Harnessing Purpose

Welcome back to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. I'm your host, Sara Payne, and I'm bringing you fascinating conversations with some of the industry's top marketing minds. Today, we're talking about something that sits at the very heart of meaningful, effective marketing purpose. And I'm thrilled to welcome back a familiar voice to the podcast, Melissa Forres Shackelford. She's a health marketing strategist, consultant, and keynote speaker who spent more than two decades shaping brand and growth strategies for organizations like Optum, Hazelden, Betty Ford, and Cigna's Evernorth. Melissa is also the author of the new Amazon number one bestseller titled Harnessing Purpose, A Marketer's Guide to Inspiring Connection. In the book, she explores purpose on two levels, both personal purpose as a leader and brand purpose. She makes the case for why aligning the two isn't just good for morale or messaging, it's good for business.

Melissa, I'm so excited to talk to you about your new book. Welcome back to the show.

Oh, thank you for having me, Sarah. And I'm just, I'm a big fan of the show. So, so grateful that you've invited me back. And again, since the last time, we have not done our in person coffee when we both live locally. We're going to do it now.

We are going to make that happen. We absolutely are. Then I can get my copy of the book signed by you personally too. That would be wonderful.

That would be wonderful. Perfect. Perfect.

Well, to kick things off, why don't you give us kind of a high level overview of the book, what it's all about and what really inspired you to write it.

Well, I can tell you a little bit of how I got the idea. So I'd been wanting to do a book for a while and just because I have so many people in my life that I really admire that do a ton of keynotes and all of them kind of have a book as a launching pad. So that had sort of been on my bucket list, but I couldn't figure out what was my topic. And then I did another marketing podcast and the host said something that really struck me. He said, so many young marketers are leaving the profession because they feel like they've sold their soul. And I really understood what he was saying because marketing has gotten pretty, in a good way. Data driven.

Yes.

Sort of manipulative. With marketing, we can get people to think and believe and do a lot of things. But that really had never been my feeling. I never felt like I'd sold my Soul. And I think part of that was I always chose very mission driven organizations even though I've worked for some Fortune 100, several Fortune 100s. But I feel like I've always had amazing teams, amazing leaders and really felt that mission in my heart, particularly in healthcare. And I think you and I have talked about this before. People are drawn to healthcare even in the marketing sense because we feel like we're doing good in the world.

And so I think you get a lot of mission driven people in marketing, even though I rarely if ever have a chance to deal with a patient. And so for me I thought this would be a great article where I could really talk about how I find purpose and meaning in my marketing and I have throughout my career. And then the article sort of turned into a second article sort of the, then I thought this could turn into a whole book. And so that's really where it came about. And like you said, I tried to, at least at the beginning it was really speaking to other marketers that maybe haven't had the same experience that I've had and sort of sharing my experience around finding such meaning and purpose in my work and with the brands that I've worked with. And then it kind of evolved into the second half of the book speaking to brands and, and I think we all know people today are craving authenticity and if we're somebody who's in a marketing communications, even a founder or a CEO type role, we need to think about are we really being authentic and purpose driven in our marketing?

Yeah, I love that backstory because I think that you're absolutely right. Burnout is a very real issue and a very real concern for many people. And so you know, you, you taking this on and offering some inspiration on how to sort of refine if you originally had it like find that joy and that purpose again in, in what you're doing whether it's in healthcare or not, but in, in the marketing space. And one of the things that I, I mentioned in the intro that I really liked about the book is how you distinguish between that purpose per personal purpose as a marketing leader and the brand purpose. Talk to me a little bit about why that distinction is so important and how the two are connected.

Well, first of all, I think it's important for all of us to find purpose and meaning in our day to day lives and, and these days there's all this buzz that Gen Z is really purpose driven and wants to find meaning and shared values with their brands. But I think it's, I'm certainly not Gen Z. And I think it's important and I think a lot of my peers find it important as well. So I think having some sort of understanding your personal purpose, but finding meaning in your day to day role, whatever you happen to do, I think is just so important to find that fulfillment. But beyond that, when you have marketers who really understand their why and they feel tied to the why of the business, I feel like that's when you get the best marketing, that's when you get the most authentic communications, when you can tie them together. Because you've got marketers that really get it. They understand why they're there, they understand how they tie to the brand's mission and purpose. And it's gold.

It really is. It's gold in those situations. And that's not every day. It's not everybody's situation. And like you said, there is a ton of burnout in marketing because there's so much pressure on marketers. And marketing professionals are just in such a high profile, really role. So they get the, they get the good and the bad, they get the blame and not always the pat on the back.

Yeah, absolutely. You talk a bit about how being grounded in purpose. You said gold.

Right.

And it's like that sweet spot where you're kind of just in that, I'm just going to use the word flow.

Right.

And, and, and your, your creativity goes up, your motivation goes up. You even talk about it in terms of resilience and resilience to that, you know, potential stressors, that potential burnout. What does it look like in practice in terms of, you know, getting, getting to that space and getting to that point of, of flow?

I can speak to my experience as a marketing leader and really bringing my team together to understand all of our personal why and then kind of the why behind our team. And I think when we focused on that in the past, you get just teams that are so cohesive and that you'll kind of do anything for your colleagues. And that just makes granted that's not just for marketers, that's for anybody. That just makes a really powerful and engaged department. And that builds onto really psychological safety. And psychological safety, I think is at the core of what you just said. When you feel that tie to your colleagues, when you feel like you can take those risks, when you all are marching to the same drum beat, then you have enough of that safety to really be creative, to stretch the boundaries, to do what you need to do and to stand up for what's right. But it kind of, for me that flow and a creativity goes back to that psychological safety.

It's a good point and especially in a team environment that's people are not willing to take risks and be creative when they don't feel safe.

Yeah, it's such a great point. You want to have both of those things. You want to feel a purpose in the work that you're doing. And that psychological safety is incredibly important as well. You also talk about really making a strong case that purpose driven marketing isn't just a feel good concept, that it's actually good for business. Can you walk us through some of either the research or examples that really back that up?

Yeah, there is actually a ton of research out there that shows that. There's articles that are on Harvard Business Review, there's lots of research by Deloitte, by Eny, all of them show and let me just grab the quote is that 85% of companies with a clearly defined purpose have their sales increase and 42% of companies without a purpose have seen their revenues stagnant or decline. I mean it's all there in black and white.

Yes.

It shows over and over that there's kind of a purpose premium. When companies really are mission driven and they understand their why and their meaning, they perform better. It ties back to though I think a lot of it's around employee engagement and engagement with your customers. So companies who really understand what their values are, they tend to find like minded customers. And those are not just transactional relationships, those are meaningful relationships. Same with your employees. When your employees feel engaged, they're giving more of their sort of discretionary efforts. So I get why the research says that, but there's plenty of research out there that shows purpose driven companies outperform their competition.

Yeah, I love that you talk about the importance of the connection to that purpose, both with employees and customers. That's where you're going to find the most significant impact on the business is when you take time to really make sure that that connection to the purpose is strong for those two different audience groups. Because I think a lot of organizations, and I was just having this conversation with a client the other day, a lot of organizations are clear on why they exist and what their purpose is. For sure. At the executive level.

Right.

Could be a founder situation, could, could be not. Could be new leadership that wasn't part of the founding of the organization. It's at least up here.

Right.

And I'm pointing to my head.

Right.

It's at least in their heads, they're very clear about it. But is everybody else on that bus with you.

Right.

Like your employees first, because they become the additional amplification and reach to your customers. And they're. They're the service arm, they are the sales arm. They are the boots on the ground that are going to be the articulators, the communicators of that purpose out there in the world. They're the ones building the product. And does the product is built with purpose? Does it, you know, is the quality level higher?

Right. All.

All of those things that contribute to a better overall experience. Anyway, I'm stop there and just sort of let you riff on that a little bit, react to that a little bit from your perspective.

I think it goes back to, honestly, Management 101 engaged employees who understand what their goals are, what their marching orders are, they're going to perform better and they're going to treat their customers better when they understand what their kind of their shared goals, their shared values are. I think it just, it's very. A lot of this is just very basic for organizations, and I think it kind of even goes beyond what you said. Sometimes it's in the head of the executives. Sometimes they get real performative and throw it up on a poster on the wall.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or, you know, they have slogans around the office. It's on your lanyard. Okay, well, when you're not walking the walk and you're just sort of talking the talk, or if it's very performative, we say all these things on the posters, on the walls, that almost does more damage than good with your employees, but particularly with your clients or your patients. Like we know in healthcare, it's really easy to damage that reputation and damage your trust.

Absolutely. They can see right through it. When it's more on a performative level, for sure, your book is positioned as a roadmap. What are some of the key steps or principles as you outline them for marketers who want to harness purpose more in. Intentionally in their work?

Well, if you start with really thinking about, you know, what is your purpose and that's really your reason for existing, and whether it's for yourself or for your company. And. And then you think about your. Your vision, and that's really where you're heading, whether yourself or your company, and then your values are sort of how you behave along the way. And so if you had to have a roadmap, a lot of companies will say, okay, here's our. Here's our values. But again, very performatively. Oftentimes when a company's truly living their Values.

I feel like I've definitely been at some organizations where I felt the values and they lived by those values and they made hard decisions about their strategy based on those values. And that's when. So when they were really clear about that and they used that as a sort of marker for decision making. They used it for their hiring, they used it for their onboarding and orientation of new employees and then they used it with how they deal with their customers. That kind of, it just seems very simple plan. Then of course you're going to bring on the right types of employees, you're going to train them in the right manner and then you're going to seek out the right kind of customers that fit with you and your values because you're very clear on what your values are and how you're expecting everyone to behave. And I think we all know there's PR disasters happen. It seems like every day where a company espouses one thing and then they do another thing.

And that's the fastest way to erode trust across the board.

Yeah, absolutely. I love how you define it in terms of like this, the ultimate place to be is for it to become a decision making filter for your employees. Because you're absolutely right about that. Like it should be so clear that in any given situation there, there's standing alone with a tough decision to be made.

Right.

On what how to serve that customer in that moment.

Right.

And there's no time to hit pause and run it up the flagpole for buy in. It should be clear to them what to do in that situation because they can rely on the purpose and the core values as that foundation for making that decision in that moment. Great litmus test in terms of are you there?

Right.

Does it allow you to give your employees that nice decision making framework or filter? You talk also about how getting to purpose requires that really deep introspection and willingness to be fearlessly yourself.

Right.

Unapologetically yourself. It's powerful, but it's also vulnerable. What should brands and marketing leaders be thinking about as they go down that pathway in terms of really embracing that deep introspection and that what makes them authentically that brand?

And I think a lot of this goes back to what we talked about a minute ago, that this is why organizations perform their competition. And to answer your question, I'd say it for myself personally as well as just for leaders, I think being taking the time to understand your own personal why, to really understand what gets you going, what's your own North Star, what's important to you as a human being and then also bringing that into what's important to you to how do you want to be seen as a leader? I think that just makes us so much better as far as leaders go. And when we're even speaking with that voice as a, from a leadership perspective, we're really, truly leaning into authentic leadership because we're not trying to be something we're not. We're living to our values and people can see that. It makes you a leader that people want to follow. And I think it's so easy as marketers, I think as marketers, we're always thinking about how does this translate to customers. Whether it's B2B or B2C or in healthcare or any other industry, we're always thinking about that. And I think we understand the kind of leaders that we want to follow.

I understand the kind of leaders I want to follow and the kind of leader I want to be. And then beyond that, how then if I put myself in my customer's shoes, what am I looking for? Well, we know these days people are really craving that sort of authenticity. They want to work with brands that have values that are aligned with theirs. And they can tell, you said it before, I mean, they can spot things that are not brands that are not living their values and are not following what they purport to be their purpose. They could spot that from a mile away. And you're not going to get engaged, long term relationships with their customers that way. People are going to march because they have the opportunity these days. And with the mean, with the rise of people can shop online for doctors, they can see reviews for doctors, they can go on Glassdoor and see reviews for companies.

There's so much of that. If you're not really following what you say you're following, people know these days you, you can't get away with it. And, and I feel like there's always a new PR disaster because companies are saying one thing and doing another thing.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know the word, the word that's coming to mind right now is courage. The courage that it takes to stay committed to the core values and the purpose and, and use it as a decision making filter, but also really thinking hard about that as a filter to the marketing. So going back to what you said at the very beginning around burnout and performance driven marketing and data driven, I think there's so much temptation these days to look at the numbers and have the numbers reveal to us, you know, what is the next content piece we should write or you Know what is the next angle we should take for this campaign? That is one set of input or insight I believe we should be using, but the other critically important set of insight should be to the core of this purpose and core values. And we all know this to be true. But for some reason this is hitting me on a very different level in real time in this conversation that I'm going to throw it out there. Do we as marketing leaders use our purpose and our core values as enough of a strategic driver for the campaigns and the content that we are developing, not following what others do? There's so much temptation around that. Our competitor just did this the other day.

This, you know, leading tech company that just entered the healthcare space did that the other day.

Right.

There's this, this temptation to look at what others are doing and run in a similar direction rather than being that, you know, be fearlessly you, your brand. What are your, what are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, I, I think it goes back to. I, I really believe and I, I feel like from all of our conversations, I feel like you believe this too. Is that marketing can a force for good? Yes, and yes, marketing can. I mean, we know a lot about people. We, people, I think, would be shocked about some of the stuff we know about people and their online habits, even their offline habits and who they are. And the data that we can dig into these days is, is shocking really. But it, you know, it's, it's. Sometimes it's not a bad thing.

You know, I look at a pair of boots and I really like them. And then, you know, two weeks in the. I see the ad over and over and then it shows me that they're on sale. Great. That was wonderful. I love that because then I can buy those boots on sale. But we can do a lot of very manipulative things. We can easily prey upon vulnerable populations.

You have to be certified, go jump through all these hoops to make sure that you're an ethical player. So yeah, there's a lot of things we can do that are very negative as marketers. But if we look at marketing as a force for good and if we're kind of upholding more sort of ethical standards, I feel like it's really leaning into our purpose and what can we achieve in a positive way?

I love that. Let's talk about some examples. Can you share a favorite example either from the book or from your other personal experiences of a brand that's doing purpose driven marketing really well? And what can we learn from them?

Well, one is, one that I use a lot is Tom's, the shoe company. Just because they were really, at least as far as I found, they were the first who said buy one pair of shoes, we're going to give one away. And there nowadays lots of companies that have that as a model and I just feel like when they're thinking about what they stand for, what their values are, they're really, really crisp and they haven't fallen off of that. I mean, and they've had others follow what they're doing and not every brand's going to be doing something like that. But it makes it pretty clear if I'm their market, I know exactly what we stand for. I sure feel awfully good about what I do on a day to day basis and sure I'm out there to sell shoes, but I also know that the customers I'm attracting are attracted to our similar values and those are customers that will maybe like our shoes. But also they're here because of our message and what we stand for. So that's when I just think they kind of changed a lot of what we do and they've had so many followers in that same vein.

Yeah, absolutely. Do you think it's harder in B2B than, than B2C? I mean, you're right, Tom's great example.

Right.

And kind of the, the inspiration and poster child, if you will, for really living your purpose. Do you think it's harder in B2B?

So I've spent a lot of time and I know you have too, in B2B. And I think, I think you can still be very purpose driven and focused on your values in a B2B sense. And I think a lot of brands, particularly in healthcare, Even if they're B2B, they're very clear on what they're doing and why they're innovating and, and why they're having these relationships with their customers. Because ultimately, in a B2B sense, a lot of times, you know, you don't touch the individual till further down in the cycle. But I mean, goodness. I worked at UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world. And there we talked about all the time how we are making people healthier. And ultimately I knew we were, but there's a lot of different steps along the way.

But it just, I think it helped us all to have a North Star and even a company as large as that and as complex as that and for definitely for profit as that. The fact that our employees and our customers all knew that ultimately we were making people healthier is a great thing.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. If, if a brand leader or marketing leader is, is listening to this conversation right now and, and feels like they're kind of stuck in a rut or like a business as usual kind of mode, maybe they feel they've lost that North Star, as you refer to it, what's something they can do this week or more immediately to really start shifting that focus toward back toward purpose again?

I think there's something you can do just as an individual, and that's really to spend some time thinking about your. Why. Why do you get up in the morning? What excites you? What is important to you? I mean, for me, I love being a leader. I love developing, whether it's young marketers or other folks, I love that. It really gets me excited. And so I'm very clear about that. Same with other leaders. If they're kind of stuck in that rut, what excites you? What fills your cup, if you will, what is your personal North Star? I think that helps because even in a company that's not in healthcare or not a nonprofit or not something like toms, which is so obvious, if you're a software company, a financial services company, what have you, you could still find meaning in what you do.

If what you do is like me, if you want to help grow other leaders and other marketers, great. You can find kind of value and meaning in that. If you love being creative and I'm not a designer, I'm not A writer? Well, I wrote the book, but I don't consider myself really a creative writer or any of that. But there's some people that, that's where they get their juices flowing. And so being able to say, okay, this is my why, this is what excites me. And then to go forward in their day to day life as a marketer or as an executive, I think that's one step. And then frankly, and I think a lot of us have done this is if you don't really find alignment with your values and your purpose in your day to day role or at your company, it might be time to make a change. And not everybody has that luxury.

It's a scary thing to do. But sometimes, you know, that is an important step for people to take. And if people are willing to do that, I always recommend. You gotta interview them just as much as they're interviewing you.

Yes.

You gotta test her. What are their values? Like you said before, sometimes it's very performative. It's something executives say or it's something that is a poster on the wall. You need to test these organizations whether you're going to work for them or whether they're going to be a partner with you or even in any other kind of environment to really test them, to see is this just something they say or is this something they really live and believe?

Yeah, I think there's a feeling that you get in those moments when you are, are, you know, asking these about, about values and purpose that, you know, there, there's a, there's an energy and a passion and a feeling. Particularly you know, when you're together in a room. Like there's just something, there's like a real kinetic energy that, that generates that helps you know, that this is, this is true, this is authentic. And I think that's great advice in terms of spend this time, do the introspection, you know, reconnect to your personal why and if it's not there, I mean, sometimes we, we gotta accept those hard realities that maybe it is time for a change. Those are tough decisions to make, but sometimes they can make all the difference in terms of overall job satisfaction and finding your, your right place to be. I'm, I'm curious, Melissa. You know, you're, you're Amazon, you know, number one best selling author. You've been out there doing the circuit, right? You, you, you keynote a lot of different conferences and you, you've been out there promoting the book.

What is one thing that has surprised.

You or.

Validated this whole adventure of writing this book, it's either surprised you that people have sort of mirrored back to you or something that's really resonating with your audience that you go like, oh yeah, I wasn't expecting that. Or like, wow, this was exactly what I wanted this to be. How has that experience been for you? Seeing your work not only be down on the page, but then being sort of mirrored back to you through your readers?

I tell you, I can think of a couple different things, but my very first editorial review that I got, it just, I was jumping up and down because I realized they understood what I was getting at. And it was just very validating because it was just, it was by like a book review site, not, you know, an individual reviewing on Amazon, but it was an editorial review and it wasn't a marketer. And they really understood that marketing ultimately can be a force for good. And it can be more than just the Data and the KPIs, but also it can improve your data and your KPIs. And they really got it. And for me, that was just thrilling. That an outsider could, number one, validate and, you know, give me a five star review, that was wonderful. But also that they really understood what I was getting at and found value in it.

And I tell you, there's been others who are people in my network that I know and respect and they've said that they've read the book and they very much aligned with what I was getting at. And for me that's just, it's just thrilling because I know that there's so many people, whether they're in healthcare, whether they're in marketing, whether they're a founder that understand that you want to have meaning and you want to find fulfillment in your work and you want to feel that from the brands that you buy from. And as a brand owner, you want to be able to communicate that and create those kind of relationships with your customers. So for me, all of that has been lovely and surprising and validating and I love it when I can share this kind of message with others, especially like you, who, who really get it and are, you know, especially in health care. We're, we're all in healthcare because we're to some extent very mission driven people because we all could work a lot of different places.

Yeah, I love that, I love that. And just congratulations on, on this journey and the success you've had with it. And thanks so much for being willing to share this with our audience today. Such a powerful and inspiring conversation. And I'm going to tell our listeners, if they haven't already put it in their cart, get a copy of Melissa's book again. It's called Harnessing Purpose. And Melissa, before we go, what's the best way for our listeners to connect with you or follow your work?

I would say follow me on LinkedIn, connect with me there. I love that as a platform because it makes for really easy two way communication. And you can always go to the book website harnessingpurpose.com for more information there and reach out to me there as well.

Wonderful. Thanks so much for being here again second time around on the podcast and if you didn't catch the first episode with Melissa, it was on inclusive marketing, so be sure to check that one out as well. Thanks so much Melissa.

Thanks for having me, Sarah.

You bet. If today's episode challenged you to think differently, do us a favor and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for being part of the Health Marketing Collective where strong leadership meets marketing excellence because the future of healthcare depends on it. We'll see you next time.