Lica Wouters: Mixed Martial Arts to Marketing AI | Women of HubSpot

Welcome to the Women of HubSpot podcast, the show that celebrates the voices shaping marketing technology and the ever evolving HubSpot ecosystem. Hosted by George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies, each episode brings you the stories, strategies and superpowers of the women driving this industry forward. It's their time. It's their mic. This is Women of HubSpot.

Hey, it's your boy, George B. Thomas. And we're back again for another Women of HubSpot podcast. I'm super excited because I'm not here by myself because that would be awkward and weird. But I'm here with Leka Lika. How the heck are you doing today?

I'm great. It is actually thundering outside, so if you hear an occasional clap, then that's what it is.

Well, there you go. I, I hope that it we at least keep Internet and thunder. You know, sometimes thunder can be somewhat calming, but what's going to be calming is conversation that we're having today. Let me catch everybody up to speed. Listen, it was a while ago. We won't talk about how long time is flying, but you know, when you're having fun, that's what happens. Super bowl it is the Philadelphia Eagles, which by the way, I got asked earlier today on another one of these episodes, are you a Phillies fan? To which I said, no, I'm not. I just was watching the super bowl, but Phillies were in, in the Super Bowl. My daughter started to have a conversation about how the quarterback had an all woman team behind him and I saw her face light up and I saw how my two daughters started talking together about it and I was like, wow, like this was impacting me emotionally. And so I went to LinkedIn. There was no strategy. I put out a post and the post was simply, hey, if you know a woman of HubSpot or a woman that works at HubSpot or uses HubSpot and they're killing it. Let's do something. Let's shine a light on them and viewers, listeners. Leka, you were tagged in that post. That post went nuts. I mean there was no strategy, but it's probably been one of my most engaging or engaged with post. And so after that we got done watching of super bowl, eating food and my daughters and I had a conversation like there's something here. We need to have these conversations and we've set out on this path and that leak is why we're here today. We're going to have the conversation about you and how you're awesome and the journey that you've been on. So you Ready?

Yep. Totally ready.

Okay.

Are you ready?

I'm, I'm ready. I'm, I'm buckled in. I, I, I got a helmet over here. If I have to put it on, I'm, I'm ready. We're gonna, we're gonna have fun. So we'll start from the beginning. If, If. Well, first of all, you know what? Why don't you actually let the viewers and listeners know kind of who you are, what you do and where you do it before I actually start this journey?

Okay. So I am originally from Europe. I was born in Holland. I grew up in Switzerland, and I moved to New York when I was 19. 18 years old, kind of Cosmopolitan. And I've been here ever since. Started my own business, rolled into the HubSpot ecosystem. I think I'm very much aligned with HubSpot in the sense that the core has always been to solve for the customer. I generally like to help people, and, yeah, so most of the stuff that I do right now is HubSpot related and AI related. We had a bit of a downturn, and if you're familiar with super, they did a 50k pitch last year. I was one of the contestants, and I talk about this extensively, and I. And I will keep on talking about it. I just had a really sharp downturn, pretty much beyond my control, and I managed to turn it around. And then sometime at the beginning of this year, I said, you know what? Instead of going up market, which HubSpot wants everybody to go up market, I'm not going up market. I am not scaling headcount. I am trying to rebuild everything. AI first. So that's what I've been up to. It's very much been a building year for me, and I'm super excited for the future.

I can't wait, man. Now we have your background to talk about when we're done. By the way, if you're listening this, you should be watching it on YouTube. Between the two backgrounds, if I do say so myself, the show's looking pretty dope, and I want to nerd out with you on AI because that has been a definite thing that we have been focused on in the last year, year and a half, almost two years now. But now let's get into the journey. Let's get into the questions. Lica, if we could go back in time and meet young Lika just starting out, One, what would we see? And two, what would she be most surprised by about where you are right now?

And it's. It's a bit of a personal one. Too younger me, I think I was very naive. I came from Switzerland, very safe country, almost at the time, almost no crime whatsoever. Moved to New York City, you know, not that New York City is crime, crime ridden by any means. It's a lot of hype and overblown in the media, but definitely not at the same level of Little Zurich, Switzerland. And then I lived through 9 11, so that was a bit of a shift for me as well. If, you know, I often categorize myself as pre 911 and post 911 because I do think it had a really big impact in my life. Not, not that I was in the Towers or anything like that, but I was in the city. I did help friends go to the hospital and yeah, have some very vivid memories even all these years later on that tragic day. And I think before if you would have met me, I would have said that I was very idealistic and very strong sense of what is right and what is wrong. And afterwards I was a little bit. I lived a little bit more in the gray areas. I realized that everybody has a story. My perspective might not be the prevailing perspective. And I think overall that's really helped me in the way that I run my business. Just being able to use that and use empathy to understand that other people have maybe a differing perspective. Not that I may agree with it. They just, it's just different. They just, you know, go through life with. With a different perspective. I think it's also really interesting too to see the youth right now that I identify that young version of me very much as well because they see life so black and white. And I think as you get older you also generally get a little bit more jaded.

So what, what would she be most surprised about where you're at right now?

I came here for, for film, so really not anything AI techy. I think she would be excited that I was getting involved in AI. I think she would think that was cool.

Love it, love it. I think it's cool. I also the Switzerland to New York to 911 to business owner to like you've already even talked about how downturn, transformation, pivoting AI rebuild. Like we're like one question in Leka and already this journey is starting to formulate into an award winning story. So let's keep going through this. Who along this journey that you've been on, who are some of the biggest inspirations or mentors that you've had along the way?

Early on I worked for Jeremy Warshaw. He was a commercial director and he came from Saatchi and Saatchi and was big in the advertising world and he really taught me about stories. This was also after. No, it was actually before 9 11. But he taught. He taught me about stories. He was very good at interviewing people and getting the real story out of them. And I remember being a PA in his company and if we had some kind of commercial that, where they went in and they had to interview someone who was hoarding bunnies, and it was a great commercial. He did a great, great story on them, but he was just able to pull stories out of people. And he was just. He was also very, very kind and easy to talk to. But he had this. He had a gift for that. And I think that's kind of stuck with me. And then Dan Tyre. Shout out to Dan. He. He was very instrumental when I came into the HubSpot ecosystem. He was always ready to like, talk me up and, and you know, be like, don't keep your chin up. Keep going. So. And Dan just has great insight as well. So love Dan. And, you know, now I feel bad because I'm probably forgetting people, but I'm.

Sure there have been those two.

Yeah, those two stick out the most.

Yeah, I. I love me a good dose of Dan Tire. And what's interesting too is the. The first person you mentioned, this power of story and you mentioned, like, just easy to get along with. And it. My brain immediately went back to your other conversation that we're having where you mentioned the word empathy. And it's interesting to like, have these kind of word patterns of like, story and empathy and listening and. And so it's. It's, you know, and by the way, Dan probably has all of those wrapped in him as well. We're gonna go into what I call the Valley questions. There's about three or four questions. They're not the easiest questions, but I think there's a lot of lessons that can be learned out of the. The things that we'll talk about. And then just so you know, we are going to crest up into the mountaintop and the peak. The fun questions towards the end as well. But I want to ask, like, have there. Along your journey, have there been any hurdles or biases that you've had to overcome in your career and how did you navigate those?

Yes, I'm a woman. I also. I worked at Tiger Shulman's mixed martial arts back in the day. I fought in the Golden Gloves. I was. At one time. Yeah, at one time I was the sparring partner for the number one ranked female mixed martial arts Fighter. This was before Million Dollar Baby came out. This is before women were accepted in mixed martial arts. Yeah. And to a certain degree I do feel like we kind of helped put some cracks in that ceiling. But at the time specifically there was just no opportunity to fight and was, and I have to kind of put an asterisk there. Yeah, there was opportunity to fight, but nothing that would have been safe and sanctioned. And you know, I'm not that silly. So you know, we're kind of entitled to the same safety that the men got. And I knew that back then as well. So there was some just like, hey, women can't do this. And so I've had that discrimination. And then there's also, you know, just in, in the work workforce, I can't tell you how many times I've lost a deal and they've gone with another fast talking solution, someone who just could really talk fast. And then they've come back and they've been like, you know what? I think we, I think we messed up. I think that we should have gone with you. So we get that quite, quite a bit.

Yeah. I too have heard those exact words before as a HubSpot consultant or agency as well. So it's interesting because I hear you talking about first of all, mixed martial arts female, like when the part of the question was how do you navigate it? And it's like, man, I just, I go, I do the thing. Like I go do the thing. And then the other part when you're talking about the agency, it just feels to me like it's okay to lose it and okay to actually embrace them when they come back. Would you agree with kind of those two pieces?

Yeah, and, and I've really wondered at times, even with the 50k pitch that I did with Super. Listen, 50k, it's a lot of money on the line, right. So who's going to turn that down? And I didn't know if I, how that was going to affect the business to be able to say like, oh, we had such a significant downturn. Like, you know, I let go of a team. Not easy either. And to kind of talk about a loss because, you know, there's a certain like part of you that's like if you talk about your losses then you're not seen as winning and if you're not seen as winning then you can't really build anymore. So I, yeah, I've had some doubts as to whether I should even make this or use this as a part of my story. And I have to say up to now, it's been nothing but positive. Most people have responded in a way where it's like, you know, I recognize myself in that story, so I think in hindsight, it's been a little bit more rewarding. But I, I can't lie and say I, you know, this is a great story I was going to lead with now that it came with a bunch of doubt.

So I love that you've embraced to tell the story. For me, I've learned that the more I can be vulnerable enough to share the times when I just didn't have it all together, when I didn't know what I was going to do, those are the times that people really connect because it's real and it's authentic. And honestly, Leka, I feel like that's when we build the most trust, is when we're willing to be vulnerable and open with folks. And so I love that you're using that story. Speaking of being vulnerable and stories, have you ever faced a moment where you felt underestimated, maybe even overlooked or just kind of out of place in life or in this industry? And again, how did you handle it when you're in that scenario?

Duh. Yeah. I have to say, like, I, I'm, I, I, I think it would be hard to find a woman that hasn't had that on some level. And I think I, we deal or I deal with it the same that most women do with it. We, we just keep going. There's, you know, we're not gonna be swayed by it. And I can't, I honestly can't say that there has been a time where I felt like it happened more. And I've also made a conscious effort to surround myself around women that are not, that won't pity themselves. I know that you've talked to Omi from DS Cooper and Tracy from Graziani Multimedia. So to be around these women, and I'm sure I'm forgetting other women as well, but to be around these women, they're not sitting around and just kind of pitying themselves. They're just like, we're going to go and do it. We're going to support each other. And I think that has offset maybe a lot of negativity that would come into my life. It really helps to kind of have your little tribe.

Yeah, I love the lessons there. It's a community, the belief of rolling up your sleeves and getting it done, not having a pity party. And just the word that keeps just coming to the front of my forehead on that is this persistence, like, just to Keep at it and keep going. I absolutely love that. Okay. I swear, we're gonna. We're gonna crest out of these questions in a hot minute. But. But I still have to ask you, have you ever experienced a significant failure or a setback? And out of that failure or setback, like, what did you learn from it?

So I've had several setbacks. They're not. I can't just be like, oh, one. I've had several ones. And I think the more setbacks you have, the more you're like, oh, I'm here again. Like, I've done this before. You know, I think if you're. If you're, you know, using your mountain and valley analogy, if you're always, you know, climbing and you've never experienced a valley, then that first time that you're in that valley, it's going to be a little bit rough because, you know, like, do you keep going or do you. Is. Is that the end? Right. But because I've had so many mountains and valleys, when I hit a valley now, I'm like, okay, you know, we're here again. It's this thing that's not so fun. Like, let me just keep going. Let me just keep working. And then usually it does, you know, it does turn into a mountain again. And I. And I have a purpose, and I see the summit and I'm like, oh, okay, let's go. So have I had failures? Yes. But I do think I have a certain amount of grit. I don't quit. I just keep going. I think that's been my saving grace. I don't know what I can credit that to. Maybe it's my upbringing. Maybe it's just the chemistry in my brain. I don't know. But I do know that I keep. Keep going. And every time that I have a setback or a failure, it's just a little bit easier.

Not that you don't still have fear, but the fear is less because you know that you've made it through things like that before. And it's interesting to hear you tell that part of your story. It's almost like this understanding that there's a season for everything. And just like winter, spring, summer, fall, like, the season's going to change. I'm not going to be in the valley forever. I am going to make it to a mountaintop at. At some point. So I think even having that buried deep inside you is what. What leads to that grit that you're talking about, that persistence that I kind of mentioned earlier. So, okay, we're going to start climbing this mountain. Lika, what does empowerment mean?