Marketing Happy Hour - DIG’s Recipe for Community, Loyalty, and Storytelling | Jessica Serrano, CMO

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Ally and I continue our POSSIBLE 2025 conference series by sitting down with Jessica Serrano, Chief Marketing Officer of DIG. Jessica shares the unique challenges that come with localized marketing, strategies for building a strong loyalty program and tips for aspiring CMOs. DIG is a fast casual, scratch food restaurant concept with locations from New York, NY to Washington D.C. Key Takeaways:// Use social media channels to tell behind-the-curtain stories and share unique experiences alongside your brand.// Local marketing requires research of the target community – observe the community through intensive good neighbor tactics. The community will dictate how the brand will show up and where.// Brand loyalty programs should deepen the relationship you have with your consumers, not just providing periodic discounts. Take your loyalty programming from transactional to relationship-driven.// Once you deepen the relationship with the consumer, you can provide other ways to reward them for their loyalty like early access programming, surprise and delight moments and more. // New ideas and innovation can come from listening directly to your consumers' wants and needs. Connect with Jessica: LinkedInFollow along with DIG: Website / InstagramConnect with Ally: LinkedIn / Instagram____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn: ⁠Join now⁠Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

One of the things that I think is really interesting about cooking is that I think Americans have this really kind of interesting relationship with it where we're both obsessed with it and also very intimidated. I realized that if we kind of pulled back the curtain on how we cook, it could demystify cooking in a way that's really interesting from a storytelling standpoint. Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, consultant, podcaster, and your host. Every Thursday you'll hear episodes packed with insights from

brand leaders on an array of topics from crafting effective marketing strategies and hitting career goals to building leadership skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers, this show is all about practical empowering chats to support your professional journey. So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode. I'm so stoked about this conversation coming up. We are diving into our possible series,

post possible series, I should say, just chatting with a number of different marketers and leaders that Allie and I met at the conference. Uh, today we have Jessica Serrano on the show. She is the chief marketing officer for dig a restaurant concept that I know and love from my time living in New York city. And so stoked to have met her at the conference. Uh, we're going to chat through just unique challenges with localized

marketing, loyalty programs, tips for aspiring CMOs and so much more. But as I mentioned, I'm not doing this alone. I'm joined by my series co-host, Allie. Hey Allie, how are you? Allie, I'm good. How are you? I'm excited for this conversation.

Me too. I am so stoked. We met Jessica on literally on a yacht in Miami. And so I'm sure we'll touch on that story at some point in this series. But Jessica, welcome to the show. So excited to see you again. Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Although we're not on a yacht.

I know. It's still hot, but we're not on a boat. So I mean, we have one half of the equation, you know? So Jessica, again, thank you so much. Stoked to just dive into your experience. You have an amazing story. But first I have to ask you, what has been in your glass lately? Well, not that exciting, actually.

So last year, there's a long answer. I did 75 hard last year and so it really changed my relationship with drinking water. But connection to the time we were on the yacht together, I did start drinking this Element electrolyte packets that I tried there and I fell in love with them. They're like, it's that salt and then it's like watermelon flavor. So I've been shaking up my water by adding flavored electrolytes. So very exciting. Oh, delicious.

I love that. I will say that is my favorite electrolyte packet on the market right now. I like that one because it's got a little bit more sodium than the rest. So it makes you feel really good after. Those are the best. I'm so glad that you got a chance to try those.

Yeah. Yes, nothing too crazy. after. Those are the best. I'm so glad that you got a chance to try those. Yeah. Yes. I am nothing too crazy. I feel like I've gotten into this routine of always asking guests and not actually sharing what I have. I was going to say today's a little more exciting than normal. I have a recess. I'm a big fan of these. So I have one of these this afternoon in a water double double fisting the drinks as always. Allie, what about you? Allie Kuhn For me, just water today. I have been feeling super dehydrated in the Florida heat, so I have been refilling my

Stanley constantly and just getting my water in. Bekkah Lundin Love it. Can't go wrong. Allie Kuhn Well, I'm going to start us off, Jessica. So I would love if you could share your career journey with us. How'd you land at DIG? Jessica Bolling Yeah, sure. Happy to. I've always worked in food. I started my career as a sales rep for Nabisco,

so building cookie and cracker displays out of college. And that job took me to Bentonville, Arkansas, where I worked on the Walmart business, which was a really interesting and challenging chapter of my early 20s. And that's when I learned about brand management. And back then, you know, you kind of needed to go to business school to pursue that career path.

So I went back and I got an MBA and I started my career in brand marketing for Dole package fruit. So selling fruit and it was a great foundation but I wanted to work at a company that was a little more exciting and on the forefront of innovation. And so I had my heart set on Taco Bell and I like weaseled my way into a job as an associate brand manager there.

Had an awesome experience at Taco Bell. I learned so much from them. They're really best in class when it comes to marketing. Zigs and Zags, you know, worked at a startup at one point. But eventually what brought me to Florida was a role with Burger King. And so I got to lead the marketing calendar there for a while. And then Dig called, I had never heard of Dig. For your listeners who may not know what Dig is,

it is a fast casual concept that's based out of the Northeast. It's a market line format so you can build your own bowl. We also have chef's specials, but the menu is very scratch cooked, lots of beautiful roasted vegetables and grilled proteins. And so when I said, I've never heard of it, but you know, I'm interested in when I went and tried the food, I thought it was absolutely incredible. And I thought, oh my goodness, I want to be a part of this. And here we are three years later, I've had the chance to be working on taking this brand into new markets. And it's been absolute blast.

I love it. Some amazing brands too, that you've gotten to work with. And we'll talk about more of that experience of tying in past experience to now what you're doing today. And again, Dig, please go check it out if you are local to one. It is such a great concept and really hopefully we'll help tie together this conversation today. But Jessica, I just would love to know too, just given your career trajectory and just the space that you've been in for so long, what makes you light up and get excited about the restaurant and food industry? Jessica Lange Well, what I love about working in food is

that everybody has a relationship to it. It's always been a joy, every brand that I've worked on to see people's eyes light up when they tell you their ritual with and their relationship with your brand. So back even from my Nabisco days, when people talk to me about their love of Oreos or chips ahoy and how they ritualize eating cookies to today when I talk to people who are in Manhattan and tell me, Oh my gosh, I used to eat dig all the time when I worked on like this specific cross street at this specific agency or how they interact with our brand today. I just really love working on something that is such a big part of people's lives. It's what you put into your body is an important choice.

And I'm just insanely curious about the decisions that people make around eating and the relationship that brands play in nourishing us. Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think what I noticed from your experience too, is that you've worked on these more bigger national QSR brands, right? And now you're really at more of an emerging player like Dig.

So what have been some of the biggest mindsets, shifts or tactical shifts that you've had to make in moving from those bigger brands to now being in more of the emerging space? So many. I mean, from just even what it means to work in a global organization culturally. So, you know, I used to work in organizations where you didn't have to even go very far outside your team to compare notes to working on a smaller brand, where now I'm much more intentional about making connections with people outside of my organization. But also in terms of ways of working,

when you work at large organizations, you tend to be, maybe a negative way of saying it is like a cog in a wheel, but specifically you own like a very specific vertical for a large organization. And when you work at a smaller brand or company, you get to touch a lot more pieces. And I would say at DIG, there's no such thing as like, that's not my job, which either is not for people or very much energizes them. And I've been really energized by it,

because you really can feel the impact. You know, sometimes the thing I warn people when they join my team is like, if you have a good idea, I'm probably going to say like, great, go do it. Nobody's going to, you know, it's not, it's not the kind of organization where you then delegate it. It's like, we get to make it happen, but oh my gosh, we have to go make it happen. So it's been really fun, organizationally. And then from a brand perspective, you know, I've worked on brands that have really high household awareness and it's a whole new marketing challenge to think about how do you introduce an emerging brand to an audience of folks who still may never have heard of you.

Yeah. And something sparked just going off on a side tangent here for a minute. You mentioned just building your team out, for example. There's a lot of marketers out there who are very interested in working for these emerging brands and a startup, if you will, quote unquote. And so what do you look for in team members when you're bringing them on just for that space in particular? It's such a different profile that I hire for at an emerging brand than at a skilled one in that I'm really looking for someone. I'm really reading energy because I can teach you all of the technical pieces of the job.

But do you love the brand? Are you energized by what we do? Because that's what's going to carry you through the highs and lows of working in startup culture. And one of my favorite interview questions to ask is what's one thing that you do at work that goes unnoticed? Because a lot again, in the spirit of in these kinds of organizations, you do a lot of things that maybe aren't in your job description. And so I'm listening for, do you recognize that and are energized by that? Or do you feel frustrated or resentful about it? Because

if it's a ladder, you probably won't be happy at an organization of our size. And that's okay. I've also come to realize that there's different strokes for different folks, but now I kind of know what to listen for to make sure that the folks that join are actually going to be energized by what it is, the tasks that we have at hand. It kind of goes into this discussion that I have with a lot of young professionals, especially about this agency versus in brand conversation, a lot of curiosity sparks around those two different options. And I always tell professionals, I'm like, try it, you know, go and explore. There's a lot of experience to be had from that, but it may turn out that that space

is not for you and that's also okay. So it's good that you're asking some of those probing questions just to get a sense of what the individual's personality is, but it never hurts to just dabble and see what you can do in that kind of different space too. So yeah, for sure. I've never worked agency side, so I haven't lived that experience. But careers are long. So it's good to get those varied experiences, big, small agency brand, though every role is designed to teach

you something. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Jessica, thank you for that. Going back into our marketing conversation here, I want to hear about storytelling. Going back into our marketing conversation here, I want to hear about storytelling at Digg. This is my personal, one of my favorite conversations to have. And I know Allie loves storytelling as well. So super stoked for us to hear your response to this. But especially when a brand like Digg or food in general

is rooted in something so tactile and sensory as scratch cooking. How are you telling that story online and how does that encompass to kind of in that in-person experience that a customer is having at a dig storefront? Fun topic. It has been a journey because when I inherited this brand, it was really rooted in a story around sourcing and vegetables. And what I have come to learn as we've opened in new markets is that there are other pieces of Dig's story that folks wanted to hear about that we weren't quite telling the full picture of. And it's really about the cooking. So we spent a lot of time talking about our farming

or relationship with farms and how a vegetable comes from a farm and gets to our back door. But we weren't really telling the story of what we do when it gets into our kitchen. And that's ultimately what makes it craveable. So we were doing a good job of telling you about how intentionally the product was that we were sourcing, but why does it taste

so good? And that's what I found in talking to consumers and hearing them light up about their relationship with DIG was they loved how simple the recipes were, but how delicious it was and how nutrient dense. And so I wanted to tell more of that story. And what a lot of folks don't know is that every DIG is run by a chef operator. So it's a very culinary centric organization. And every person that that comes on the team at dig, whether you're at the support level or the field level, you spend your first couple weeks in the restaurants. And so my

very first 10 minutes working at dig, they're like, put on an apron, you're making the pesto today. And I had never made pesto before I you know, and to me, it was like something I bought off the shelf from Trader Joe's. But here I was now having a whole new love and appreciation for what it actually is olive oil and basil leaves, you know, and so what I came to realize is what a special organization this was that everything truly was being cooked from scratch. I mean, I can pull the training guides and show you and it's not industrial cooking. I mean, the way that we teach people how to make broccoli is the way you would make it at home. And I wanted to tell that story. And so what we've been doing is using social in particular

as a ground to tell that story. And one of the things that I think is really interesting about cooking is that I think Americans have this really kind of interesting relationship with it where we're both obsessed with it and also very intimidated. You know, there's like, it's why Food Network is a thing, but also most Americans only know how to make a handful of recipes. It's maybe why you have a bunch of cookbooks, but don't necessarily open them. And so I realized that if we kind of pulled back the curtain on how we cook, it could demystify cooking in a way that's really interesting

from a storytelling standpoint. And so somewhat ironically, what we do is when we launch new recipes, we usually just show how we make it on social. We don't gatekeep. So if you wanna know how we make our romesco sauce, please, I would love to tell you, come visit us in a day and we can bring you into the kitchen and show you. So that is, that has been really truly the joy of working

on this brand is having a really interesting and compelling story to tell. It's such an interesting way to sort of lift that curtain and lift the veil and get your consumers to see what goes on behind the scenes. And I think you mentioned social. And one of the other ways that you activate on social is team members. Team members are such a huge part of the social media content for Dig. And so what's your approach to capturing that content, but also amplifying real people behind the brand? Yeah.

I mean, in fast food more broadly, I mean, you may recall there have been folks who've been fired because they've shown what goes on in the back rooms of restaurants. And when I started to see that happening, I thought, well, we should like really flip that on its head and actually really encourage our team members to show what's going on in the kitchen. We have nothing to hide. So I am, you know, totally confident that if you see a team member at dig, showing you what's going on in our kitchen, that it's going to, you know, make you fall even love

more in love with, with what we do. And so that's what we've been focused on is not just showing you what happens in like an R&D corporate test kitchen, but like literally the videos that you see on social, those are shot in various dig restaurants, like truly in the kitchens that we serve our guests out of. And I do think inclusion matters. And so we want to show, you know, not just the corporate level chefs, but every team member that is bringing your food to your plate every day. And the reason I know it resonates is because sometimes our chefs

tell us, like, oh my gosh, like a customer came in today and said, oh my gosh, I saw you on Instagram. So like the person who you see on social, like they actually work there, you may come into your local dig and interact with them. And I think that's so special. And it's so fun. That has to be the coolest feeling and just so rewarding for the in-restaurant folks. That's incredible. Yeah, it's really fun. Yeah. I'm sure it increases that buy-in too, just allowing them to be a part of that social experience just outside of their typical role in day-to-day as well. So it's pretty awesome. So Jessica, I want to talk through as well just this aspect of localized marketing. So what are some of the

unique challenges and opportunities as well of doing localized marketing in a city like New York, for example? Local marketing has also been something that I learned in this job because I came from established brands and franchise organizations where I was responsible for growing company, corporate level marketing initiatives for those brands. But at DIG, I'm responsible for making sure that when we open a new location, that there's a line around the block and people are excited and showing up.

So that's been a joy. And I've also had the chance to do that, not just in Manhattan, but also in like new states, like really planting a flag for the first time in new markets, which has been eye opening. And so they're different. Every community has a little bit different of a nuance. But what we found is that one is just about starting with curiosity of spending time in

the market and getting to know who's there, both from a, you know, target perspective, but competitively. And so in fact, you know, we have several openings coming up and was just on a call earlier with my team and we're like planning a trip. So we're going to go to some suburbs of Pennsylvania where we've got a few openings, and we're just going to spend two days. And so we're like, all right, we're gonna sit and we're gonna observe like, who are the people that walk by, you know, where are they having lunch? Are we seeing moms with strollers? Is it, you know, finance guys?

So it really just starts with getting to know who the community is. And then we'll start like knocking on doors and just saying like, have you heard of DIG? Doing cookie drops, like it's really kind of the basics of being a good neighbor is kind of how I would describe it. And then once we are closer to opening, we'll start to do some activations and maybe do some like dinners and invite folks in. We like to do this thing called come see what's cooking, where we may do a demo and show you how we make some of our dishes. And, you know, the first couple days, we'll actually just have folks come in and eat on us and allow the team to practice. So it's a really fun experience building community,

getting ready to open a restaurant, and then it doesn't stop there. Then we need to continue to build that over time. And it really just kind of depends on the market and the neighborhood, how we show up. But it's been such a joy for me learning how to approach local marketing as opposed to kind of national campaigns at scale, which are. Fun and exciting in a completely different way. Yeah, and I have 1 quick question actually on that. That's that's a little bit of a tangent, But I'm curious in terms of opening these new locations, what are some of the strategies you're looking at? Is it through market research? How are you deciding where DIG will show up next? Yes, so new site selection is definitely a combination of art and science. So there is quite a bit of research that goes into the demo

and how much that overlaps with who we know to our products and our offering appeals to. And then there is that kind of art of feeling it out and just sitting like I mentioned and like observing a neighborhood and getting a sense for, you know, is it going to make sense for us to be here? In fact, we opened one in Bethesda, Maryland, and there was so much lore about this location before we opened, because the concept before didn't survive longer than a year.

And so the neighborhood was a little skeptical of like, this is a cursed corner, like, are you guys gonna make it? And we're like going on to year two there. And so, you know, sometimes we're ahead of the curve, like, before neighborhood is going to blow up. And so it can be a little bit of a slog, but you're kind of investing in the future, knowing that that community is growing. And then there's also times where things change and it no longer makes sense for us to be in a community. As you can imagine, we close a lot of locations in Manhattan post coven, and just. People did not fully come back to the office in certain parts of the city. And so there was quite a bit of migration for, for digs. And of course, all of that has now really settled out. But it's been interesting learning about site selection. about site selection. It's a whole art and science, as I said. Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating.

It's fascinating, truly. So I'm gonna pivot just a little bit on, more on the consumer side, talking mainly about loyalty and retention. How has your approach to gaining that loyal customer following and retaining those customers over time scaled during your time at Digg? I have a lot of thoughts about that.

So I will tell you when I first joined Digg, one of my first observations was I really was not a big fan of our loyalty program as a marketer because I felt it was too transactional. We were doing $5 off every 50. And the sense that I got was that that discount was kind of like just popping up as like, oh, cool, as opposed to actually driving an incremental visit for our guests.

And so that just didn't sit right with me because the real point of a loyalty program should be to deepen the relationship, not to just discount for the sake of discounting. And so I was pretty much a dog with a bone about that for the first year. And we did change the program last year. And it was a tough transition because anytime you change a loyalty program, people are always gonna be like,

why did you take away the thing that I have gotten used to? So of course I was sweating a little bit because we were getting some of that feedback from guests that they were not happy that we changed it. But now that we're almost a year on the other side of that, we're better off for it. And our relationship has definitely rebounded with the guests because we moved to a points-based marketplace where you can exchange your points for rewards. And it wasn't really about the foundational loyalty program. It wasn't that that I was interested in changing, but it was all of the layers on top of it that could help us deepen our relationships.

And now we're doing a lot more fun things through our loyalty program. So we've done like early access, surprise and delight. So, you know, we launched, we brought back cauliflower, which is a fan favorite. We get DMs all the time when we took it off the menu. Where is cauliflower? I remember one girl DM, she's like, I can't keep doing this with you guys. It's so funny, like side note,

I am mystified by the relationships that people have with brands and the DMs. I'm on the other side of it. So if you DM dig nine times out of 10, I'm reading those messages, because I the other side of it. So if you DM dig nine times out of 10, I'm reading those messages because I just can't help it. But anyway, so we brought back the cauliflower and we just kind of did this message like, hey, if you order it today, like the first 25 people will get a hat that says cauliflower on it. And so just like doing things like

that that are a little bit more like, you know, it's not just about how much you get this for what you spend or this many points for this activity, but just showing love to the people that choose to eat with us on a regular basis. And there's so much more to come on that that we're working on over the next few months that I'm really excited about. So yeah, it's been it's been it loyalty is a tough one. But it's an important one for brands to be really intentional about. And so on that too, just this idea of retaining consumers, keep them coming back for more. How does this concept of customer service, of course it's a element in store that people experience firsthand, but how has that continued online?

How are you guys approaching the way that you're interacting with consumers digitally? And do you have any tips for brands just looking to strengthen consumer relationship with something like a DM or however you're managing those communications? It's so important. And that's why I have eyes on it. So, you know, of course we do have a team that supports us on the customer service side that's responsible for it, but it's important that myself as a brand leader constantly is keeping an eye on it and making sure that we are responding in a timely way, but also in a way that reflects our brand tone values and so on.

And what I'm quite obsessed with at the moment is shortening the time to which you hear back from us. And with the proliferation of AI, I think that's one of the ways that, that's one of the use cases for AI that I'm most excited about is, I think in this day and age, if you had a bad experience at DIG,

it is unacceptable if we don't get back to you for 24 hours. I just, people are so, everything's so instant in our lives. And then even worse, oh gosh, can you imagine if you had a bad experience and then you get a marketing email from us tomorrow that's completely disjointed. It's like, you haven't even replied to my DM

and you're already trying to message me something else. So I think that the very near future is an integration of all of these customer touch points that make sure that you are getting a very personalized and ideally instantaneous response. So in the meantime, and for folks who maybe are working on their own concepts or early on don't have a lot of budget, I do think spending time and making sure that you are listening to those guests responding to DMs and doing it with heart and with timeliness is key.

And I think that technology is going to help us to get even better at that in the future. And there's a lot of innovation that can come from listening to guests as well. We launched a platform of sandwiches and it was crispy chicken and so we're like, oh, we should do a tofu one so that we also have a vegetarian option. But the roll the bun that we use contains milk. So we're like, oh, it's a vegetarian sandwich, right? It was almost worse that we launched a vegetarian sandwich, because vegans were like, you were so close. And so it was like, they could forgive

that there was a chicken sandwich, but they really couldn't forgive that there was a tofu sandwich and the bun contained milk until it was like extremely vocal in the DMs. So again, through listening, working with the chefs, I'm like, you guys, we have to figure out an alternative and it was more expensive, you know, but it was the right decision to make.

And so we were able to bring in a different bun and relaunch the sandwich as vegan. And we went back through the DMs and we found all the times with DM desk or email desk and we let them know, hey, just so you know, we gave you know, we offered them in some cases a code to try it. And so I think that's another selfish reason to be on top of customer experiences because a lot of times customers are telling us the innovations that they want. And if we listen, there's gains to be had on both sides. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. So I want to pivot just one last time here

to talk a little bit about career and leadership. So again, a lot of marketers out there just aspiring to become a leader in the marketing space. And so maybe there's someone out there saying I would love to be a CMO one day or I would love to lead this marketing team. What do you think are some of the key skills or experiences that that professional should be developing or thinking about in order to maybe get to a place like that? One tip that I got along my journey was to actually build out a matrix with what those skill sets are. So there was a time in my career where I was going down a really narrow focus of becoming

a true expert in menu innovation as it pertained to the roles that I had at Taco Bell and Burger King. And I realized that in order to become a CMO, you really needed to be able to oversee and provide value across the whole 360 of marketing, right? And I often describe marketing similar to engineering. There's so many different verticals, right? You could be an email marketing expert, a content creator. There's so many areas of expertise.

And so when I started to realize that I was not checking enough of those boxes, I got advice that was really valuable, which was lay out all of those experiences that you have and the ones that you don't have. And when you're evaluating roles and opportunities, look at that matrix and is the role going to allow you to check some of those boxes? And it's why I made what maybe might seem like an unconventional choice to go from a global brand to emerging one, because what it allowed me to do was be honest about there are some parts of marketing that I have never managed before. And so here's what you get from me, Dig, because I bring a certain level of expertise at scale, but I hope to also have this opportunity to round myself out as a marketer and learn and really have hands on keyboard as it pertains to paid media, email, social, etc.

So that would be my guidance to anybody who's on that journey is figure out what those gaps are and then evaluate roles through the lens of is it going to help to round me out as a marketer because it's not always about the bigger brand, the bigger salary, you know, those other kind of checkpoints that sometimes folks might be thinking about when pertaining to a role, but how's it going to grow me and help me to get to my ultimate goal? Karly Sautner Yeah, absolutely. And how often are you assessing that matrix, for example?

Is that something you're looking at just right before that next opportunity or is it once a year or how are you kind of approaching that just in general? Well, I am a big fan of having career check-ins quarterly. So everyone on my team, we are going to have a conversation at the end of every quarter because I think it's really important to do that pause and make sure we're looking each other in the eye and are you delivering on what's expected and also are you getting out of this role what you need in order to check those boxes? So that's what my advice would be to others

is to make sure that you are reflecting at least on a quarterly basis, but there's probably also room to do like a proper deep dive on an annualized basis as well. So it's always good to just be pulse checking and am I growing in the direction that I need to be? And if not, making sure that you're having the conversations because sometimes it doesn't necessarily always even necessarily mean you need to leave your

organization. It could also mean you need to raise your hand for a rotation or I want to do some job shadowing. There's a lot of ways that you can round out your experience. It doesn't always have to mean a new job. And then on a leadership front, what's your personal approach to building and leading creative teams and how do you create space for both bold ideas while also keeping some of those business goals of course and focused too? That's a good question. So I, my team know that, you know, whenever we meet with like agency partners, always like, what's the goal?

I'm very much rooted in the business objective. I always start with like, if this is not driving sales, we have missed the mark. And at the same time, I do love to take risks and make room for some creativity. So it always is a balance. And in terms of building out teams that achieve both high business outcomes and also

deliver on creative ideas, you do have to leave room for fast failure. And so I don't like to cry over spilt milk. Like I think this is another benefit of working at emerging brands is that you are often going to be asked to do more than there's time in the day to do and you are probably going to be punching above your weight in terms of your skill set. And that's both thrilling, but also leaves a lot of room for error. And so my team knows like there's been plenty of times where I've gotten a call on a Saturday of like, I screwed this up.

I could tell you like lots of stories. Those are stories for over drinks. And I'm always just like, let's do the next indicated thing. What is the thing that we need to do to make this right? If we did wrong by the guests, if you know, how do we resolve it? Let's just spend time and get into the solution. And I think that that creates a culture where like folks are better for it on the other side, you know, like we tried something it didn't work. How do we create an SOP so that doesn't happen again? It's no big deal. You know, we work in food. It's just broccoli in our case.

And I'm sure there's some version of that expression for whatever you're working unless you are a rocket scientist and maybe, you know, the stakes are a little bit higher. So trying not to take ourselves too seriously allows us to have fun with it too. Yeah, I think that's such a great mentality to have. I think, you know, we often get very caught up in our respective areas of business, right? And everything can feel really urgent and really scary, but it takes, you know, really strong leaders like you

to remind teams of that and keep them kind of focused on the goal here and the overarching business objective. As we round out this incredible conversation, Jessica, I'm so curious, what's next for Digg from a brand and or marketing perspective? So much, Digg has so much room for growth, which again is why it's fun to work on an emerging brand, right? We have 35 locations and I think this brand has absolute potential to scale across the nation, if not beyond. But for now, we're focused on, you know, just the next quarter ahead.

And so we've got some exciting openings. We're still focused on the Northeast. But yeah, I hope that if folks haven't heard of us and haven't had a chance to try us that they'll take a look and consider us. But definitely stay tuned as we continue to expand into these new markets. Yes. So excited for what you guys have on the horizon. And speaking of staying tuned, we'd love to know where we can stay in touch with all things dig, as well as your personal channels. You post some amazing content on LinkedIn. So tell us all about how we can connect with you there too. Sure. Yeah. You can connect with me, Jessica Serrano on LinkedIn,

and you can follow along dig on all channels, um, dig in on Instagram, uh, and on Tik Tok as well. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Jessica, for joining us today. It was so good to have you and again, so grateful we got to meet you at possible. Um, thanks for being here today. Thank you. It was my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly newsletter

in the show notes. You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future marketing happy hour episode, shoot me an email. Hello at marketinghappyhr.com. Thank you again and I'll see you next Thursday.