Welcome to CultivatED Marketer …

In the 12th episode of CultivatED Marketer, hosts Brent Bowen and Matt Tidwell, PhD, bring part two of their chat with Kristen Majdanics, Senior Vice President of Firehouse Subs. In part two of a two-part discussion, we discuss attributes of a good team member and the different experiences between working in an agency vs. an organization. They close the discussion with a great case study: where your namesake earned you a free sandwich.

If you haven’t listened to part one, do. We chat cause marketing and what Firehouse Subs learned through the pandemic. About Kristen: While she currently leads a team of 20 marketing professionals and provides support to more than 1,200 restaurants, Kristen worked for more than a decade at agencies in the Kansas City and Chicago areas. She graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia, and she is a former colleague and friend of our very own Matt Tidwell.

Brent and Matt talk with Kristen Majdanics, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Firehouse Subs.

• Brent starts by asking Kristen what attributes she’s looking for in the people she brings onto her team. She feels the people who have the most success on her team are those who are the most curious, open, and interested to learn. Also, being detail-oriented is important, especially in the people she manages, because she knows they are going to double check all their work. And, of course, someone who is adaptable to changes.
• Matt asks Kristen, because she has experience in both, whether she would recommend young marketing professionals to start in an agency or take a deep dive into an organization.
• Kristen says she found a lot of value in working at an agency because she got exposure to a lot of different areas and could learn from people in different departments. As she got older and more experienced, she felt more comfortable moving to the corporate side. For a young professional, it depends on where you want to go with your career.
• Brent asks Kristen whether there’s another way people can contribute to Firehouse Subs. She says, besides going into their open restaurants, they can donate directly at firehousesubsfoundation.org.
• Is there anything else Kristen wants to add? She remembers something else that doesn’t really fit the conversation … a story about working with what you have as well as brainstorming. She recounts a conversation with the CEO in November 2019, spurring a challenge for her team to drive sales with no extra media before the start of 2020. It’s how they came up with “Name Day,” where they announced a different name on social media each day. If that was your name, you could get a free sub. It went to show how limitations can lead to great ideas or campaigns.

• Jessica Best — VP of Data-Driven Marketing at Barkley and previously worked at emfluence. Her specialty is email marketing — for anyone who thinks it isn’t effective, Jessica would beg to differ.