Heroes in Business - Julia Fitzgerald, Chief Marketing Officer American Lung Association, Author Midsize book

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

Not all marketing programs fit all size businesses. Julia Fitzgerald, Chief Marketing Officer American Lung Association, Author of her book Midsize designed for medium sized companies, is interviewed by David Cogan host of the Heroes Show and founder of Eliances entrepreneur community.  

welcome back to alliances heroes where heroes in business align to be part of our super community and find out more about alliances visit www.alliances.com that's right and thank you again too uh just i love what i do why well, recently just had on the CEO of Special Olympics. And also, too, coming up to next month, we're going to be having the NASA administrator for the past three presidents. So you know the place to go and you know where to meet him. Go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. It is the only place where entrepreneurs align. All right, are you ready

for this? Very excited about our next guest today. You'll definitely recognize the company that she's with, and we're going to talk about a new book that she has coming out too. Welcome to the show, Julia Fitzgerald. She is the chief marketing officer of the American Lung Association. She's also an author. We're going to talk about her book in a minute here. And the name of the book, though, is Midsize. It's marketing for midsize firms. And you could reach her by going to JuliaFitzgerald.com. Those of you that are watching can see the link below. Those of you that are listening in your car right now on radio, you know where to go. Just go to alliances.com. We'll have the link on there too. So welcome to the show, Julia. I want to just really jump right in. First of all, what a cool position it is to

have as the chief marketing officer of the American Lung Association. Like, how did that come to be? Oh my gosh, I love my job and I love what we do at the American Lung Association. So it is kind of an interesting route to this position. Over my career, like if you would look at my resume, you might suspect that I am in the witness protection program because I have worked in a variety of both midsize and multibillion dollar companies. And I've been in a lot of different business models to everything from CPG, retail, B2B, and finally, not for profit. Finally, not for profit. Part of the reason it all makes sense and it works is I have found, especially in mid-sized companies, there are some core things that every organization needs to do with marketing. And I have kind of figured out how to make that work for them. For me, I have a special place in my heart for the mission of the Lung Association and its goal to defeat lung cancer. So once I knew that they had a need for a chief marketing officer, I basically stopped them until they gave me the

opportunity. Wow. Wow. And you mentioned about lung cancer and that. What is like one of the number one or two, three type ways to prevent that? Well, the easiest one is to stop smoking. That is the number one. Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death and of lung cancer. The other is also a lot easier. It's to check your home for radon. Radon is one of the second leading causes of lung cancer. So if you just have your house checked, especially if you have a basement, it could save your life. Wow. And what about vaping? Vaping is a concern, especially with youth. So many kids start vaping because they are under the impression that it's just vapor.

It's not going to hurt them. And what they don't know is that, especially with these flavors, it's not harmless. It gets them addicted to nicotine at a very young age. And it actually, it impedes their brain development and it impedes their lung health. So youth vaping is a huge concern of ours. And we've been working to inform parents and inform kids like, hey, you're kind of being played. Don't start down this path. Right, right. Wow. No, no, that's that. I thank you for sharing that information and stuff. So now you got you came out with this book. What was, by the way, again, the book is midsize. It's marketing for midsize firms. You can easily find it on Amazon. And also too,

you'll see it. Those of you watching, hold that book up one more time too. So you could get a good look at it. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. So, and again, you can find that at Amazon. So it's again called midsize. What was the inspiration? Like how to, you know, to, to, to come up and, and, and have this book and write this book? Yeah, well, I mentioned that I've had a fairly wide variety of opportunities in my career. And I noticed coming out of grad school and even for the students coming out today, there seems to be this focus on going into a really a large organization and the big brands and the brands you always hear about. And that's thought of as like

real marketing. But that hasn't been my experience of my best opportunities. And so I also realized when I've been in large organizations and smaller organizations, there's a big difference in what makes you successful. So my first kind of impetus for writing it is to share what I've learned over the course of my career and to pay it forward for people to either be more successful in mid-sized firms or to think about what really works for them and what's going to kind of be their jam as they're plotting out their career path. Right. No, that's great. And talk to us about like why the size of a company can affect the performance and career growth for its employees, right? Sure. So my experience has been... My experience has been...

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. ...and make the most of a budget so that it really delivers for what your customers and the organization needs. This really spurs some different types of thinking. The other piece, and I think this is kind of the Goldilocks moment, is there's not as many staff in a mid-sized organization. What this means is as a marketer, you probably get to expand your set of experiences. The lanes aren't so narrow. You can also learn what works with product or what works with sales or how you can help in new product or R&D. There's just more of an opportunity to make a real impact for the organization and then also for growing

your blocks of experience in your career. And kind of the natural output of, you know, if you don't have as much budget and you don't have as many people, the third kind of point in my head is collaboration. There's just more collaboration to do work that really moves the company ahead in a midsize organization. In a large company, I've had some great experiences, but what I have found is there's a lot of energy that has to go into moving the big enterprise along and a lot of internal focus versus what really great kind of marketing campaign can you come up with that's going to drive sales next year or engage donors this year right right absolutely now what is considered a mid-sized company great question a lot of people have different definitions, but the way I look at it is an organization that is $100 million to about $800 million, just below that $1 billion mark.

And here's why I choose that. I mean, this is the Goldilocks spot for a marketer. If you get to an organization that's much smaller, they may not have the budgets to really do interesting marketing work, things that you can kind of build a career on get one little element of the whole pie and you may not get to really engage and feel like you're contributing to making the difference and actually learning how the whole picture fits together. Great, great. And again, you're watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure that you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com. The only place where entrepreneurs align because we have with us Julia Fitzgerald, the chief marketing officer of American Lung Association.

She's an author of Midsize, Marketing for Midsize Firms. You can reach her at juliafitzgerald.com. And of course, we'll have it on our website. You can find her book on Amazon. So make sure you go there after this interview and purchase her book. So I think it's great that you came out with this, right? Because it is the midsize too. I mean, that's, I mean, that's a, it's a, there's a lot of midsize companies that are out there. I mean, and a lot of people that can, you know, certainly learn from your book. So share with us maybe some of those secret tips for CMOs and the CEOs,

right? Of midsize companies looking to empower employees and right. Improve their marketing strategies? Sure. So in midsize, I really do talk about the tips and strategies to be successful. And you really have to be a little bit more careful because without as much budget, there's not as much room for error. So being smart about how one approaches the business is, I think, even more critical. One of my biggest tips is start at the foundations. Make sure that you understand what your narrative is, what your value proposition is. When I'm brought into organizations frequently,

it's because they want me to help with the digital transformation. Great. Every mid-sized company needs to be digitally adept in order to compete today. But the trick is don't get sucked into the tactics. Oops. Just when you think you're safe. Don't get sucked into the tactics. Really make sure that you're not going for the shiny objects of the latest TikTok or the digital delivery, because that part is super fun and sexy. So I generally kind of take my new team when I come into an organization and say, first thing we're going to do is talk about our narrative. What is our value proposition? What problems do we solve for whom? And I sometimes get a little bit of a, but that's the core of all of the messaging. The second part you have to work through is your branding. Does your brand communicate to your audiences who you're about and what you're about?

And David, you and I could talk all day about branding, but I won't spend all day there, I promise. The next piece is really to look at the digital ecosystem as a whole. The next piece is really to look at the digital ecosystem as a whole. Where are you to your customers? Where are they going to find you? For most mid-sized companies, the answer to that is the website. Right. And then you think, all right, so we're just going to give it a new coat of paint. We're going to make it a... No.

I call the website the conversion machine and you have to convert two things with your conversion machine hearts and minds so with your heart you have to have somebody who just comes to your website to get to know you and this is true for b2b b2c whatever or um you know uh cpg they have to come to your site and say, oh, I get you. They have to understand your value prop. They have to understand your brand. So that's the heart. For the mind, this website has to get them to do whatever it is you need them to do. Donate, make a purchase, Donate, make a purchase, you know, sign up for your white paper, do that lead gen. So really, it's a combination of those two things.

So those are those three kind of like top loaded items that I think CEOs of midsize companies and CMOs. Are they're tempted to jump over them to get to the digital advertising strategy. Right. Oh, this is great information. Thank you for sharing. Very good information. Now, again, you have a wealth of career background at various companies, types of companies in that. And again, now CMO of American Lung Association. Everybody knows the American Lung Association. That's a huge, very important role in that. What kind of advice secrets do you have, though, for children that are out there, maybe young adults also, that want to be able to make their way around, make a difference like you've made a difference and have had success at these various companies? What kind of things can they do now to prepare for that?

Well, I think one is to be aware of what it is that you like to do. For me, I've kind of known that marketing was my jam because it's a really great blend of ideas, creativity, and marrying that up with problem-solving skills. So I think the first step for people who are really young in their career or even in high school or thinking about what they're good at is, you know, don't define for yourself what your job title needs to be someday. There are job titles that exist today that didn't exist when I started. Right, right. Isn't that interesting? A content producer. What was a content producer?

So my advice would be think about what it is that kind of gives you a little joy. And once you start doing it, you would just keep working at it until you kind of lose track of time and then follow that thread. For me, marketing has that breadth where I could follow these threads and kind of expand on it in different directions. Right. Excellent. Excellent. Well, I got to tell you, Julia, you share the truths and strategies of marketing in midsize firms. That's a hero. Reach out to Julia Fitzgerald, chief marketing officer at American Lung Association, author, and get her book, Midsize, Marketing for Midsize Firms. You can find it on Amazon. Also reach out to Julia Fitzgerald

by going to juliafitzgerald.com. You've been watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. Thank you.