From In-House Marketing Ops to Independent Consulting with Carey Picklesimer

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Hi, I'm Michael Hartmann.

Naomi Liu (0:01)

I'm Naomi Liu.

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

And I'm Mike Rizzo. And this is Ops Cast. A podcast for Marketing Ops Pros. And Rev Ops Pros.

Created by the MoPros, the number one community for the marketing operations professionals.

Naomi Liu (0:15)

Tune in to each episode as we chat with real professionals to help elevate you in your marketing operations career.

Courtney Makara (0:23)

Hello, I'm Courtney Makara, and this is the Society of Marketing Technology Consulting Podcast. SMTC has joined forces with the marketingops.com community, but our mission is still the same, to educate and support anyone involved in the MarTech world as a consultant.

SPEAKER_1 (0:39)

Hey, this is Mike from marketingops.com. If you were thinking about going into consulting or you're already a successful consultant, join us online by becoming a member. As a pro member, you can join the SMTC and other private networks at marketingops.com.

Courtney Makara (0:55)

In this podcast series, Grant Gregorian and I interviewed guests on their journeys as consultants. We discussed all that it means to be a great MarTech consultant from setting up their business or joining an agency and how to find new clients and keep their existing clients happy. I hope you enjoy the interview.

Joining Grant and I today is Carey Picklesimer, based in Jacksonville, Florida.

Carey Picklesimer (1:17)

Hi, guys. Hello, Courtney and Grant.

Courtney Makara (1:20)

Hello. Welcome. Thanks for joining us.

Carey Picklesimer (1:22)

I'm so happy to be here.

Courtney Makara (1:24)

Great. Well, we just want to talk all about MarTech Consulting, the in-house, the out-house, the in-between. All in-betweens, it sounds like you have done a little bit of it all.

Carey Picklesimer (1:37)

I have. I have been out-housed before. My career, I always like to bring it back to where I started, which was I'm a graphic designer by trade.

Then through the process of working at ad agencies and working my way up, different places, ended up working as a sales and marketing manager, where I used a little bit of design and a lot of marketing. Through there, my career has just evolved more into the marketing and technology space.

I spent about 12 years working in-house marketing for a fleet management software company. I always described them as Salesforce, but for vehicle maintenance. I was really lucky while I was there that they implemented Marketo. We were already using Salesforce. I got really familiar as a Jack of all trades, working in Marketo and about a year into it, I remember thinking, I don't think I'll ever do a job again where I can't use Marketo.

Grant Gregorian (2:36)

Oh, that's so cute.

Naomi Liu (2:38)

I love that.

Carey Picklesimer (2:38)

Yeah.

Naomi Liu (2:39)

Great.

Carey Picklesimer (2:41)

Through that, we were able to grow a team to about five. I've done a marketing operations role and then I've consulted independently for about a year before I joined Perkuto, where I'm a senior consultant.

I've gotten to experience all of the different things that you mentioned earlier.

Courtney Makara (2:58)

Well, I want to go to that transition from you had your in-house role, and you were loving the tool, you grew your team, why rock the boat? Why change? Was it like career growth motivated or?

Carey Picklesimer (3:10)

You know, it was a combination of career growth motivated. I feel like a combination of that and then also family life. Sometimes when you're in-house at a technical organization, you're pulled in so many different directions. You know, I wasn't just doing marketing automation or ops, you know, we're also doing direct mail, we're also putting on trade shows, we're also making sure that we've got business cards for people, you know, kind of the common story about how they expect you, everybody in marketing, to be a unicorn.

And so there was, after a while, it was a bit of a burnout, but I also loved what I was doing. And so getting into the operations side, I really enjoy getting to kind of solve new problems and consulting was that, is that opportunity, right? Like you're always working with new clients, or clients are bringing you new problems. So each day is a little bit different. So that's kind of how I decided to step out of the in-house world, was just the opportunity to kind of work on my own and tackle those new problems for different clients.

Courtney Makara (4:13)

When you say that sentence, just like, I decided to step out and do my own thing. I know when I decided it was, you know, a very long decision with lots of nerves of imposter syndrome. How did that go for you?