Episode 27: Winning at Business and Life with Jenifer Salzwedel

This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Salzwedel, and I head up the marketing operations function at Polly. We have been around for about a year now, and we were formerly Plantronics. And Polycom and came together just a couple years ago. I'm also a wife and a mother to college-age children, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I'd like to think I have a pretty active life.

Jennifer, it's great to have you on the show. Question number 2, what's the best thing about working in your industry?

So in our industry, one of the things that I love the most is that we create products that help people connect and collaborate. I'm actually using some of our products in this meeting right now. And I think it helps to create meaningful connections on so many levels. And so I love that about our industry. And then what I love about what I do in marketing operations is we kind of get to look under the hood of the marketing function. We get to study how marketing is working or not working. We get to look at our investments and try to analyze, you know, where should we be spending more money? Where should we stop doing activities? So I really love the marketing operations function within the overall company structure.

That's really neat. Question number 3: I hear from other business leaders that staying in a good work-life balance for them and their team members is a challenge. What are your thoughts?

Absolutely. I personally think that it's about life balancing and figuring out the right ways to fit in the things that we all need to do, because we all typically sign up for way more than we're capable of doing. And so one of the things I wanted to share today is I'm a 100% remote worker, and in that, I think that there are some key things that you can do to help help balance your life. One of which is, you know, I realize in the current climate that a lot of people are being asked to work from home and it may not be something that you're used to. But my first advice is to go to work. Still get up at the same time, get yourself ready, get yourself dressed as if you were going to work. And if you have the ability to have a designated location at your house to work, that's important too. You know, a place where you can close the door and keep the distractions out, I think is a a great way for, you know, anybody to have the focus that they need to be able to do work from home. I also would like to, of course, recommend using professional products. So again, I'm using one of our speakerphones today. I have headsets that I can use on the fly. I have a little camera that's helping us have, you know, good video experience. So any of those things are good to have. And finally, you know, build purposeful connections. Find a way to have one-on-ones more often. Check in with your teams. And there's great ways to do that via— sometimes I'll set up just a coffee break or, you know, meet over lunch and not actually have a meeting, but just talk about life. I think that those are great things that you could do while you're remote working.

I would think that doing something like that, talking about just life and how they're doing, that just builds a lot more rapport with, with your team. Wouldn't that— would you agree?

Absolutely, absolutely. And again, it's just sometimes like being more human about life is life and being able to show that people can deal with the things that come in fast. I'm one who's experienced a lot of those types of things in my family's journey, and therefore, you know, it really helps to have management and managers who understand that.

I agree 100%. Question number 4: What other successful business leaders like yourself should be on my podcast?

Ooh, I'd like to nominate Sam Melnick from Allocadia. Allocadia is a marketing investment tracking system that we use at Polly, and he has been with their company for a long time and has really helped them grow into the company that they are today. So I recommend him. And then I also would recommend Judy Crawford or Lori Stein, who both work for Crawford Group, and they are a marketing research Resource Agency, who have really grown over the years, and a women-owned company and things like that that I think are really great for companies to look into and understand how platforms like that can work well in organizations.

Perfect. I appreciate those recommendations. I'll reach out to them.

Great.

Question number 5: What insight or advice would you like to give to other business leaders?

I would like to say in the current climate, you know, with everybody working from home and having to juggle you know, children at home during your workday, which you may not be used to, or animals that have to be right near you, is just being flexible and being real and being— and understanding that these things happen and having a sense of humor around it, that it's just OK. You know, things aren't going to be perfect. And in that, I think that flexibility is just going to make us stronger in the long run. Mm-hmm.

I couldn't agree with you more. And question number 6. Tell me about your first job.

Sure. My first career job was in the sporting goods industry for Caseless Tennis Shoes. And I was an athlete in college. I played volleyball. And so to transition from college into a job where I could just completely relate to was a really fun way to kick off my career. And I've been in marketing my whole career. And just, you know, it was a great platform to start from.

That's neat. It brings me back to my high school days. I had K-Swiss tennis shoes when I played on the tennis team.

Yeah, I was going to say lots of people had K-Swiss tennis shoes when we were in school, right?

Exactly right. Brings back great memories.

Yeah.

Jennifer, thanks so much for being on the show. How can people find you?

On LinkedIn is a great place. You can find me by first name Jennifer with one N and Salzwedel, S-A-L-Z-W-E-D-E-L.

A-L-Z-W-E-D-E-L. Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.