Where do you see yourself in five years?

I always hated this interview question. It’s not that I’m against planning; it’s that I’m for flexibility. And I don’t want to get trapped in a five-year plan.

I try to focus on delivering value today helping people out, and improving my future self for tomorrow, and from there, opportunities naturally arise.

So a lesson from this episode’s guest really resonated with me – ‘be open to where your path takes you.’

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Melinda Marchesi, Chief Marketing Officer, Prosper Marketplace (https://www.prosper.com/).

Since its founding in 2005, Prosper Marketplace has originated $28 billion in loans for two million customers. Prosper Marketplace is backed by leading investors including Francisco Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Third Point, and Jefferies.

Marchesi manages a team of 30 and a $50 million marketing budget at Prosper. Throughout her career, she has managed teams as small as five and as large as thousands, and marketing budgets from $20 million to hundreds of million dollars.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

Here are some lessons from Marchesi that emerged in our discussion.

• Be open to where your path takes you
• Marketing can lead to many other things
• Know the numbers and how your work impacts them
• Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you
• Respect people’s lives outside of work
• What are YOU going to do about it?
• Passion and curiosity fuel the best work

Discussed in this episode

Get a Quick Start AI Productivity Kit when you apply for your free three-month scholarship to the AI Guild (https://join.meclabsai.com/) – courtesy of MeclabsAI, MarketingSherpa’s parent company.

Marketing Career: How to become an indispensable asset to your company (even in a bad economy) (https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/marketing-career)

The Data Pattern Analysis: 3 ways to turn info into insight (https://marketingexperiments.com/digital-analytics/episode-2-using-data-as-a-force-for-the-good)

Enterprise Solutions Marketing: You can make a big career, and still stay human (podcast episode #99) (https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/enterprise)

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This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages free digital marketing course.

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Daniel Burstein Podcaster

Daniel Burstein is the Senior Director of Content and Marketing at MarketingSherpa and the host of the ‘How I Made It In Marketing’ podcast, where he talks to marketing leaders about the lessons learned through their careers.

He also reports on successful marketing campaigns and industry data in MarketingSherpa articles, and helps facilitate the AI Guild from MarketingSherpa's parent organization, MECLABS Institute.

Daniel has 23 years of experience in copywriting, content writing, interviewing, speaking, business journalism, content marketing, sales enablement, and field marketing communications.