A:<\/strong> Chris was the VP of the team I got brought in as the director of at this PR agency. And he was experimenting with machine learning and AI. This was about 2015, 2016, and he introduced predictive analytics to our team.\u00a0<\/p>\nWe all just kind of sat there wide-eyed. We\u2019d heard terms [he was using], but we\u2019d never actually seen them in practice, especially not in marketing. And so the team got really interested. The team was highly technical, more than just like your typical marketing team. They got deep into the technical understanding and coding. And me coming from a development background, I could understand that side of it.<\/p>\n
So I could understand what Chris was doing and where he was going with it. We started to see there was more of a hunger for it, people wanting those deeper, more thoughtful insights that were more accurate, more telling, more actionable than what they were getting.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the PR agency just wasn\u2019t aligned with that. They were more, \u201cLet\u2019s look at impressions and let\u2019s look at coverage trackers, and let\u2019s do things manually.\u201d And we were trying to automate a lot of these things to move them faster.<\/p>\n
We wanted to go where we saw the industry going and what clients wanted, so our hands were tied by the agency. Then, the only way to do what we wanted to do was to start our own thing.<\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>How did Trust Insights get started?\u00a0<\/p>\nA: <\/strong>Chris says it got started over a plate of sketchy sushi in Santa Clara. We were visiting a client in 2017 and both burnt out from the work. He was on the road 50 weeks a year doing new business pitches, the dog and pony show, but not for the services, the martech that we could be selling. I was working long hours and I wasn\u2019t really getting quality time with my family and he wasn\u2019t either.\u00a0<\/p>\nA group had approached him and said we\u2019re thinking about making you an offer to bring you on as a partner. He told me this while we were having dinner at the hotel and was like, \u201cI think I might explore it.\u201d Now I\u2019ve never been shy about saying when I want to be included in a thing and I looked him in the eye and said, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to do that. You\u2019re going to start a company with me, let\u2019s talk about that instead.\u201d So we did.<\/p>\n
I had always wanted to be my own boss, and I\u2019d never really seen the path forward of what that would look like. But when I started working with him, I was like, we work well together. We know our roles. I think we could do something here.<\/p>\n
People want the Chris Penn experience and I don\u2019t want to be on the front line. So I can manage that. I\u2019m not an extrovert. I am very much behind the scenes, and I\u2019m very happy doing that. And he needed to partner with someone who was okay with that because he was always going to be in the spotlight.<\/p>\n
So when I thought about the success that we were having with the marketing tech team at the agency, I thought, \u201cWe could do this for ourselves, but make our own rules. We could probably figure out what this looks like. And I think I\u2019m ready to be in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>You seem like a natural at that.<\/p>\nA: <\/strong>From birth, I\u2019ve needed to be in charge. There\u2019s stories about me getting kicked out of kindergarten because I refused to let the teacher teach. I thought, well, if she can do it, I can do it. And then my dad got called every single day to come pick me up.<\/p>\n\u00a0So I\u2019ve always been, \u201cWell, why not me?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s always been the challenge in my career. It\u2019s like, I\u2019ll be at this level, and I\u2019ll see people up here. And I know I can do that better. Then I\u2019d go to my managers and say, \u201cCan I go do that?\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cYou need to stay in your lane.\u201d Quite honestly, I was tired of being told you\u2019re not ready, stay in your lane, you haven\u2019t been in this seat long enough.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m like, I can run circles around these people. Just let me do the thing. <\/p>\n
Q: <\/strong>How have men responded to that?<\/p>\nA: <\/strong>I\u2019ve been complained about a lot. At the time, it was scary because I was like, \u201cOh, oh, I need to I need to be less, I need to tamp it down. Let me stay in my lane so I can keep my job.\u201d Looking back, those were the times I needed to be more, not less.\u00a0<\/p>\nIt\u2019s not that I\u2019m always right. I\u2019m the first person to say I have a lot to learn, but I\u2019m not afraid to speak up and say, \u201cI don\u2019t think this is going in the right direction. We need to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, a lot of my career was dictated by people saying you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about. I remember when I was a product manager, the vice president of sales and marketing, we were oil and water. We did not get along for a variety of reasons. I didn\u2019t like him because he didn\u2019t remember the URL for the product that he was supposed to be selling, which was five letters long. He didn\u2019t know what it was and I knew the product inside and out. I helped develop it through clinical trials, and I said, \u201cHey, I would love to sit down on some of your sales calls.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I remember him saying to me, \u201cYou can sit in on sales calls when someone of your level is also on those calls.\u201d I was like, \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d He goes, \u201cWell, if there\u2019s a project manager\u201d \u2014 I was a product owner, not a project manager \u2014 \u201cIf there\u2019s a project manager on those calls, then you can be on them, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And I was like, \u201cI really don\u2019t understand.\u201d He thought I was being difficult, but I was genuinely confused about what that had to do with anything. And it was just that kind of you need to stay in your lane. You don\u2019t have enough authority for this. You\u2019re not smart enough. You\u2019re not [the right] gender.<\/p>\n
All through my career, I\u2019ve been told what I should wear, how I should look, how I should act. I remember sitting in interviews for new roles, and my boss at the time told me, \u201cYou need to soften your body language. You look aggressive.\u201d I didn\u2019t even know what that meant. And so, I\u2019ve been dealing with it.<\/p>\n
Even in my role now, I still deal with it, because in public and large crowds, I tend to get very quiet and just sort of like take it all in. And there have been a lot of times when people will address me while I\u2019m standing next to Chris and ask if they can have access to his calendar and if I can set something up. They think I\u2019m his assistant because I\u2019m not saying anything.<\/p>\n
I ran into this recently with a client. I have extensive development and business analyst experience and they\u2019re looking for some support with that. We were talking with them, and the head of IT goes, \u201cSo Katie would you be able to take this on full-time for us?\u201d And I tried to very respectfully say, \u201cI don\u2019t have full-time availability because I run a company. But I\u2019m happy to look at what your needs are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In my head, I was like, \u201cAre you kidding me? Would you have asked Chris the same question?\u201d And, no, they wouldn\u2019t. So I still get it all the time, and it\u2019s frustrating.<\/p>\n
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![\"Katie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Katie-Robbert.jpeg.webp?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\"\/)
![\"Katie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Katie-Robbert.jpeg.webp?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\")
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