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OhHello - Marc Goldberg
40 Plays1 year ago
OhHello!!!
It's episode 59 and this "Hello" (featured Mentor on OhHello.io) is notoriously known around the hashtag#marketing hashtag#advertising hashtag#career circles as the "Pay It Forward" guy.
Well, today's the day we give Marc Goldberg some attention and back-pats for doing all he does!
This hashtag#payitforward powerhouse runs Stages Collective, and he is the ultimate mensch that you've likely seen in your LI feeds. He's the kind of pro you want to learn from - so after this episode, go book time with him on OhHello.io!
During this vod, Marc Goldberg walks us through his approach. As the go-to guy for connecting people, and fostering opportunities, his "pay it forward" mantra has transformed lives in the professional realm.
He's been a mentor to accelerator programs like 500 Startups + Techstars, has coached, and proudly connected people throughout his career. From the early days of being a media buyer to running global teams and eventually being a CEO, his words of wisdom are simple: just be a good person!
Professional mentors like Liz Fox + Ron McCoy played pivotal roles in shaping Marc early on, and there are so many other mentors and colleagues Marc wants to tag, including the influence of his parents/step-parents (whom are retired law professors and Evanston, IL socialites), in shaping his worldviews.
Beyond business, this OhHello.io 🌞☕️ mentor actively contributes to the community. Organizing events like the Glen Rock Fourth of July parade and supporting causes like Breastcancer.org reflect his commitment to giving back.
Parting Words of Wisdom:
Marc shares a gem from one of his mentors: "Do what you're supposed to be doing while you're supposed to be doing it. Have fun." His advice resonates with finding joy in your career.
🙌 Thank you, Marc Goldberg, for the enriching conversation!
🎧 Don't have time for the vod? Watch, review, and subcribe to the pod (below)
hashtag#Leadership hashtag#CareerGrowth hashtag#CommunityEngagement hashtag#mentorship
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Transcript
Introduction to Mark Goldberg
00:00:10
Speaker
You've had enough of this. More music. Hello. Hello to you. Hello. That's what she said.
00:00:22
Speaker
Mr. Mark Goldberg, thank you for joining us. I typically say, oh, hello, who are you? But for those who are watching on LinkedIn versus those who are listening through their AirPods or through their cars, we have the distinguished honor of having Mr. Mark Goldberg, also known as the LinkedIn famous Pay It Forward professional,
00:00:46
Speaker
I guess. Yeah, sure. I sincerely mean that I mark you have, through mutual networks, I have seen your posts over the past several years, and you constantly are trying, you're just a mensch, you do the right thing, you pay it forward, and you
00:01:01
Speaker
are constantly helping other people. And that's one of the reasons why I reached out to initially and how we are developing a budding friendship is purely just paying it forward and just being a good person. So Mark Goldberg, the floor is yours.
Career Journey in Ad Tech and Media
00:01:15
Speaker
Thank you. Who are you? My name is Mark Goldberg. I run a consultancy now at Stages Collective. I've been on the agency side. I've been a publisher. I've been on the ad tech side. I've been in this industry for quite some time. You can see I used to have hair. I don't have it anymore. I'm old.
00:01:31
Speaker
I am the pay it forward guy. If you want to call me that I've been doing pay it forward in the organic sense of always, Hey, can you talk to my buddy? And now there's this platform called LinkedIn. Hopefully you've been on it. Um, it's a really good platform and I've been able to really connect a lot of people. I think it's just a good thing to do. Um, all my network calls me. I can't answer all their calls. This is a good way of one to many. So, uh, it's been working. I've been helping getting a lot of people roles. My consultancy also does contingent recruitment. So I'm also doing a little bit of recruitment as well. So.
00:01:59
Speaker
It's been great and I've enjoyed it and I like what your, your mission is.
Passions for Mentorship and Growth
00:02:03
Speaker
Thank you, Mark. I appreciate that. You're also, uh, you're, you're a father, you're a husband. You live in, in New Jersey. You grew up in the Chicagoland area. Justin Fields. Sorry. We'll get through it. Yeah. Mark, what, what defines you just as an executive, as a professional, as someone who just exudes empathy?
00:02:26
Speaker
In the early stages of my career, I always would try to understand everything in the world. Then once I started to understand it, I used to teach the media class at Zenith Media back in the day. I used to really be the new higher orientation person at About.com. I used to really try to continue to give back.
00:02:46
Speaker
I joined 500 startups, ERA, Techstars, all the accelerator programs because I liked and enjoyed being a mentor. I've done the ANA mentorship as well. I just like that. That's who I am. I like to coach. You know, I coach all my kids in various sports. That's, I would say I always just like to be involved and help out. That's amazing. Being involved and just having a helping hand is important. It really just, it makes a difference.
00:03:14
Speaker
But also if you can show a meaningful path. So with the accelerator program, I got to work with some startups that they were smarter than I was in a lot of ways, how they thought about the business problem, but the execute on the problem. They were missing some things and that's where I could help. And so just mentorship in job career stuff.
00:03:36
Speaker
people think they're great. And sometimes you have to tell them they're not. And here's how they have to fix themselves. And that both of those, you can show them growth paths. And I think that's just been something that's important to me is to help people grow.
Consultancy and Market Understanding
00:03:49
Speaker
So that's basically my next question is going to ask essentially, how would you characterize your skill set? And I would think that you organically would characterize it by helping people grow. Am I right? How would you play off of that?
00:04:03
Speaker
I think that's probably at the end of the day, my Stages Consultancy, basically Stages Collective, I help people get to the next stage and getting to the next stage requires some growth.
00:04:12
Speaker
And so if I can help them grow as a business, like I have clients that are coming in from the UK trying to understand the US marketplace, if they understand the US marketplace and can grow here, their business takes off. I have some startups that I'm helping here in the US that as they continue to grow, they're getting bigger and more, you know, getting stronger. What do I do? I help them grow. And so I think there's a lot to say about growth. I don't like to be called a growth hacker because that's absolutely not what I do.
00:04:38
Speaker
But that word growth does matter in so many different capacities of business. With that growth, does that help you feel that sense of paying it forward? Does that help you feel that sense of just altruism through mentorship as well? Yeah, I mean, paying it forward started because I just literally didn't have enough time in the day to help people. But also paying it forward meant, you know what, something's going to come back to me.
00:05:05
Speaker
And in the truest sense, right, it comes back. And I think I've created a nice flywheel of helping people and they remember that.
The Rewards of 'Pay It Forward'
00:05:13
Speaker
And like, you know, I'll be at a conference and hopefully on Tuesday I'll go. Someone would tap me on the shoulder and say, here's a beer. Thank you for helping me get my next role. I found it via LinkedIn.
00:05:21
Speaker
The amount of good emails I get, and I'm pointing to my screen that no one can see right there, on LinkedIn, I get an inbox full of people being very thankful for some of the stuff I've done. And I truly appreciate that. That's part of it. I just like that.
Advice to Younger Self
00:05:37
Speaker
That's amazing. When you look back, what would you tell your younger self, whether it's your 25-year-old self, your 30-year-old self? We talked about this earlier when we're going back and forth.
00:05:48
Speaker
When you think back at your younger self, for those that are watching, those that are viewing, what are some tips and tricks that if you could hit the rewind button outside of scratching your head from one balding guy to another? Well, going back 25 years is a long effing time. I'm just keeping in mind. We didn't have email back then.
00:06:10
Speaker
I don't know if it would be so much as, hey, dumbass study more and pay attention to English class because I think communication is as critical in a lot of ways. And English is often taken for granted as a class. People don't read and write. And I think those skills are super important for whatever you do in life because now we're dependent on these little devices called phones where we have to write emails to our bosses and things. So English is a great thing to do. And I would have probably doubled down a little bit more.
00:06:39
Speaker
But I think I did a lot of the right things of trying to actually be a good person because I think everyone remembers that reputation. As a media buyer, we had people who were taking trips and doing stuff for one sales rep and they're trying to get money out.
00:06:57
Speaker
There were a lot of bad activities back in the day and I just said I wasn't going to be a bad person. I didn't want to take an incentive trip because I wasn't doing my day job. And so if you always try to do the right thing, I think everything, everyone sees that and your reputation is something that's going to precede you and could hinder you from getting your next job and growing in any role. Were there different mentors that helped teach you this along the way? Like who were some of your professional
Influential Mentors
00:07:23
Speaker
mentors?
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, this is going to be on LinkedIn, so I'm going to leave people off and they're going to be pissed. So thanks. But you can also time out with that. So you can email me. You can text me right after. I'm just saying, there's a laundry list.
00:07:35
Speaker
So there's been a lot of great people in my life and I've been fortunate to be close to a lot of people at the senior level and just been taking the ride, help them, let me take a ride with them. So, you know, if I go all the way back, it's Liz Fox, who's now a, you know, very senior at Zenith Media. She taught me to be tough, but fair as a media buyer. And I really thought that was interesting because you have to do your job, but just don't be a jerk. And I thought that was very interesting by side.
00:08:01
Speaker
There was a couple other great people that I learned and met in Phase 2 Media at about.com. I have countless of people who've been excellent to me, but one of them was Ron McCoy, who was the CTO. And he really opened my eyes to understanding how different groups work together at a company. And, you know, a salesperson keeps on doing the same thing, going, calling and making a sale and failing and then going again and doing again.
00:08:27
Speaker
A product person and a tech person says, shit, it's on my desk. I have to figure out when I'm going to get it done. And it's imminent because it has to get done. And so there's just two different ways, different teams, those two teams speak to each other. And he starts to kind of, he helped me kind of think bigger in organizations, which then helped me think bigger in companies. And so I would give him a lot of credit as well.
00:08:50
Speaker
Amazing.
Family Influence and Learning
00:08:52
Speaker
What about in your personal world outside of work? Anyone else that has had a profound impact? Profound impact in the personal world? Wow. I'd have to think about that longer. I would have to say mom and dad were very important. My dad and stepmother are both now retired law professors from Columbia and NYU respectively.
00:09:15
Speaker
They were very smart. They knew a lot of things about a lot of people in terms of just the law and helping me kind of see that kind of the world, which made me very aware of that type of world, which is why I'm not a lawyer.
00:09:30
Speaker
you know, I learned a lot from them, uh, indirectly and directly. And I would say if I had to do a shortcut, easy answer that those two, and as well as my mom, who's been, you know, the mayor of central street in Evanston forever. So that's great street. Yeah, it is a great street. So those, those, those three would be put in the category. Amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that. As you know, as a, as a hello, as a mentor on the platform,
00:09:57
Speaker
We care about altruism.
Philanthropy and Time Contribution
00:09:58
Speaker
We care about being able to give back and the fact that we are integrated in approximately 50 different not-for-profits where after each oh hello mentorship session, you can have the choice to give back to any of those, any of those charities. What's a cause that's near and dear to your heart, Mark? What cause is plural? I say again? What cause is plural? Well, I mean, there's a lot of causes I would say that are important, but generally I,
00:10:26
Speaker
I'm going to be very honest, I generally don't give to a lot of charities because I'd rather do the work. And, you know, I put, I do a lot of the stuff that, you know, I mean, I'm not going to start telling you everything I do in life, but, you know, little things like, you know, helping with the Glenrock parade, Fourth of July parade.
00:10:46
Speaker
I'm very deeply involved in putting the parade together. That's not a charity per se, but that's just giving back. And I think there's something about giving back to those types of things and causes that kind of put you in that kind of giving, kind of give back ecosystem. I would say breastcancer.org is a very important one. And if I had to choose, that's probably where I would give it a variety of reasons under that domain. But I think that's a very good cause. Thank you. Thank you. Definitely appreciate it.
00:11:16
Speaker
When you talk about time versus money, I think a lot of us understand that those are two perpendicular aspects that also can run parallel when it comes to just some people have time, others have money and just whatever essentially is making you feel that you're able to pay it forward to bring it back to what you do best. So thank you for sharing that.
Parting Advice on Career Fulfillment
00:11:39
Speaker
As we conclude this Oh, hello session.
00:11:44
Speaker
I know what I want to ask you about specifically parting words of wisdom that you have for our Oh, hello tribe. For those that are watching for your network, for my network, for our collective networks. What if Mark Goldberg, the pay it forward executive could say or do one thing. What would that one thing be? Throwing you a curve ball, my friend. If I could do one thing for who? Let me just make sure I understand the question. You're parting words of wisdom.
00:12:13
Speaker
if this was going to be on your tombstone, so to speak, or if this was your biography, instead of having that's what she said, if you have a shirt that said XYZ Mark Goldberg. So one of my other mentors, a person in that about mixes Mark Westlake, he'll always used to say, do what you're supposed to be doing while you're supposed to be doing it. Have fun.
00:12:38
Speaker
And I think, you know, that just talks about like, hey, you have a day job, you're going to be working, you better do what you said you got to do and you're going to be successful at that, but also try to make sure you're doing something that you like and enjoy. And I think we all would love to work at a place that we would all love and enjoy. It doesn't always end that way in terms of, oh, man, I like football. I work for the NFL. No, it's different. But like, there are cultures and companies that do make you have fun, even if you're selling widgets.
00:13:08
Speaker
So, you know, enjoy what you're doing and try to find that. And not everything is a job. There are careers and you have to differentiate those two because you could just take a job and just continue to do this. But if you find a career, you can grow in that career and then hopefully in that career, you're enjoying what you're doing and while you're doing it. I think that was that was a fantastic answer. Mark Goldberg. This has been great.
00:13:35
Speaker
Thank you very much, my friend. Thank you for hopping on. The mic dropped. Thank you for hopping on the oh, hello podcast. You're gonna go pick it up. You're gonna pick it up. He's picking it up. He's picking it up. Thank you everyone for listening and for watching. Mark, we appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Go to oh, hello.io.