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00:00:00
00:00:01
Nadine Heir
31 Plays2 hours ago
Thanks for listening to our episode with Nadine Heir.
To keep up with or connect with Nadine:
✨ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadineheir/
✨Website: https://migrantinmexico.substack.com/
To stay in touch with Meredith and Medbury:
Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
Follow Medbury on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medbury_agency/
Subscribe to the Medbury newsletter: https://meredithfarley.substack.com/
Email Meredith: Meredith@MedburyAgency.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Connection
00:00:03
Speaker
Nadine, hi. Hi, Meredith. Thank you for having me. Oh, I'm so happy to get to chat with you. I remember we... So we've, I feel like known each other through LinkedIn for two years, maybe. Yeah. I mean, since maybe the pandemic, but now people keep telling me the pandemic is five years ago. I'm not sure I believe.
00:00:22
Speaker
And then we like, but we only had our actual like first chat, maybe, I don't know, was it like six months ago or something? Yeah. Super recently. It's like that sort of parasocial relationship that we had going on. And then we were like, okay, let's not be weird. Let's actually have a conversation. And and I was like,
00:00:38
Speaker
Oh, I love Nadine. I made a new long distance friend. So I'm so happy that you're, thanks for being willing to do this and
Nadine's Career Path: Editorial to Marketing
00:00:45
Speaker
just start it off. For folks who don't know who you are, can you say who you are and what you do?
00:00:49
Speaker
Absolutely. I'm a marketer. I got my start mostly in editorial. So shifted into organic marketing, which was a pretty logical step. But I to take care of everything. And I always wanted to be in marketing. I used to watch Samantha and Sex and the City and the woman in one baby. Yeah.
00:01:07
Speaker
with with Helen Hunt and I definitely thought that marketing would be like that very glamorous and that's where I thought oh I think this would be for me so I pushed hard to get from editorials into marketing and I think that probably the most like the funnest fact about Mirror at least what people find really interesting is that I'm obviously English but live in Mexico City and I've been living here since 2011 a good 14 years 15 years nearly so a good fourteen years fifteen years early And yeah, I just came out here as a recent grad, so a very naive recent grad. But here we are still a few years later.
00:01:42
Speaker
ah Yeah, so much I want to dig into there. what Do you remember the Helen Hunt movie that made you want to be in marketing? Yeah, it was called What Women Want. She's a really good actress and i think she's still doing lots now, but it' was called Want. And it has Mel Gibson.
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It was all about them being like an ad agency. And I think I just thought it would be like paintings and like really fun copywriting, like bylines.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah. and coming up with gifts and activations and yes that's a lot of what I do now but maybe in previous years I've spent so much more doing digital marketing social email ads all of these things that just happen online and they're a little bit less tangible so I think they feel a little bit less fun or maybe i don't think they feel less fun to do but they wouldn't make a good movie but but My husband and I rewatched What Women Want maybe during the pandemic because he never – that's right. Must have been a trip.
00:02:40
Speaker
It was wild. Like it is – definitely think a lot of folks would find it problematic, many things about it.
Transition to Digital Marketing and Mexico
00:02:48
Speaker
And also at certain points it takes like super dark turns because – okay, let me remember. So basically Mel Gibson – has an accident where he's electrocuted in the bathtub and then he can hear women's thoughts right yeah he's like trying and he was trying to get into women's brains and why do women want these things why do women spend so much money on beauty and i think now we could definitely say yeah why do women spend so much money on beauty because companies like yours exist and make us feel inadequate and therefore we think we have to do the wax strips and i don't know what else he uses the hair dryer and
00:03:21
Speaker
the nose strips, everything. But yeah, there's so much we could question now about about most movies that were made during that time. I will say I at least watched it when I was, I wouldn't say like a preteen, I'm not sure now. Old enough to be aware that, oh, this is a legit job that people do and presumably get paid for, but probably far too young to have become the feminist that I am today.
00:03:47
Speaker
That's funny. i thought And then, yeah, Samantha, I feel like a lot of women fell prey or not fell prey. That's not the right term, but like probably so many women who live in New York City and work in PR, they're like 800% more because of Samantha.
00:04:01
Speaker
and then She has such a... glamorous and luxurious life. She's obviously a very successful PR person. I'm very aware that PR is not like that.
00:04:12
Speaker
And I'm sure the majority of people, I don't know a lot about New York, where you probably know more than me, but I imagine the majority people working in PR are living in like a basement flat. and commuting for an hour and a half a day to get to their not so pretty office. Meanwhile, Samantha's in this a beautiful open plan yes office.
00:04:29
Speaker
Receiving designer handbags as handouts. Yeah, not realistic. Just living the dream. So what was your major in college?
00:04:41
Speaker
Not at all related to what I do, really. It's called French and Spanish. So we did a little bit of all sorts of subjects. We studied the history, the socioeconomics.
00:04:51
Speaker
There was a bit of ethnography, at the language, of course, politics, all of these things that go into... and French and Spanish speaking countries. So there was a lot around, of course, France and Northern Africa, as well as Latin America.
00:05:05
Speaker
is this true It's a bit of a strange degree to have. It's very academic, not vocational at all. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to somebody in 2025.
Life and Adaptation in Mexico City
00:05:15
Speaker
ah Besides giving me a good, what do I say? Good dinner party conversations, I guess.
00:05:22
Speaker
It's not been useful. I don't know what your major was. What did you study? Writing. I was like journalism oh that and and writing. And when I graduated, I thought I wanted to get into PR and I did, but very quickly moved into marketing.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah. That's a much more logical route. work with a lot of marketers now who were journalists beforehand. And as say I started in editorials, worked alongside like serious journalists who were Reuters and Washington Post and BBC writers translate actually very well into marketing.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah. Right now our head of exec content, Julia, Before starting at Medbury, she had a editorial for the Nextdoor app. But for years before that, in a variety of places, she basically was focused on journalism. And it's such a, yeah, it's like such a great translation of that skill set.
00:06:10
Speaker
And I also remember i had a PR internship. actually quit after two days. The shortest internship. The shortest ever. Because I graduated in 09, which in the States was like the terrible credit crunch.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah. Terrible. And i had a PR internship lined up that was meant to be like, you work across the summer. And then if you do well, you'll start with an associate position at this salary on September 15th.
00:06:38
Speaker
And when I, it was a big reputable agency and I moved to Boston and went into the office on Monday and half the office was boarded up. And then they were like, oh, yep, we laid off half of our staff since January when we extended the internship.
00:06:53
Speaker
And they were like, and did anyone tell you that the paid transition is no longer a thing? And I was like, no. So it would have been basically like they're like, you could still be an intern indefinitely for free.
00:07:04
Speaker
But I couldn't afford that. So I did two more days and then I was like, my on time waitress and look for a marketing job. and that's ah chair Oh, good. No, that's ridiculous. That's part of the reason I came to Mexico actually was because I was watching all my friends graduating in 2011. We graduated in. So we were still ah in England. We were definitely still suffering from you of the last recession or the credit crunch and I'd watched some of my friends graduate a year before me into unpaid internships and of course living in London which if you have parents in London and maybe your only expenses are tube travel and food yeah okay like maybe that's doable but I was not one of those people and i was just like I can't do an unpaid internship for 12 months until I get an actual paid role
00:07:46
Speaker
And there was a very badly paid rule open here out in Mexico, but at least it was paid. I was like, yeah, great. So I'll get to sign it, practice different kinds of Spanish. I'd lived in Spain before. It'll be new Spanish language adventure and it'll actually be paid. But that was half the motivation for me to come here was just, this is ridiculous that unpaid internships are a thing and they expect you to live on. My internship was very poorly paid, but it at least covers your rent and groceries. Yeah.
00:08:15
Speaker
I think that should be that minimum. Like the living stipend will give you enough money that you can feed and house yourself and keep coming in. Like to not die for 12 months. Exactly. I think that's why I hear people doing now a part-time internships.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah. And then like they waitress or get some type job for part-time. Yeah, exactly. So you, okay. So I think you're a French and Spanish major. I'm connecting the dots now. So that made it, so you you were like, okay.
00:08:42
Speaker
There's no jobs to be had here. I speak Spanish. There's an opportunity there. i have a bit of sociocultural understanding of this country, probably. And that's what brought you to Mexico City. And then why have you stayed in Mexico City for 14 years?
00:08:56
Speaker
for te 15 years? 13 years? Sheer stubbornness and refusal to be beaten by this city. Because Mexico, if anyone's been to Mexico City, even if you haven't been recently, you'll remember that it's chaos. It's so much. There's so many people.
00:09:11
Speaker
We're now 22 million people living in this city. Wow. Yeah, and it covers a lot of ground. It is very big. There are a lot of people who will travel two hours, no problem, to get to work every day. and That's just their standard commute or more.
00:09:25
Speaker
One of the girls I work with currently at DQS he definitely does two and a half hours to get to work every single day. She's up at 4.30 in the morning just to get to the office. It's an enormous city. And I thought, yeah, speak Spanish. but It'll be easy.
00:09:37
Speaker
And I will say the language here is very easy. If you've learned in Spain... very easy to translate to Mexican. It's slightly simpler in terms of grammar. there' a lot of words that are different, but honestly, Mexicans are used to and meeting people who are not native speakers and they'll help you very politely and until you get the word that is the local word.
00:09:57
Speaker
My first experience of that was in a, like a 7-Eleven and going in and asking for a mechero, which is a lighter. and and pointing it out. And like, yeah, the thing's just behind you. I just want lighter. And they're looking at me like I'm completely crazy. And then eventually they did work out what I wanted.
00:10:14
Speaker
And they said, encendedor, which is literally the word to turn on. It's a much better name in books in Spanish with Spanish Castilian. And yeah, but it was, I stayed probably because it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be in my naivete and I guess just you thinking that Eight months would be enough. I like found, no, it's not enough to actually feel like you've integrated enough and like you've learned to enough. And still, there's still so many things. Words that my team will teach me that I still don't know.
00:10:50
Speaker
i think this happens when want go back to England as well though now, because language is like a living thing, right? Yeah. But yeah, there's still so much to see. it as I say, with it being so huge, there's literally something on every day. If you wanted to go to a show or an expo or an exhibition, you could every single day, you could do something new.
Cultural Dynamics and Long-term Foreign Work
00:11:10
Speaker
it' I've never been, but I really want to go. My husband wants to go too. We have some kids who lived there for six months and they had so many amazing things to say. I can believe it, yeah. It's becoming a bit of a cultural problem, I think is the word, an issue with the amount of people coming over and doing this nomadic travel, especially in certain areas of the city.
00:11:28
Speaker
And that has changed a little bit the vibe about people coming over for short as in six months, a year or something, and doing this nomadic work. But the problem really for Mexico City is that it is built to suit that.
00:11:41
Speaker
Internet connection is really good. We're in the same time zone as most states in the U.S., or at least within a reasonable time zone. There's not really seasons in the sense that not like in England where it gets dark at 4pm in winter and then doesn't get light again until 8, 9. Here it's very stable and steady. so almost anyone can adapt to it.
00:12:04
Speaker
And i think that attracts a lot of people. It's too easy to then migrate here and then just spend six months. I think it's a six month tourist visa that most people get, maybe three months.
00:12:14
Speaker
Okay, I know in your sub stack, which I want to get to you talk about living in Mexico City, which is so interesting. I do think it's an unusual choice in some ways to go live and work for a long period of time in a country that's not your own. Why do you think you were atypically drawn to do that?
00:12:31
Speaker
And I'm thinking, because this is a hard question to answer, I think possibly if you spoke to my therapist, she would tell me it's a search for belonging. Where i grew up in England, my parents moved away from there not long after I was going to university. If I went home to...
00:12:46
Speaker
my parents place none of my friends were there so I didn't know anyone I spent Christmas it was just my family my family in England also lived far away from there so I never really felt like I had deep roots in one city in England we also have some relatives who are from Colombia who actually did at the time live in Barcelona so when I was about 14 15 and Ryanair flights cost 20 euros. My parents would just put me on a flight for Easter and say, go and spend a week or two weeks with your cousins who are older than me.
00:13:20
Speaker
And I think from that, you just start to think, okay, this moving abroad isn't like a completely crazy idea. But it is strange now that I look back on it because I didn't have anyone in my life that was really doing that. There was no sort of role model there, except that part of my degree, and that's why it took me a year longer to graduate, then a lot of my peers did.
00:13:39
Speaker
is that you have to spend a year working or studying in another country. So you can't graduate if you haven't done that. And where did you spend your year? In Valencia, near Valencia. Do you know Valencia, the state?
00:13:52
Speaker
No. No. Really highly recommended. I would have loved to have gone back and lived there. The place I went it was called Castellón de la Plana. And it's a university town, the same as the university town that I was in in England, Southampton,
Economic Challenges and Career Adjustments
00:14:06
Speaker
very much just university, student-based.
00:14:08
Speaker
But it was very near Valencia. They have something called Fallas, which are, goodness, I'm going to explain this so badly. enormous like floats like the size of buildings made out of wood and paper and then they burn them so they parade them through the city and then burn them so they're called fañas it's fantastic they do that every year ah it's near around easter time it's such a good spectacle because the artwork that they come up with and then burn it It's a bizarre thing to to see, but really like exciting. and And it is a beautiful town, lovely architecture city, I should call it.
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I would have gone back there in a heartbeat, but it wasn't an option. Unemployment. i don't know what it was like for you when you graduated, but unemployment was at something like 20, 28%, 29% in Spain at that time. And in England for young people, it was also pretty high unemployment rate. Yeah.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's a part of it. Was it similar for you in 2008, you said? Oh, nine, I graduated. Yeah, it was terrible. It's funny because I graduated in May and I got a job in September via Craigslist at an agency that I then stayed at for 14 years.
00:15:18
Speaker
But I remember in the lead up to it. So really it's like, it took what, like four and a half months or something. It's not that long. That's really good. It was a rough job it what in that the entry level job was like twenty eight k a year.
00:15:31
Speaker
which So it was like more than half of my first paycheck of the month didn't fully cover my rent. And then the second was everything else. And it was very long hours with high quotas, something like 4,000 words a day with pretty high standards from the clients.
00:15:49
Speaker
But at the time i was like, this is so brutal. I did learn so much there. And I'm actually really grateful for the experience, but it was tough for sure. And yeah, it's funny because I remember thinking I will never ever get a job.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I look back and I'm like, it was four months and I got a full-time waitressing job right away. so I was like, that was not like a hardship story. It was rougher in other spots, I think. And I think at that time, probably tougher for folks who were a little more progressed in their career and maybe entry-level roles here, at least for in certain industries where easier to get your hands on than something more well-paid.
00:16:26
Speaker
But I can relate though, because when I've been out of work and looking for it, I think probably the last time I had somebody say to me, it's really normal to take three six months to find a job. And I was like, oh, that's like a long time. I felt like that was a long time because at least Here there's a big digital marketing hub and marketing the first has to be chopped. So there's so much rotation. You can always find someone else. They fired the whole marketing team and then went, oh God, we do actually need a marketing team. And then they're trying to hire them back. Right again.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah, God. So there is always jobs, but i think it had never taken me took maybe three months, which would be the last time that I was like out of work. I was like, going to try and find something. And I had someone say that to me. They're like, it's really normal for you to take three to six months, like three months you did really well.
00:17:07
Speaker
I was like, wow, but I guess it's just my experience in marketing. we are so used to the fast rotation. I said, it's just never taken me three months to find something. It was mid pandemic, of course, and yeah everything was changing, but yeah, i don't think it's ever taken me that long. That was probably like what led into my freelance career in the end, because I just felt like we're so expendable as marketing people.
00:17:29
Speaker
There's so many memes about let's go and cut some budget. Do we really need all these marketing people? And yeah, That's been my whole career.
Editorial Work and Shift to Freelancing
00:17:38
Speaker
but but Talk me through your career journey. So you're a young college grad and you decide I'm going to go to Mexico City because I found a paying job there.
00:17:47
Speaker
And then what happened? That job was not really what they sold it to me as. Not that's a bad thing, as we say with first-hand jobs, okay. It was not horrific, but it wasn't a good job. And once I'd finished that placement, so I found another job. And really what I was trying to work into was I had it in my head that I wanted to be in advertising or publicity, or that's what I thought it was at the time.
00:18:09
Speaker
Mexico City is really, at the time, especially a huge digital marketing hub. I think because, again, we're in the same time zone as the US, a little bit cheaper. I think realistically nowadays, we're not much cheaper, but Mexico City is probably on the same.
00:18:23
Speaker
You can live here with what you would live in Oklahoma on. So if you're catering to a US, a New York company, we're super cheap. And back then it was probably even more. Also time zone. A lot of people speak English and write English well. I was lucky in the sense that I landed here because it wasn't like I specifically looked at Mexico City in that way. It was just was a job there. Let's go and explore.
00:18:45
Speaker
And I got into ah couple of editorials. I started in Macmillan Education in their marketing department. And then I moved into the editorial team at what I would call a marketing company.
00:18:57
Speaker
That was a lot of late nights. And yeah, that was hard. They were also tough jobs, a lot more hours than maybe would be normal or acceptable in other countries.
00:19:10
Speaker
But people here work very hard. So you've got a really put the time in to stand out. And I didn't want to be seen as the lazy foreigner that just came to rise in the ranks because I'm white. I think I had a lot of complexes about that and continue to do so when I first got here. And because it is so different, I look so different to a lot of people here.
00:19:30
Speaker
I really didn't want to be that. I didn't want that to shape my career. So put the time in, put the hours in, the late nights. Sometimes we stayed overnight to print books. we We were making books, that like hard hardback books.
00:19:43
Speaker
Wait, what? Hold on. Pause. Tell me more. Like you were working at a printing press and you were actually like... No, like came on to and but to get the editorial out. But is that we didn't make the books. We wrote the books, I should say, and designed them. okay But we were making 400-page hardback books to promote FDI for a direct investment in Mexico the time. And I was in the automotive and aerospace sections of the company.
00:20:10
Speaker
as the editorial manager, which was ah tough job, but really good fun because they were industries that I was fascinated by. But yeah, so when we were getting close to the printing, even though we'd been working on the book for a year, we did annual reviews every single year. So we would have been working on it for 11 months.
00:20:26
Speaker
we would still be doing overnight editing just to get it through to the printing press in time to have it ready to go to the events where we would launch it. And I couldn't believe it would happen. because And even when we did that, we would still print the book and there would still be typos, which is probably why I love digital marketing so much now because you can put something out and go, oops. Okay.
00:20:46
Speaker
But yeah, we would just say it's incredible. We had 10, 20 people review this. Three or four of whom are high level editors with a lot more expertise and many years more experienced than I had. We would still miss things.
00:20:58
Speaker
So it would drive us absolutely crazy. And now I love that I can just go, oh, we posted on LinkedIn. Oh, oops. I'll just change that word. but but I have a theory on this around editing because I used to – so when I was over ah managing teams at a marketing agency, like obviously this was pre – even grammarly, like typos were always – it was like a perennial issue. yeah And it did always seem – I'm sure you've had this experience. It's like the one account you don't want the typo on is the one that the typo is not.
00:21:28
Speaker
Yeah. but ah what we And we used to have something where we'd have – It would almost be like, okay, we are like on lockdown about this account. There's going be four different people who review it And actually, i stopped that and i was like, new policy for the accounts that can't have typos, there's only one reviewer.
00:21:46
Speaker
And it actually helped a lot because I think what happens is that even unconsciously, if you believe that other competent people are reviewing it, you're not going to be as careful.
00:21:58
Speaker
That's my theory. I think human mistakes always happen and I don't mean it like, oh, people were lazy reviewing it three times at all, but. No, but I can see the responsibility. That's a good theory. I also have the theory of just that every time you make a change, especially the design, the little design elves that live in Adobe and live in design or whatever.
00:22:20
Speaker
move other things so every time you go oh this word has a typo I'm going to change that it moves something else I'm 100% sure that's what it does because every you're to be like that error wasn't in the last copy so with that of course I think that each person is finding new errors correcting them and then making errors in what's been worked on before I don't know I got to the point where I was just like I'm convinced it's the design programs that we're using it can't it's so many humans checking this it can't possibly But yeah, there's the other thing is that maybe just we all had different opinions on how things should be written and we would all notice, you know oh, that should be a comma or that shouldn't be a comma. we'd take the same comma and out four times, moving the design on each occasion.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think we went through several different processes of trying to have the text perfect in Word before you insert it to design. And that's been something that I've definitely taken into working more with design teams now.
00:23:15
Speaker
I will not send a design team something until like I really hate it when people say, can you just put this in a design and we'll see how it looks? I'm like, no, because it will be awful at the end. We need to get the content as close as we physically can to actually being text we're goingnna want to put in. And then we send it to design because of this experience.
00:23:34
Speaker
I hear you. i feel like I can remember those moments of seeing. Like giving you PTSD? It's funny. It's very in my body. Like my heart rate will be like, I need EMDR about typos or something.
00:23:46
Speaker
But it it used to be something that we would get really reprimanded for having typos. Nowadays, I'm always like, I quite like seeing the odd typo because it means that at least A human wrote it. A human wrote it. That's like now it's this like charming little thing that we humans do.
00:24:00
Speaker
It's like, oh, so cute. Okay, so you're in Mexico City. You have a couple very interesting jobs. At what point did you move to more of a freelance slash fractional leader type of work as opposed full-time in-house somewhere? don't know.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, I would say it's going back to what we said about, I just felt that the market or the industry is unstable. yeah There was another thing where I was starting to feel like unless you're a big company, the majority of companies don't necessarily need a full-time CMO for marketing specialists, plus a designer, plus a webmaster.
00:24:38
Speaker
And this is why agencies so popular, right? Because you don't probably don't need for a lot of companies six full-time people working for them and I think that's probably why Medbury as well works so well for people it's so much of that can be outsourced and then by outsourcing it allows you to get real specialists so you will have a paid ad specialist you'll have a blog writing specialist and that person just knows how to do that or they know how to do that really well or they love doing that and that's all they want to do so it's such a thing that it's not that there's no need for it I think there are companies I'm working for one now or I think there is a need for a
00:25:12
Speaker
in-house people. It's just that the majority of companies that exist in the world are small businesses. And and what they need is somebody to come in, perhaps work for them for six months, set up a system, and then drop down the hours to 10 hours a week or something like that.
00:25:27
Speaker
Especially CMOs, I think it's maximum two years in a job. You don't spend more than two years in a job as a CMO. The average is 12 months or it was at one time and I was like yeah because I guess you don't need this strategic visionary 40 hours a week or 50 or 60 depending on what country you're doing what the normal hours are and I just thought I could spend some time specializing in the things that I really love and the things that I'm actually really strong at And that worked for me. that The other thing was that I had been freelancing on the side for so many years that it was a simple transition for me. I didn't go, oh I'm quitting my job. I'm going to get six clients tomorrow and they'll pay me retainers.
00:26:07
Speaker
I already had a couple of people that I could say, hey, I'm going to have more time. Are you going to want me more hours? Or do you have any projects coming up that I should start budgeting time for? Do you know anyone else that I could reach out to? And I did apply through LinkedIn and job forums and stuff like that to contractor roles, but I didn't just go at a cold. Like I see a lot of people thinking that they can do.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think, okay, I want to stay on that for a second, because something I've been thinking about a lot as someone who, so a few of the Medbury team members are full-time. We have two part-timers right now and the team is fantastic.
00:26:45
Speaker
But in this work, I have been more so than ever interviewing and interfacing with potential freelancers. Right. and I think that the freelancers who are really good at what they do and also professional, reliable, proactive.
00:27:03
Speaker
They are so valuable. I'm not trying to talk shit about a lot of freelancers, but it's atypical. So I think that someone like you who has clearly been so successful in your work, you have special skill sets. Like there are things you're really good at that most people who want to do the work you do are not that good at.
00:27:25
Speaker
very kind of you. I know it's like maybe hard to receive that, but I truly believe that to be true. and So I'm wondering, like, what do you think are the superpowers you have that have helped you live this cool career that a lot of people would be desirous of?
Career Philosophy and Personal Growth
00:27:44
Speaker
and and I think what worked for me I'm wary of saying this because I'd be worried that somebody younger than me would take this advice. I think I was a little bit arrogant when I was younger, which let me try and really stupid things. like Moving to Mexico, it'll be fine.
00:28:01
Speaker
Like taking on sort of managerial roles of project management and team management when I was relatively young what the Irish person does. But... companies brought me on. and They saw something in me and they said, yeah, we reckon you can do that, which is lovely to see.
00:28:17
Speaker
And I think that builds up a sort of confidence and it also does put you into a lot of jobs where you realize, oh yes, this does look hard from the outside, but it's actually not as difficult as what it seems. The most difficult thing is usually time management and people relationships. so having that early on, I think gave me a really good push, but then mid-career in the sense of maybe five yeah five, six years into the career that I'm now on,
00:28:42
Speaker
I came with a lot of humility and said, I don't think that I am ready to be a CMO. I don't think a lot of companies want a CMO and I don't think a lot of companies want a CMO of my age. So what's the next step?
00:28:52
Speaker
Do we want to be mid-level marketing manager? Do we want to work for another corporation? Do I want to go into being a copywriting specialist. And at that point I said, yeah, I think I do want to, want to just spend more time specializing a little bit. And that seemed like a good opportunity to work for companies and do, you know, they had podcasts or they had just their social media or they had their newsletter, whatever they were looking to outsource.
00:29:15
Speaker
I was able to come in and specialize in those things and pick and choose the projects that I liked, but without trying to necessarily get involved in all of their processes. But you need humility to do that, to slot yourself in.
00:29:27
Speaker
Have you ever thought that arrogance can be a good thing when you're starting out?
00:29:33
Speaker
It's funny because when you were saying you were arrogant, the thought I was having in my mind was, I think you were brave. It's a very nice reframe. Thank you. And so I think having courage and belief in yourself is rare and takes you far. Similarly, I was like a manager at 23 and I was like,
00:29:52
Speaker
yeah, i can do this. Everyone should listen to me. And now I think actually 15 years later, some at different points that softened in me. And now sometimes I need to remind myself, I'm like, I'm actually really good at this and I'm the most experienced person in the room. So I can actually be a little more sure of myself here.
00:30:11
Speaker
Like I actually think in some ways I've become, I have more humility and more openness The openness is very good for some things, but sometimes it actually holds me back a little and I need to be a little more, nope, we're all doing what I say next.
00:30:26
Speaker
So it's like, ah um we're all just like shifting and evolving over time. But I can't imagine you ever being arrogant, but I do think you're very brave from all the things you've expressed, you've done moving to a new country, taking on these cool roles.
00:30:38
Speaker
That's my take. Well, thank you. I think it's, yeah, it would depend on who you spoke to about me, well how they would train that. But I think, but yeah, what you say is having that trust in yourself and being like, yes, I think I can do this. How hard can it be? I'll just give it a go. I've done completely crazier things with this.
00:30:55
Speaker
The other thing is that perhaps my parents were not I have like corporate slaves. And my mom's an accountant. My dad is a carpenter. So I spent most of my life, my mom doing the accounting for my dad. So I was very aware of the,
00:31:10
Speaker
self-employed world where you don't really have a boss and therefore I probably wasn't afraid of the hierarchies in the way that a lot of people are. So I felt very comfortable coming in and saying, i boss, I don't think this is a good idea. I think we should do it this way or this is what I suggest.
00:31:25
Speaker
And I also felt quite comfortable taking a step back and maybe that way freelancing is so comfortable for me and was so comfortable for me because I don't mind following somebody else's dream, even if I think it's a completely crazy idea, because I'm quite happy to go, look, you believe in that and happy to put my skills into the bucket and make this work, even though it's not what I would advise.
00:31:46
Speaker
And I think that takes humility, but at the same time, being brave enough or have enough self-belief in yourself to say, no boss, I definitely don't think that's the right thing to do, but that we'll do it your way. We'll try it your way.
00:31:57
Speaker
Marketing's all that A-B testing. Let's do it your way. If we don't like it in six months, we'll do something else. I think that's another thing is that if you take AB b testing to an extreme as a marketer in your life, you can test anything. You can say, I'll do six months of exquisitely, then six months in somewhere else. And I'll move to a completely different country. What about if I try a country where I don't speak the language? How would that be?
00:32:17
Speaker
What if I go to a country that doesn't have marketing and I like open the market essentially for this? You could do all of these things throughout your life. And i think committing three six months to something is... probably quite sensible in the long run or I'll try six months being a gardener and see if I like it if I don't like it after six months I love that perspective I know we're closing in on time but for anyone who's listening who's curious to know you or to potentially work with you Where
Closing and Invitation to Connect
00:32:45
Speaker
would you send them? How can they get in touch with you?
00:32:48
Speaker
The first place I would send people is to Migrant in Mexico. So it's migrantinmexico.substack.com where you can just Google Migrant in Mexico Substack. It's where I share my thoughts and and my stream of consciousness about living here as a foreigner and what it's been like coming here before the boom of mostly nomadic workers being in Mexico, what it's like just living somewhere else.
00:33:12
Speaker
And the odd marketing perspective on these things, you can also find me on LinkedIn, Nadine Hare, H-E-I-R. But I would definitely recommend starting with Substack. I think that's a little bit more fun.
00:33:23
Speaker
And maybe what is more fun about LinkedIn is just that I am always showing pictures of my cats of avocado and toast. very official mascots and have got me so much business realistically and so much attention.
00:33:36
Speaker
So I have to give them a shout out here as well. I love following you. I love seeing avocado and toast. and pops and i'm I'm waiting to retire on them. I think it's just, I hit the Instagram and the TikTok boom of pet stars too late.
00:33:53
Speaker
And now they can't compete with these like wonderful cats and dogs out there, that but they're a range-taking thing. You definitely have the market cornered on LinkedIn. Nadine, thank you so much. I love chatting with you. I'm really happy to have met you. And I just think you're such a cool person. i appreciate you doing this. Thank you.
00:34:11
Speaker
Likewise. Every time I talk to you, I just feel like it's like coming home, like talking to somebody who just who completely gets it. So thank you. me and My pleasure.