What happens when you learn to get out of your own way? 20 Great Answers with Molly MacDiarmid, APAC Head of Marketing, Crayon

Molly MacDiarmid (00:02): 

When I moved from agency into this company, I had a lot of imposter syndrome of, “What am I doing here? Do I know what I’m doing?” and I think I waste a lot of energy and a lot of time on questioning myself, rather than focusing on the job, and I would definitely take that back, slap myself on the shoulder, and say, “You’re going to be all right. You’ll figure it out.” I think we do a lot of that, particularly from a female perspective. I think we spent a lot of time apologizing for what we’re doing, and it can make you question your role and your outputs, and that definitely taught me a valuable lesson, in terms of myself and what I can do if I get out of my own way. 

Barrie Seppings (00:45): 

Welcome back to Plugged In, Switched On, the podcast where we pull you into the conversations that matter in B2B tech marketing. I am your host, Barrie Seppings. I’m the Executive Creative Director at Splendid Group, and the quote that you heard at the top of the show was from Molly MacDiarmid. She’s the head of marketing for APAC for Crayon. We like to do three things here on the podcast. First, we like to get guests in from the B2B tech marketing world, ask them 20 questions, get them to explain how and why they do what they do. We also do a few special deep dive episodes where we take a look into a skill or a territory that is gaining traction or is undergoing some change. 

(01:29): 

We’ve done episodes on ABM, got one coming up on partner marketing. They are definitely worth your time if you are looking to skill up there, and we also do behind-the-curtains episodes, where we take a little look at how leaders and teams are functioning, how they’re building the high performance teams to get this work done, the challenges that they face, and the new approaches they are taking. We don’t try and do all those three things here on the pod at once. This episode is an interview episode, where we take a leader from their field, give them 20 questions, and invariably, we get 20 very different answers. Molly MacDiarmid from Crayon, here’s your 20 questions. What is your company selling, and why should anybody pay good money for it? 

Molly MacDiarmid (02:13): 

We are an IT cloud software and services company. Basically, we help customers and partners plan right size, optimize, innovate through IT solutions, wherever they’re kind of at in their IT customer journey. That’s both through channel and direct side of our business. We have different sides. Ultimately, there are a lot of companies that say they do the same thing, but I think for us it’s focusing on value, our customers, and how it addresses business need, not tech for the sake of tech, and a lot of that comes down to our people and our expertise. 

Barrie Seppings (02:54): 

It’s a really memorable name, and I think that’s a massive brand asset in kind of a sea of sameness. You alluded there to the fact that there are a lot of companies that do similar things. That just sparks a bit of interest like, “Okay. This company is named, unlike all the others. They must be doing something a little bit different,” or do you get any pushback? Does anybody think that, “Okay. This company may be a little less mature, a little more playful”? 

Molly MacDiarmid (03:16): 

I don’t think so. I think the hardest thing for us is when we’re looking for source imagery or things that we can use and we look for inspirational imagery, and that’s a lot of part of who we are. We’re Norwegian, and you search for things and you forget that you should put more words in than just Crayon, and often you get the coloring imagery that comes about, but I think being playful is part of it. I think if you have something different in your brand, and like I said, people is a really big part of who we are, and I think you can lean into that rather than being afraid of it. We’ve been around for a long time, so I think those that know us know our maturity and who  

Barrie Seppings (04:04): 

Question number two, superhero origin story. Molly, you’re the head of marketing for APAC. That’s a bit of a grownup role. When Molly was younger, you’re in high school, you’re heading into college. Is that what you expected you would be doing? What did you dream of when you were younger? 

Molly MacDiarmid (04:19): 

Absolutely not marketing. I was a creative always when I was younger, and I actually gravitated more to the music industry. It’s where I started out, it’s what I studied, it’s where I started out, and marketing was not on my radar. My career has been a series of doors opening and me going, “That sounds interesting. I might give that a go.” I don’t think I have had a clear pathway, probably into the last couple of years, in terms of what I was working towards and where I was going. I think that’s kind of cool because it gave me opportunities to learn about different industries or different focus areas, whether it was the music industry or events. 

(05:03): 

It always gave me new skills and new perspectives for when I ended up where I am now. It wasn’t until I worked, actually, at B2B agency, and it was focused in IT industry. I was in an events’ role, but that’s when I started, I think, falling more in love with the concept of marketing and how it worked and what goes into that, and I was lucky to be surrounded by lots of different aspects of marketing, whether it was creative, telemarketing, digital, and so it gave me a really holistic view without necessarily being in all of those departments of how they work together. Then, I opened up another door and ended up in Crayon, and then kept moving through my career. It’s really funny. I think the only thing I never thought was going to be on my radar was management, and then ultimately I’ve ended up in management, which is probably the biggest surprise of my career, to be honest. 

Barrie Seppings (05:57): 

Was that probably the largest leap, even though you’re in the same company, same industry, doing stuff, the managing stuff? Some people have said that to us on the show, that that’s really different, particularly if it comes internally where you’re suddenly you’re managing your peers. Is that what occurred for you? 

Molly MacDiarmid (06:10): 

It happened gradually, so I’ve been with the company nearly for five years now, and I came in as a individual contributor in my role, and then the next roll-up was managing a small team, and then the next roll-up was managing a bigger team, and then the next roll-up is what I’m in now, so it’s been a pretty quick progression over the last five years. I think I’ve been very lucky in that sense, but management was probably the biggest change. I think how you work with people, taking your own knowledge, your own skill set, from being an individual contributor to a manager, and how to provide guidance and mentorship without overstepping, I think that was the biggest change. I’ve been lucky to have some great managers in my past. I’ve been unlucky to have some not-so-great managers in my past, as I’m sure many people have, and I think that shaped a lot of what I was going to be or what I am in terms of a manager. I think the hardest part was letting go of doing so much execution. You get to a point where you are not really marketing anymore. 

Barrie Seppings (07:19): 

Yeah, I hear that. All right. Question three, I do this for free. Which part of your job do you just find yourself gravitating to because you enjoy doing it, you probably spend a little bit more time doing it than you should, and part two of that question is going to be, who do you think has the worst job in B2B tech? 

Molly MacDiarmid (07:36): 

Great question. The part that I gravitate towards the most is creative. I’ve never been trained in the creative field, but I love doing it. I’m self taught, Adobe Sleight specialist in my own eyes. It is something that I really like doing. I love seeing the visual output that comes from it, and it’s probably something that I spent more time doing than I necessarily need to. I have a great, in-house creative team, but I do really gravitate towards that. In terms of the worst part, I think it’s hard. 

(08:12): 

Like I said, I think because I’ve been in an agency where I saw all the different departments, and now I’m lucky enough to have a really incredible team that bands from automation to digital to events, content, creative. You get to see how all the parts play together, and I don’t think you could do true marketing without all of them. There’s definitely parts that I don’t have the skill set to do, but I wouldn’t say that anything’s the worst job. I think it’s more about what, like I said, I lean more into the creative, the strategy side, some people more analytical. It’s all important. It’s what drives you. That makes sense. 

Barrie Seppings (08:51): 

All right. Question four, control, alt, delete. What’s the one career move or moment, thinking back , that you wish you could go back and undo, or perhaps that moment where you realized, “Wow, I’ve just learned something really valuable here”? 

Molly MacDiarmid (09:06): 

It’s not a career move I would undo. I think it was a mindset within a career move I would undo. When I moved from agency into this company, I had a lot of imposter syndrome of, “What am I doing here? Do I know what I’m doing?” And I think I wasted a lot of energy and a lot of time on questioning myself, rather than focusing on the job, and I would definitely take that back, slap myself on the shoulder, and say, “You’re going to be all right. You’ll figure it out.” I think we do a lot of that, particularly from a female perspective. I think we spend a lot of time apologizing for what we’re doing, and it can make you question your role and your outputs, and that definitely taught me a valuable lesson in terms of myself and what I can do if I get out of my own way, but there’s no part of my career I would undo, because like I said, it’s been a journey, and I think every door that I walked through has been important for getting to where I’m now. 

Barrie Seppings (10:03): 

Interesting. You mentioned that, for women, that imposter syndrome tends to hit a little harder. Do you think it’s exacerbated also in the tech world, which for a long time has been a little bit male dominated? Maybe not in the marketing sense, but certainly in sales roles and technical roles and production roles. Has that been your experience? 

Molly MacDiarmid (10:18): 

Yes. It’s definitely a heavily male-skewed industry, not in marketing, but in the other departments. I don’t think that has been the reason for it. I think it’s an, unfortunately, inherently female trait where we tend to lead into conversations already apologizing or doubting our value of our voice in a room, and I think that’s probably where it came from more than the industry itself. 

Barrie Seppings (10:50): 

Question five, shout out. You mentioned before that you’ve had some good leaders and not so bad leaders. Who have you learned the most from in your career, even if it was perhaps what not to do? 

Molly MacDiarmid (10:59): 

I’m going to focus on the positive of it. I had an incredible manager, probably in the last year or so of being in the agency, and I think she was one of the first people in my career that I felt really trusted me and helped me trust myself. She had this ability to see skills in me that I hadn’t even thought about before, and the opportunity to step into that, do, explore, and try it out, and I think it was more of a lesson in leadership than it was necessarily in marketing, though she did teach me a lot about marketing as well. 

(11:36): 

She was a big part of why I actually stepped into the company I am now and the role that I am in now, and I’m really grateful for her. I think she really opened my eyes, in terms of not second guessing, seeking out what’s next for myself. She is a very incredible woman and has done some amazing things in her career, and I think she always had this ability to speak to me as an equal and not as a junior as I was at that point. It gave me a lot of respect for her and a lot of respect for myself and my own value as well. I’ll give her a shout-out. Nina Moulay, thank you very much. 

Barrie Seppings (12:12): 

When we find talent, good talent in agency land, we don’t really want them going client side, honestly. I mean, they do. They do. The really good ones tend to gravitate there. It’s a different realm, so I think you got lucky that your leader there supported that shift out of agency, losing a resource. 

Molly MacDiarmid (12:33): 

I agree, and I think particularly in this industry, it’s so small. The amount of times that you run into people again later or in different roles, different companies, not just in marketing, but especially in the B2B IT space, it’s a smaller network than you think, and every opportunity you have to uplift someone or end on a positive note, it will come back to reward you. I think always remembering, it might be goodbye now, but it’s not goodbye forever, and seeing them grow and expand and learn is always the best thing that you can do as a manager. 

Barrie Seppings (13:13): 

Question six. The only constant is marketing cliches. The rate of change in technology in particular, and I think marketing is guilty here as well, is really celebrated and perhaps even fetishised, but it’s exhausting. Humans kind of hate change. How do you personally regenerate, keep that energy up, keep that curiosity up and keep leaning into change in your role? 

Molly MacDiarmid (13:38): 

I think if you choose to work in the IT industry, you have to accept that change is a big part of what you do. Tech constantly evolves. There’s always something new. There’s always the next wave that’s coming out. I mean, we’ve been through two in the last five years, really. And so, I think if you accept that you’re in IT, you accept the need for change, and what that looks like, I think the biggest thing is not focusing on the things you can’t control, and focusing instead on the opportunity that sits there. What does this change mean? How can I adapt and go with that change, and what door is that going to open? It is hard to do. I’m a self-admitted control freak at my finest, and I think that’s been a really big part of my personal growth over the last few years, is accepting that you can’t control everything, and sometimes you have to roll with the punches and sometimes you can ride that wave to something better. 

(14:40): 

I think I’m better at rolling with it at work than I am in my personal life. I think I’m a little bit more controlled in my personal life. I don’t like change in my personal life. I like change in the workplace. I think it’s interesting. I think it keeps you on your toes. I think you’re always looking for what’s next. It probably is part of my agency background, is because you worked with so many clients in so many different areas, that ever evolving door of who you’re working with, what you’re focusing on, and having a finger on the pulse of what’s the latest in marketing was a big part of it. So, change was kind of this constant. I don’t have that the same now, being in the business itself and not an agency. It’s harder to stay on top of everything that’s ever evolving in marketing, but because IT is ever evolving, ever-  changing, it’s exciting. You get to see what’s next and how you’re going to influence that in the market as well. 

Barrie Seppings (15:36): 

Question seven, here’s to your health. The jobs that we do, they’re brain jobs, they’re sitting down, thinking, talking jobs. They can be a little sedentary. Have you found, particularly after pandemic, we’re all at home or at lockdown, that your health has played a bigger priority, and what do you do to maintain that balance between work and life, and the brain and the body health? 

Molly MacDiarmid (16:00): 

When we first went into lockdowns and working from home, I think I lost a lot of that, in terms of being able to create space for both physical and mental health, and it wasn’t because of the pandemic. It was more around the change of having my office in my home, and being able to separate church and state, if you will, of going, “This is where I have my workspace and also where I have my personal life,” and I think I’ve really struggled with that for a long time now. I feel like I’ve got better boundaries in place and it was really about making space for yourself, and I know that oversimplifies it, but it’s the most important thing that you can do. I block out two nights a week in my calendar where I’m not available for late calls, and that is my gym time, and I have to do that for myself. 

(16:51): 

It’s really easy to stay on and do late calls and be available, and if you don’t put things in place for yourself, you’ll just never get off that wheel, and I think I really only started properly practicing that a year ago. That was a really big shift for me. Mentally, it’s how can I switch off at the end of the day? What is the thing for me? And that is reading. I spend so much of my time on laptops and phones, calls, emails, to disconnect and have something that’s completely technology free is my mental space where I can switch off, and that is something also that I’ve really only found in the last six months. It’s not sitting in front of the TV, because it’s screen to screen and it’s too much, and I think getting back into reading has been a huge thing for my mental health, where it’s just- 

Barrie Seppings (17:45): 

And did you decide to go fully analog or do you do the Kindle thing? 

Molly MacDiarmid (17:49): 

No, fully analog. 

Barrie Seppings (17:50): 

Yeah, okay. 

Molly MacDiarmid (17:51): 

It’s been really nice to kind of return to fantasy world and, like I said, ultimate escapism. I think I read a lot of contemporary for a while, and it just felt too real, too close to home, and it was nice to have something completely separate, that just nothing would make you think about work or life. It was just there’s no similarities, so you can completely switch off. 

Barrie Seppings (18:13): 

Question eight. Unique snowflakes. Now, every market, industry, or audience segment group likes to think that they’re very special. They need to be talked to differently, and to some extent that’s true. Who, in your opinion, do you think that’s absolutely valid for, that you don’t get under the skin, and you don’t understand them and you don’t address them, that’s at your peril? 

Molly MacDiarmid (18:33): 

It’s a hard question to answer. I think, from my perspective, because my team works across nine countries, and so we do have really diverse territories that we have to consider, and then also from the perspective that we market directly to customers, usually in the enterprise space, and then we also work through channel, which is a very own method of marketing as well, and so there is differences, sometimes in the language that we use, sometimes in the positioning, but I think at the end of the day it’s very same, same. The tactics are often similar. The value that you’re trying to deliver in the message, even if the language is slightly different, I think the ultimate message that you’re trying to deliver, ultimately the solutions you’re trying to deliver, regardless of territory, regardless of market or industry, that’s the biggest part of what you’re doing in marketing, is calling out and addressing a pain point and looking at what tactics is the best way to deliver that, so I think lots of markets like to think they’re different, but I actually don’t think they are. 

Barrie Seppings (19:44): 

Question nine. Green with envy. What’s the campaign or event or idea or launch that you really wish that you’d done? 

Molly MacDiarmid (19:50): 

There’s none in B2B that come to mind, but I think there’s a lot in B2C that come to mind when you go, “That was really cool.” I think the biggest ones that I’ve seen are not necessarily campaigns, but what the brands did to take to market was Nike and Apple. I think the shift in terms of emotional marketing, rather than just product marketing, was so cool and so innovative, and I loved seeing what those two companies did on their brand journey. I would’ve loved to have a seat at the table and being part of those processes. 

Barrie Seppings (20:25): 

Question 10. That really gets my goat. What’s the one thing in this industry, and you can talk about B2B Tech or you can talk about marketing or the confluence of the two, that’s your call, what’s the one thing in this industry that’s gone on for too long and really needs fixing? 

Molly MacDiarmid (20:40): 

For me it’s a sentence, and that sentence is, “Can you just?” Can you just make it pretty? Can you just write an email? Can you just get this out tomorrow. That really gets my goat. 

Barrie Seppings (20:55): 

What is it about that phrasing that sets you off? Do you think they’re being dismissive, not understanding the work involved, or what’s going on? 

Molly MacDiarmid (21:01): 

I mean, I don’t think it’s ill-willed, but I think it does air a sense of oversimplifying what we do, and a lot of those examples I gave were very simplified versions, but I think it is a swipe of the hand of going, “Oh. Can you just do this?” And I think that’s really what gets me, is the, “What else do I have going on? How did we get here? How do we make these choices to make sure that it’s the best possible outcome?” And I think that phrase of “Can you just?” undermines a lot of the value of what marketing does? 

Barrie Seppings (21:36): 

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

Molly MacDiarmid (21:43): 

I’ve had the luck of being in an agency, so I feel like I’ve got a lot of secrets and answers that I probably don’t need to ask the question of at this point. I think the one question I would love to know, and it’s a silly one, but how many times in the last six months have you been asked for the exact same thing? 

Barrie Seppings (22:02): 

In terms of the brief, like the brief’s- 

Molly MacDiarmid (22:04): 

Brief, the exact same brief? And the reason why I would want to know that is, like I said, IT is a smaller industry. We do a lot of similar motions and activities, and I think every company likes to think that they’re unique or has a great new idea or a new go to market, and I think the reality of that is probably not as true as we’d like it to be. I think knowing how many people have actually asked for exactly what I’ve been asking for, and am I pushing this as hard as it could be? Am I thinking outside of the box? Am I actually doing something differently, or do I just think I am? 

Barrie Seppings (22:46): 

Excellent answer. The rules of the podcast is I don’t have to answer that question. 

Molly MacDiarmid (22:52): 

Fair enough. You don’t give away your trade secrets. 

Barrie Seppings (22:55): 

It’s a lot. 

Molly MacDiarmid (22:56): 

I’m sure it is. I’m sure it is. 

Barrie Seppings (22:59): 

Yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head on why we work so hard with strategy and creative. We try and find that value prop or that USP, that point of difference, because a lot of it is very the same. If you just look at it functionally, yeah, we’re getting asked the same thing over and over again, and we think we’re doing our clients a service. We’re saying from the audience’s perspective, the question is, “Why your thing? Why your team?” So yeah, I think it’s totally a valid question.  

Question 12, better together. How do you make the call between collaborating with someone or a team, or stepping back and letting them do their thing? You talked before about making that step up into management. This feels like a big part of that journey. What are the indicators for you that let you know which path you should take at any moment? 

Molly MacDiarmid (23:44): 

I always like to give someone the benefit of the doubt the first time, and I think giving someone opportunity to try things out, come up with new ideas, test their own skill set, I really support that, and I love to see it. Like I said, in my own career, I think half the things I didn’t think I could do, I actually could. I just needed the room to do it, and so I always try to give that opportunity and step back as much as I can. 

(24:13): 

People will come to you when they need something and they need help, and I think that’s what I really try to do, is create a space where they can feel comfortable to come to me when they need to, and not feel like it’s failing or not feel like asking questions is the wrong thing to do. I don’t think stepping back necessarily means that you’re not collaborating with them still. I think giving them the chance to try something out, and being there as a sounding board where they need is part of the collaboration, even though that you’re giving them the ownership to try it out as well. 

Barrie Seppings (24:46): 

Yeah, that’s fair. It’s a hard one to learn over time, but also got to be a little watchful of those people who are fiercely independent and just won’t come and ask for help. Those ones that are a little harder to draw out of their shell. 

Molly MacDiarmid (25:00): 

They are, but often it will take one case, and if something goes wrong, they’ll realize, and you can then assess and go, “If you’d come to me, we could have worked through this. What would it looked like? This is how I would’ve suggested going forward,” and I think once you have that learning experience, that helps. It’s really why I like to see, “What are you made of? What are you going to do? How are you going to navigate this before I make any judgment calls? I can’t assess you if I don’t know where you’re at,” and I think that’s a big part, is trusting that you’ll then see what they need more, going forward. 

Barrie Seppings (25:33): 

Question 13. Change your mind. What’s a long held belief or maybe a piece of conventional wisdom about marketing maybe you grew up with it in agency land, and you’ve had to re-evaluate your position on it now that you’re client-side, and what caused you to change your mind? 

Molly MacDiarmid (25:54): 

I think the biggest conventional belief about marketing that I’ve been working to change is results are immediate, and I feel like that’s kind of a whitewash used across marketing and there’s a lot of education that’s needed, not for marketing people, but for other stakeholders in the business, understanding that certain types, certain outputs, certain focus areas, you’re not going to have a exact point in time when you go, “I spent that dollar and I made that dollar.” It is going to be gradual, it’s going to be consistent, it’s going to be sitting there for two, three, four years. It’s just as important, but you’re not going to see that an immediate impact. I think it’s less changing my mind about it, and it’s more the constant work of realizing the value of marketing for the rest of the business. 

Barrie Seppings (26:44): 

All right. Question 14. Put your money where your mouth is. In terms of effectiveness and ROI, just thinking back over the last 6, 12 months, which tactics or approaches have you seen start to lose steam, and where have you found good results and you starting to double down? 

Molly MacDiarmid (26:59): 

I think when I consider ROI, there’s different forms of it, and I think the analytical side of understanding what ROI means to the company has been changing, particularly in our company. We’ve been doing a lot of analysis and tracking and visibility, in terms of our organics, and then also our pipeline and financial view as well. I don’t think there’s a particular tactic that I’d say we’d pull back on because of the effectiveness. I think, instead, we are looking at what tools work best for either the organic space rather than having a monetary ROI, versus those that will feed the funnel, and I think it’s more re-categorization, rather than saying pulling back. For example, webinars for so long became this big replacement for events. There was so much fatigue. Everyone was over it. Nobody wanted to do it anymore. It’s still a tool for us, but it’s not an ROI tool. It’s an engagement tool, and I think that’s [00:28:00] where we’ve shifted the purpose of the tactics more than stopping anything entirely. 

Barrie Seppings (28:05): 

Question 15. Overhyped and underrated. What buzzword or concept is getting too much airplay right now, you’re a little sick of it, and then the flip side of that question is, what’s kind of an old school idea or tactic you think should be coming back? 

Molly MacDiarmid (28:21): 

I’m sure you’ve had this answer a lot, but I think the number one buzzword that’s driving me insane is AI, and not because of what it is, but the fear that it holds for a lot of people or the misunderstanding that it holds, that it’s going to replace marketing or everything’s just AI generated now, and I think it undervalues the tool, and I really wish people considered that it is a tool, and it is no different from how we’ve moved into other automation tools over the years, but there’s just a lot of fear-mongering, I think, around the term AI, and it’s getting old. 

(29:02): 

Not been around that long and it’s already getting old. Underrated? I think with a lot of return to office, I think there’s a real up for direct mail to come back. I think digital is overrun, overloaded. I’m sure a lot of companies are seeing that the engagement stats when it comes to social marketing has changed a lot, and no one’s doing it or no one’s doing direct mail well, so you’ve got a lot of opportunity to open that door, and I think we’re missing a trick not getting into it again. 

Barrie Seppings (29:38): 

I grew up in DiEM. That’s where I learnt my craft and dimensional stuff, like boxes, all sorts of stuff. I agree. I think if your inbox is rammed but the pigeonhole is empty, go there, like zig one, other zag. It’s wide open, but it requires really, really good data, a lot of discipline.  

Question 16. This is the supermodel question. Back in the day, Linda Evangelista once said she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. I’ve talked to the accountants. We’ve had that upgraded for inflation. It’s a significantly higher sum. Molly, what do you get out of bed for? Where do you find your daily motivation? 

Molly MacDiarmid (30:16): 

I get out of bed for my team, ultimately. I love my team, I love the people I work with. I’m really lucky. Like I said earlier, you get to a point in your career where you stop doing so much marketing yourself and it’s more about focusing on uplifting your team, and that keeps me going. If I didn’t enjoy doing that, management would be really, really hard and leading the team would be really, really hard. That’s what gets me out of bed every day. That’s my motivation, is to see their success, where they’re going, and what we’re achieving, ultimately, as a business unit. 

Barrie Seppings (30:48): 

Question 17. This ain’t happening. What is the most unexpected or unusual situation you found yourself in due to work? The classic David Burn line, “How did I get here?” 

Molly MacDiarmid (31:01): 

Yeah. I think I’ve had a lot of moments in my career where I’ve had a day and said, “How did I actually? Which door did I open up and suddenly I’m here?” I think, particularly in the last year, I’ve had a few moments of that. No weird situations. Unfortunately, I don’t have a fun story of a unexpected or absurd situation that I got caught up in, but I think my career has been a series of, “How did I get here?” moments. 

Barrie Seppings (31:32): 

Question 18. We touched on this before, but home alone. What was the pandemic or the lockdown experience for you, but more importantly, how has that changed the way you work now? What have you brought forward? 

Molly MacDiarmid (31:43): 

I think the hardest part, other than finding that mental and physical space for yourself, was because we were at home, we were so available, and I found myself working into the early hours of morning, consistently, and it was such a weird thing where, because it was almost a demand. You’re at home, so you should be available, and I’m not sure what was driving that, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. I think that was a really hard thing to change back from, is pulling back and putting those boundaries in and creating that balance for yourself. Just because I am here, it doesn’t mean I need to be available to you, and I think that was a really big part. I still have hybrid work. I’m in office three days a week, and I’m at home two days a week. 

(32:38): 

It’s really nice to have that balance of face-to-face time, and then also time to be in your home office. I think the best thing that’s come out of the pandemic, aside from hybrid work, is it made everyone more human. We had calls, where kids would join or pets would join, or you’d have to run out to do something, and I think that’s given us a lot more flexibility in understanding that we do have to balance work and home life, and it is not a pretty box in the office and everything’s nine to five. We’ve got more versatility and more accessibility, in terms of, “I’ve got to drop my kids off,” or “I’ve got to quickly make lunch,” or whatever that might look like. I think that’s probably the biggest part of the experience that’s changed how I work now, is understanding that we’re all humans and we need to be able to have that flexibility. 

Barrie Seppings (33:35): 

Yeah. It’s like the veil got lifted. 

Molly MacDiarmid (33:37): 

Exactly. I think the best moment was the poor newsman who had his children running across the room while he was live on TV. I don’t know if you ever saw that video. 

Barrie Seppings (33:48): 

It’s art. That video is art. Question 19. All of me. 

Speaker 3 (33:52): 

I never buy anything fake, no matter what. 

Barrie Seppings (33:54): 

Lots of businesses say they want their staff to bring their whole self to work. Is that true for you, Molly, or are you a little different at work when you’re at home off the leash, or do you feel like you are able to bring yourself there? Is that a Crayon trait? 

Molly MacDiarmid (34:09): 

I think a part of our culture is very much about understanding that we’re all different people. I don’t think there’s a mold, necessarily, that we have to fit. We prefer people to be their whole selves, and we are lucky that the people that we work with are understanding of that, of different cultures, diversities, who we are, backgrounds, whatever it might be, but I think there’s a difference from being your authentic self and the expectation to bring all of you into work. 

(34:36): 

I definitely think I always want my team to be their most authentic selves. I want them to feel confident and comfortable to talk to me about anything that’s going on, as they want. To bring your whole self, I think it’s impossible to do in the workplace. You’ve got to keep some parts for yourself. I think that’s part of the mental balance as well, is we’re not robots. You can’t be a hundred percent switched in and run at an operating model, and so I think bring 100 percent of your authentic self, but I don’t expect people to bring all of themself completely into the job. How am I different in my work mode? Like I said earlier, I think I’m much more controlled at home. 

Barrie Seppings (35:18): 

Question 20. Secret weapon. Molly MacDiarmid, what is your career or workplace secret weapon? If you have one, will you tell us what it is? 

Molly MacDiarmid (35:27): 

If I told you, I’d have to kill you. 

Barrie Seppings (35:29): 

Fortunately, we’re in different studios. I think I’m fairly safe. 

Molly MacDiarmid (35:33): 

I think the biggest secret weapon you can have is the people that support you. I’m lucky to have a really great support network, both at home and in the workplace, and I think that’s the biggest secret weapon that you can have. 

Barrie Seppings (35:47): 

And that was 20 questions, the interview game we play with our favorite B2B Tech marketing leadership guests here on the Plugged In, Switched On podcast. Before I let Molly MacDiarmid, who is the head of marketing for APAC for Crayon, before I let her go, I asked her what would be her Desert Island movie. 

Molly MacDiarmid (36:08): 

I’d probably have to go the Lord of the Rings, and it needs to be the extended edition. I just love it. I love all of it. I love that it was so close to us as well. I love the cinematography. I love the characters. Yeah, it’s an epic movie, and I feel like it’s long enough that you can really kill some time on the island. 

Barrie Seppings (36:28): 

And before we unplug for this episode, just quick update. Splendid Group is the Pure Play B2B Tech marketing agency, where I am the executive creative director, and when I say where, there’s really no where. Splendid is a 100% remote and distributed global agency. We’ve got some of the best operators in B2B tech marketing in the world, all around the world, and they get to do the job that they love for clients that they enjoy on projects that make us all proud, from wherever it is that they want to do their job. If you are interested in shifting your marketing career into a higher gear, but also being able to work when and where you like, you should get in touch. 

(37:14): 

Splendidgroup.com is our website. We are currently hiring. I have been Barrie Seppings. I was talking to Molly MacDiarmid from Crayon. She’s the head of marketing for APAC for that organization, and this was a 20 questions episode of Plugged In, Switched On, the podcast that pulls you into the B2B Tech conversations that matter. If you’ve made it this far, I think it means you might like it, so why don’t you hit subscribe in your pod delivery service of choice, and we will automatically appear in your ears when we return next month. Thanks for listening. Plugged In, Switched On is generated by Splendid Group. Thanks to our executive producers, Ruth Holt and Anna Isabella Canta.