“Remember that the customer is the subject and your offer is the object,” Flint McGlaughlin taught in Effective Headlines: How to write the first 4 words for maximum conversion (https://meclabs.com/course/sessions/effective-headlines/) (McGlaughlin is the CEO of MECLABS and MarketingSherpa).

I thought of this quote when our latest guest talked about essentialism. One place I see scope creep and bloat is in messaging – we get so focused on our own product and company we forget that our customer doesn’t know (or care) about our product…they care about themselves. Our guest said his job is simplification, and keeps his message about complex health care products simple by using this litmus test – “if I explained this to my mother or father, how could I message it so they could clearly understand it?”

Learn more about the mental model our guest uses to keep his brand’s marketing communication as simple and easy-to-digest as possible in this episode of the How I Made It In Marketing podcast. I sat down with Jake Watts, Vice President of Marketing, PDI (https://wearepdi.com/en-us/).

PDI is a privately held, third-generation, family-owned company. It currently has 1,000 employees. Over 75% of US hospitals trust PDI for surface disinfection. As head of Healthcare Marketing for PDI, Watts oversees a team of eight marketing professionals.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Some lessons from Watts that emerged in our discussion:

• You never have the right answers, to begin with.
• You should almost always do less than you think.
• You don’t need to go looking for good ideas, they’re already in your org.
• Boldness, and clarity, of vision are what motivates teams to sign up for the previously unthinkable.
• Radical simplicity plus alignment is key to leading large and challenging organizations towards new business models.
• Leadership Happens Outside the Boardroom – Why empathy is the greatest, hidden competitive advantage in organizations.

Related content mentioned in this episode

The Behind-the-scenes Story of How We Optimized Outdoor Advertising That Was Featured in a USA Today Article (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/optimized-outdoor-advertising-bairfind)

The Compounding ROI of Sequential Conversion Increases: How one company took a small gain and multiplied it tenfold (https://marketingexperiments.com/journals/3rd%20Quarter%20(2010)%20-%20MEx%20Research%20Journal.pdf#page=6) (instant PDF download)

Don’t Give Clients What They Want: “That’s also the name of a convention for adults who dress as toddlers” – Podcast Episode #6 (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/client-management)

About this podcast

This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (https://meclabs.com/course/) free digital marketing course.

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If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application