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November 4th, 2025

IT Consultancy Marketing: A marketing and sales team divided cannot stand (episode #155)

  1. IT Consultancy Marketing: A marketing and sales team divided cannot stand (episode #155) Millie Hogue 39:29

Blandvertising [https://marketingexperiments.com/copywriting/writing-meaningful-copy].

It’s a word I coined 13 years ago to describe a wishy-washy marketing claim.

The type of words that fill a copy block. They look right. And it’s probably sprinkled with words like “scalable,’ ‘ecosystem,’ ‘user-centric,’ ‘best-in-class,’ ‘leading,’ and on and on. But after you read them or hear them you realize – they don’t really say anything at all. 

So I loved this lesson I read in a podcast guest application, “A brand that says something is more important than saying everything perfectly.”

To hear the lesson behind that story, along with many more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Millie Hogue, CMO, Hakkoda [https://hakkoda.io/].

Hakkoda is part of IBM. IBM reported total annual revenue of $62.8 billion in 2024. At Hakkoda, Hogue manages an internal team of nine along with an array of 20 vendors and freelancers.

Lessons from the things she made

  • A marketing and sales team divided cannot stand
  • A brand that says something is more important than saying everything perfectly
  • Expertise matters more than ever
  • Build for your audience
  • The success of your team is YOUR success

Join us at our next virtual event

AI Executive Lab: Transform billable hours into scalable AI-powered products [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ai-executive-lab-transform-billable-hours-into-ai-powered-products-tickets-1872389821359] – Tuesday, November 11th at 2 pm EDT. 

Discussed in this episode

Marketing Experimentation Strategy: Define and differentiate between experimentation and execution in marketing activities (podcast episode #93) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-experimentation]

Authentic Brand Transformation: To build a brand that lasts, consider rebranding a team sport (podcast episode #137) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/authentic-brand]

Analytics: Driving business value matters more than perfect models (podcast episode #133) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/analytics]

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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

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.