Poshmark Stays Trendy w/ Employee Innovation | Connections Ep. 24 | Salesforce

It's incredibly important to work in different industries because you see how different companies try to solve the same problem about how to drive consumer adoption, how to change behavior, and ultimately how to win consumers hearts and minds. And for me as a marketer, it's been fundamentally interesting to be able to say, hmm, I remember how we solved this problem at that X company. Maybe we could take parts of that solution and see how it can apply to us. Which I think allows for pattern recognition at scale. And as a marketer, I think that's one of your biggest weapons is to be able to do that.

Hey, I'm Sarah Franklin and welcome to Connections, where we hear from some of the most innovative leaders in marketing. My guest today is Steven Tristan Young, the CMO of Poshmark. Poshmark is a popular social commerce site where 80 million users buy and sell clothes, home goods and electronics. But it all starts with community. So I'm here in the Mission Bay neighborhood in San Francisco to hear how that has been Steven's focus from day one. Steven, thank you so much for being here with us on Connections. You were born in the Philippines and moved to Los Angeles when you were 10. How did that experience shape you?

One of the most important things I think it really developed is a sense of empathy for people who are always on the outside. And I think for me growing up with a single parent and I had a sister and we grew up in a one bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, it was really the kind of experience, I would say, that helps the build character. And that's one thing I'm really proud of, is going through that experience of being an immigrant and really understanding what it means to be alone and isolated. For me, especially growing up now as a leader, understanding that people come from different backgrounds and not everyone has the same path and different journeys, it really helps me have built empathy for people.

I love that. And I also love that you had a dream, you knew in college that you wanted to be a cmo. What made you decide to do that?

I realized one, I didn't want to be a banker. I didn't want to be a lawyer, Definitely didn't want to be a doctor. And I remember I went to business school, which was for me, something I wanted to follow as an entrepreneur. And I love the arts. I love creativity. And then when I took my first marketing class, I just lit up. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. It's like, it's fun. People are bringing creativity. People are bringing human psychology. People are bringing thoughts about how to Change behaviors together as one. That is fantastic to me. And I said, there has to be some sort of career here. Now. It required having a sense of self to be able to say, I'm not gonna follow the path that everyone else is following. I'm gonna follow my own path. This is what I love and I wanna keep doing it.

You've worked for companies like Puma, Amex, DirecTV and Grubhub. How has that shaped your mindset as a marketer?

It's incredibly important to work in different industries because you see how different companies try to solve the same problem about how to drive consumer adoption, how to change behavior and ultimate to win consumers hearts and minds. What makes a customer want to be loyal to a financial services business? What makes a customer want to order food delivery? What makes a customer want to order resale? And for me, as a marketer, it's been fundamentally interesting to be able to say, hmm, I remember how we saw this problem at that X company. Maybe we could take parts of that solution and see how we can apply to us. Which I think allows for pattern recognition at scale. And as a marketer, I think that's one of your biggest weapons is to be able to do that.

You worked on the famous Centurion card, which most people know as the black card. How do you promote brand loyalty for a product that people see as mysterious or secretive?

So I have to tell you, that was honestly one of the most amazing jobs I've ever had. I think as a marketer, the biggest question I had was like, how do I market a product that's not even supposed to exist? And the whole idea around creating mythology around the product, creating strong word of mouth, is really what was the most important part about that loyalty. It forced you really think how to say no more than you say yes. And because when you say no more, you create mystique. As an example, most people get their credit cards in an envelope. We created a card carrier that was modeled after a safe deposit box. It literally is the kind of experience you're supposed to go, wow, I can't believe they did this. And really create mythology around that and drive word of mouth and make people desire. You create loyalty by creating that desire.

How do you do that at scale?

I think it requires a lot of thought, especially when you think about messaging. When you think about your value proposition, you can't please everybody, but you can serve a majority of the people and make sure that they understand what your business stands for. Customers hiring you, Are you doing the job that the customer hired you for. And I think if you always think about that at the core, no matter what the product you're selling and thinking about at scale, you will always serve your customer right.

And how do you as a marketer, educate at scale as well?

Yeah. What I love about when I join these new industries and new categories is to really think about what are the preconceived notions I have about how something works and challenging that and saying, well, let's go back to customer research. And when you start to really unpack all of these customer insights, you start to realize, wait, there's a way of explaining the product, there's a way of explaining the category, the benefits. That almost feels, I would say, incredibly simplistic. But when you get down to the core of the simplicity is how you can then really get to changing that behavior and then use that as part of the nugget of how to create your customer campaigns, your value propositions, your messaging principles. I think that's when you really hit on that marketing gold mine.

And when you hit that gold mine, that's when you get growth.

Well, I think it starts to lead to growth.

Yes.

I think there's still a lot that has to happen. There has to be, you know, the media allocation. Who are your demographic and how do you approach them? So so much more goes into that marketing. I would say cocktail mix. That as a leader, it's always my job to understand, like, how is this cocktail mix changing every year? What is it going to be like in two, three years from now?

When you joined Poshmark, there were already 40 million users calling all Poshmark lovers.

You look so pretty.

It still has the freaking tags. How have you approached driving that next chapter of growth?

I think there's so much Runway. I mean, if I think there's 350 million people in the U.S. we have barely touched even the surface. As I joined the team three and a half years ago, I knew that as we want to grow, it's going to take not just thinking about channels, thinking about marketing strategies, thinking about investment. It would also require me to think about the team. And I love this as a challenge to say, here's the team I have today. How do I develop the team of tomorrow? How do I change the mindset of the customers that we have through my employees? And I think that's something that I really wanted to make sure that I thought through. I remember even this one lesson about for every hour you spend with executives, spend two hours the team member.

Yeah, right.

Something that simple helps you Better understand your team and know who they are. So you create that bond and you retain and you actually can grow them over time.

Poshmark is really good at keeping up with all of the social media trends. How do you stay in tune with everything that's going on?

It's incredibly tough. I'll say. We were one of the first advertisers on TikTok. The way my team thinks about innovation is really creating that safe space that I want people to tell me, like, what's the next hot thing? What's the next big idea? And that it's not going to come from me, it's really going to come from my team because they're the ones who are constantly on the edge. They're the ones who are looking at the marketing channel. They're the ones talking to other peers and saying, well, what's working for other companies? What have they tried? What have they not? I think that's the best way to really is to foster that sort of thinking around innovation and that safe space and that there is no wrong answer. And I think if you can get and foster that kind of thinking in the team, that's how you remain on the edge.

And speaking of your team, you have a philosophy on hiring. You want a high will but medium skill when you're hiring. What does that mean?

But whenever I'm interviewing, I'm really trying to understand someone's potential in the things that they've been cared about, that they're passionate about. Have they demonstrated such high will that they just want to own it, do it, learn it? They may not know how to do the job today, but if they've shown passion, whether it's in sports, in school or something else, that to me is a great example of someone who has high will and medium skill. And especially in high growth companies, it's a new problem. It's a new company every six, seven months. And I think high will, medium skill people can adapt really well. They're in fact the kinds of employees you want when things are constantly changing.

You talked about community with your family and now you're kind of talking about community with your team. How important is community in all of your marketing and with your customers and with everything you see with the business?

For me, community has been a very important thing in my life. I mean, back to what we mentioned earlier, I don't think I would have survived growing up in an inner city if I didn't have a strong community around me to support me. Joining Poshmark, I realized, oh my gosh this business is not just an E commerce business. There's a whole entire community of people that sell, that survive on Poshmark. Thinking about that customer from the very beginning was something I wanted to make sure that I honored and that I didn't just say, hey, there's probably another 50 million customers somewhere else. But really, how do we continue to cultivate the ones that we have? Let them be our best advocates. Let them help drive word of mouth.

But people also have feedback too.

They have a lot of feedback.

Yeah. How do you get that input from the community, especially when it's so large and huge? How do you do that?

One thing I'm incredibly proud of is a lot of our customers have a direct line to my CEO, to a lot of our senior leaders are founders. And I think that, to me, is amazing. Every year we have this event called PoshFest. People come from all around the country. They share their stories. It is such an amalgamation of sellers, buyers, people who are just fans of the platform. And I think that's where even we have a hackathon where we share a lot of the results with our customers, and they give us feedback like, that's great. I don't know about this. So this one, I do more of that. And that's a great360 opportunity for people to really be heard. And I think most of the time, your best customers just want to be heard.

How important is that for marketers to have your values as part of your brand?

One of my favorite values for Poshmark, and by the way, funny story is this when I was interviewing.

Yes.

I remember walking through the office and I saw one of our company values on the wall. And I immediately took a photo and I sent it to my partner. I was like, oh, my gosh, this is the company I'm meant to work for. And the value is called Embrace youe Weirdness.

Oh, I love this.

And for me, that has always been my core. It's like, I'm weird. I have a lot of weird eccentricities, and it's what makes me who I am. It's what makes me love marketing. The fact that this company has that as a value. Said to me that this is the place I need to be at. And I think just noting also that embracing that weirdness allows you to be vulnerable, allows you to just admit who you are. We want people to be who they are.

So I know this section of San Francisco is really special to you. And Poshmark is all about community and having fun. So I thought maybe we could play some mini golf.

Yeah, let's do it.

You think we can get a tee time?

I think so.

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