Wendy Margolin of Sparkr: 5 Non-Intuitive Ways To Grow Your Marketing Career
By: Kage Spatz
Tags: Marketers, Business, CMO, Marketing, Career Advice

As a part of my Marketing Strategy Series, I’m talking with fellow marketing pros at the top of their game to give entrepreneurs and marketers an inside look at proven strategies you might also be able to leverage to grow your business or career. Today I had the pleasure of talking with Wendy Margolin.

Wendy Margolin helps healthcare providers grow their practices and stand out online with content marketing. As the owner of Sparkr Marketing, she provides boutique content marketing services, one-on-one coaching, and group courses. When she’s not working, she’s busy with four kids, two dogs, and running and biking through Chicago.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My career path felt long and circuitous as I went through it, but in hindsight, I recognize how it all fits together. I got started in journalism, working first at The Jerusalem Post and then at a local magazine in Chicago. I loved the interviewing and writing process, as well as telling stories, but every new issue started to feel the same.

I left that job and became marketing director of a small nonprofit at a precipitous time — 2007. It was just at the cusp of the explosion in digital marketing, and I got to learn everything as it was developing. I consider that job my marketing Bootcamp.

I simultaneously launched a freelance marketing side hustle that’s now become my full-time business, Sparkr Marketing.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you first started and what lesson you learned from that?

I’ve made so many mistakes along the way because that’s the nature of creating massive amounts of content in a fast-paced industry. The good news is that much of digital marketing can be edited in real-time, so I try not to get caught up in the pressure. Done is always better than perfect.

By far my funniest marketing incident was renting a rickshaw for a private school marketing video. It was around the time that the James Cordon Carpool Karaoke videos were popular, and this school used music to change classes instead of bells. I managed to convince the principal to let us make a video of a prospective student touring their new building in a rickshaw.

Turns out steering those massive bikes is harder than it looks, and mistakes were made. We managed to leave our mark on the admissions campaign and on the walls. The best part, though, was when I had to drive the rickshaw down busy streets to reach a nearby park where the cross country team was competing.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

A big breakthrough for my freelance business was when I got to manage all the social media for one of the world’s largest insurance brokers. I spent a year and a half with that company, planning, implementing, and managing all their content and ads.

I learned a massive amount working with that account, and more importantly, it gave me the confidence to leave my day job and launch my business full time.

My key takeaways from that experience are:

Say yes first and figure it out later.

You usually know more than you think.

Don’t ever work incorporate. They have too many meetings.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Sparkr Marketing is young, and we’re still developing our identity and culture. Still, though, I have clients who I’ve worked with for over a decade, which is unusual for consultants. I think this is because I try to deliver more value to my clients with every task — before the deadline.

I also think being friendly is a simple but key tactic to building a business. Even before the pandemic, I always tried to meet clients on Zoom so that they can see my face. Smiling goes a long way.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’m burning the midnight oil to build a course to teach business owners my Everyday Marketing system. It’s a strategy that works for any industry to plan a year’s worth of social media core content in one month.

I want to bring this system to more business owners so they can reach their audience in a more authentic, engaging way without having to hire an expensive marketing agency.

What advice would you give to other marketers to thrive and avoid burnout?

Marketing has changed rapidly over the last decade, and it can be overwhelming. Just when we think we’ve mastered a platform or have a new strategy, everything changes.

Instead of seeing this as a challenge, I see it as an opportunity to continue learning. I left my first writing job because it was too monotonous, so I know firsthand that learning, growing, and striving for better results are key to a satisfying career.

If you find yourself feeling burnt out, tackle something new. Take one of the thousands of outstanding online courses, listen to a new podcast, or challenge yourself to learn something new on the fly — like launching your own podcast.

Finally, one of my favorite ways to get motivated for a challenge is to look back at some leading marketers to see where they were a few years prior. Scroll back on some of your favorite Influencers’ accounts or listen to one of their early podcasts. It’s probably pretty mediocre or even bad. Then scroll forward on your life and where you are headed. Picture it and then go for it.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

My boss at the nonprofit where I previously worked as a marketing director was a key mentor in my life and career. He gave me the support I needed to learn digital marketing as it was developing and rapidly changing, whether it was an opportunity to tackle something new or bring on a coach to teach me a new skill. He also gave me a lot of autonomy.

Finally, he took a keen interest in my growth as a person, giving me books about self-development and even providing parenting advice. He continues to be someone I turn to for advice. I realize then and now that this is unusual and exceptional, and I hope to emulate this kind of leadership for the women on my team.

Is there anyone you consider to be a hero in your life?

It’s cliché, but my hero is my mom. She raised my sisters and me all on her own, with so many struggles along the way. Her life has never been easy, but she somehow remains cheerful and fully focused on others. She is slow to anger, quick to forgive, positive, thoughtful, and generous. She’s full of integrity and exceedingly honest.

Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. If you could break down a very successful campaign into a “blueprint”, what would that blueprint look like?

I have a six-step system called Everyday Marketing that I use in my business and for my clients. Here’s the strategy in an easy-to-remember formula: PSA SEL

Plan your social media content for the year.

Schedule the posts in a social media scheduler.

Appoint ambassadors on-site who can submit news and photos.

Stories on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Engage with those who respond to your stories.

Lock the social media apps when you’re not using them.

With this system, you can complete the bulk of your work upfront in as little time as one week. You stay consistent, even during busy seasons. And when you do have time, you can focus on engaging with your audience in social media stories. The Everyday Marketing system takes time upfront, but then you end up saving time by not wasting it scrolling.

Finally, I recommend clients put a screen time limit on their social media apps and lock them outside of that designated time.

Companies like Google and Facebook have totally disrupted how companies market over the past 15 years. At the same time, consumers have become more jaded and resistant to anything “salesy”. In your industry, where do you see the future of marketing going?

The most important thing to remember for content is that you are a human selling to other humans, no matter what your service or product is. Even my B2B software client is made up of humans selling SAAS to humans.

The best content features images and videos that look natural on the social media channels. Highly produced videos and stock photos don’t perform nearly as well. The text of posts, emails and blogs should also be as conversational as possible for your industry. This is true for organic content as well as for ads.

Can you please tell us the 5 things you wish someone told you before you started?

Set up a routine.

It’s no joke that we entrepreneurs are the hardest bosses some of us ever have. Everyone says setting up a routine is essential, and this is true for me as well. I attribute sticking to my routine to the reason I’m still sane after months of running a business with my kids home during the quarantine.

My routine starts with getting up early, around 5:30. The earlier I get up, the more productive the day. It also means I go to bed early.

There’s a nagging temptation to never stop when it comes to my business–a sentiment I’ve heard from a lot of entrepreneurs. And while hard work is necessary to get something off the ground, setting boundaries is as well. I’m still working on switching gears when my family is home. I’m also committed to pursuing other interests, like running and guitar, no matter how packed my day.

Set aside time to focus on building your own business.

So often I hear small business owners say they don’t have time to focus on marketing or building the structure of their businesses. I get it. It’s tempting to work all day on what pays today’s bills, but if you don’t schedule a time to focus on building your own business, you won’t continue to have a business.

The work I do today to build Sparkr is what will ensure my business grows in the future. I schedule at least five hours into my week when I focus only on Sparkr.

You never lose by giving away free information.

A lot of what I teach in my marketing coaching, I give away for free on this blog, my podcast, and in my weekly Facebook Live sessions. I’ve yet to question giving away free advice. I feel grateful for what I’ve learned, and I’m so happy to help others. I have a tendency to give away so much advice during a prospect call, that the recipient ends up implementing some of it even before we work together. And if they don’t end up working with me? That’s okay too.

I’m pretty confident that the more support you offer for free, the more that will come back to you. Call it karma or kindness, but at the end of the day, you want people to realize that if you give away this much information for free, how much more value is in your paid services?!

Start with a great virtual assistant.

I heeded the advice of other entrepreneurs and hired an awesome VA early on in my business. This felt a little premature at first, but by having a VA, I was able to think of how I needed help. Now I get more done each month than I could do on my own. I recommend starting small, and then each month come up with new ways to work together.

Now before I start a task, I think first about whether I need to be the one doing it. If the answer is yes, I think about how I can make that task part of a system that someone else can eventually implement.

Take action and change it later.

Indecision is an enemy of progress. There are so many parts of my business that have changed in my first year. Just scroll down my Instagram and you’ll see all the versions of Canva templates I went through one year ago until I found something I like better. I even changed WordPress templates in the middle of the year because the one I picked to launch the site was no longer working the way I wanted. I find it’s better to go with what I have and improve it later. Done is always better than perfect.

Can you share a few examples of marketing tools or marketing technology that you think can dramatically empower small business owners to become more effective marketers?

A social media scheduler is essential to marketing your business, even if it’s just your own personal brand. There’s so much content to create, so it’s faster and more efficient to create it in bulk.

I also think Messenger bots are really powerful when you use them well. I’m confident this will continue to grow.

What books, podcasts, documentaries or other resources do you use to sharpen your marketing skills?

There are so many experts who I count among my teachers. I cycle through podcasts such as Amy Porterfield, Stu McLaren, Rick Mulready, Duct Tape Marketing, StoryBrand, and Passion Economy. Podcasts have been my friend on a lot of lonesome COVID runs.

I love the books by Donald Miller, Marketing Made Simple and Building a Story Brand. Ann Handley’s book, Everybody Writes, is my favorite current book on writing. Finally, Donald Miller’s Business Made Simple course is essential to anyone in the business. Are you seeing a pattern here?

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

The most inspiring movement I know is one I already support. The movement is called Momentum, a program to inspire Jewish women to live their most meaningful lives. Thousands of women around the world join a 10-day trip to Israel and then follow that up with a year of learning and growth. Once a woman is inspired among a community of friends, she can bring that back to her family and community. I’ve been a group leader on this program three times, and every year is powerful and life-changing. If this movement continues to grow and if other faith and minority communities can replicate it, then we would all reap the abundance of good that would come from it.

Thank you for taking the time to do this and for sharing so many fantastic insights with us!