Marketing Happy Hour - Evolving Your Brand Over Time | Matt Prince of Taco Bell

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Hey, Marketing Happy Hour listeners. This week, we are chatting with Matt Prince, Brand Communications and PR Director at Taco Bell. In this episode, Matt gives us an inside look at a few of the fun projects he's been able to work on in his 10 plus years at the brand, like Taco Bell weddings and the Taco Bell hotel, and explains how important relationships are in PR. He also speaks to the power of mentorship in your career and what it's looked like running his community for you path. Grab a drink and listen in. Hi, Matt. How are you? I'm good.

Starting point is 00:01:29 How are you guys? Doing so well today. We are extremely excited to have you on the show today. This has been a long time coming. I know we've been connected over LinkedIn and just staying abreast of what everybody's doing. So excited to chat with you today. But before we get started, I do have an important question for you that we ask all of our guests. And that is what is in your glass this afternoon? Yes, well, I was very much looking forward to this question,

Starting point is 00:01:55 because I know you ask it to everybody. So I'll have to imagine what I would like to be drinking as opposed to what I'm actually drinking, because it's still kind of early here. But I think my typical go-to is whiskey and ginger ale. That's, you know, my traditional, I can go to that and I can stay pretty consistent and keep a nice evening going. Although I think I'm required to say that you should try a twisted freeze from Taco Bell. The Baja Blast flavor is the best. Oh my gosh, that sounds really good. And Cassie and I were talking off record, we should have gone out to Taco Bell and got one of those freezes to actually be drinking during this recording. But unfortunately, we are not. We'll have to do that sometime this weekend, though. But I actually just have a kombucha by my favorite kombucha brand.

Starting point is 00:02:47 It's called Brew Doctor, if you're familiar with them. And this one is in the flavor Clear Mind, which has like rosemary, mint, sage, all the good herbs that I love. But Cassie, what do you have? Yeah, I too wish I had a Baja Blast myself. But right now I have a Georgie energy drink, uh, feeling the, the Friday slump right now. So, um, it's delicious. First time cracking these open and is the sparkling peachy keen, which is very good. So enjoying that. Uh, but Matt, uh, you

Starting point is 00:03:19 know, we are big fans as we were talking off record of Taco Bell had Taco Bell for dinner last night. Love it. Crave it all the time. So we're so excited to chat with you and just learn from big fans as we were talking off record of Taco Bell, had Taco Bell for dinner last night, love it, crave it all the time. So we're so excited to chat with you and just learn from your experience leading the brand's PR and communications efforts. But first, we'd love to hear kind of a look back into your career. And can you share a little bit about how you got to where you are today? Yeah, so I was born on a warm summer's day, and actually I won't go that far. You can probably start in college. I was actually an English major. My goal was to be an English teacher. That was a vision I had for a long time, and I just loved

Starting point is 00:03:57 reading and writing, and I got into the major and realized it wasn't as fun as I envisioned it to be. And so I remember sitting in on a couple of PR courses and just absolutely fell in love. It was everything I loved about my passion for English. It was the writing, it was the creativity, and it kind of paired together things I didn't really knew existed at the time, which was, you know, social media was just getting started. And there's this kind of communications piece and relationship and technology. And I just, I just fell in love with it. And so the rest was history. And my first job out of college was working for a local city government, city of Anaheim here in Southern California, really great opportunity. We've had a great exposure to some big businesses like Disney and like the Angels and some a lot of companies that were based in Southern California.

Starting point is 00:04:47 So really great exposure, did events, communications. Within that time, I got recruited to work for the county and do the same thing for the Chamber of Commerce. Same thing, got great exposure to a lot of great companies. I had an opportunity at the time. I was very similar situation to where students are now and young professionals are now. What we view Gen Z as kind of like this like budding edge kind of, hey, what's Gen Z into? What can we do to make sure that we're appealing to them? I was in the same boat for millennials. When millennials were just getting started,

Starting point is 00:05:22 it was the same exact thing. Like, hey, what are millennials into? What can we do to tap into their purchasing power? And so I was that young person in a really conservative environment and social was just getting started. So I had a lot of really great success early on as that kind of a young, social, first-minded individual and in a time that was just getting started. And I rode with that. And so I was there for about three years. I worked my way up to director of communications for the chamber. And one of the best parts about working for a chamber of commerce is, again, the exposure to all the big businesses. And the biggest one in Orange County, of course, was Disney and got a call from them and said, hey, we'd love for you to lead our communications for

Starting point is 00:06:05 our president and our executives based in Southern California. And just had an amazing opportunity. And I just ran with it and got a great, great, great experience leading communications for the president of Disneyland and the executives that were there in Southern California. I wrote for Bob Iger. I wrote for Mickey Mouse. I wrote for just a bunch of really cool people and characters. And about two years into it, I realized as much as I loved writing, it wasn't going to be like a forever job and hopped over to digital marketing. Same thing, leading a new kind of social media monitoring and engagement team still within Disney parks and resorts.

Starting point is 00:06:44 Did that for another two and a half years, then got a call from Taco Bell, who I had greatly admired for so long. And they asked if I'd like to join their PR team. And now it's been 10 amazing years that I've been with Taco Bell. Oh, incredible. And I think that's just a testament to the power of relationships, you know, in the positions that you're in, how can you build your network and just grow that over time? And you never know where that network will lead you. So that's amazing. 100%.

Starting point is 00:07:16 I mean, I think if the number one piece of advice I typically give to young professionals is have a really strong personal brand. The biggest and most important client you'll have in your life is yourself and to take care of that client because it'll never leave you for better or for worse. But with that great personal brand, you can take it into having a strong network. And my career has really led me into jobs that I have not applied for. I know I've applied for many jobs. I've not gotten many jobs, but my path was one of recruitment.

Starting point is 00:07:48 It took me from a job that I loved into a job that I loved even more. And it was from relationships because when you look at like the process of applying, it is nearly impossible to stand out in a stack of 1000 resumes. And the differentiator for me, and again, I recognize early on like when

Starting point is 00:08:06 opportunities come up it's not going to be posted on linkedin right away it's going to go through a network and it's going to hey do we know anyone who would be good for this role and my my my goal early or good for this job and my goal early on was to be like hey i want to be at the top of that i know a guy list so when those things come up they, oh yeah, I know a guy. I met him here at this networking event or I heard him speak here or I read a piece that he wrote here. And so being able to put yourself strategically in the places in front of the people

Starting point is 00:08:34 and the places that inspire you lead to some amazing, amazing outcomes. Couldn't agree more. Well, you mentioned 10 years at Taco Bell. Congrats on that, by the way. Would love to hear some standout projects that you've had the chance to work on over there. I feel like there's been a lot of development with the Taco Bell brand over the years. So I'm sure there's a lot of things you've gotten to be a part of, but anything that comes to mind initially?

Starting point is 00:08:59 Oh my God. I think we can fill up an entire podcast just talking about the cool stuff. I mean, yeah, 10 years ago when I took over, I mean, I really think Taco Bell was still being viewed as a food company. And over that time, I think the goal was really to how do you evolve as a lifestyle brand? And so that's what we've done over the course of the past 10 years. And so that comes with building a hotel, it comes with launching weddings, it comes with, you know, freeing Taco Tuesday trademarks, it comes with a whole bunch of really cool programs that have been absolutely amazing. I think probably one of the most memorable was probably one of my first was actually saving the first Taco Bell. And I was probably at the company for about a year. And I, I found out through the grapevine saving the first Taco Bell. And I was probably at the company for about a year.

Starting point is 00:09:47 And I found out through the grapevine that the first ever Taco Bell that was in Downey, California was gonna be demolished. And it hadn't been a Taco Bell for a decade or so, but the building that housed the original Taco Bell was gonna be demolished. And so we stepped in and worked with the city and some preservation societies

Starting point is 00:10:04 over the course of a full year and lifted the building from its foundation and drove it through the streets of LA down to Orange County, where now the building sits in, in our headquarters, which is pretty cool. But I mean, talk about preserving history and making memories. It was that's so cool. I would love to see that. I can only imagine how, how awesome that is for you guys to just experience that too. Um, but I want to kind of speak to leaders a little bit here. So, um, we like to talk about culture and leadership and how do you develop that in a company? So curious, 10 years is a, is a decent amount of time with one company, right? So what do you think has kept you at the company for so long? And how do you feel leaders at other companies can make their employee experience, their culture, excellent and inspire similar longevity? Yeah, that's a really great question. A really hard question. I think at the heart of every

Starting point is 00:11:01 company and every culture, of course, is the people. And I've been blessed to be around some just amazingly talented individuals, but also just great human beings. And I think that is the differentiator when you're excited to go to work and see the people. And I know it's bad when you say you're like a family, but in the good senses, you know, when you can be like a family, it really is great because you do spend more time with the people you work with than your actual family. So I've been surrounded by amazing people. I think building a place where you have the freedom to be your authentic self is important. So whether that's from a creative standpoint, whether that's from a social community standpoint, having that place that allows you that flexibility, I think is really, really important. And I've been lucky enough to have that within Taco Bell. And I think a lot of companies, Taco Bell not excluded in the middle of the 10 years,

Starting point is 00:11:58 obviously we had the pandemic. And so culture and the way that brands were looking at culture shifted dramatically. And Taco Bell for a very long time, like the physical building, like being in that building, there was so much energy and like that was the culture. And then when you took away that building, that in-person component, and again, all brands were facing this during the time too, you had to really rethink what culture meant to your employees. And the thing about values and what people value has shifted dramatically since that time and continues to shift, especially as you get into Gen Z and what Gen Z values versus millennials and Gen X and boomers. So being able to have the flexibility, I think as a brand and as leaders to adapt, I think is the number one most important thing you can do. So as a manager myself, it's like, okay, how do I make sure that I'm a different manager for everybody on my team, depending on how they like to get feedback, depending on how they like to receive criticism, depending on how they like to be rewarded and allowing yourself that flexibility

Starting point is 00:12:57 to adapt. We'll make sure that each one of them feels represented and heard. Oh, absolutely. I love hearing you talk about leadership in that way of just like individualizing your approach per employee. I think that's so important. I've been a part of a few organizations in the past where I've had different, very vastly different experiences, you know, on the one side, it wasn't so great. And then on the other side, they really took the time to understand and, and, you know, get a feel for how the individual person works, how they interact with their coworkers, how they value their time away from work, how they get the best work done. And I think when you understand that, and you like pay attention and care about that with your

Starting point is 00:13:44 employees, they're more likely to stick around for a longer amount of time. So I love that. You mentioned a little bit about some of the favorite projects you've been able to work on, but I would like to hear a little behind the scenes of your current day to day. What are your responsibilities as brand communications and PR director? Yeah, I think the best part of my job is being official test taster for any of the new products. So that's, you know, always the best part of working for Taco Bell, you get to try all the cool food. But outside of that, you know, I think the day to day and at least the role of our team is to keep Taco Bell top of mind and moving at the speed of

Starting point is 00:14:24 culture and at the pace of culture and how quickly it shifts. And so, and to do the storytelling behind all the amazing things that we're doing and, you know, working for in the PR team and handling brand communications, we're probably one of the very few, I think, teams within the organization. And this is, can speak to broader communications and other places as well, where you are this support function for just about every single piece of the business. So whether it's dealing with development and new restaurants or HR and new hiring programs or

Starting point is 00:14:59 technology and new AI configurations in the drive-through or food launch products, all those things. We touch all of that, which is really amazing and such an awesome opportunity. But we're in charge of the storytelling and how we want to bring those pieces to life and keep a Taco Bell top of mind and match the shifts that we're seeing within news and culture.

Starting point is 00:15:24 I think that's a big piece of what I'm pushing the team on now is how we show up in the news feeds for a future generation. Gen Z specifically, they get their news differently. And if our job is to show up in the news and they're not going to the dot coms and they're not getting their newspapers, like that dramatically shifts how we do our work. And to me, that's exciting. And being able to rethink what earned media looks like and the revolution it's going through right now. And I love it. And I think we're doing a really good job at doing it. Yeah, absolutely. We'd have to agree over here. We love seeing the content that comes out and the communications around what you

Starting point is 00:16:01 have going on at Taco Bell. So talking to somebody who's behind all of it is really, really cool to get a behind the scenes peek. But I'm curious to hear how you kind of measure success in brand communications and PR. Are there any specific KPIs? I'm thinking from the perspective of somebody listening who may not even be familiar with what those success measurements might look like for this area of marketing? Yeah, for success, it looks different depending on the program and depending on the project. I think we typically, for a lot of ways, looked at success in two different ways for our programs. One would be brand over time, you know, and the other would be sales overnight. So with one of those like sales overnight, our goal or success metrics is driving people into the restaurant. Hey, we have a brand new cantina chicken menu.

Starting point is 00:16:53 Come to the restaurant and try it. And then we can actually use measurement tools to see how much the PR and messaging and communications are driving people into the restaurant. The other piece of the puzzle is that brand over time where something like launching a hotel, the goal is not necessarily to drive people to the restaurants. The goal is to keep Taco Bell in this really special place and culture. And the return on investment that you'll see from that program will be long-term. It will be maintaining the relationship with your fans. And ideally the payback comes in the long-term format. And so I think we kind of break down into those two places.

Starting point is 00:17:35 And the latter I know is kind of a unique one because you don't always get the flexibility to have, oh yeah, well, the success will come down the road. It's not driving people in the restaurant, but trust us, it's still beneficial for the brand. And I think that comes by having trust from leadership and the leadership having a really great perspective on what it means to have a strong brand, especially in today's environment. And I don't take that for granted. So we want to make sure we can balance out, hey, we do need to drive people into the restaurant, but sometimes doing something because it's relevant and important to your fans and maybe it has nothing to do with food is still equally as important. Well, speaking of that relevancy too, I think

Starting point is 00:18:14 one thing that comes into play with general marketing, general PR is just what trends do we activate on? What do we amplify? How do we curate these different activations around cultural moments? So curious to hear an inside look at how you guys decide what to activate upon and how reactive can your team be to some of these trending topics? Does it take time to activate on these things? What does that look like for you guys? Yeah, this is one of my favorite things to talk about because it's so important, especially for today's fast moving pace, that a lot of what we do and have success in it is not planned, right? It's reactionary. And I think in order to be successful with that, you have to have just a strong foundation, a strong team that's put in

Starting point is 00:19:02 place that can move quickly. And that's not just marketers, that's everything from legal to operations to IT, like all of those pieces that are needed to get things moving quickly. So having a strong foundation of that, I think is really helpful. For Taco Bell, you know, I, I always paraphrase this like amazing quote from Mark Twain, which talks about like, there's no such thing as new ideas, right? You take these things, these, these inspiration pieces, and you put them into this like life kaleidoscope and you give them different twists and outshines like different projections based on what you put in and how you twist it. Again, that's like incredibly paraphrased, but the mindset behind it is you take inspiration from consumer behavior and you put them into this little kaleidoscope.

Starting point is 00:19:48 And our job as communicators, as marketers, is to add those twists and see how the projections that you create can really amplify that behavior. The example that I love to give with this is Taco Bell Weddings that we launched six years ago. That was born out of consumer behavior that we were seeing in social. We were seeing a lot of conversation on people getting proposed to with our sauce packets because they have those fun sayings on them. Individually, you're like, okay, that's cool. That's interesting. And then we were also seeing in social people were taking their wedding photos at Taco Bell.

Starting point is 00:20:21 Okay, that's interesting. Like individually, that's really cool. And then we were also seeing people were catering their after photos at Taco Bell. Okay. That's, that's interesting. Like individually, that's, that's really cool. And then we were also seeing people were catering their after parties with Taco Bell and individually that's, that's just interesting. But when you put all three of those things together and you give your kaleidoscope a little twist, you're like, okay, the, the, the insight from here is that Taco Bell plays a really important role in the love story of our biggest fans. And when you have that insight, then you can then the magic comes in, okay, how do we amplify this and how we build it. And at the time,

Starting point is 00:20:49 we were opening up a restaurant in Las Vegas. And I'm like, okay, weddings, Vegas, like something is here. And we launched weddings, like I said, in Vegas about six years ago, and we've done over 1000 weddings, 1000 Taco Bell weddings, over a thousand people or 2000 people have dedicated their, their love to the brand in a way that is just unmatched. So it's the exact definition of brand love. And it's been really cool, but we didn't know what to expect. But it was driven by the behavior of our consumers. Oh, that is incredible. And so fun to hear that over 2000 people have done this with you guys. That is so cool. I know that in addition to, you know, activating on some of these moments, you also kind of act as the brand spokesperson when it comes to press relations and things like

Starting point is 00:21:39 that. How do you kind of approach those conversations? And do you have any tips for brands that are looking to develop great relationships with the press? Absolutely. I think, you know, I mentioned it when I first started talking about the importance of public relations, but relationships is an amazingly important thing for anything and everyone, but obviously as it relates to journalists and the relation they have with public relations practitioners, I equate it to just like any relationship. If you think about the friendships that you have and if you're only hearing from them when you need something, you're less likely to be excited when those people call. A really big thing that we do all the time, and I'm actually getting ready to do it in New York in a couple of weeks, is reach out to our connections and say, I'd love to just pick your brain on how we as brands can better support you as journalists. And it's not the other way around. And so I want to make sure I want to hear what they're working on.

Starting point is 00:22:37 I want to see what's driving their success and then support them in that journey. And I think that comes and that's been a big driver. And I think that the relationships and the quality of relationships that we have, and it's also really important because you need to have those relationships with the individual, not just the outlet. Because if anything we saw in 2023,

Starting point is 00:22:59 there was like the most layoffs since COVID when it came to the newsrooms. 2024, January saw more layoffs than January 2023. So it's going to be another challenging year. Those individuals go other places, right? And whether it's freelance or whether it's different outlets, you can take those relationships with you no matter where they go. But it only comes if you're being really authentic with those connections and

Starting point is 00:23:26 helping support them along with them. Amazing. Well, I want to kind of pivot a little bit and talk about mentorship. So you've done some teaching with Chapman University, which is awesome. I know we've talked to a few people who do similar things and just giving back to students. And you also run a community for YouPath. So can you tell us a little bit about that journey of mentorship and also just touch on why is having a career mentor so impactful for young professionals? Mentorship is so important. And I think I've been involved in mentorship for a really long time. And I think one of the driving forces in that was I wanted into my own world and I didn't want help, right?

Starting point is 00:24:27 Whether that was like cockiness or just me being an introvert. Like I just wanted, I didn't want to, you know, go outside and inconvenience people with my growth. And over time, I really seen that that's not the case. Like everyone was in your shoes wherever you are, and everyone wants to be able to support one another and help you on that journey. And I think mentorship comes in a bunch of different forms.

Starting point is 00:24:56 It can come from people that you observe that maybe have no idea that you even exist. I think one of my biggest mentors was someone who we never established an official mentorship, but she was just a dynamic leader that I was able to watch and I was able to learn from how she held meetings and her pace and her humor and just the way that she was able to command a room. That kind of stuff to me is just as powerful from a mentorship perspective as the actual, hey, will you be my mentor agreements that you may have? So I think it's important to have mentorship across all aspects of your life, whether it be personal or professional from a school standpoint, someone who is able to bounce ideas off of someone who you can connect with

Starting point is 00:25:38 regularly. And it can come from really unexpected places too. It doesn't need to be a mentor who comes from the marketing background. I think a lot of times that's actually more beneficial when you have someone who's out of a completely different industry who has the ability to look at something totally different than you. But again, if I go back all the way to the start of my career, I wanted to be a teacher. And so to be able to do that now at Chapman, I've been doing it now for about two and a half years. I absolutely love it. It's also a great, you know, a study. I have 80 students, 80 Gen Z that I can go with questions at any point in time and say like, hey, what's driving Gen Z?

Starting point is 00:26:17 Like, what are you guys into? What are you wearing? What are you saying? And that helps me be a stronger marketer as well. Then if we talk about for you, Path, I started that during the pandemic. And the goal of that was, again, if you look at my journey, it was built off of relationships. And I wanted to figure out a better way to connect those dots between students and young professionals and seasoned professionals. And especially during the pandemic, where it's already hard enough to make those connections, let alone during the pandemic where it is pretty much impossible.

Starting point is 00:26:49 I want to create a system and a community that just allowed a little bit more ease and simplification to it. So there's free resources. There's a online directory of over 200 mentors that people can connect with. It's all dedicated towards PR and communication. So you can filter it by industry or by in-house or agency.

Starting point is 00:27:10 And then from there, it kind of grew into a LinkedIn job board where jobs are shared and there's always a human behind it. It's not just a posting for posting sakes. There's actually a human behind the opportunity, which allows you to connect a little bit differently. And that's been a huge success. So super passionate. Again, it's the hardest thing to do is reach out.

Starting point is 00:27:30 But I think one of the things that the young professionals need to take advantage of, especially with social media, is you have access to reach out to anybody you want to in the world. Like that's absolutely insane. Like any brand, any individual, you can reach out to them and have a conversation, which is absolutely amazing. Use LinkedIn, like a Google search, find the people who are in places that inspire you and just ask them if you can pick their brain. And it comes from a place of growth, not from a place of, hey, do you have any internships available? It comes from really just a true place of wanting to learn and develop those relationships. And sometimes they're going to grow into amazing mentorships and friendships. And other times it's a one and done. And other times you won't hear back at all, but it's a numbers game. And the more of those seeds that you can plant, the better. Yeah. It's always worth asking. I mean, we tell people all the time who are looking to just build out their network. LinkedIn is a great place to start. And I think a lot of times professionals have this fear of

Starting point is 00:28:29 reaching out, you know, what if they say no, or what if they ignore my message, but never hurts just to try and see what happens. And to your point, most of the time, people are more than happy to jump on a quick call and just kind of share their insights and pass that along. Well, on that topic as well, want to kind of hear, we talk a lot about making mentorship mutually beneficial. So I'm curious, you know, when, when a young professional is approaching a potential mentor, building that relationship out, how can they ensure that there is benefits on both sides and also to structure, you know, what's, what's the best cadence for meeting any tips on, on that and just continuing that relationship over time.

Starting point is 00:29:11 Yeah. I'll, I'll address the latter part of that question first. I mean, I think it's going to depend on the relationship. Again, if you look at normal friendships, you have those friends that you need to meet with weekly to check in, to make sure that that friendship stays thriving. Other friendships you can pick up once a year, once every two years, and it's exactly where you left off. So I think it's going to be really reflective of the individuals that are in that relationship to create that cadence. I have on-call mentors, right? Where it's like when things happen that I need to reach out and it's that conversation that's ad hoc. Or you have like mentorship check-ins quarterly

Starting point is 00:29:49 with these individuals that, okay, let's get something on the calendar. We can talk about everything that's happened between those meetings at that time and kind of just get it all out there and everything in between. So I think the hardest part about mentorship is people feel they have to hold on really tight to it to drive the most success.

Starting point is 00:30:07 But I would probably encourage to let go a little bit and allow the authenticity of a relationship just to shine. And mentorships are going to die too, and that's okay as well. Again, you're not going to hold on to a friendship if you've outgrown them or if they've outgrown you or if it's unhealthy or whatever it may be. I think mentorships, we hold on a high pedestal, but at the same time, it works like any other relationship. Maybe take a step back and really let go of the grip a little bit. It doesn't need to be as structured as what you envisioned it to be. As long as it's beneficial for you, that will come on its own. You know, again, I don't think you necessarily need to set out and be like, okay, this is how I can give back.

Starting point is 00:30:53 It'll happen on its own, especially when you come from a good place. And again, a good mentor will do the same. Like it'll come naturally. And just being able to talk to somebody, again, just being able to show up to class and having a room full of Gen Zers, I get so much benefit from that in ways that they'll never know. And so I think they'll discover the benefit, even if it doesn't feel like, hey, what can I provide to you? The benefit is still there regardless.

Starting point is 00:31:24 Totally, totally agree. And I know that we are approaching the end of this conversation here. So we have to ask you the question that we love to ask every single one of our guests. And that is just what is something that you wish you knew earlier on in your career that you know now? Yeah, I always ask this question when I have speakers come to my class, and I've never gotten it back. And now I realize how difficult of a question it is. So thank you for that reflection moment. I would say, and I give this tip to a lot of my students, which is, if you're graduating, typically in your early 20s, and you retire typically in your late 60s that's like 45 years of work that is a long time especially when i talk to my students i'm like think about the time you've

Starting point is 00:32:11 been on this earth double it and that's how long you'll be working like that is insane and that's depressing and it's hard so i wish i would have been able to better you know um understand that timeline and because i was really eager right when I graduated to get a job I'm like okay three months from graduation I need to interview now I need to get the job day one if I'm graduating on a Friday I want to start working Monday and while I'm appreciative of that drive because I think it's you know helped me in a lot of ways at the same time like man 45 years is a long time i think that three months on a 45 year timeline is a blip on the radar so if you want to take time to travel or if you want to take time

Starting point is 00:32:53 to take an extra internship or just chill obviously that that comes at if you have the opportunity to do that stuff right i had to pay bills i couldn't have the opportunity at the time but i still wish i had that mindset because you're not going to have the flexibility as much as you do early on in your career. You're going to add on more and more responsibilities, whether it be more jobs or house or family. And it's going to be harder to have that freedom, not impossible, but just harder. So take advantage of that moment. Take advantage of the jobs are going to be there when you didn't need them to be there. 45 years is a long time to work. The burnout's a real thing. Take care of yourself, take care of your mental health,

Starting point is 00:33:34 and the good things will come when you need them to. That's so good. Cassie and I always talk about this because we did that exact thing where we kind of took a risk right after we graduated. She moved up to New York. She did. We were both working, but it was kind of still that risk of like, is this going to be long term or am I just doing this to enjoy it for now? I moved to Nashville and we kind of navigated that time together of just what are we doing now after graduation? Because I feel like when people graduate, that seems like the end of something. And then before you start the beginning of something else, it's going to last 45 years. You want a little bit of time to figure out, like, who am I going forward?

Starting point is 00:34:17 And what do I want to bring into this next chapter of my life? And I think that's Cassie and I really learned that during that like summer and time period right after graduation. So I love that you brought that up because it made me reflect on on my time, too. out in your life. And a lot of people don't even figure it out at all. But when you are able to identify it and you write it in pencil, cause it may change, which is totally okay. As you grow, when you have that foundation, it allows you to better view the world and the opportunities that are in front of you. Cause if you have, if opportunities come up and you don't have that foundation, you're more likely to take something just for the sole reason of taking it. And while sometimes you may have to do that, before you know it, you where you are in your path and in your journey, it's the right place that you need to be.

Starting point is 00:35:27 And the hard times will be what drive the good times and it'll be what drives the growth and you need that. But it doesn't, it makes the biggest impact when you have that understanding, that foundation, because it sets you up for success. For sure. And don't forget to check in with yourself, even as you get further into your career, just make sure value alignment is there. Am I on the right path? You know, do I like the leaders I'm working with, et cetera, just to, to stay on track all the way throughout. So yeah, such a good reminder. Thank you for that. Well, Matt, this has been such a fantastic

Starting point is 00:35:59 conversation. So thank you so very much. I feel like we could ask you a million questions, but before we send you off, we have to ask how we can stay in touch with you personally and just all things over at Taco Bell. Yeah, well, obviously, on all the socials, Instagram, X, TikTok, Matt underscore Prince, most of those on TikTok, it's Matt Prince. And LinkedIn, of course, is the number one place to reach out and connect. I'm super available. I make myself super open to one-on-ones and meetings and informational interviews. So let me know however I can help anyone. And then also check out for you path.com.

Starting point is 00:36:40 Like I said, an amazing directory of mentors, amazing free resources for communicators and marketers to hopefully better set people on their path and make sure that we're all reaching our amazing successes. And so, yeah, then obviously Taco Bell dot com, get that mobile app, get those rewards and go out and try some amazing Taco Bell. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much. We'll have all of that linked in the show notes below, but Matt, thank you again. We really appreciate you spending time with us today and passing along your insights. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

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Marketing Happy Hour - Evolving Your Brand Over Time | Matt Prince of Taco Bell

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