This week we talk with Francine Feder, marketing executive, about building strong teams, understanding your team’s motivations, handling rejection, marketing and women’s sports, respecting your team, promoting work/life balance, and so much more.
Francine has so much insight, experience and advice to share from her many years of experience.
Contact Francine
LinkedIn: @francine-feder
About Francine
Francine is currently working as an independent marketing consultant after her 20+ year career with Foot Locker Inc including 12 years at the VP level leading diverse Marketing teams across Brand Strategy, Creative & Content, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Paid Media, Social Media, Influencer & Talent Marketing and Events.
She is an award winning marketer whose accolades include numerous Cannes Lions, Sports Clios and the Effie Award for Sustained Success for Foot Locker campaigns that have garnered national press and recognition.
Her current consulting assignments include amongst others, a role as the VP of Athlete Storytelling and Business Development for Athlete Driven, an integrated marketing agency specializing in working with brands using athletes at the center and also serving as an Executive Advisor to Diseo, a decentralized social media startup platform.
Francine lives in New York with her husband, and her goldendoodle dog Huey. She is an avid traveler, wine, food, fitness and boating enthusiast.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE PODCAST
Foot Locker
Yankee Stadium
Wine and Beer Tasting Team Building Events
Barbie Movie Gloria (America Ferrera) monologue
LVMH
Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey
3-in-1 charger
The Guest by Emma Cline
Search Engine Podcast
SHOW NOTES
[03:03] Francine introduces herself
[05:06] Huey the golden doodle is introduced
[05:53] Francine’s background and interest in sports
[07:07] Benefits of ensuring diversity on your team
[08:46] Brief discussion on generational differences
[10:22] Staying late at the office
[12:26] Understanding and managing diversity on your team
[18:00] Benefits of having weekly touch bases with your team
[20:02] Discussion of skip-level meetings – what they are and why to have them
[20:49] Necessity of being transparent as a leader
[22:49] Effectively leading remote teams
[23:18] Wine, beer and non-alcoholic wine tasting events at work
[25:04] How to get funding for your work team building event
[27:01] The necessity of learning to deal with rejection
[30:44] Handing disagreements or misunderstandings driven by diversity
[33:01] Women in sports marketing
[33:45] Discussion about Barbie and marketing
[35:44] How the America Ferrera moment in Barbie affected us
[37:34] Why managing down is harder than managing up
[38:50] Respecting your team’s time
[42:10] Advice for communicating a difficult or unexpected deadline
[43:45] Promoting work/life balance on your team
[46:21] Thoughts on bringing people back to the office
[49:14] The mentors who have made a difference in Francine’s career
[52:53] The morning routine that keeps Francine sane
[54:46] Francine’s go-to song when she needs an energy or confidence boost
[55:08] The one thing <$100 that has made a difference for Francine
[55:50] The book Francine recommends everyone read
[56:13] The podcast Francine recommends everyone listens to
[57:46] Francine’s final words of advice and inspiration
[58:06] How you can reach out to Francine
QUOTES FROM THE SHOW
“I think one [key in managing diversity] is understanding people’s perspective. Of how they approach things, because just in, gender, race, age, all the diversity aspects aside, I think everybody comes into a job, into a workplace with years of history of, how they were raised, what motivates them and drives them…”
“I say the word transparency a lot. It’s it is the key to everything. Yes. Are there certain like, things that are working at the highest levels of the company that you cannot share with your team? Absolutely. But I think as transparent as you possibly can be. with your team is, is what’s going to lead to, less hurt feelings, less disgruntlement…”
“I always say, you treat a meeting with the person working for you the same way you do with the person you’re working for. You show up on time. Like, if you’re late, without a decent explanation that’s like, Hey, give me 5 minutes or whatever, because we all get stuck in things. But if you’re, if you’re egregiously late or don’t show up to a meeting, that’s just basically saying, I don’t respect you and I don’t have respect for your time.”
“I think giving people context really helps always. So as opposed to saying like, Hey, I need you to do this by five o’clock tomorrow. It’s listen, you know, we’ve got an unexpected meeting that, we’ve realized that we don’t have, not everything is completely prepared for. Here’s why it’s important to the company. This could bring in a new revenue stream, but like, let them know why they’re doing it. I think I’ve always found that helps immensely because then people like, it’s just not as random. People feel respected. They feel part of the goal.”
“Be transparent with others and be true to yourself.”
Responses