Have we forgotten the story we’re supposed to be telling? 20 Great Answers with Jorge Villalpando, Head of Marketing for HPE, South Pacific

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (00:02): 

Storytelling is actually something that gets missed and that we’re not doing enough of. When you think about the most successful salespeople, you think about successful salespeople that tell stories. They tell stories and they are able to pull at the heartstrings or at the purse strings or at whatever strings it is from that prospect customer, and that’s what essentially gets them on board. In marketing, we tend to forget to tell the tale of who we are as an organization, why we do what we do. Instead, we focus on telling people what we do. 

Barrie Seppings (00:39): 

Welcome back to Plugged In, Switched On, where we pull you into the conversations that matter in B2B tech marketing. I am your host, Barrie Seppings, and the quote you just heard was from Jorge Villalpando. He’s the head of marketing for HPE across South Pacific. More from Jorge in just a moment. 

Now, if you are new to the pod, let me show you around. We do three things here at Plugged In, Switched On. Firstly, we get some of the most interesting people in B2B tech marketing like Jorge, and we ask them 20 questions, tell us why and how they do what they do. Secondly, we have some special episodes where we look at the core skills that a marketer needs. We pull them apart, see how they work, and see if we can’t improve them just a little bit. We’ve done episodes on ABM and partner marketing and a few more in the works, really worth looking at if you need to brush up on your skills in those areas. Finally, the third type of podcast, we pull back the curtain on how these B2B teams and leaders operate. Take a look at their day-to-day, see if we can’t steal a few ideas, tools, and tricks for our own operations. You are more than welcome to listen into those episodes and steal a few ideas for yourself and for your teams. 

Now, we don’t try and do all those three things at once in a single episode. We do like a little bit of focus here at Plugged In, Switched On. Today’s focus is an interview. We want to get inside the mind of a B2B tech marketing leader, and the way we do that is to ask every guest the same 20 questions and invariably we get 20 very different answers back. Let’s go. 

Jorge Villalpando, you are the Head of Marketing at HPE South Pacific, and your first question as always is the elevator pitch. What is your company selling and why would anybody pay good money for it? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (02:31): 

We live in a world where the market is shifting all the time. Backed by more than 80 years experience, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is leading the way in innovation in technology. HPE is the global edge-to-cloud company and we’re well positioned to help businesses of all size to connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live from edge-to-cloud. HPE technology essentially empowers companies to turn insights into outcomes. We are totally in the business of business transformation, and every company out there has a problem to solve. And whilst not all challenges can be solved by technology, we at HPE believe that technology can improve the outcomes and definitely can have a direct impact on how we all live and work.  

Barrie Seppings (03:19): 

Question number 2 is the superhero origin story. 

Did you grow up dreaming of being the head of marketing for a technology company? Was technology something that you were interested in from an early age? And what did Jorge in high school think he was going to do for a career? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (03:36): 

Well, Barrie, I grew up dreaming of becoming an architect. That was until I realized that the job would require geometry, trigonometry, math, and drawing skills. I thought, “This isn’t going to ever happen.” Little did I know that over the years, the trade would be revolutionized by technology so much that none of those skills are essentially required today. Then I decided that I would be a doctor, and I could have done it except for the force behind my adventurer me was far too strong. And because of that, I settled for becoming an ambassador. Big dream. That was definitely the dream. I studied international relations and studied languages, and then became an avid traveler and finally I became a marketer. If I could do with a Back to the Future scenario without any of the side effects because I wouldn’t like to change anything else about my life today, I would absolutely do political science and land an ambassadorship to one of the big powerhouses of the world. There’s still time so I just say, “Watch out, Kevin Rudd.” 

Barrie Seppings (04:48): 

What’s your ideal posting? Which city would you go to if you had the call? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (04:51): 

Oh, I don’t know. That’s a pretty difficult one. But I speak French fluently, so Paris would be one of the first on the list. America provided that it hasn’t imploded. And I don’t know. England, I think, would be quite lovely, although probably not the most exciting location though. 

Barrie Seppings (05:07): 

Question 3, I do this for free. What part of your job do you just naturally enjoy and find yourself doing probably more than you should? And the opposite question there is also is who do you think has the worst or the most difficult job in B2B tech marketing? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (05:23): 

When asked that question, sometimes it’s very difficult to answer because it forces you to get yourself in a corner going, “What is it that I actually like to do?” Of all the things I do or I have to do on a daily basis, I particularly and personally enjoy solving puzzles, working out riddles, finding logical solutions and feasible solutions to everyday problems. This is essentially part of my job, helping people mostly with loads of First World work problems and work challenges, but the essence nonetheless is there. It’s all about helping people solve whatever challenges they’ve got at hand. 

(06:03): 

I think you’ve mentioned the second part of the question, and that was one of the most challenging jobs in our industry is actually lead generation. And many, many skills are required to do this often thanklesstask, and that in itself is like finding chocolate in my pantry. But yes, that, I would say, is one of the most difficult things about marketing. 

Barrie Seppings (06:35): 

Question number 4, control, alt, delete. What’s the one career move or moment that you wish you could just go back and undo? Do you recall a moment in your career where it just struck you? “Oh wow, I’ve just learned a valuable lesson here.” 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (06:50): 

Definitely. There’s always a moment like that in everyone’s career. At one point or another, I was looking after the sales and marketing processes for a cloud services company. We were actually approached with a significant opportunity. We were working on the RFP. We were working on the solutioning. We were working on everything that was going to lead us to success. Business owner wanted us to offer a solution where we required working hand in hand with a partner in the industry to deliver the outcome. I wasn’t convinced of the approach but still went ahead with that. We worked in a solution with a partner and unfortunately that partner was actually briefing our competitor on what we were doing and we lost the business. 

(07:37): 

I particularly lost faith in commercial relationships for a long time, but I think one of the things that was mostly disappointing was not taking the time to slow down and go, “Wait a minute, the inner voice is telling me something’s not quite right here.” And still went ahead with everything as scheduled when perhaps there was suspicion of things not going in the right direction. 

Barrie Seppings (08:03): 

So it’s the take out there. Are you much more a trust your gut kind of leader off the back of that? Because that’s a stinging kind of situation to be in when you get that trust betrayed? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (08:13): 

Absolutely. I think business is all about relationships, and how you nurture them and foster them really makes a difference in your position within an organization or in how you actually do business with an alliance partner, with a solution partner, or with a customer. So having the ability to take the temperature on how relationship is going, I think it’s really key and being able to tune into that is definitely very helpful. 

Barrie Seppings (08:41): 

Would you say you’re naturally a good read of people, a good judge of character, or does that come to you through a bit of trial and error? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (08:47): 

I think to me it comes naturally, so yes, I think it’s probably a learned skill from years of seeing politicians at work and from years of being interested in what’s happening around the world, understanding pain points, identifying opportunities, being able to develop that rapport with your prospect or your customer or your partner. 

Barrie Seppings (09:12): 

Question 5, shout out. Who have you learned the most from in your career, even if it was perhaps what not to do? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (09:20): 

I think I have to give you the PR-friendly response to this. In all honesty, I actually have to tell you that I’ve learned a great deal from my teams and colleagues. I think every single one of them on a daily interaction has definitely taught me a lesson and has contributed in some way to my style of collaboration or to my style and leadership. Once upon a time I worked in hospitality and very early on you learn that doing the right thing by your colleagues eventually comes back full circle, so it’s a no-brainer. It’s lead the relationships and lead the life that you’d like to benefit from in a work environment and you’ll be happy. 

Barrie Seppings (09:59): 

Yeah. Is there  anybody you’d like to name when you made that shift into marketing? Who was the person that really helped you along with sharpening your skills or showing you the way? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (10:11): 

I think there’s definitely been a couple of people out there in the marketplace. They probably don’t know it, but there’s been a couple of people out there that when we were doing some cross-alliance co-marketing campaigns, I would actually get across a completely different approach by a different organization and by different styles of leadership, and that was definitely very healthy and very rewarding, I thought. 

Barrie Seppings (10:43): 

Question number 6, the only constant in marketing is cliches. So the rate of change in our business is fairly celebrated and perhaps even fetishized, particularly in the technology end of it. But we know that humans, we kind of hate change or we resist it.  So how do you convince yourself to continually lean into and accept change? It’s coming at you all the time. Or hey, aren’t you exhausted? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (11:09): 

It is exhausting, but I think my approach to change or to adversity or to challenges, it’s to essentially weather the storm and make the most of the wind. Change is constant, and having the right attitude really makes a difference in how you get the outcome that you want. It makes a difference in how you eventually get your colleague humans to essentially join you on the task or help you along with the task. I’m trying to avoid the word journey but it’s impossible. 

Barrie Seppings (11:40): 

Well, it is a question about cliche, so I feel like this is the one question. Go for it. You can cliche as much as you like with this answer. 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (11:47): 

It’s true, but you know what? I think all of us in marketing know intimately what change is all about. Why? Because not only do we have to adjust to the change that comes our way on a daily basis. We also have to implement that change and we have to convince people within the business that change is okay and that whatever change we’re trying to implement is actually the right approach. I think we’re uniquely set up in marketing to cope with and to adopt as well as to promote change. 

Barrie Seppings (12:21): 

Do you get a sense that marketing is one of those areas that really attracts or is attractive to people who like change or even novelty or need that stimulation? Is that something you’ve seen with all the people that you’ve dealt with in this role? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (12:34): 

I think people in marketing essentially know that it is far from the rosy picture it gets painted as. It gets painted as a fantastic career opportunity where everything’s rosy, everything smells like wonderful flowers, and everything is directly linked to getting on a flight and going to some exotic location. Far from it. Having said that, that does take place from time to time, but the amount of work and the amount of efforts required to eventually get there and to actually execute on something that would qualify as a highly after activity, definitely a rewarding one is enormous. 

Barrie Seppings (13:17): 

Question 7, here’s to your health. You’re in a demanding job and it’s a bit of a… These are brain jobs, head kind of tasks. We’re always sitting down thinking. We’ve got a lot of screen time. What are you doing to stay physically and mentally healthy in a job like yours, which is full of stress, full of pressure, full of expectations? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (13:38): 

Yeah, I think definitely health is super important. I think from a physical point of view, there’s so many things that can be done to ensure that you stay on track. I love, for instance, having a coffee with a colleague and walking at lunchtime just to have a great way for conversation, a great way for pondering, problem-solving, as well as a great opportunity to get the body moving and stay in check. Outside of work, I like to personally be surrounded by nature, listening to birds, chirping birds, and seeing nature at its best. It definitely helps me cope with whatever challenges that swung at me throughout the day. 

Barrie Seppings (14:23): 

Are you a bit disciplined about unplugging, getting off the screen, getting off the tech, seeing as you’re in tech and talking tech all week? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (14:32): 

I think for the past three years, I have been super, super dedicated to my lunchtime. So my lunchtime is my dedicated time for me to not do anything else, and everything and everyone else has to work around that. Why? Because it’s the time that I have to slow down, think about something else, go out for a little walk around the garden, go out the front, go out of the office and go and get a coffee and just be in my own thoughts and self. You absolutely have to do that. 

Outside of that, I think I do definitely face the challenge that most of us face when we have stakeholders or customers that require something after hours. I think the new legislation, it’s a great move forward for everyone to not necessarily go down the path of utilizing the legislation in some sort of legal process. Not at all. I think it’s good for policy and government to essentially highlight the fact that, hey, mental health deserves a place and mental health means that after hours as people are having time, downtime with their partner, significant other, family, kids, all of that, they have a right to fully disconnect and not have to think about what the challenges of the organization may be for that particular day. 

Barrie Seppings (16:03): 

Do you feel like that’s a response? And there’s new legislation in Australia about the right to refuse contact from your boss outside of work or the right to not respond. Do you think that’s in direct response to the blurring or the bleeding of work and leisure that’s come out of COVID when everybody was at home and now we don’t know if we’re at work, we don’t know if we’re at home? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (16:30): 

Well, I think it’s probably a direct response to striking a balance between what is it that can be expected of us. Yes, while some of us do benefit from having additional freedoms throughout the day to quickly go run an errand or you have five minutes and you want to get up from your desk at home to go and take the rubbish out, that’s fine. I think that’s perfectly fine. That’s not any different than going to go grab a drink of water out the water cooler. 

It’s just it’s a nice striking the balance to say no one else is talking about it. Workers are being asked to do additional hours and to perform tasks that have increased either in percentage or by number of tasks to do on a daily basis. And people are feeling the pressure. People are feeling pressured to essentially deliver for an organization that just has a lot  more requirements coming in. And that’s perfectly fine, but I think it’s good for someone to step in and go, “Wait a minute, let’s keep this in check,” or, “Have you thought about how as an organization, you asking your team member to work past 6:00 P.M. actually affects their daily life?” 

Barrie Seppings (17:49): 

Question 8, unique snowflakes. Now, every market or industry or territory or country likes to think that they’re a little bit different, a little bit special. But in your vast experience, which one really is quite different and needs to be approached quite differently. 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (18:09): 

During the pandemic, I really got an opportunity to understand and to really learn a lesson around the healthcare sector. I think healthcare in general, whilst it’s a great opportunity as a prospect customer, it is a very different industry. For me, that particular industry is very complex. They’re dealing with people in raw states of mind, from ambulance services to hospital services. You’re dealing with an industry that’s 24/7 doesn’t stop. And it doesn’t stop just because you want to get onto that RFP or you want a response to the RFP. That industry is constantly on. It’s an always on approach, and I think that makes it very unique and different. 

Barrie Seppings (18:55): 

Question 9, green with envy. What’s the campaign or event or idea or launch that you’ve seen that you really wish that you’d done? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (19:08): 

Now, I guess most recently something of a recent example, it would be organizing the Paris Olympics. That would’ve been an awesome job. The aspect that I love the most was the creative juices that flowed right through and that engulfed the event end to end. Not to mention that managing Celine Dion would’ve been also a big feat too. 

Barrie Seppings (19:29): 

All right. Question 10, that really gets my goat. What’s the one thing in this industry that you feel has gone on for too long and needs fixing? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (19:40): 

One of them and the major one for me is something that affects every marketer out there in the marketplace, whether you’re working for a small organization, whether you’re mid-market, whether you consider yourself growing in growth mode, or whether you’re part of a big matrix organization. If you’re in marketing, you suffer from the challenges placed upon you and before you around sales and marketing alignment. It is so difficult to have sales and marketing alignment. It is the nirvana of marketing, but it’s very difficult to achieve. There’s just so many barriers to success and it’s a real challenge. 

I think one of the things that I like to lead with with my team and at HPE is about having mutual respect. Mutual respect is a must in order to get things done in the workplace. And having the right lines of communication and having the right conversations with sales can really either accelerate an outcome or really become a challenge for getting a campaign off the ground. That is the first one. 

The second one I think about is it’s a major miss in our industry in technology. I think we absolutely get so focused and so laser focused on what we’ve got to do and what we’ve got to deliver our KPIs, whatever it is that we’re trying to achieve for that particular day or week,  and we completely forget that side-by-side, we have other alliance partners in the marketplace that are doing exactly the same thing and who have in mind exactly the same prospects that we’re targeting the following week. So I think a little bit of better work amongst friendly alliance partners would be most welcome by customers. At the end of the day, it’s the customers that benefit, and that’s something that I think it’s been missed for far too long. At HPE, we definitely work hand in hand with our alliance partners, but there’s still much more work to be done in that space. 

Barrie Seppings (21:35): 

Yeah. Just to circle back with sales and marketing, that alignment, whose job do you think it is to fix that or make that work in an organization? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (21:44): 

Mutual respect. It is a must. You have to have a marketing leader that doesn’t have to be a subject matter expert in the field of sales or in the field of P&L management, but you have to have a  marketing leader that at least has a notion of what’s happening in the marketplace. And then you also have to have the sales leader that is not only respectful of the work that marketing can deliver, but complementary to the work that marketing is trying to achieve on their behalf. There’s got to be that mutual respect between the two. If you don’t have that, it makes alignment a lot harder. 

Barrie Seppings (22:27): 

Which organizations are you thinking  about when you’ve found that to break down? Is there something common about what’s going on there when they’re not aligned with that respect is missing? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (22:39): 

Is there something that is common to organizations where it doesn’t line up? Sometimes there are some organizations where you have a big focus on the technology suite, and it really becomes more of a speeds and feeds conversation at all times and from all angles. So where you have an organization that’s very heavy on developers and developers having a say on what the future of the company looks like. And I’m just using developers as an example. I have nothing against them. I know very many good friends that are developers. But it is a different culture. When you have an organization where you have sales leading the way and it’s very much a sales culture, then you have the partner coming along is usually marketing,  and there you have a better understanding of what the purpose is, and that purpose is getting to that customer and solving that customer’s problem. That’s when you get that good working relationship between sales and marketing. 

Barrie Seppings (23:45): 

Question 11, truth serum. What’s the one question you’d ask an agency if you knew they had to tell you the truth?

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (23:56): 

Well, if you’ve worked with before here at HPE, you know that at some point or another I’ll be grabbing the truth out of the agency. I may be controversial, but I would definitely ask more freely, how many contacts as an agency are you going to burn through to get me a lead? I think it’s an important question. And the reason that I pose it is because data really makes a difference, right? Everyone’s time-poor today. And when you have a customer admitting that they need help and need a subject matter expert, it’s so important to have that person or that persona that is working on behalf of your organization, on behalf of HPE, and that person needs to know exactly how to nurture that prospect and how to move it along from that point onwards. That is super key. 

(24:50): 

But even before that happens, I think I want to know what does the clear path to success look like from an entry point into that digital tunnel all the way through to nurture, all the way through to outcome. You’re going to deliver a qualified lead, but what is it going to take? And is your team ready to do it and have we given you the right amount of data? Have we given you the correct data? Are we in a relationship in such a way that you can tell me that, “Sorry, Jorge, but your data is absolute rubbish,” and by the same token, MA in a position comfortable enough to say, “What are you going to do to get me X number of leads and how much is this going to cost me in brand awareness or likeliness in the marketplace when an agency has to go through 50 contacts to eventually get to a qualified lead?” 

Barrie Seppings (25:54): 

Question 12, better together. Jorge, you strike me as a relatively collaborative kind of leader. In fact, perhaps excessively so. How do you moderate yourself and find that moment where you realize, “You know what? I should just make a call and get this done on my own. Thanks for all the help”? Or alternatively, when you are leading people, when you decide it’s that moment, they can go off and fly on their own. What are those little indicators you’re looking for to help you make the call? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (26:24): 

I think I go into any one conversation already knowing what my preferred position is or what my position  is, but I think very often in leadership, you get these wonderful opportunities where you come to a room and you have to remind yourself that you are far from the smartest person in the room. And even though you have an idea in your mind as to what you’re going to deliver and how we’re going to get the outcome that we want, it’s having the ability and, I guess, the maturity to ask other people what their points of view are. As a team, validate those points of view, and then essentially potentially morph the idea that you had in your head to be a better idea because somebody else contributed to it. 

Now, of course, there are times when you’re having a conversation or you’re working on a project or you’re working on a task and you go into a room and you realize you’re not the subject matter expert. So if someone wants to talk to me about hyper-convergence, of course I’m going to tell you, “I am not the subject matter expert,  so I’m going to let you take me along through the process. And whilst you do that, I’m going to observe and I’m going to learn and I’m going to ask questions to ensure that I’m helping you get to the right outcome as the rightful SME.” 

Barrie Seppings (27:50): 

Question 13, change your mind. What’s a long held belief or conventional wisdom that you’ve been carrying around about marketing or been told about marketing that you no longer hold? And what caused you to change your mind? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (28:04): 

I think there’s a lot of best practice advice out there around thinking that marketing is a linear experience. Marketing is not a linear experience. It is far from it. It is far from linear. Marketing is one of those made-to-scale mazes hidden in some posh state in Europe. Once you find the maze, which takes long enough to do, you have to then know exactly what it is that you’re trying to get  out of it and how you’re going to get to your price. And you know that along the way, you’re going to take quite a few wrong turns and maybe even at times coming to a halt, but at least you know you are going to find a way to navigate through that nonlinear reality because marketing is definitely not linear. For instance, implement this platform on marketing automation and you do X, Y, Z and this is exactly how it’s going to work and it’s going to deliver X, Y, Z. And it’s very linear, right? 

Barrie Seppings (28:59): 

Yeah. 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (28:59): 

You get told you’re going to do these five things. They never tell you that you’re going to have to develop content for every single one of those steps, and developing content can be a task in itself. And there’s this belief that you do this and you’re going to get this. Same thing with online search engine marketing and advertising. The same outcome, same posture, you do this and you will get this. It’s not true. Marketing is not linear. There are so many different ways to go to finally to a customer, and a customer has a very different trajectory with you, engaging with you as a prospect vendor, before you close a deal or before you get the sale. 

Barrie Seppings (29:47): 

Question 14, put your money where your mouth is. This is a tough question, Jorge. In terms of effectiveness and ROI, and you’re across a lot of campaigns, a lot of stuff, right now which tactics or approaches are you pulling back on because they’re just not working, not delivering? And what are you doubling down on? Where are you seeing effectiveness work for you at the moment? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (30:09): 

You know what? I think account-based marketing is a term or a practice that gets loads of traction in the marketplace and in our day-to-day marketing lives. However, I don’t believe that account-based marketing is the end-all and be-all. Sure, you can create different trajectories for a customer to follow  or to experience you as a vendor or you as a service provider or you as a solution to convince them do the right piece around information and sharing information and making them become an SME in their organization. But that’s still not going to guarantee the success on the other side as in a qualified lead or an actual opportunity that progresses along the sales cycle. So I’m not 100% on board with the account-based marketing approach. I think it can deliver some great results, but I don’t think it’s the end-all and be all. 

(31:04): 

I think that my old-fashioned idea around brand awareness is really far more important to me and it’s far more effective in a way in setting up that foundation for that customer to really develop that rapport or that likeliness towards your solution or towards you as an organization. 

Barrie Seppings (31:26): 

Question 15, over-hyped and underrated. I just want to ask you about what buzzword or jargon do you think that’s flying around in marketing at the moment or what do we have a preoccupation with that’s probably getting in the way of us getting back to basics? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (31:43): 

Storytelling is actually something that gets missed and that we’re not doing enough of. When you think about the most successful salespeople, you think about successful salespeople that tell stories. They tell stories and they are able to pull at the heartstrings or at the purse strings or at whatever strings it is from that prospect customer, and that’s what essentially gets them on board. In marketing, we tend to forget to tell the tale of who we are as an organization, why we do what we do. Instead, we focus on telling people what we do, just the list of bullet points that are going to tell people, “You can either fit in within this box or you don’t,” when we could actually achieve a lot more and tick so many more boxes by telling them who we are, what we are about, and why we actually do what we do on a daily basis. 

Barrie Seppings (32:37): 

Do you think that’s a function somewhat of how difficult it is to really accurately measure that brand awareness and the corollary of that is the focus that we’ve got on proving ROI and proving metrics? And so the brand awareness piece is actually, especially in B2B, really hard to do. It’s expensive to do that kind of research to make sense. Is that why we’re shying away from it to some degree, or is something else driving it? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (32:59): 

Well, I think we shy away from it because we think there’s all these other shiny things like search engine marketing, like the latest platform on automation or the latest coming to the theater near you, the latest AI-based, results-driven, data-based, data processing-driven, AI everything application that you can put through your data and marketing, and it’s going to identify who the person is that’s actually going to buy next. And that already exists in some way or another, but when you have that and you’re competing with all that and then you go, “Well, how much of your time and effort do you actually spend doing all that, when in fact you’re forgetting about the very first layer and foundation of what we need our customer to think of our organization before we even get to putting more things in front of them?” 

Barrie Seppings (33:55): 

It’s question 16, the supermodel question. Linda Evangelista once said, “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.” Apparently she regrets saying that, but I think that’s a cool quote to be attributed to. Jorge, what gets you out of bed? Where do you find your motivation to get up every morning and keep doing this job? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (34:14): 

I get out of bed every day wondering what the day will bring. I am hopelessly curious at heart and I really find joy in being creative. My motivation is knowing that as a collective, we have a job to accomplish and that we’re going to face some challenges along the way, and that as a team, I am fully, fully trusting of the fact that we’re going to come up with a creative way to overcome the challenges at hand. That is what drives me on a daily basis. 

Barrie Seppings (34:46): 

Question 17, this ain’t happening, man. What’s the most unexpected or unusual situation that you’ve found yourself in, thanks to work? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (34:56): 

Just like Senator Palpatine found himself at the helm of the Senate at one point or another, I was actually trusted to manage a marketing team, to build a team with people that would excel in taking huge tasks and delivering the right outcome by either simplifying or by working smartly. This happened when I came on board at HPE. This was completely unexpected, to be given the opportunity to lead. I definitely took it on my stride and I can guarantee you that no humans, creatures, droids, or stars were harmed in the process. 

Barrie Seppings (35:31): 

Walking into that situation, what did you think they were asking you to do or did the role change? Tell me the back story. 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (35:38): 

Roles changed. There was essentially multiple streams known to marketing, and communications essentially were completely restructured to then bring together one marketing organization under the one umbrella. 

Barrie Seppings (35:54): 

All right. Question 18, home alone. What was the pandemic and the lockdown experience like for you and how has that changed the way you approached the world of work? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (36:06): 

The pandemic was challenging to everyone because human interaction morphed into a collection of audiovisual moments with everyone, whether you were a team member or a prospect or a partner in the industry. And we couldn’t really see or understand whether we were engaging, whether the customer was engaging, whether there was any engagement at all, and certainly not whether there would be engagement in the future. I think that really taught us to be more conscious on how we can delight customers and target audiences today. It made us think creatively of what can we do differently to essentially gain a slice of their attention. And how did it change anything in relation to work? I think for me, teamwork became stronger over that period of time and it actually helped us form a stronger bond as a team. 

Barrie Seppings (37:03): 

A lot of people had the opposite experience. How did you drive that for your team? What were you doing to make sure that that communication kept happening 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (37:11): 

As challenging as it was during that time, I would have a Monday morning call and then a midweek check-in point, and then an end of the week call to talk about, not about what we were doing from a campaign point of view or from a strategy point of view, from whatever, but just to talk about challenges in general and just to have an opportunity to talk and be people as opposed to team members trying to solve the latest challenge on teams or Zoom or whatever platform we were using at the time. 

Barrie Seppings (37:44): 

And did you find people were expressing more of themselves, becoming more open, becoming more vulnerable in those kinds of meetings? Were they talking more about what’s going on in their lives as well? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (37:53): 

Yeah, they were definitely talking more about what was going on in their lives and their points of view. Sometimes we were talking about our fears because during that period of time, there was a lot of unknowns. 

Barrie Seppings (38:02): 

Question 19, all of me. 

Lots of businesses, lots of brands put on their website and put on their plaques, they want their staff to bring their whole self to work. Is that true for you and where you are at HPE? Is that your experience? And how different are you in work mode compared to when Jorge is off the leash on his own time? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (38:24): 

At HPE, we’re actually really lucky. And I’m not just telling you this to tick a box or to gain any brownie points with our management team, but we really have a very nice culture. It’s a culture of teamwork. It’s a culture of let’s get the job done. It’s a very positive culture. So you wouldn’t believe it, but privately I’m more joyful. I’m more playful. I want to be an actor. I want to be a singer. I want to be a comedian. I want to do a lot of different things.  

I do definitely bring myself to work. However, I think you must take into account that my early upbringing was very focused on academic achievement and on a rigid process, being process-oriented, being on time. School was very much a dedicated time for me so that part does come through a lot more at work. So I really find that that’s the Jorge that shows up in the office much more so. But off the leash, it’s just an augmented version of who you see today, probably with just a few other talents that people wouldn’t have guessed. 

Barrie Seppings (39:44): 

And do you pursue those creative urges and those creative strings to your bow outside of work? Is that something that you go and look for? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (39:52): 

I do. I’ve become a real big fan of gardening and I have big projects in my head. Certainly in between my ears around what I’m going to do with our garden. I do talk to plants. I’ll admit. Some of them I’ve been getting the wrong message because clearly I’ve not been able to keep them alive. But yes, I think it’s an outlet for me. It’s an outlet for me on a weekend. It’s an outlet for me when it comes time to spring and summer. It’s wonderful to just get out there. 

Barrie Seppings (40:25): 

All right, last question. Question 20, secret weapon. Jorge, do you have one? And if you do, will you tell me what it is? 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (40:33): 

I’m an eternal optimist. So work life and personal life are vastly different. When you take on a positive can do attitude, it doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everything. In fact, you can ask my team, colleagues, alliance partners, even competitors. One of my favorite words is no. It’s such a powerful word, but not because I don’t see it as a powerful word because it negates something or it keeps someone from doing something or keep something from someone, but rather because it usually leads saying no to someone or to something usually leads to a healthier, a richer and a worthwhile conversation. 

Barrie Seppings (41:20): 

Well, that was 20 questions. The interview game we play with all of our B2B tech marketing guests here on the Plugged-In, Switched-On podcast. Those 20 answers were from Jorge Villalpando. He’s the head of marketing for HPE across the South Pacific region. Before I let him go, I asked Jorge to tell me about his favorite type of movie. 

Jorge Villalpando of HPE (41:43): 

I’m a big fan of Winston Churchill is a hero. Absolutely. So any movie about the subject matter of Winston Churchill, his life, or him being center stage, making big decisions around what needed to happen in the world or being pivotal to making decisions that would define the outcome of a World War are definitely very insightful to me. So depending on the mood, that’s the kind of movie I like to watch. 

Barrie Seppings (42:12): 

And before we unplug for this episode, just a quick update from Splendid Group, the pure play B2B tech marketing agency where I work. I’m the executive creative director and I help make this podcast. And when I say where we make the podcast, it’s a little bit of a theoretical wear. Splendid has no offices and actually has never had an office in the entire 10 years of its operation. We have got experts, however, that are dotted around the globe. They work from home, from co-working spaces, from beaches, from caravans, wherever they feel like they do their best work. If that’s the kind of work that you feel like you would like to do, and you’re a senior operator in marketing and agency land, we’re growing and we’re hiring. So please get in touch with Splendid Group. Just visit our website, splendidgroup.com, take a little look around and get in touch. 

(43:07): 

I have been Barrie Seppings. I was talking with Jorge Villalpando of HPE in what has been a 20 questions episode of Plugged-In, Switched-On. It is a podcast about the conversations that matter in B2B tech marketing. Hit subscribe in your podcast application of choice and you’ll hear us again automatically next month. And if you’ve enjoyed the conversation, please give us a rating. Leave us a review. We’d love to hear what you think. Thank you for having us in your ears. Until next month, Plugged In, Switched On is generated by a Splendid Group. Thanks to our executive producers, Ruth Holt and Anna Isabella Canta. And also, thanks to our MD, Tim Sands.