Nick Schlemmer  0:00  
The HR Happy Hour Network is sponsored by Workhuman. The role of HR is changing fast—and the leaders who move beyond administration into true business leadership will have the edge.  Workhuman Live is where that shift becomes real. Four transformative days in Orlando built around the challenges HR leaders are facing now. With 65-plus standout speakers, you’ll get practical, research-backed insights you can use immediately, honest conversations with leaders under the same pressure, and a human-first experience designed to energize – not exhaust. It’s why 93% of past attendees left inspired—and why you need to be there this April 27-30. Register now at WorkhumanLive.com and use code HRHAPPYHOUR before February 2/28 to save 20%. That’s HRHAPPYHOUR, all one word. 

Jack McFarlane  0:52  
Hi everyone, and welcome to the HR Happy Hour Network. This is the Play by Play podcast hosted by myself, Jack McFarlane and Nick Schlemmer. 

Nick Schlemmer  1:15  
Hey guys. How's it going? 

Jack McFarlane  1:16  
Well, we are already a month into 2026; that feels a little crazy. It really, really flew by. I feel like we just recorded our first episode for the year yesterday. But we we've got some exciting stuff, guys, and today is the first part of what, it's almost like a series is what we're gonna do. 

Nick Schlemmer  1:36  
It is a series.

Jack McFarlane  1:37  
Our first episode was kind of the overview of we're calling 2026 the year of ultimate business efficiency. That is the theme of our series. And today is going to be the first specific episode, and we're going to focus all on marketing and how Gen Z and new technology is making the marketing department specifically more efficient 2026 so I say without further ado, we just jump right in.

Nick Schlemmer  2:05  
I'm all for it. Jack, why don't you lead us off?

Jack McFarlane  2:08  
All right, so we're gonna start with Gen Z. How is Gen Z specifically shaping and or growing or helping your marketing department? Now, for most of this, it is more of a general marketing. It's not like, ooh, just tech company marketing or just clothing brand marketing. It's just marketing in general. We just wanted to focus on the overall department. So take some of these statistics with a grain of salt, depending on your industry, right. First one, first stat, I've got for you, Nick, "89% of Gen Z marketing interns and entry level staff are using AI weekly in their jobs." That is kind of that could go in either that can go in the Gen Z or the tech category. I just think it's a perfect statistic, because one, it shows it's pretty much everybody using it. And two, these things kind of go hand in hand a lot of the times. What we're going to see throughout this series, throughout the year, is that Gen Z and the use of technology is a partnership, right? It's not one or the other. You're getting both. If you're if you're upgrading your technology, you're going to get more Gen Z workers. If you're bringing more Gen Z workers, you're going to get more technology. So these are going to go very hand in hand throughout the whole series. But yeah, 90% of Gen Z. I would be willing to bet that by the end of the year, it'd be 99% of Gen Z is using AI in some fashion, in their job, especially in marketing.

Nick Schlemmer  3:34  
100% Jack. And you know, Gen Z has made market research more efficient by treating Tiktok and YouTube and Instagram as kind of their primary search engine. Excuse me, not using sites as much as Google or, you know, Yahoo, whatever it may be, you know, Gen Z shoppers, and specifically, "33% now use social media AI platforms for product discovery." Yeah, and you mentioned, I think that number is just gonna grow.

Jack McFarlane  4:06  
I mean, when was the last time you were like, wanted to find how's the best way to phrase this like you're looking for a product? Why would you go on Google and read potentially fake reviews and just see images when you could go on Tiktok or YouTube and watch not only a video, but get honest reviews by non sponsored posts. I mean, that is the way to do it. Like I see that all the time, even in not Gen Z nowadays. Like, if I have a question about, Oh, I wonder if this phone case is really durable, or is it just kind of fake reviews on Amazon? On Amazon, look it up on Tiktok, look it up on YouTube, boom, there's someone with the exact thing giving an honest review. It's just a really good way to find products nowadays. 

Nick Schlemmer  4:54  
Yeah, whether it's finding products or simply finding out how to do things like recipes, fixing parts on your car, whatever it may be, there's like this new style of marketing with the social media platforms, I find myself using that way more than just going to Google and typing how to do this. 

Jack McFarlane  5:15  
Exactly

Nick Schlemmer  5:17  
Like you said, you can have a real video with a person you know that was once live. So you know it's a truthful thing. Well, we hope it's truthful anyway, but yeah, that just backs it up for me.

Jack McFarlane  5:30  
And it's kind of a blessing in disguise for all these marketing departments, as we're finding out, because Gen Z is favoring the shorter form of content, more raw form of content, we are seeing budgets get slashed by like 40 to 60% inside the marketing department, because it's just cheaper. It's cheaper to make a tick tock video than it is to make some long commercial that's highly produced than it is to make some, you know, huge YouTube video, or whatever it may be. It is, you know, because a lot of those people, it's like the video on tick tock, it's like, oh, you know, I'm Nick here, look at this awesome phone case. I keep saying phone case just because I personally, that's one of the things I bought from seeing it on TikTok or on YouTube. But I'm, you know, Nick here, I've got this awesome phone case. You guys, check it out 15 bucks, super durable. Here's a drop test. Boom, didn't break from 100 stories. Phone's perfectly fine. That's a lot cheaper than doing some long commercial, long YouTube video, whatever it might be. So it's saving a lot of money.

Nick Schlemmer  6:33  
100% and using these social media platforms for one they're free to download, free to use, free to create accounts. And everybody, almost everybody, has a smartphone nowadays, right Jack, versus somebody having to turn on the TV or load up a video or something for them to see the ad. Now it's simply right in their hand, right in their back pocket. As soon as they start scrolling, it's only a matter of time before you see some sort of a product pop up.

Jack McFarlane  7:03  
Yeah, exactly. And that, and that's what makes this so efficient. I mean, you could scroll, scroll, scroll. Most of those videos are eight to 15 seconds. Eventually people are going to start seeing your video. It is. It's like it's forcing departments, marketing departments, to not only save money, but be more efficient, like, if you want to talk about efficiency, you slashed your budget by over 50% made a 10 second video, and then it got seen by a million people in four days. 

Nick Schlemmer  7:37  
But just to go one more step further than that, it's seen by X amount of people. But then once you get those accounts, you know, with higher followers and whatnot, then you can start creating revenue coming in from that as well. So just that eight second video already produces probably a lot more revenue than that 3o second TV ad.

Jack McFarlane  7:56  
And then to go along with that is, let's say someone sees it. Maybe they're they're not looking for your product, but they have a friend that might then you get that word of mouth, and that's one of the greatest ways to get your product out there market, whatever is word of mouth. So when you get a million people seeing it, that could easily double, triple or quadruple, just by word of mouth after that. So it is that this short form, quick content is really a blessing when it comes to marketing. You know, there can be downsides of it for other things, but in marketing specifically, that's why you see all these big brands popping up on Tiktok and on YouTube shorts. On Instagram has shorts. Snapchat has shorts. Everyone, even the ESPN app has like Tiktok style, and so every company is doing it now, just because that it's so efficient when it comes to marketing. And it doesn't have to be, oh, buy my shirt, buy my phone case. It can be, here's our technology, here's our AI. It could be whatever. You know, it doesn't destroy it doesn't just work for one type of business. It's for all businesses, one right? That's what I find so interesting about it.

Nick Schlemmer  9:05  
Going back to that word of mouth point that you touched on, you know, word of mouth will always be, I think, the top form of networking and marketing and getting your product and yourself out there. But then how I mentioned with our smartphones, everything's right there in our back pocket, in that little bottom right hand corner, the share button. You can even bypass word of mouth and go straight to somebody else's phone. I just thought of that, and I was like, that just makes the process even faster for some people.

Jack McFarlane  9:35  
Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, it's, it's like, word of mouth, but just video, yeah, so there's so there's endless possibilities when it comes to marketing on short form content. Another good thing that we're seeing compared to other generations is that a lot of Gen Z will interact with like polls, Q and A's, quizzes. So. Surveys. It's that I pulled this from a source called we are brain 2026, strategies, and they said they did a study, and 43% of Gen Z will engage with these polls and quizzes. And you might think, Okay, well, what does that have to do with marketing? Well, that makes your data collection as a marketing department much better. You know, if you're able to send out some sort of poll to Gen Z, you can gather that data within an hour. You know, they just do it on their phone, on the computer, whatever it is, they're willing to do it. They like to do it. That makes data collection just so much faster. So if you're a marketing department, you should be sending out polls. Maybe they didn't work in the past, or they weren't that effective, but with Gen Z and social media, you could send out polls and get results quicker than ever. I mean, honestly, it's 100 if you're not doing it, you should be doing it.

Nick Schlemmer  10:53  
Yes, yeah. And whether or not you're sending out these polls, you know, as a specific post on their own, or you can attach these polls to other videos that you're creating. There's different ways to maneuver it and to edit it out there for everybody to see. And like Jack said, if you're not using social media in these short videos and not utilizing polls to increase your number statistics and gaining more valuable information, you're just slowly getting behind.

Jack McFarlane  11:22  
And honestly, it's not even so slow with it, with how fast this is all moving you, if you're not doing these things, you are, you're getting behind. So, you know, you got to make the switch, right? It's like, it's like Blackberry. When iPhones came out, yeah, they stuck with their keyboard. Look where they're at now. They are a thing of the past. You do not want that to happen to your marketing department or to your company, or whatever it might be. And then there's one more, one more point I want to touch on when it comes to, you know, Gen Z specific, and we've talked about this before, it's a pretty common Gen Z topic, but worth mentioning here once again. And that's how Gen Z wants, that sense of community, you know, being involved, other than just a sense of audience, right? Whether that's if they're on the marketing team or the target of the marketing right? If they're the target, they want to feel like they're involved with the company. It's a community. They don't want to just be another audience member, you know, down in the crowd, if they're on the marketing team, they want to build that sense of community and make sure everyone feels like they're involved. Because if you feel, if you feel like you're in a community with a company, you're going to buy their product, right? Because you feel like, wow, they really, you know, they believe in the things I believe in. They you know, I feel like a valued customer, right? So you want to make sure that you're building a community, and not so much an audience. Is the best way to put it in my mind.

Nick Schlemmer  12:53  
And building that community, going right back to the polls again, giving your community input, asking their input, using the comment section for these videos the polls, all that's doing is just creating more trust between yourself as the brand and then your target market.

Jack McFarlane  13:12  
And you can even do things like when it comes to a poll, let's say you know that you have a very you're coming out with a product that's going to be very popular, because it solves some issue that no other product does. And you know that, you know that if you make this poll, everyone's gonna vote for it. Well, you can make it anyway, and then people like, oh my gosh, like they listen to us, even though you knew all along, this is what you were gonna do. So if you can even be smart like that and use the polls to build the community and, for lack of a better term, and more of, like, a like, a fake way, I guess, I don't know what a better word would be there, but you can be very strategic, strategic, very strategic with, with, with your marketing campaigns, and obviously you want to build, you know, a real community. But that's just one example of how you can be very you can be very strategic with it, too.

Nick Schlemmer  14:05  
It's used to gain information, but then you could also utilize it, how Jack just mentioned, to gain trust and to gain credibility.

Jack McFarlane  14:13  
Exactly, exactly. All right, guys, Nick and I are going to take a quick break and we come back. We've got a very special guests joining us.

Jack McFarlane  14:28  
Now joining us on the Play by Play is Hailey McDonals. Hailey McDonald is a global B2B SaaS marketing leader who lives at the intersection of growth, revenue, and change. She’s spent her career helping companies scale through inflection points like rebrands, acquisitions, category creation, and new product launches. She’s led growth and demand teams at companies like Intel, Culture Amp, Virgin Pulse, Reejig, and most recently Marigold. Her work spans  demand generation, product marketing, revenue operations, and AI-powered go-to-market strategy. Hailey is known for being deeply aligned with sales, obsessed with pipeline quality, and practical about what actually works in modern B2B. Today, she advises and partners with high-growth teams on building smarter, more resilient revenue engines in an AI-first world. 

Jack McFarlane  15:18  
Well, join us now in welcoming Hailey McDonald to the Play by Play. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Hailey.

Hailey McDonald  15:25  
Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. Long time fan of the show, fan of HR Happy Hour Network, so yeah, thanks for having me on.

Jack McFarlane  15:33  
Yeah, of course. And as you guys know, Hailey has done a lot of work in marketing. She's been a CMO, a VP of marketing. She's very fluent in marketing. So we just want to start it off with you. Floor is yours. First question here is, how have you seen Gen Z personally affecting overall marketing operations, just in your current position? 

Hailey McDonald  15:56  
I mean, like, right off, right out the gate, right? I it's a great question, and I I kind of experience it from a couple of different lenses, I think so, you know, one, as someone in a place of work, just having Gen Z folks around and becoming like a larger population in the workforce, I think has, I mean, as it always does, when generations come through starts to kind of sway the workplace dynamics at large, right? So, not so specifically about marketing, but I think like having Gen Z folks come into the workplace like this might be true of maybe any younger generation that's coming in, but I would say like refreshed energy, curiosity, you know, you always kind of get that, which is really nice for everyone that might be feeling more jaded, you know, like getting on their way out, but I think something that's a little bit more unique, just based on, you know, the time that Gen Z was really brought up, is their relationship with work is a little bit different. And I think that that ends up kind of happening for every generation in one given way or another. But I think that while I see Gen Z people like wants to work and want to, you know, like they want to participate in that workforce, they have, like, a much healthier take on its place in their life, in comparison also to like, other things that they like to do, which they also might get compensated for, right? Like, it's not just like this one career for the rest of my life. I might have multiple things that I'm doing. I might like make content and be like an influencer on the side. I might have, like an Etsy store, just like all kinds of different things like that. So that's kind of unique. And then I mean going more into the, you know, where I see this in the workplace, but I also start to see it influence, like marketing, both how marketing is getting done, as well as how I have to think about marketing, given that there's a large part of the population that is Gen Z, right, that you're going to be selling to. And I think what I've noticed there that is a shake up. Like y'all are different, right? And like the generations, like younger than you too, where there's just like a no, Bs, sort of you know vibe, where like you like you've got to kind of tell it how it is. And sure, there might be a lot of little catch phrases and stuff like that, but it's, like, really straightforward, as far as, like, how people like to understand things. And I think maybe there's a bit of duality to that, just as like, well, you know, you guys are gonna say it how it is. There's also this, like, Gen Z. And, you know, I mean, I think even really, like the younger side of millennials, have grown up in a really, like, chaotic time, right? A lot of things have happened. There have been, like, multiple economic crisises, like, there have been, you know, the world has been at war. It seems like the whole time there was covid, there was just all these different things. And I think, you know, what I've seen come out of that is, like, this real, you really see Gen Z, like, treasuring whimsy, which has this very direct impact on marketing, right? So, like, there is a lot of like, I don't know, I guess I've seen in my, you know, last 15 years, a lot of corporate washing, like everything kind of started looking like every B2B SAAS company started looking like each other, sounding like each other, feeling like each other. They could have been in completely different categories, but like, everything looked alike. And I think, you know, Gen Z's kind of approach to consumerism at large, is very different from that. Like, you expect a high kind of consumer experience. You want fun things. You want something that's going to, like, engage all of your senses, you know. And I also kind of going into the younger generations. My kids are on like, the cusp of like, my up. My oldest is like, last. Year of Gen Z, and like, loves to claim that and rub it in her sibling space. But I see that get, like, even more and more, you know, like, as they get younger. So yeah, those are just kind of, like, some of the things that I'm noticing. But I think, you know, there's many, many more decades that I get to be around Gen Z, market to them and work with them in the workplace. I'm really excited to see how that all you know, matures with your all's experience at work.

Nick Schlemmer  20:23  
Yeah, and I had a question for you, you know, in regards to what you just said, with the B to B kind of all flowing together, and they all just kind of look the same. Do you think when Gen Z is, you know, as we get older and we step into those higher positions, whether it's in the marketing world or just in business world in general, do you think you're going to see those businesses be a lot more diverse in the next 10, 15, years, versus they're all kind of starting to look the same. Do you think with this new marketing strategies and social media, are we going to see businesses really separate themselves?

Hailey McDonald  20:59  
Yeah, that's a great question. So a bit of a potentially hot take here is, you know, were you to have asked me this just a few years ago, you know, say 2022 I would have said absolutely like, I think we saw emerging out of kind of, you know, there was a real swell in sort of social justice and just like diversity equity, inclusion in the workplace and everywhere, right? Kind of like, you know, 2020, 2021, and beyond. And I think you really saw young people, like, gravitate toward that, and like outside of just, you know, I think that a lot, a lot of times you'll find that, like the you know, younger folks tend to be kind of more on the progressive side, and so like that, you'll see that, of course, that would happen. But I think coming off of those couple of years, I really started to notice that with Gen Z folks, and honestly, even notice in like, one of my my oldest kids and our friends like that, that sort of like, inclusion and diversity, like, they wouldn't even think about that because it's almost so ingrained in them, of like, not really thinking so much of like self and other, but thinking of everyone kind of together, like that, right? And so I had, I loved that, I loved that that was happening. I was like, Oh, that's so that's something so great that this younger generation is going to bring in. And while I don't think that that has disappeared, I think the hot take is, like, I'm worried a little bit about, like, the emergence of AI, very rapidly, kind of, can homogenize stuff again, right? And I'm saying that really high level and, like, really big, but you'll see it even in the most simple use cases, like with writing, right? Like everything starts to sound the same, right? And we're getting smarter and smarter about where and how we're applying AI. And is that going to, you know, is that going to kind of overwrite this sort of, like, intrinsic value that I think that that generation is bringing, I hope, not right. I hope we find ways like I think, and I think we actively. We can't just like hope that we stumble into it. We actively have to find ways to make sure that we're still kind of keeping things different and unique. But I would say our best bet on that I hope, is, you know, like our bright our bright Gen Z folks.

Jack McFarlane  23:24  
I want to kind of go off of your mention of AI and kind of move into technologies in general. Now this could be good or bad. It's totally up to you, but how have you seen the current state of technology affecting your department? This could be AI or it could be any other sort of software that you might be using. But has it drastically improved over the years? Are you becoming more efficient, or is it causing a lot of harm? Is it getting in the way? Is making things all sound the same? What have you seen just throughout your experience?

Hailey McDonald  23:55  
All of the above, all of it, um, which is fair, right? I mean, like, I think it's like things when true innovation is coming about, it's messy. You know, there's like this period of time where, like, everyone's kind of figuring it out with marketing. Specifically, it is a wild time to be in marketing. I mean, I think just, you know, we are kind of at the top of, they say, the top of the funnel, you know, as far as kind of, like generating revenue for organizations, in addition to like we are, we really kind of own the underpin, underpinning of like, what keeps organizations growing, not just kind of like net new, but like, we often own customer loyalty and like retention and stuff like that, you know. And so I we've been obliged to, you know, there's like, a big upside to us using AI and trying to figure out, like, how do we make this work for us? I mean, in one of your last episodes, you guys talked about a lot of, like, really impressive stats, as far as, like, productivity gains that are happening. And I think, like, you know, it's. Early days on a lot of this data, we really kind of have to, I think it's like we're yet to truly realize the value of that, or if there are shadow sides that will like emerge, right but right now it's very much on marketing in a lot of ways, to kind of leverage those tools. So, I mean, I've seen a lot of really cool stuff come out of it, as far as, like accelerating, like time to value, I think especially in marketing, like, Look, everyone you know the I doesn't take me to say this, there's a lot of slop that gets produced because it's like, oh, I can write a blog post faster. Oh, I can make an ad real faster. I can make a poster real fast, or, like, whatever, right? And so there's a lot of sloppy stuff that gets put out, but I think as soon as, like, a kind of mental shift happens and you start to realize, like, oh, I can do that sort of stuff, but, like, as a test, as in, in this kind of closed ecosystem, and I can kind of see what, you know, initial, sort of like panel reactions to things are before we go ahead and dedicate all of our resources to making this giant, like print campaign that's going all around San Francisco, right? Like we're branding taxis, we're putting up a billboards like now with AI, we have a lot more ability to kind of like test out across audiences what that might be. So there's some kind of like balance there in regards to what I think I mean, like with Gen Z, I mean, and I'd be curious on your guys's thoughts about this, but like Gen Z, and really, anyone else entering the workforce, or even like younger folks that are still using this in school, is like, as interesting and fun as it can be to use these tools and sometimes highly productive. What I'm really worried about is Y'all not getting the total experience of, like, context building, that all of us sad saps that didn't have AI kind of coming up had to learn the hard way by, like, literally just failing or like, doing stuff and so, like, that's one of the most important things, I think that's going to come through in 2026 is, like aI without the context, is where we get the slop. And so I've been thinking a lot about, like, how do I help get our early in career folks that kind of context, even though, like, our work is totally augmented now.

Nick Schlemmer  27:19  
Like you said, there's a there's a balance that we're going to need to find for Gen Z to utilize AI the correct way and to still gain all that knowledge and the work side of things that you actually have to put into being in a business. I think that balance is going to be very important.

Jack McFarlane  27:36  
I just know still being in school, and I'm sure you go through the same thing. Nick is it's really how you decide to use the AI, like, if you're using it as a tool and to help you. It's great, but, and you can still learn. But if I'm going into my class saying, all right, just write this paper, do this test, whatever it does, it great. I don't learn any of it. So that's a lot of what you're saying is like that, that balance needs to be found where you want to use AI. You want to use AI to help you be productive and efficient, but you also want to do it in a way where you're still growing your career, growing your knowledge, and not just you know air quotes, cheating your way through the test all the way to the top. So and it varies person to person. I know there are people out there that do that, right? People are just going to give AI, do this for me. Boom, it's done. I'm not even going to try to learn it or be better at it. So it really varies person to person. Are you seeing that as, like, a common thing among Gen Z? Like, are there any pitfalls other than that, that, like, if you were gonna, like, if we wanted to come work in marketing with you, is there something that Gen Z just is not very good at overall, that you would say, if you can learn this before you get into the job, that gives you a real leg up? You know, is there anything like that, or would it be just finding that balance?

Hailey McDonald  28:52  
I you know, there's a couple of there's a couple of things I thought of as you guys were kind of like reacting to that. And I think one of the things that you brought up you've brought up before, like, on your shows is talking about reverse mentoring. And I love the idea of, you know, like, I think that's so great anytime we get kind of a new generation coming into the workforce, you know, learning from them just as much as we may be able to teach them. And I think you guys have talked about how AI is an opportunity, in some cases, for reverse mentoring, because you'll sometimes get folks that maybe aren't, as, you know, comfortable with technology, you know, that may be older, that just, or Yeah, they just kind of missed the boat on some of this stuff. Like, they didn't have to, honestly, like, there are a lot of things in my job now, just in a leadership position where I'm not hands on tools, and I'm like, I, you know, sleep for one night, and I wake up and I'm like, Oh, my God, everyone is using a totally different tech stack, you know. And so, just like, it's, it's really beneficial, like, kind of learning from the younger generation. I think one piece of kind of advice that I would give, and this would be, I mean, you could, kind of like, work your way through the. And learn how to do this in a lot of different ways, but it would really be, how in those situations, when you're working with folks in other generations, and maybe you're teaching them a little something, how can you also extract stuff like information and knowledge from them that's going to be relevant to you, right? And I'm only saying, like, I don't want to say, hey, it's all on you to do this again. I'm spending a lot of my time thinking about, like, how to how do I do that? How do I work that into the development of my teams? But I think, you know, sometimes if you, if you're in the position, and you're like, hey, let me show you how to use Claude or something like that to somebody, right? To some like, let's just say it's some VP you know that it's like running your team or something like that that's never used it. And they're like, I know you're comfortable with it. They're the likelihood that they're going to be overwhelmed in a way that they wouldn't even know how to be giving you the context that you need, because it's just like, such a new technology is probably pretty high so learning how to just, kind of, like, ask friendly questions, it's like, kind of disarming, and I think just like a opportunity for relationship building. So like, figuring out which questions to ask is, like, definitely going to be dependent on, kind of like, what is your trade? You know? Like, are you in marketing? Are you in sales? Are you in finance? Are you in anything, right, where you're starting to use kind of AI, and then just, I think, like, a good another good practice would be just like talking to people about it, right? Like having those conversations, like, ask a friend, ask your parents, like, hey, what do you what do you know that you think I don't know, that I should know about and stuff, and that'll help you kind of, like, practice, like how you can start pulling that information from people to try to get the context that said, I think it's, honestly, is a tense if that of what we need to be doing. I think we really need support from our kind of learning and development and AI transformation and HR friends on, like, really systematic, like, new ways of supporting our younger generations to get this kind of context, not just like living on a prayer and like asking fun questions.

Nick Schlemmer  32:13  
Alright Hailey, final question here, but in a position that me or Jack are in right now currently, you know seniors in college will be in the workforce very shortly. Do you have any you know advice or pointers for us in regards to what we could be doing as you know, to better ourselves, to make these connections, or you know how to reach out to people, whatever it may be. Do you have any advice for us or other seniors who will be listening to this that are entering the workforce?

Hailey McDonald  32:41  
That's a great question, and I think, I mean, it's been a while, but I also remember being in that position many, many, many years ago. And I think it's both incredibly exciting and it can be really intimidating. And, you know, it's also going to kind of, it's going to depend on this is going to be different for everyone. Like some people are going to be, you know, little networkers by nature, and they've already been involved in university and school or in their community, and they have connections, right? It could be through like, things that your family has been involved in, right? And you have kind of, like, great connections through that. And then they're going to be people like me that didn't have a clue at all. Right, I was, I was like, pretty social and stuff. But like, I guess I just thought, like, when I got my diploma, that someone was just gonna be like, where are the economists? I studied economics. And I was like, Okay, do I go be an economist now? And, like, it just didn't, I mean, I was not prepared. So I think one piece of advice that I would give is that, like, you know, some people are going to know, like, I want to do this. One thing I studied this, one thing I'm very set on that I don't want to discourage people that are kind of like bee lined for that, and kind of have set themselves up for it. But I would say, you know, like, what I've seen in reality is that life is rich and full of lot of lot of different things. And so I think I would probably have a think about, like, what are all of the things that I like to do, and could those, in any way be a part of my career or job, or just how to make money and pay the rent, or, you know, like, basically more than a hobby, and consider, I would just say, getting involved in those communities in a work sense. So, like I said, No, no one was hiring an economist. Like, No, I did not know how to go get a job as an economist, like, right out of, you know, like getting my bachelor's degree. But one thing that I had done was I had kind of put myself through school doing graphic design. I had picked it up. I had worked at a public like a news publication. It wasn't anything sexy, but and that, you know, ended up getting me, kind of getting my way into marketing through that, like I started working for an agency really young. And I was like, Oh, wow. Like, I have a knack for this. I really like it. I have these kind of multiple skill sets. And not, not very long after that, you know, the economics and the kind of finance came into play, because when you got to learn how to, like, make money for a company, numbers are involved, right? But that took me a really long time to just, like, go down that pathway and kind of accidentally stumble into a lot of things. I sure wish that I would have thought to find people somewhere and, like, kind of start to network and figure that out as clunky and weird as it might have felt. I wish I would have found one person that could have told me this is where our people are. Like, this is, you know, like in marketing and HR, a lot of people are on LinkedIn, right? It's like this, electric, like this, you know, digital community, and you can kind of start to get to know people for other trades. It might be like more in person, like meetups and stuff like that. But if you can find one person that will help you kind of show where you can start connecting with folks. I promise you that, like everyone is excited for new people to come into the workforce, you know, like, especially like on the leadership side, where people can be mentors and coaches. Like, we have to find people to hire. We have to find good talent right to, like, lead our teams into the future. And so we want to be finding those smart little cookies coming out of school. And want to be helping folks, I would say, you know, the majority of folks are really invested in that. So find where your people are. Figure out how to kind of network with them. Know that it'll probably be a little awkward in the beginning. And I wouldn't limit yourself to just like one thing think about, you know, other like, all the things that you might be interested in. I know you guys, like, you know, golf, right? Like, that's one thing. You can also be like, the thing that you studied in academics, things like that.

Jack McFarlane  36:42  
Yeah. So don't, don't limit yourself. 

Hailey McDonald  36:45  
Go be a golf influencer!

Jack McFarlane  36:49  
All fantastic points, I mean, from Nick and myself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on our show today, Hailey. You made this episode a must-listen. When we get asked at the end of the year, what is an episode that people need to listen to? You've made it this one right here, our marketing episode. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Hailey McDonald  37:10  
Yeah, I so appreciate it. And I would just say, like, for anyone out there, like, please know that I'm one of those people you know that's going to be cheering you on and rooting you on. So feel free to reach out. Find me on LinkedIn, connect with me. I'm super excited for you all to come in and change the world of work and make marketing more whimsical and fun. 

Nick Schlemmer  37:28  
Thank you, Hailey. 

Nick Schlemmer  37:38  
Alright, everyone. We are wrapping up today's episode; dug deep into the marketing business and what it all stands for in advertising. And Jack, we got the quote of the show. And this one's coming from Henry Ford, a really reliable source here.

Jack McFarlane  37:53  
He's pretty efficient guy, I'd say; really efficient, very efficient.

Nick Schlemmer  37:57  
And this one, he talks about marketing and advertising, he said, and I quote, "stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time."

Jack McFarlane  38:07  
Okay, that's brilliant. What a good quote. That's really good. I mean, it makes sense. Henry Ford's probably the most efficient businessman that ever was, right? He invented the assembly line. They sold 30 million cars back in the day, when it would take weeks to build a car. So that is fantastic. That's really good. That's really good quote, top tier quote on the show there. Nick, very nice. Thank you all for listening. We hope that you took something away, that you learned something if you work in marketing, or you know someone that works in marketing, that maybe you can help them out. We just want you guys to be the most efficient as possible, right? That's the theme of this year, business efficiency, and now you're experts in marketing efficiency, right?

Nick Schlemmer  38:52  
As always, everyone, thank you for tuning in and listening. This was our 40th episode this year. We got a lot of great episodes on the way. Thank you for listening, and bye for now. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai