I like to bring different perspectives on the world of marketing, to marketing Mambo. And I just love the fact that not only did you have a very impressive. Professional career with some great companies. And I'll have you talk about that in a moment.

 But also really  the whole art and science of marketing. I mean, you're teaching that to today's marketers. The world's future marketer. So that's so awesome. So would you.

mind just giving us a little bit of an overview of your background? Because I think it is a really interesting path that you've taken to where you are today.

I appreciate that. And I often share with my students that I actually did not. Even consider marketing to career. I didn't even know that that existed when I was in college until my senior year. And then I had to take 27 credits and my final semester to earn that degree and have that marketing background.

 And I tell them that I think that the universe has decided that I need to be a college professor to help them avoid that fate  in the future. So. When I started in my career in marketing, one of the greatest joys of being in the field of marketing is that can be applied everywhere. And if you are really focused upon the customer, upon the individuals that you serve, that's our objective and now your organization.

And so the value of marketing  is truly that no day is ever the same. It requires creative thinking. But as you mentioned earlier, too, I appreciate that you recognize that there's a science to it. Very often, what people see is the creative outcomes, but there's plenty of hard work that goes into creating an effective marketing campaign.

And so I do think that my professional background, after I had earned my MBA, I had started working with discovery channel and at the time it was a very young organization, just 10 years old. We had just acquired the TLC, the learning channel. And we were about to build animal planet and a wire travel channel.

And we launched our first e-commerce site when we still refer to them  as e-commerce sites. So having that. Professional experience has really been invaluable in my educational career. And  I often have said that at discovery channel, I was building a brand and having just graduated from Columbia business school.

I also wanted to gain experience building a business. So after I had been there for four years, And had amazing experiences, literally traveling the world with them and building their consumer products business in Asia Pacific in Europe, I started working at price Waterhouse Coopers, and that management consulting services background really provided me with a research foundation.

It was your two resources that I might not have ever known existed. And I was really fortunate because it was also for those of you in consulting, you know, what an academic background that can be at. And they encouraged me to pursue my doctorate while I was there. And it just so happened that. That little organization called IBM bought PricewaterhouseCoopers management consulting services while I was there.

And I had worked there, after the acquisition, but I started to realize that at the time IBM was still very product oriented. They had purchased PricewaterhouseCoopers because they wanted to transition into a services mindset and they recognize the importance, which was very. Smart of them to recognize the important of services, but that wasn't quite there yet.

So I had a chance to do a one-year teaching appointment at Howard university, which is a historically black college and university in Washington, DC. And it changed my life. So for the past 21 years, I've been privileged to be able to teach. And most recently for the past seven years, I've been at the college of laymen.

and what a wonderful college it is. Um,  I'm 

thrilled to talk with you. So. Tell me, what was that transition like going from, doing adjunct teaching at Howard, but what was moment that you decided that, you know what? I like marketing as a profession, but boy, this really lights me up and want to take major left turn and go into teaching.

Full-time what was the impetus. 

Honestly, I believe that it was the first day of their orientation. They had invited me. It was actually a one-year teaching appointment. I was doing a teaching role for a faculty member who had been selected as a Fulbright scholar. So they needed a faculty member for that year and they had invited me to their orientation.

And the inspiration that I felt when these students, each one of the students stood up and introduced themselves. most of the students our first generation students. And I was the first woman in my family. Who attend college. And  I would have never been as mature or as insightful or as inspired as these students seem to be.

And I just wanted to give, and I just wanted them to succeed and I could,  truly appreciate the passion that they had for their education. They were working so hard. to acquire that education. And  I just knew, I didn't know quite how I was going to do it at that point, but I knew at that point that I did want to transition.

And in fact, Terry, after my one-year appointment at Howard. I started teaching. As teaching faculty, as an adjunct faculty, as a practitioner faculty, as a visiting faculty member, I joke with my students at William and Mary, I've taught at seven different colleges and universities. And that's not because I can't keep a job, although they might've wondered if that was the case.

At that time years ago, there were really no opportunities like I now have at William and Mary as a clinical professor to focus upon the joy of teaching. And so typically you needed to pursue a tenure track role and you would need to be involved with research. And I just wanted to focus upon when I knew I wanted to do, which was to teach.

So that involved being a visiting faculty member at several different colleges and universities until the seventh college I taught at St. Vincent college, it's just outside of Pittsburgh. It is the home of the Fred Rogers center. Mr. Roger. Pittsburgh Steelers, summer training camp and Arnold Palmer. So,  it's a traditional liberal arts college that has some really great roots to it.

I had taught there for two years and at that point they said, if you want to continue teaching period, you need to consider a tenure track position. So. I actually became the first woman that they hired full time in the school of business, economics and government. And then I became the only faculty member that they tenured in the school and the nine years that I was there.

So I thought I was going to live happily ever after there. And as your audience might already be aware of. You know, LinkedIn is a very powerful tool and I was teaching digital marketing and I had a solid LinkedIn profile. And one evening, you know, every week they send you, we think you might be interested in these opportunities.

And this role at William and Mary was at the top of the list. And I didn't know anybody in the Williamsburg region or at the college of William and Mary, but I truly felt like I was called to this, teaching opportunity. And, and thankfully William and Mary thought.

Ah, that's so good. I really, really love that story. And, I feel like there's so many different directions that we can go in.  I think I remember now when we were doing the pre-call that you and I do share  the fact that we're both first-generation college students and you know, when you were talking about going into that orientation at Howard and.

Sophisticated the students were and I think back to my time in college and how I just kind of bumbled along. I mean, maybe part of it is just that, you know, I went to college in the eighties and we didn't have the internet. Right. So, you know, you just sort of like stepped into a lot of situations, right.

You didn't know what you were getting into and you just had to figure it out along the way. There was no way to go to YouTube and say, oh, what's, you know, what am I in going to encounter here? Well, another thing I think is really interesting about the time that you got into teaching marketing 20 years ago, the internet was still young and.

Digital marketing online marketing. I mean, you even said it with the e-commerce site.  That was new. I mean, I can remember working at, a bank. It was the job that I had after I got my MBA, and us setting up our first website at a bank, you know? So talk to me a bit about like what you've seen as the evolution of marketing.

Since you've been teaching, or maybe even since the beginning of your career. 

Again, I wouldn't have considered myself the most mature or why. Let's do them, but for whatever reason, Terry, I did recognize the power of technology at a young age. And in fact, my undergraduate degree is from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. We are so technically oriented that our mascot is an engineer.

So we had that focus and I had that recognition. That technology would be powerful. I don't know that. I quite appreciate it. How powerful or what I would be doing, but  it was something that I truly felt was going to allow us to live better lives. And the irony  is that when I graduated from unfamiliar, I was quickly married 10 days after we graduated.

And he was in the Navy and we moved to Guam and then island, where there was no technology. In fact, there were hours when we had no power. And so it was this. Opening of my horizons that  I appreciated that hold is so different and there are so many different opportunities to communicate and different,  the services that need to be shared and how would I do this?

And so that really inspired me relative to international marketing, but interestingly, it was the absence of technology at the time that made me appreciate the value  of technology. So. With regards to how that evolved when I started. My career as a faculty member, one of the other places that I had the privilege to teach was university of Maryland.

And I mentioned won because it was the first place that I realized that university of Maryland university college. Now university of Maryland global campus, served our military men and women around the world. And they did so through digital technologies through online learning, through remote locations  Truly intrigued me and I wanted to be involved with that. And when I returned to the U S and after I earned my graduate degree and started my doctorate degree, actually at university of Maryland global campus. So that is where my first doctor degrees from. I started teaching with them online. And I will share with you, Terry, as you mentioned, those were the days of digital bulletin boards and it was not this wonderful zoom experience that you and I are having time.

And, even then  I was truly helpful that online education would democratize the world. I didn't quite think it would take 20 years to be perfectly honest with you. And also Terry, I didn't think it would take a pen down. I mean truly that silver lining and my world for the pandemic is that those truly shifted traditional higher education and may traditional institutions and recognizing the power of technology.

And that technology does not have to be a substitute, but can be a real compliment our relationships, to our communications, to our progress as a society.

Yeah,  it's amazing. And I'm a certified professional coach.  I took a big left turn after I left the corporate world too, and became a coach and a good, three quarters of the training that I did was on zoom. This was in 2017 and of course I had been exposed to, video conferencing and that kind of thing, but not as seamless as the zoom experience.

And, so , I went through, probably about eight months of training using zoom. So I was really familiar with it, but I agree with you that, when my 80 year old. In-laws are saying, Hey, let's zoom during the pandemic. You know that the penetration into society has gotten to a point where I think it probably fast-forwarded the adoption of, this kind of interaction by probably 10 years. 

Yes. And again, I mean, had always hoped that technology would allow me to live where I wanted to live and do what I wanted to do. And back when I had started teaching at St. Francis college, I really wanted to live in rural America. I had been in Washington DC for a decade, amazing place to live and gain career opportunities.

But my heart, I was born in Western Pennsylvania. Although I was raised in upstate New York. I'm a farm girl at her. appreciate country. And so we moved to a farm in Somerset, Pennsylvania, but I made certain before I moved there that we had internet access. And that changed my life because I was able to teach them or is it able to purchase whatever I needed there?

It was not in an environment where target existed. My nearest target, I think, was an hour and 20 minutes from the house. So technology has really allowed us to expand our horizons. for that, I'm very thankful and I'm thankful that the pandemic has allowed that to be an opportunity for many, many more individuals, especially this upcoming generation.

They are not going to be constrained by time and space in the same manner that you and I were as college students in the.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great segue into my next question about, what you see as the differences in your, business students and maybe particularly people who are interested in pursuing marketing as a concentration compared to, maybe what your experience was, coming up, or even what you've seen as the.

evolution over the time that you've been teaching.

been a far greater appreciation of the value of. 

Yeah, 

And technology again, I appreciated your introduction where you emphasized the importance of marking as both an art and a science, because if it's done well, it's truly done with both of those compliments. And so I think that. My current students have an appreciation for that.

 I just had the privilege of launching a new book last week, marketing management, and I focused on my coauthors focused on presenting a strategic marketing framework. And I think that we can now talk and processes and have a real appreciation of you. Don't just make it to marketing execution the third stage without doing the hard work of the first stage.

Which is situation analysis and then the second stage relative to strategy formulation. And I think we are far more intentional and our students have an appreciation that it's important to be far more intentional with their marketing efforts, possible negative in this current market environment is that when you look at social media, such as Tik TOK, such a powerful communication tool, but you know, Terry, when you win.

Started their careers. We were talking about the two minute sound bite, and now we're talking about the six second sound bites. So certainly there's a power of viral social media, but that doesn't constitute a marketing strips. And so understanding the role that social media might have in our lives, but also being very thoughtful about how we develop our products and services, the value of those products and services and how we communicate that value.

is important. And I do think that our students today have a far greater appreciation of the processes involved in the frameworks involved than I certainly did when I was a student

yeah. I started my career working for a magazine publisher in the ad sales department. And so of course, direct mail was a huge part of what we did. And this was in the eighties, That was direct response.

That was my first role at discovery channel two. And in fact, I'll tell you, Terry, I didn't even know what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to work at discovery channels, so, okay. Direct response, whatever that means. We'll do direct mail direct TV at that point as well, since we had the new.

Yeah. And you know, the funny thing is that, I think the basics of direct response are the same regardless of the channel. But back, whenever I got started, we'd have to wait for the business reply cards to come back to measure. And it would happen over a period of time.

Right. And we'd have like little codes on everything and we'd, track things. 

need 1-800-NUMBERS.

Yeah, exactly. And ask people like, oh, is there a code so that you could track, like, okay, which one of these campaigns is performing well and nowadays that's done in real time. And I think that it's very exciting that we can measure so much now.

I mean, back then, you talked about the time and space, because it took so long. Sometimes we would have to be making decisions based on less information than what we can do now. And, in my career working 30 years from, the eighties to, Just five years ago as a marketer. The thing that I noticed was just that shift from, more of an emphasis on, I mean, obviously we were always developing strategies and doing research and all of that kind of stuff, but more of an emphasis on the creative.

And then over time, I think that it shifted a lot more towards data. And in some cases, probably to the detriment of, I think a lot of things with. Some of the online it's like, oh, we can just put anything up there and, people click on it and we can measure it. But, I think a little bit more of a partnership between the data and the creative can really result in, really  successful campaigns.

Having worked for some large corporations, I think sometimes. There can be a lack of understanding sometimes in the C-suite about what marketing is. And, also, good marketing, if you invest and you get a return on that investment, but I think sometimes if leadership doesn't understand that the power of marketing or even how it works, that they can look and see.

That's a lot of money that we're spending on marketing, can we cut back on that? And I've seen it a lot too. Like when there have been economic downturns where they're like, let's cut the marketing budget. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that. 

That's very true, especially in higher education. And in fact, my doctoral dissertation was focused on the impact of integrated marketing communication and us public universities. And  at the time Terry, there is an annual survey that's done of. Or human resource purposes of college administration, titles, faculty, hundreds of different titles are captured in this annual survey.

And when I started my research in 2004, marketing was not included in a single. Now, thankfully when I conclude that my marketing research and, and it was my dissertation and it was finally published, they had actually recognized marketing as a role within higher education, but that was really her right at the time.

How could you use. Business terms and concepts like marketing to commercialize the value of education. And yet I think that there, was a shift thankfully  in the mindset and that business does not have to be bad and business does not even have to be business structures, do not even have to be for-profit and.

Even though we have now a huge for-profit higher education industry. That, again, that I would say that prior to the pandemic, that really had been a pivot for us to,  in higher education when university of Phoenix and other for-profit institutions. So. Created to deliver, what we held to be sacrosanct and in higher education and the value of education and non-profits and public institutions and private and public institutions of higher education.

So there has certainly been that shift an institution like William and Mary 329 years. Terry and I am pleased to announce that we finally. Finally have a chief marketing officer for the entire institution that they have just restructured this past year. And it's a wonderful organization. And it only took me being there seven years  for it to happen.

And not that that was a correlation I'm just thrilled at that happened, when it did, but even an institution. As special as William and Mary is as forward-thinking as William and Mary has been, did not appreciate how important it was. We can't rest on our laurels. Now, Williamsburg is one of the most beautiful places I think you and I would agree and in the world, but there are many individuals it's not New York city.

It's not Williamsburg, Brooklyn. have a challenge there relative location not recognizing the value of marketing to share. What's special about the Williamsburg environment and I mean, Terry, we didn't even have a virtual tour of the William and Mary campus until this past month, 

which is 

gosh. That's crazy. 

again and these are good people with good heads on their shoulders, but  it's a marketing can still be a challenge, but I'm thankful. Again, I don't know how long it would have been. Had we not had the pandemic? We could've, you know, higher education moves very slowly and in many respects for good reason, because we're very thoughtful and intentional about what we do, but at the same time, the world's moving so quickly.

Around us that we can't continue to keep those traditional constraints in many instances, and we really do need to leverage marketing and the tools in marketing that allow us to express share our values with others. If we want to remain competitive and what has become a more competitive marketplace than ever, in higher education.

oh my gosh. So many things that you brought up. I've got a million questions in and I want to run in like a bunch of different directions, but I guess. 

It's a good conversation. When you have more questions to answer 

researcher.

Well, my, my first observation would be, I've got three kids. My youngest is a senior in high school right now. And so of course, we're just getting inundated on a daily basis with emails and lots of direct mail from. Universities that she's applied to or ones that want her to apply. And, as a marketer, I'm observing all of this stuff.

And not only that but I actually had a guest on marketing Mambo back, in the fall of last year, who. Is an account executive at an advertising agency that specializes in developing campaigns for higher ed. 

Yes, I. 

  and I.

was like Cole, because honestly, this is one of the biggest purchases that, individuals probably ever make in their lives 

we'd like to refer to it as your greatest investment.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. But I think that in the past, we haven't really thought of it that way. And  another thing that I was thinking about as you were talking is,  I think it's really interesting how things that we experience in certain.

Segments of our lives start to influence our expectations in the other areas.   So for example,  if we're able to have conversations with friends and relatives over zoom, we start to think  well, why can't I connect with. Other people, to the point that you were making earlier, why can't education be delivered over this channel?

And if, organizations, and I think that this is really true and, having an MBA, I'm sure  happened with you to  all the business cases of businesses. Not having the foresight to evolve.   The buggy whip manufacturers, like, oh, we're the best buggy whip manufacturer who could ever knock us off our pedestal.

Well, Henry Ford, right? You have to adapt, but if you're not looking outside of your particular vertical, Hey, nobody else in higher ed is doing this. Why should we do it? Or maybe in for  higher ed, because like GRI And university of Phoenix, have recognized that to serve they're non-traditional, student population that they needed to address things like, Hey, who has time to be on campus at 10:30 AM on a Tuesday,  people are working full-time they still want to get a degree. So how do you serve that marketplace?

And I don't think that it is mutually exclusive. I think that that's really what we need to start recognizing. William and Mary and at institutions like ours there are challenges inherent with credits and credentialing. But moving beyond all of that, how wonderful Terry,  if your children, when they were in college, if they could stay okay.

So the first year I will do traditional courses. I want to have that college experience, but you know what, mom, in the fall, I want to travel to. Estonia where I had tests  from, and I want to spend a semester there studying at university and as a good mother, you said, well, Are you certain that you're being all of your prerequisites to be able to apply for the school of business, in your sophomore year, your junior year, and she could come back at you and say, well, you know what, I can actually take a course online while I'm in a stone yet to get those prerequisites.

I mean, again, we could truly create such amazing educational experiences for our students. And again, Experiences that really, not only change their lives, but allow them to change the lives of those around them. Give them the global experiences, the cultural experiences. Now, William and Mary, has continued to be the entire time that I've been there.

One of the top five public universities in the U S for percentage of students study abroad and. Yeah. And I think being in Williamsburg, Virginia, which is such a special community, very historical, very traditional American, so important for us to move beyond what we know Williamsburg and explore the world.

And so again, I think that there are opportunities. Really allow us to do that where students can start earning their undergraduate degree in three years, which is very common in Europe. Like for example, and then they can earn a master's degree the next year potentially earn that master's degree online while they're working, their  first role after graduation.

So I do think that if we can start to. I have different perspectives in my education. We can deliver even higher quality.

Yeah, agree. Totally. And one of my children, he's taken sort of a little bit of a meandering route in his, education. And he spent about a year working at Starbucks and took advantage of their program, where they pay for their associates to go to. Arizona state university. And that was really my first, exposure to what that kind of programs really like.

I mean, I can remember sitting next to him on the couch as he was, looking at some lectures online and I was like, wow, that would have made such a huge difference for me when I was in college.  If I missed a class or something like that, asking a friend in class to take their notes to Kinko's and copy the notes.

If I could've gone back and watch the actual lecture again, as part of my studying, or, actually is interesting because you brought this up earlier about how, attention spans have changed and. One of the things that I noticed is that a lot of times the professors would cut lecture up into smaller chunks.

That's 

me I've had to learn to sing dance and 

engage our 

yes. Yeah. Well,  I was an economics major at William and Mary. And a lot of the stuff that you learn is it's very dense and I'm sure that sometimes the professors were okay, these are the three concepts I want to cover today.

And it was just a lot, to shift between different things or build on top of a current. In one  50 minute long, lecture. And I just thought what a difference it might have made if that was cut up into three 15 minute lectures. To be able to watch it and absorb it and, have discussion online or, go to the online office hours and ask questions and really absorb that.

So then I was ready to build. On that. So everything that I've seen, I have, as I mentioned, I have, done online training for my coach training and it was a combination of in-person and online was incredibly effective. And also enabled me to be taught by people all over the country, you know?

And so, and that's really, fantastic. 

Yes. Carrie had mentioned that too, about your son and the wonderful initiatives that Starbucks has done with Arizona state university. I mean, I would be remiss in not mentioning that in January of this year, they announced their effort to educate a hundred million students worldwide. 

it's 

amazing. 

you are, if you are looking at, an organization that is truly changing their mindset and changing the definition of what it is to deliver higher education look no further than Arizona state university.

 Yeah, it's just really win-win and,   Marketer for my whole career. And now, what I do is really more around unlocking potential in leaders and their teams, you know? So maybe it's straying a little bit more towards, HR, but, I think in terms of, I mean, and this kind of goes back to marketing, to like retaining clients, 

well, retaining employees. And, there are many reasons why people decide to work for companies and it's not just the paycheck, . It can be the work. Obviously it usually is the work, but also what else you get in return for that. And if you're working for an organization that is providing opportunities to grow and to, potentially be able to go on and get a better paying job, it's just so smart, I think that Walmart has something similar. 

Well, even while you, my Mary many individuals, many undergraduate students choose to continue their studies there for the opportunities to earn graduate degrees. And I am a beneficiary of that when you and I had talked previously, again, as the first woman in my family to attend college.

We were poor,  I was raised in upstate New York and it was what it was. And as much as I truly wanted to attend William and Mary as an undergraduate, that was not going to be feasible. I was out of state and it was too expensive. I mean, I always believed that you can pursue dreams.

And when I arrived there, even though I'm in my fifties, I said, okay, I really truly want to be an alumni of William and Mary. And so I went back for my second doctorate and one of the gifts that William and Mary will provide that, I mean that they truly understand the value of education.

If they're willing to continue to educate those that work there. And I've always thought that the finest teachers are the finest students. So I wanted to continue that path as well. And  I can concur that many individuals choose to pursue careers, not solely. And I share this with my students. Please, please, please.

When you're selecting, career opportunities after college, you should never look at salary. First, you should look at culture. You want to be in a culture that supports you. You want to be in a culture that allows you to grow and advance. Terry, when I graduated with my MBA and I started working at discovery channel, you will know, with the media marketing background that you have, I was earning a pittance,  I was not on wall street, such as most Columbia business school students are now.

Washington DC, but that's the Maryland at the time at discovery channel, I was earning so little that they did not even put me on the career placement report because I would have brought down the salary average for Columbia graduates that year. So having said that, and again, I was working in direct response.

I had never learned about it. I just knew that this was a brand that was really aligned with my values. And I wanted to work there, smartest decision I ever made. 

Yeah.



Usually those experiences were invaluable to me later in life. And so understanding that  I appreciate you allowing me to share that as well.

Yeah. You know, it's funny.  I've shared this many times on many different episodes of marketing Mambo, but, when I first got out of college, I was clueless, and again, you and I share this,  first-generation college graduate,  that, there's not really anybody.

Who's worked in the corporate world that. Yeah, guide to say, well, this is what you need to do to work in this type of environment. But my boyfriend actually was, I dated him at William and Mary and,  I started my career in Boston because he said, why don't you come up and visit? And while I was there, I was like, Why don't I just look for a job while I'm here.

Cause  I'm from downstate Delaware and there's not a lot of professional opportunities there.  But his mom had done career counseling and she gave me the book. What color is your parachute? She told me to do everything, do all the exercises, read the whole book before I even started applying for jobs.

And I started my career with this idea of what do I like to do and what am I doing? And going through all those exercises and really narrowing it down and looking at myself and then looking at the marketplace and saying , where do I fit? Which, by the way is what we do in marketing too.

Right. And, you know, even as a coach,  I work with people, to help them be more effective in the jobs they have. But also I will sometimes work with people who are in job search and, job search is all about marketing.  It's about finding that right fit and thinking about, what do you have to offer?

What are they looking for? What do you have to offer? Where is there a good fit? But  at this point I want to pivot and kind of go back to something that you mentioned a little bit earlier, and that is. Book marketing management. So I  have a book called winning the game of work  that I wrote.

But I would imagine that writing a textbook is very different and, can you tell us a bit about what that process was like? And, I think the title speaks for itself, but maybe just talk a little bit more about what you're sharing in the book. 

Yes, it's a great example of how important it is to surround yourself with good people in your. And it just so happened that I was hired by two really wonderful people at William and Mary were no longer there. Todd Meridian, who is now the Dean of the school of business at university of Louisville and Larry ring, who has now retired.

But they had been well-published in the past and had hired me as their. First clinical professor in marketing. So we have a very strong research background, really strong research on university mindset at William and Mary. That's truly a perfect compliment to what we do in the liberal arts. And that's what the chapter.

Me to, to William and Mary, because I did give up tenure at my previous institution to arrive at William and Mary. So I wanted to continue  to share. And you share your value often through research and. So when I arrived, Todd had said to me within the first year , I want you to consider working with us.

We want to consider, developing this book. We had worked on a book in the past and you're in the classroom. You're teaching digital marketing, you're teaching, marketing strategy. I think you would be ideal. As I had mentioned to you previously, my heart was on earning  that second doctorate degree at William and Mary and not just for the William and Mary Prudential.

We have one of the finest schools of education at William and Mary in the U S and my dissertation advisor, Dr. Pam ed. As one of the most amazing mentors and female role models that I've ever had my life. So very thankful for those opportunities and I needed to remain focused. So for, for the years that it took me  to earn my doctorate, I just an interesting side note earned my doctorate and March, 2020.

Yes, that did happen to be just after the pandemic happened. And I was so hopeful that after 34 years of wanting to graduate from William and Mary, I would be able to do so and defend my dissertation in the historic REM building, which is the oldest building of higher education in the U S and instead I became the first student to deliver my dissertation via zoom.

So.

Oh, well, that's historic in itself. 

The pandemic pivots. So this book has really been collective and collaborative effort. And once I graduated, Todd reached out to me again and he said, book concept is still waiting for you. And that's important. and I finally felt comfortable after 21 years stating, okay, I understand this is a framework that I've taught now  for many years and really important that students, again, it's not just the art, but understanding the science behind it, understanding the processes, understanding that situation analysis and marketing research.

It's very often where you get those aha insights for what will appear, and the third stage, the marketing execution, your marketing mix. How are you going to position that product? Where are you going to position it? Whether they're going to be the promotional tools that you use related that product and service.

So this is actually, as I mentioned, it's just been published. I'm teaching with it for the first time. The semester and it's been such a joy. And again, I'm a continual student. I am learning from my own students as to what's working for them in the book. I've already started checklist of what I need to edit, in the next, revisions  for the books.

So it's been a really, yes, it was a long process.  I encourage my students to take risks and this was definitely a risk for me. But it was well-worth.

Well again, congratulations. Cause I know that that is a huge undertaking and I mean, Written a book myself. I can't even imagine what it would be like writing a textbook where you  have to do so much more research and develop the exercises and all of that. But, that's huge.

So congrats. I feel like I could talk to you forever because we're both, I think that you'd probably agree with it. We're we're both marketing nerds. Um, 

Murky mavens marketing, mumbo 

marketing. 

Yes. Well, I'd like to wrap it up here. And before I say this though, at some point I'd love to have you back because I just think that, there's so many different topics that  we can talk about. But, before we wrap up Dawn, Words of wisdom would you have for the marketers or would be marketers out there listening to marketing Mambo? 

Very often. I think that we get concerned if we don't do it right. It's not worth doing. And especially Terry, as you'd mentioned before, the internet is now available for better or worse. So if we do not get it right, it will be out there if we do get it right, it will be out there. But I would just encourage individuals to take steps forward.

You can change direction and then you point in time, but that is so important. Surround yourself with good people and make certain that you're asking good questions, understand that you do not have all of the answers that will never be the case. We are constantly learning. And if you have that mindset that will really help strengthen your marketing and ensure that you will achieve what you had told  the end.

That is great advice. So thank you so much. Thanks for being with us. And would you like to let our listeners know where they can find your book and where they can find more information about you? 

Thank you. Well, I am a LinkedIn believer since that is how. I found this opportunity, at William and Mary, which has truly been a dream job and continues to be, many years later. So I would love for them to connect with me on LinkedIn, and the book is marketing management and it is published through cog Nella.

And I also have a link on my LinkedIn profile. Of course. 

Of course.

So Dawn, thank you so much for being with us today. 

Thank you.