Dive into an inspiring episode of the Marketing Smarts Live Show that explores the transformative power of second chances. This show features insights from a company that provides work opportunities for incarcerated women.
Kellie Walenciak, head of marketing and communications at Televerde, shares the impactful work the opportunities is doing to provide opportunities for incarcerated women.
With her extensive experience at Televerde, she sheds light on the potential and the dedication of people who are given a second chance. She challenges the preconceived notions and stereotypes associated with hiring those who have been incarcerated, emphasizing their commitment and resilience, and the unique perspectives they bring to the table.
Key takeaways for B2B marketers:
- Embracing second chances: Recognize the untapped talent and potential in those seeking a second chance, understanding that doing so can drive loyalty, dedication, and innovation.
- Breaking stereotypes: Overcome societal biases and embrace a more inclusive, empathetic approach to hiring, recognizing the transformative impact on the individuals, their families, and their communities.
- Strategic partnerships: Consider how your organization can contribute to solving larger societal issues, such as mass incarceration and recidivism, through thoughtful, compassionate business practices.
Kellie emphasizes the importance of championing the underdog, encouraging businesses to support people in need of a second chance. She illustrates how such support not only transforms lives but also brings substantial benefits to businesses, communities, and the broader economy.
Check out the video for more details, and the full podcast (link below the video) for the entire insightful conversation.
Don't miss future episodes: Subscribe to the Marketing Smarts Live Show on YouTube. And to catch up on all previous episodes, check out the full playlist on YouTube.
Episode Details, Guest Information, and Referenced Links
Episode No. 77
- Live date: March 22, 2024
- Episode link: youtube.com/watch?v=ndMVsr-7jGk
- Original podcast episode: The Power of Second Chances in B2B Marketing: Kellie Walenciak on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]
Guest's social media profiles:
- Twitter: @kelliewalenciak
- LinkedIn: Kellie Walenciak
MarketingProfs resources referenced in the show:
- We Are More Than Marketers: Integrating a Human-Centric Approach
- When AI Is Too Much: How to Balance Human and AI Marketing
"In B2B News" article referenced in the show:
"From the #mpb2b Community" links referenced in the show:
Transcript: The Power of Second Chances in B2B Marketing, With Kellie Walenciak
Hello to all my Marketing Smarts Live viewers today. I'm super excited to bring you another episode of the Marketing Smarts Live show.
This week's topic is all about The Power of Second Chances in B2B Marketing.
So, if you're ready to get your learn on, buckle up and let's get ready to rock and roll.
Hey, I'm your boy George B. Thomas, speaker, trainer, catalyst, and host of this here show, the Marketing Smarts Live show, as well as the Marketing Smarts podcast found on your favorite podcast app.
Our guest clips today are brought to you by none other than Kellie Walenciak.
Kellie Walenciak is head of marketing and communications at Televerde, a revenue growth company. Kellie is responsible for developing and executing a marketing strategy and brand image that sets Televerde apart while building long-lasting customer relationships.
She oversees all internal and external digital marketing, brand messaging and management, content marketing, media relations, and employee communications. Previously, Kellie spent 14 years at Avaya, where she last served as global head of employee engagement and executive communications partner to the CMO, head of HR, and General Counsel.
Kellie gives back to her community by volunteering for the Televerde Foundation in Phoenix, AZ, and Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, New York. When she isn't working, you'll find Kellie spending time with her husband Matt and their three children, binge-watching a Netflix true-life crime series, hiking, playing tennis, and traveling.
Now, remember the clips of Kellie Walenciak today are pulled from the full Marketing Smarts podcast episode, and if you want to listen to the full interview with Kellie Walenciak and myself, make sure to tune into the Marketing Smarts podcast, link to the full show will be in the description below after the live show ends.
In this episode, I'm again talking with Kellie Walenciak about The Power of Second Chances in B2B Marketing.
In this first clip, I wanted to ask Kellie, what would you say to those out there who think poorly about people who have been incarcerated and are looking for a second chance?
Kellie: What I would start out by saying is I was probably one of those jerks at one time. I think we grow up with a societal narrative around second chances, and this narrative is reinforced by the media, it's reinforced by Hollywood. I thought prisons were like Orange Is the New Black, if people were there, they were supposed to be there. It was based on the fear of the people in there, that they were irredeemable, they weren't worth anything, they were just the worst that society had to offer.
Then I think when you look behind the curtain and you see the people who are in there, they aren't unlike you or me. As a matter of fact, many of their crimes are crimes that many people we know have committed but just didn't have the same outcome. For example, maybe driving under the influence or texting and driving, people do it every day, and then for one person it leads to a terrible outcome and then outcome comes with a prison sentence.
When you go in there and you're meeting with these people, and we work with women, I see women that are just like I am. They're moms. They're daughters. They're wives. They have hopes and they have dreams. They're just looking for a chance, a chance to be better than that worst decision or that worst mistake that they made.
What I would say is in conversations with people and talking about second chances, I think that there is this lingering notion that by offering second chances it's almost synonymous with settling or compromising on talent and standards. Again, that's because of that societal narrative. Many believe that giving someone a second chance we're somehow diluting the quality of our workforce or not maintaining the high bars that we set.
I'm going to set the record straight right now. Extending a second chance doesn't mean that we accept less talent or potential. It's in fact the complete opposite. Those who have been given a second chance, perhaps after a misstep or a detour in their personal or professional lives, often return to the fold with an unmatched dedication and loyalty. They understand the value of the opportunity presented to them and they are hungry to prove themselves.
I can't remember if we're connected on LinkedIn, but I just posted something this week about working at Televerde, and I said it's the only company in my career where I feel like an underachiever. That's true, because these women, especially as you start to get further into your career, we're always running into not wanting to relearn or not wanting to reskill, why do I have to learn this technology, I don't want to be bothered with AI, and for these women it's, "Just show me, I'll get it done." They consume knowledge and they're committed to your business.
The other thing is they bring this rich tapestry of experience and resilience that have been shaped by their unique journeys, so they have perspectives shaped by a mix of setbacks and triumphs, and they become catalysts for innovation and fresh thinking in a corporate setting. Imagine the kind of problem-solving and creativity that stems from somebody who has navigated life's ups and downs and emerged stronger from them.
Instead of viewing the culture of second chances as a compromise, I think we need to see it as it truly is, an opportunity. It's an opportunity for us to tap into this reservoir of potential, drive, and diversity that can really push the boundaries of what our businesses can achieve. In today's age where innovation and adaptability are paramount, can we really afford to overlook such a valuable talent pool? I would say absolutely not. It's bad business if we do.
I love this conversation so much and I hope that you learn the lessons in between the lines of this episode.
I will share with you that this full episode is one of my top 4 podcast episodes!
Trust me when I tell you that your going to want to go listen to the full episode.
Has your life had us and downs?
Have you ever needed a second chance in life?
Put the answer to that in the chat pane or let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #mpb2b and, of course, tag me using@georgebthomas.
We'll get back to Kellie Walenciak and her thoughts on The Power of Second Chances in B2B Marketing, But first, I have to ask...
Are you part of the MarketingProfs community? If not, become part of the MarketingProfs community by heading over to mprofs.com/mptoday - That's mprofs.com/mptoday.
Now, it's time for one of my favorite sections...
In The B2B News - Where we talk about breaking B2B news or really important tips we find on the Google news tab related to you and your B2B business. This week, the title is...
How Marketers Can Take GenAI From Pilot Projects To Proficiency
For marketers, the awe surrounding generative AI (genAI) has given way to the realization that adoption is hard work.
Teams are discovering that genAI is neither a simple nor straightforward solution but rather a continually evolving technology that requires persistence and patience.
On this week's podcast episode, VP and Principal Analyst Jay Pattisall and Principal Analyst Lisa Gately describe the current state of genAI adoption among marketers and how they can tap the technology's full potential.
Pattisall begins by sharing Forrester survey data showing the share of marketing organizations using genAI: Between Q1 and Q2 2023, the share tripled, from 19% to 56%, only to fall back to 26% in Q4.
This "really illustrated that the honeymoon was kind of over and that the complexity and the hard work of adoption had started," he says. "It's not as simple as just generating copy."
To read this article, check out the link below when the live show is over.
So let's get back to Kellie Walenciak and her Marketing Smarts podcast episode.
In this next clip, I wanted to ask Kellie, how he heck did she learn about Televerta.
Before I play the clip, have you ever felt jaded? Has work ever felt mechanical?
Have you struggled with your true why in your occupation?
OK, let's take a listen.
Kellie: I came to know about Televerde when I worked for Avaya, and I was at a place in my career that I had been there 14 years. When I started it was a public company, it was a private company, we went into Chapter 11. Most of the time I was in HR at that point, so I saw a lot. I started to become a little jaded about what corporate America was about.
I just didn't see a lot of purpose. I knew I had kind of this talent to write and contribute, and I didn't feel as though my talents were being used at that point. It seemed very mechanical, to be honest with you. I could write, so I would sit down and write, and I wrote it well, but I didn't really believe in a lot of what I was writing. I did struggle with that, and I struggled with it for a few years, having conversations with my husband about, "What am I doing here?" But you do sometimes get caught up in other things. I had three young kids, college in the future, and you kind of think the only way I could have something like this is in nonprofit, and that didn't seem like the right time to make a switch into that with where we were in our lives.
While I was at Avaya, we had a CMO who was really focused on building up our sales funnel. She put out an RFP, and Televerde was one of the companies that submitted a proposal. She had actually gone out there and met with the CEO at the time and came back. She was British, slightly different than us culturally. Where we tend to wear our heart on our sleeves, not really so with a lot of British people. When she came back, she was visibly moved, so I knew she had experienced something that was really dramatic, to be honest with you. She said, "I want to tell you about what I experienced and I need you to write a blog talking nothing about our company, but really focusing on what this company is doing to help elevate these women."
When I heard her experience and about what these women were learning, what they were capable of learning, how they were contributing, and even the thank you cards they had sent to her that were all so artistic and really a lot of thought in them and the amount of gratitude they had, I was just blown away. She had said, I'll never forget this, "If our salespeople knew our products the way these women did, we would have revenue growth quarter after quarter."
What a great story!
I hope you are enjoying the slightly different journey we are taking on the human side of our lives today.
But, did you hear that? If our sales team knew the products like these women, we would have growth quarter over quarter.
We will get back to Kellie Walenciak in a few minutes, but first it's time for some...
Dope B2B Learnings From The Vault of MarketingProfs Articles
That's right, It's time to dig into the treasure trove of valuable information and pull out two pieces of gold to help you be a better B2B marketer.
Article one this week is: We Are More Than Marketers: Integrating a Human-Centric Approach by Jeremi Karnell
"Human-centric marketing is defined by brands [that] approach engaging their current and prospective customers via advertising and marketing tactics as whole human beings with hearts, minds, and spirits," writes Philip Kotler, author of Marketing 3.0.
In this article, I will outline the following six implementation steps that lead to a human-centric approach to marketing:
Gain awareness.
Become integrative.
Start somewhere.
Identify what your brand stands for.
Consider your people.
Understand human sciences.
Article two this week is: When AI Is Too Much: How to Balance Human and AI Marketing
by Stephanie Shreve
Have you ever been on the receiving end of AI content or interaction that didn't work well?
You know the type: Emails written entirely by bot, with wording that sounds slightly (or mostly) off and a message that isn't cohesive. I've even had the misfortune of attending webinars created entirely by ChatGPT.
Marketers want to stand out from the crowd and showcase their creativity and capabilities, and they want to do it quickly. And AI is a new and exciting way to do that.
But there is such a thing as too much AI.
Want to keep learning more? If so, check the links in the description below after the live show to get access to both amazing MarketingProfs articles.
OK, back to Kellie Walenciak... Let's dive back into this conversation of The Power of Second Chances in B2B Marketing
In this clip, I wanted to get Kellie's thoughts on changing minds and giving people a second chance! And more importantly how they help organizations make the change and give those chances these humans need.
Kellie: It's hard to change hearts and minds on paper. What usually happens is you find somebody who hears about our company, is completely taken with the model, and thinks this is a great idea, and then they take it back to their company. But there's a lot of people who are involved in those types of decisions, bringing a new partner onboard, you have procurement, HR, law, the C-suite.
When you're dealing with a workforce like ours that is mostly incarcerated, there is this thinking, again, that you're higher-risk because of your criminal background. It's not true. As I said, SHRM and Charles Koch Institute has a lot of really good data on this, and they're getting people back to a toolkit. But it's hard to change on paper. Your general counsel is kind of reviewing a contract and their job is to protect the business from risk, and people with a criminal background are seen as a higher risk. It's difficult, it's a challenge.
The other challenge that we have, I call it the dual stigma of what we face, the stigma of incarceration, which we just talked about, but also the stigma of a for-profit company using prison labor. I think right away the feeling is icky, because most of the stories you hear about for-profit companies and prison labor are bad, the people are being used, they're not being paid properly, and all of that. That's not how we're investing in these women. We even have a nonprofit working with us to provide additional safety nets for when our women get out of prison, when they re-enter society, that includes career readiness and job placement programs. We're helping them get housing and providing them with financial literacy training.
Our investment in these women doesn't end when they stop working for us. I should say many of them do go on to work for our corporate headquarters. Given the number of women that work for us in the prison facilities where we are, we can't hire them all, so we're always invested in them. We are invested in them for the rest of their lives. Whatever they need, we're there to support them.
I think from a company perspective evaluating this, there is also this thinking that because of the prison labor, they don't want to hear from their stakeholders, they don't want to have to try to explain this company is doing right by the prison that they're using. Some companies just say, "We're not going to work with a company that uses prison labor," and there are a lot of them that feel that way.
What we keep trying to do with both stigmas is just keep educating the business community on the talent within this [incarcerated] community, and that there are companies exploiting prison labor and that there are companies doing right by prison labor. What we need are more companies doing right by prison labor, because I don't believe you can fix this mass incarceration problem and reverse recidivism unless you have for-profit companies, nonprofits, states, DOCs, all working together to try to solve this problem.
It's going to take all of them because you need the for-profit companies onboard to help train, to help invest, to recruit, to hire, to compensate, all of that. You need the nonprofit companies to continue with the upscaling, the personal and professional development, and helping them resolve the issues that led them to prison. You need that aspect, and then of course you need to have the DOC, correctional industries, and all these states coming together and working together. That is how you chip away and eventually solve this mass incarceration problem that is plaguing us—and it is plaguing us.
I'll tell you, for us, we've had well over 3,500 women graduate our program so far since 1994, which is when we first opened our doors. Nationally, the recidivism rate for three years is about 65%, which means 65% of people released from prison will return to prison within three years. When you look at the five-year rate, you're going as high as 89%. At Televerde, of the women who graduated our program, our recidivism rate is 5.4%. That's significant.
These women are graduating, that's what we call it, they graduate our prison program, they have the full support of the Televerde Foundation helping them get jobs in our workforce, and they're able to climb the career ladder and progress in their careers in meaningful work in careers that pay really good money so they can support themselves and they can support their families. They become the breadwinners, which is important.
So good! Are you starting to think or rethink about something you may have not of before?
We're going to get some words of wisdom from Kellie Walenciak here in a few minutes but right now, it's time to turn the spotlight on you, the MarketingProfs community. Yep, time for...
From The #MPB2B Community
We searched far and wide in the #MPB2B universe to find amazing information and conversation to bring to the masses.
So, first, make sure you are using the hashtag, and second, make sure you have fun and add value to the community.
Then, we'll spotlight you or your crew on the show. This week, it's...
Bri Krantz on LinkedIn
Marketing Professional | Aspiring Novelist | Freelance Editor | Cat Mom
Her post goes something like this...
Is expanding your thought leadership on your list of goals this year?
I feel like I've been hearing this pop back up as a personal and professional goal for a lot of people and companies lately. And it's a great goal to have!
If you're looking for ideas to get started, this article from the always awesome Ashley Faus breaks the core elements of thought leadership out into 4 pillars you can use to turn your ideas into a strategy to make it happen.
https://lnkd.in/ggZhkuuB
#mpb2b #b2b #marketing #leadership #thoughtleadership
But you need to check out the description and click that link to check out the post and read or learn more!
Marketing Smarts viewer, I have to ask... are you going to be next to get the spotlight?
Remember, community, use the hashtag #mpb2b on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter and get the light shined on your awesomeness in the next episode or a future episode of the Marketing Smarts Live show!
Pro-tip, it won't hurt if you tag me in your post as well I'm @georgebthomas on LinkedIn and Twitter.
OK, let's kick it back to Kellie Walenciak and some words of wisdom around this topic of The Power of Second Chances in B2B Marketing.
Here is what Kellie Walenciak wanted to leave us with...
Kellie: I would say it's time to champion the underdog, honestly. Unexpected paths can lead to the most breathtaking vistas. The unconventional, the outliers, what I've learned is they are the hidden gems of our industry. I just think it's high time that we started embracing rather than pushing people away or discounting them, or buying into those stereotypes so strongly that we actually cause more harm. Recidivism doesn't just affect the individual, it affects the children, and most of these women have children.
That's what I would say. Get behind the underdog and root for them. As you said earlier about not wanting a handout, giving them a hand up. That's what we need to do. We need to start uplifting people, stop putting people down. Just really have this kind, compassionate, and empathetic way of doing business. There's a ripple effect to that because when we do that, it helps these individuals and their families, it helps our business, but it also cleans up our communities, it strengthens our economy, it opens up more regions of the world for companies to do business in. There's just nothing but wins to come out of that.
That is what I would say, champion the underdog.
It's time to champion the underdog!
So many good words of wisdom here today!
Again, please take the time to go listen to the entire episode wit Kellie Walenciak!
Have you enjoyed today's journey? Let us know, and use the hashtag #mpb2b on whatever platform you are joining us on.
