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OhHello - Kevin Bryant
76 Plays2 years ago
Kevin Bryant is a Strategic Customer Success Manager for the Education vertical at Adobe. Kevin is based in Chicago, IL and has been with Adobe for 6.5years. A graduate of DePaul University, Kevin first began his career in Education before finding his way to Adobe through Programmatic Advertising. His biggest passions are bringing people together to create meaningful relationships all while demystifying software products. Kevin’s heart belongs to his beautiful wife Carmen, and his two children Naomi (3) and Andreas (10 months).
Kevin is a connector, a mentor, a leader, and brings so much energy and passion to everything he touches!
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Transcript
Introduction and Kevin's Background
00:00:05
Speaker
Hey, hey, hey, hey, JB. Oh, hello. Get it, JB. Get it, JB. You don't want me to freestyle. You don't want me to freestyle. Oh, yes we do. Come on. Oh, hello, Kevin. Oh, hello, JB. Good to see you. Great to see you. So excited to have you on.
00:00:28
Speaker
we we've caught up a couple times this week, which just always feels good. And obviously, I know who I'm speaking with. I know who I'm looking at. For our listeners, for our viewers, we have my dear friend, Kevin Bryant, I'm introducing you.
00:00:46
Speaker
Kevin, who are you? What defines you? And why are you here? Hi, everybody. My name is Kevin Bryant. I've known Jeremy for just under seven years, believe it or not. But who am I? I am just a kid from the west side of Chicago. I've grown up in Chicago my entire life. I'm a diehard White Sox fan, 2005. There we go.
00:01:10
Speaker
But I'm here today to talk about mentorship, which is something extremely important to me. I currently work at Adobe, and we'll talk about my role later. But simply put, I'm just a man that really loves mentorship. I think it's super
Role at Adobe and Career Transition
00:01:23
Speaker
important. And we're going to talk about all the aspects of that in just a second. I'm sure Jeremy's going to take us there.
00:01:29
Speaker
I will take everybody there. You're also a dad of two extremely cute kids. I'm never always going to kill me without mentioning that. Yes, I have two kids. A husband. Yes, a husband. My youngest kid is eight months old, Andreas today. He's eight months old, and then Naomi, she's two and a half. She'll be three in May, so just pray for me, guys. Just please God. Oh my gosh.
00:01:55
Speaker
All right, Kevin. Well, I'm excited to have you on this. We're excited to listen. You bring so much dynamic energy to every room that you're in. Absolutely. Which partially defines some of the characteristics and skillset that you're going to be sharing with the Oh Hello community. Yes. Tell us a little bit more about your personality traits. Tell us what motivates you. Tell us a little bit about how you define who you are and how you've gotten to where you are within the ecosystem of
00:02:25
Speaker
tech, marketing, and just your ascension within your career, because you've been crushing it, my friend. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that. You know, my main job is to bring people together and to be undeniably curious about who they are, and not set in judgment, you know, like that old tabaso quote, right? Be curious, not judgmental. I absolutely love that quote, because I feel like that's
00:02:48
Speaker
really who I try to be all the time.
Mentorship and Career Development
00:02:51
Speaker
I started my career in sales seven years of sales and I wanted a career change so I got into digital marketing world and
00:02:59
Speaker
One of the biggest things I've learned in my life is that failure teaches you a lot. When I first started in digital marketing, I didn't like it. They had someone like me who was used to sales, talking, being an introvert, talking to people, making connections. I was in Excel doing V lookups all day and pivot tables. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. And it crushed me because I had worked so hard to get to this point and it was a quote unquote failure. I didn't know where I was going to go. And so I went from this huge agency working on these big brands like Hyatt and Choice Hotels and Kellogg's.
00:03:29
Speaker
to this little small company called Tube Mogul. And it was right down the street from my other job. And I met a man named Jeremy Bloom, also Matt Kiska was there. And I was like, Hey, can you guys give me a shot? And they hired me. Four months later, we got acquired by Adobe and I still work there. So
00:03:49
Speaker
Let you know. A lot of things can come from failure. What's your role at Adobe? What do you do? So currently at Adobe, I am a strategic customer success manager. Fancy word for account manager in the higher education space. So I work with a lot of Big Ten schools, you know, Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, all those fun schools. I also have an HBCU, historically black college university called Bowie State in Maryland. It's about 45 minutes Northeast.
00:04:15
Speaker
of Washington DC and it's just incredible. So my role as the account manager or the customer success manager is to make sure they love Adobe, they love our products, that I build a relationship with them and that hopefully they renew their contract every three years. So I'm just their right hand man. I call myself Mr. Adobe to everyone I meet on those campuses. I'm like, hey, I'm Mr. Adobe and they're like, all right, man. And so I get
00:04:39
Speaker
I get texts. I get more texts than emails because I make those relationships personal. And so they'll send me texts and say, Hey, Mr. Adobe, I need X, Y, and Z. Can you help me? And I make those connections. So that's awesome. Well, you are absolutely such a connector as you and I were talking about before.
00:04:56
Speaker
did a longer catch up than than we typically do just because anyway, with that said, what are what are some aspects that excite you about mentorship? What excites you about the Oh, hello community?
00:05:10
Speaker
Well, I love
International Experiences and Advice to Younger Self
00:05:11
Speaker
the Oh, Hello community and just the idea of mentorship because coming up and really not knowing what the heck I was doing in a lot of situations as far as my corporate job or in life, I relied heavily on folks that are 10 to 15 to 20 years older than me. And I call them OGs, original gangsters. And they kind of took me under the wing and said, hey, Kevin, this is how you do it. And don't worry about the minutia of this job. This is the big picture.
00:05:38
Speaker
And those OGs, I just absolutely just thank you all so much. I guess, can I name some of the OGs? Is that okay? Yeah, of course you can. Absolutely. Kevin, this is about you as one of our experts, as one of our hellos, as one of our mentors. Absolutely. Give some kudos, some creditations. I mean, just, you know, Wes Everson for just uncovering kind of what I was best at. She made me a trainer at Tube Mogul slash Adobe, and that kind of opened up my entire world.
00:06:08
Speaker
I never thought it was possible to do what I do and be this, you know, sales guy or whatever you want to call me, really extroverted in this digital analytical space. I didn't know how to marry the two. So she's taught me, hey, you could be a trainer and that's how you do it. And that completely changed the trajectory of my career. So thank you to her. Well trajectory of your career, but also just the life experiences of traveling to South America, Asia, Europe.
00:06:35
Speaker
every major city in North America like yes, yes, yes, it made me connect with more people than I ever have in my entire life, you know, again, Japan, Brazil, but not only that, but just within my company, I began to be some of like a cult following because I went into every single office and everyone knew why I was there, I was there to kick ass and take names. And I had to connect with the people there and
00:06:58
Speaker
It was just so fulfilling for me because I love connecting. I love meeting new people. I love meeting people that are different than me and me saying, hey, I have no clue about X, Y, and Z. I don't know about your culture. I don't know about this. I don't know about the food you eat. Tell me all about that. And so it really just fed my soul doing that. But there's so many more people that I can name, especially with... Name them. Name them. Name them.
00:07:22
Speaker
Patrick McConaughey, you know, Megan Sagetti. We got Kyle Johnson. We got Michael Cruz, you know, Matt Kiska. What's up? What's going on, man? You know, all my current people that I work with, of course. Man, you're going to have me here all day, Jeremy. You know, my wife was with the tour at one point. Michelle Chin, Brett, everybody, everybody at two. We know who you are. You guys, thank you.
00:07:42
Speaker
That's amazing. What would you tell your 25 year old self looking back knowing you're creeping close to 40 years? Oh, I'll be 38 in July. Yeah. Your younger self. I would tell my younger self to work your ass off and don't be afraid.
00:08:07
Speaker
to go out and get exactly what you want to use your skills. Okay. I honestly thought, Jeremy, this is real. I thought that you go to a job, you work there, about 45% of you thinks that it's okay, but the rest you're just providing.
00:08:22
Speaker
The CEO, whoever your manager is, is a person in the high tower and you don't question them. Doesn't matter what you want, you do the job. That's how I kind of lived my life in my corporate world and just tried to not get fired. That's literally what I was trying to do is just surviving and working because I thought that's what I was supposed to do.
00:08:38
Speaker
I would say, hey, you have a voice, you have autonomy. What you want to do is important. You have a gift and harness that gift. Learn to present. Don't be afraid to present in front of people if you don't know what you're talking about. One of the best presenters I've ever come across. But you know, it's I learned, and Jeremy, at first, what's funny, you say that because I used to not like presenting at all. And I learned that I was only nervous because I thought I was unprepared. And I thought I wasn't the expert. And so I tell my 25-year-old self, be the expert. Do the work.
00:09:07
Speaker
And then when you get in front of those people, there's nothing that anyone can say, right? And so do the work, kick ass, and use your skills early as possible because it'll make you a happier person, young Bryant, young Kevin Bryant. Knowing
Community Involvement and Closing Remarks
00:09:22
Speaker
that we're integrated in over 40 plus charities within the states and a few hundred globally, what are some charities that are near and dear to your heart and why?
00:09:33
Speaker
I got to mention my mom's charity. She works with Catholic Charities. She's over at Oak Park. And it's one of the best charities, you know, they donate stuff to women and families in need. Yeah, I was just gonna say for for our friends and listeners who aren't in Chicago. Park is a it's a really nice suburb adjacent to the city.
00:09:55
Speaker
Absolutely. Jason to where I grew up and so it's very dear to me because West side of Chicago and we're doing a lot of things, you know, as far as baby clothes and things for women that need furniture or things like that. And she's always trying to help out families that need it. It's a wonderful charity.
00:10:10
Speaker
And the second one is Austin coming together. Austin is a community within Chicago. When I grew up, it was pretty rough. I'm not going to lie. But this is called ACT Austin coming together. They are trying to make improvements to the area. They're offering mentorship programs just like this one. They're offering different block parties.
00:10:30
Speaker
and just different donations to community centers, things like that. And I've worked with them for about four years, and I actually was on their board at one point, and Austin coming together is fantastic. We've done a fundraiser for them in the past, but hey, that's someone I definitely want to mention as well. Amazing. Amazing.
00:10:49
Speaker
Kevin, you are such an inspiring person. We're so excited to have you as part of the Oh Hello community. Thank you for being here. Thank you to our listeners for listening. Thank you for watching. Yes. Oh, hello. Hello. Hi, Kevin. Hello. Thanks, my friend. Hello. Thank you, JP. I appreciate you. Appreciate you. All right.
00:11:39
Speaker
Peace. Peace.