In marketing, it’s easy to become a manager and lose touch with the craft. Val Riley, VP of Marketing & Strategy at Unbounce [https://unbounce.com/], has embraced the ‘Player-Coach’ mindset, blending leadership with hands-on execution to stay relevant and drive results.

I sat down with her to discuss how she learned that lesson, along with many more lesson-filled stories from her career.

Stories (with lessons) about what she made in marketing

• Take risks to propel your career
• Stay a ‘Player-Coach’ as long as you can
• M & A = Opportunity
• Marketing is like a soccer team
• Reflect on the day
• Why kindness is a competitive advantage in leadership

Discussed in this episode

Join us for How to take a conversion marketing approach to Agentic AI and RAG (with zero tech skills) [https://MeclabsAI.com/Conversion] on February 12th at 2 pm EST

Entertainment Industry Marketing: Never forget the independence of your imagination (podcast episode #121) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/Entertainment]

Customer Engagement: Marketing case studies from Coors Light, a professional soccer team, and a private jet charter [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/customer-engagement]

Copywriting Contest: Write the best-performing subject line and win [https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting/subject-line-reader-contest]

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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 [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

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If you would like to apply to be a guest on How I Made It In Marketing, here is the podcast guest application – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/page/podcast-guest-application

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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.