Steve is the co-founder of McKee Wallwork and author of Turns: Where Business is Won and Lost. In this episode, we chat about the “why” questions of philosophy and marketing, how having a proper worldview affects the direction we take, and how it’s never too late to initiate a turn if we don’t like the direction we’re going. Episode Transcript(NOTE: Transcript is auto-generated. Errors may exist throughout.)Emily: Hello, I'm Emily Stewart and this is who I wanna be when I grow up. My guest on the show today is Steve McKee. Steve is the co-founder of McKee Wallwork, a firm based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, that turns around, stalled, stuck, and stale companies all across the country. Speaking of turning around, Steve also just released a book called Turns: Where Business is Won and Lost, which is all about the impact of turns on our everyday lives. I just finished reading this book myself and could not put it down, so I'm very excited for you to hear this conversation. Let's get into it. Steve, welcome to the show. Steve: Thanks, Emily. Great to be here. Emily: So the first most obvious question as hopefully our listeners will know by now, is Steve, what did you wanna be when you grew up? Steve: Um, there's a lot of answers to that. Of course, I was gonna be an NFL player. I was actually an NFL prospect... Until I was about five and then that dream ended, um, I always thought I wanted to be a scientist cuz my mom taught me, I told me I was smart. So I didn't really know what a scientist was, but it sounded good at the time. Emily: Right. Steve: And then, uh, really once I started growing up, I had no idea. And I still don't know. Emily: That's comforting. I hear a lot of that too is we're all still growing up and we don't know what we want. So just, Steve: I'm, I'm envious of people who like know from 10th grade, you know, what they're calling in life is.Emily: Totally. Steve: It's not me. Not me. Emily: Yeah. I've never understood that either. Well, that's great. So career-wise though, you did get your start in marketing, or you got into marketing, um, pretty early on, and since then, several steps later, you co-founded your own firm, McKee Wallwork. So describe me what it was like for you to get into marketing and how that led you to start your own firm later on.Steve: Well, it was kind of fun. Um, I, uh, when I graduated from college I had a marketing degree and I didn't really know what to do. I spent that summer kind of drifting. Then I went to work at a Christian radio station that I had been volunteering at for a year, just cuz it was sort of there and safe and right in front of me. Um, Left that job, uh, right before I got married. And then it was time to get serious, so I was just looking for jobs. Um, my brother and I had talked about starting a firm all the way back then, but we had no idea what we were doing. So I answered a, a newspaper Want ad. They used to advertise jobs in the newspaper and um, it was for a field marketing manager job on the Pizza Hut account. And I thought, I studied marketing and I eat pizza, so I'm perfect for the job. Emily: Yep. Steve: And, uh, it's kind of a long story. Um, but I talked to myself, talked my way into the job, and then, um, you know, I've since sort of discovered this is probably true in sports and everything. You, you, you tend to like what you're good at. You tend to be good at what you like. And I, I had a natural knack for it. It turned out, it turned out I was pretty good, pretty good at it. And one job led to another, led to another, led to another. Um, and then all of a sudden I, I sort of knew what I was doing. Emily: Mm-hmm. Steve: And then, and then, um, my business partner and I tried to buy that company. And when that fell through, we started McKee Wallwork 26 years ago in, uh, a few days.Emily: Okay. Wow. Exciting. Wow. Almost straight to the day. That's great. Yeah, when you say you had a natural knack for marketing, like what does that look like? What are the natural skill sets that came easily to you? Steve: That's a really good question because when I've interviewed people, um, so you could sort of tell when somebody gets it and when they don't.Emily: Mm-hmm. Steve: Um, there's a, the, the way I like to test people on it is I'll, I'll ask them what, like what ad, what ads they like. First test is if you can't think of any, you, you haven't ever thought about it. But then when they say, you know, I like Nike, or I like, you know, McDonald's or whatever, then I say, why? And it's getting a sense of if they can start to pull it apart.And, um, I didn't really realize that's what I was doing when I did it, but I was always curious as about. So I knew it worked, but I was like, why does it work and how does it work? And so in my first few jobs, um, I mean, I thought that was sort of natural, but I guess it wasn't. I I was always questioning that in my own mind and I, I think I read 14 or 15 marketing books in my first year of...
続きを読む
一部表示
2023/08/281分未満