Interview with Tina Wells, CEO and Founder of BuzzMG

How did a teenager from Amish country become the countries premiere trend-spotter and wildly successful entrepreneur? Listen in.

Learn more about Tina at tinawells.com.

Podcast Transcript:

Julie: 00:00 Hi. So today, I am here with Tina Wells. I have to tell you that, Tina... When I do these episodes, I know most of the people. I've known them for some time. Some people I've only known for a short time. Tina, I have known, I can honestly say, since she was a teenager. Sadly, I was not when I met her, but she was a teenager, and I say that because she has the most inspiring backstory. What she has done at such a young age is nothing short of incredible.

 So she is the CEO and founder of Buzz Marketing Group. It's an agency that creates marketing strategies for clients within the beauty, entertainment, fashion, finance, and lifestyle markets. I can say she also did that for the automotive market because that's when I met her. She is the author of six books, including the bestselling tween fiction series Mackenzie Blue and the marketing handbook Chasing Youth Culture and Getting it Right. I should say Mackenzie Blue is an amazing series for... When she says, "It's for tweens," I think it's for tweens. I think it's for even younger than that. These kids grow up so young these days, so I highly recommend that.

 She's also a member of the 2017 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute and the academic director of Wharton's Leadership in the Business World program. In 2018, she also joined the board of Thinx as an independent director, and she's the winner of countless awards, is a longtime friend, as I've mentioned. And I want to start by... Actually, I've already given the big setup for being a teen and you having started a career when most people are worried about finding a boyfriend or girlfriend, but I think that before we get there, I'd love for people just to hear a little bit about your early life, your childhood, because given what you do in sort of this urban culture and being on the pulse of pop culture, it's very ironic to me knowing how and where you grew up. So will you share?

Tina Wells: 02:15 Sure. And thank you, Julie, for having me. I'm happy to be here. So I think you're talking about the joke I like to tell, which is that I became America's trendspotter, and I'm actually from Amish Country. I'm from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Which, it's funny, I'm spending a lot of time there right now with my parents, and so it's very interesting to come back to the place that I'm from. Now, I'm driving, so I'm passing horse and buggies on the road, and I was telling a friend, I'm like, "It's kind of like living in The Village, but being in on it," but it's a beautiful place. It's just a really different place to be from. What I think I gained the appreciation for was I didn't realize how connected to nature and being outside I am. I didn't even think that was a part of who I am, and then I just got back from Jackson Hole, and I've just realized how much I love being outside.

 But I think one thing that I love about being from Lancaster is just this connection to where your food is coming from and where things are coming from and being very grateful for that open space. I'm the oldest of six kids, and so my dad was a pastor when I was growing up, and so my friends would joke that we were a cross between The Cosbys and 7th Heaven, which was very accurate. I'm the oldest, and so as my siblings like to say, I like to be boss in every sense of the word, I guess, and so we were a really tight-knit group of six. My youngest brother is nine years younger than me, so six kids in nine years. We're really tight. I've been very open lately about my dad's health challenges, and so the six of us have been together quite a bit this summer. I'm happy to say my dad's on the other side of his heart surgery and recovering, but it's meant a lot of time together back in Lancaster, so that's been really interesting.

Julie: 04:11 So I know you were the oldest of six here in beautiful farm country, and you sort of naturally evolved into this position of the leader of the family pack, if you will. I know your dad has the pastor background. Your mom has an interesting background, but would you share a little bit about the differences between the two of them in terms of how they were brought up and therefore kind of how they look at life?

Tina Wells: 04:39 Yeah. I mean, my parents couldn't be more opposite. The fact that they have been together for 40 years, married for 40 years and friends for 47, is so interesting.

Julie: 04:39 Crazy, right? A little applause for them, yeah.

Tina Wells: 04:48 It's crazy. But my dad grew up in the city with a single mom, only child. My mom grew up in Berlin, New Jersey, which was also, I think, at the time, rural to becoming suburban. My grandfather built their 10-bedroom home. She was one of 14 kids, so I think the recent count is there are 127 cousins on my mom's side.

Julie: 05:12 OMG. Do you guys do a family reunion?

Tina Wells: 05:15 Well, no. Thanksgiving. I thought everyone had a huge Thanksgiving. I mean, the average size growing up was 80 people.

Julie: 05:22 Oh, my God.

Tina Wells: 05:22 And three turkeys, so when I would see on TV everyone sitting around a table, I'm like, "That's so interesting."

Julie: 05:22 How does that work?

Tina Wells: 05:30 I've never sat at a table for Thanksgiving ever, like literally ever. No, I think once, once. I was visiting my ex-boyfriend's family, and I was like, "This is so interesting." I'm used to serving, and it's a big thing in my family to be asked to make something for dinner, and so year after year it was... And Erica, my younger sister, "You're going to make this," and then, "Tina, it'd be great if you could get everybody's coats when they come." And I'm like, "Not this year. I'm not getting them." And finally-

Julie: 05:56 80 coats? That's crazy.

Tina Wells: 05:58 I wanted to be able to make something, and finally, I became known for my apple pie, so I was very happy to get an item on the menu. Then last year, I hosted at my house, and I actually made the turkey. It was good, and so I was very happy.

Julie: 06:23 Okay, how many pounds of turkey must you make to feed 80 people?

Tina Wells: 06:23 Well, it was less than that last year, so there were like maybe 50 of us.

Julie: 06:25 For the intimate Thanksgiving of 50, how many pounds of turkey do you have to make?

Tina Wells: 06:26 It's like 18. But I knew the thing that I was worried about was it couldn't be frozen.

Julie: 06:30 [inaudible 00:06:30].

Tina Wells: 06:30 I'd heard horror stories of like not knowing you had to defrost the turkey, but it's everything else. I've been hosting parties and dinners for a long time, so I knew don't leave anything for the day of, but the turkey you can't really do, so I was freaking out.

Julie: 06:44 How many ovens? Wait a second. This is mind-blowing. It has to be more than an 18-pound turkey for 50 people.

Tina Wells: 06:44 Yeah, but then there's so many-

Julie: 06:50 Unless you people are just not like my family where it's like four pounds a person.

Tina Wells: 06:54 Right, no. So then you have chicken, and then there's ham, so you have to make a ham. There are lots of other things that have come.

Julie: 07:00 So you don't need like 17 industrial-size ovens to make dinner?

Tina Wells: 07:05 No.

Julie: 07:06 Okay.

Tina Wells: 07:07 And then when we were all getting together, everyone would be assigned things, so it was still cool. You were bringing a dish, but it could be you were one of three turkeys.

Julie: 07:15 Okay. Okay, that makes sense. I know we've veered now into Thanksgiving dinner because I literally am envisioning this in my head.

Tina Wells: 07:23 It was quite the happening. That's for sure.

Julie: 07:25 So going back to your mom, kind of where this all started with the 14 and then the 127, but your mom and dad had different parenting styles?

Tina Wells: 07:34 Oh, absolutely. I would always joke that I would come home from school and say I had gotten 110 on the test, and I'd show my dad. He'd say, "That's great, but if the best you could do was a 70, I still love you, and I'm really happy." And I would kind of just say, "But I didn't get a 70. I got 110. That's still great."

Julie: 07:52 You should be ecstatic.

Tina Wells: 07:53 Right? And then my mom would say, "What's the best you could do?" And so I'm like, "Mom, maybe 112, but this is really good," and she's like, "Okay." So I think I benefited from both the complete acceptance and yet being driven to do the best job that I could do.

Julie: 08:13 Did your dad take... I know in my family... Let me start with that. I know in my family my dad... I don't want to say he was like the Archie Bunker because he's not quite on that edge of inappropriate, but it was a little like that, where my mom ran around doing stuff. She was the stay-at-home wife, and he would come home from dinner and sit in that La-Z-Boy with his paper and watch the... So it was very traditional that way. He wasn't as involved in, certainly, the kids or the family during the day. Was your dad like that? What was that experience?

Tina Wells: 08:48 Complete opposite, it was really funny. I think because my dad grew up in such a small family, he really was so dedicated to the family that I can think back to growing up, there are more nights during the week where he cooked dinner for us. I would not say his dinner was better than mom's at all, but I remember once my mom... She would go and take some trips with her sisters, and I remember him trying to do my sister's hair, so he was kind of all-in. And I joke now, I'm like, "Well, the reason I'm not married, I'm looking for someone that's going to be as 50/50 as my dad has been." And he's just... was always like, "These are my children too." I hear some conversations about what I should do as a mom, and I'm like, "My parents just figured everything out together, and they were always on the same page."

 What's interesting is, now, being an adult and looking at how different they grew up and how different their life philosophies were, it's really interesting to see how they came together and were always on the same page for the six of us. We always thought my mom was the tough one, and really it's like she was kind of laying down the law on behalf of my dad, who we never would have assumed had these thoughts about where we could go and where we could spend our time. They were very united in that way, but he really delighted, I think, in that part of us growing up because for him, he was creating that family that he didn't fully grow up with. So he was very intentional around just participating with us.

Julie: 10:16 And obviously, being the oldest, I'm sure that relationship is... Not that it's not any more special with your siblings, but there's something about being the first and the oldest, I know, and you've said your sister says you were the boss of all things all the time.

Tina Wells: 10:29 Oh, yeah.

Julie: 10:31 There must have been something there that was linked to just how you took charge, not necessarily being bossy, but took charge and sort of were the leader. Did that come naturally for you, or was that kind of put upon because there were six, and there was help needed? How did that...

Tina Wells: 10:48 I think it was so natural. I mean, my mom went to work full-time when I was 13, and so I definitely don't think it was for lack of not having both of the parents in the home, but my mom and dad joke like, "There was always mom, dad, and Tina on one side and then the other kids."

Julie: 10:48 Oh, that's funny.

Tina Wells: 11:02 But I think Chris Rock has a joke where he says, "In large families, the two oldest kind of raise the other four," and my sister is 18 months younger than me. Our youngest brother and youngest sister, we kind of took them under our wing, but we were, I think, very responsible for each other. But I think by nature, sometimes the eldest... I definitely took on the role of being the eldest and feeling super responsible for all of them.

Julie: 11:26 I think it's... And I bring this up, and I always wonder if listeners just think I'm crazy... But I bring this up because I know what you've done, and I'm going to ask you to share. But I think that so much of your youth informs how you are. I mean, the entrepreneurial... I don't know where that came from, so I do want to find out about that... But I think that that responsibility and that feeling responsible, and that's a personal involvement probably, I have to believe, stems from that young experience.

Tina Wells: 11:58 I would say for all of us, though. I remember my parents went out of town, and you have to imagine finding a babysitter for six kids wasn't the easiest thing, and so-

Julie: 12:05 Especially in Lancaster.

Tina Wells: 12:07 I mean, and by this point, we were all being raised in Southern New Jersey, closer to my mom's family, and we had one who was the fun uncle, and he would come to town for the weekend when my parents would go away or do something. So he told my parents, he said, "You know, it's Saturday. We were ready to go hit the mall, and I got up, and your kids were like an army cleaning this house to perfection," and he was like, "I was like, 'Your parents aren't home. We can do it later,' and they were like, 'No. This house has to be cleaned by 11:00 AM,'" which was my mom's rule. And I remember telling her later, I'm like, "Mom, you were that kind of mom, where just for fun, you and dad would have shown up at 11:20 when we were at the mall, and the house wouldn't have been cleaned," so we just kind of knew what our responsibilities were, and I think because they were so aligned with that, there was no wiggle room for certain things.

 I think when it comes to career, we all have different types of jobs and career, and my parents were definitely super laid-back and open about us exploring the things we were interested in. They were not open and laid-back about the rules of how their household was going to be run at all, by any means. The law was the law, that's definitely for sure.

Julie: 13:20 Well, and so you were in Southern... I mean, were you in Southern Jersey close to Philly area...

Tina Wells: 13:25 Yeah, so my-

Julie: 13:25 ... right? By the time you were 13?

Tina Wells: 13:27 Yes. So earlier, I was around, I think, six or seven. But strangely, four of us were born at General Hospital in Lancaster. Four out of six of us were born there. But my grandfather, who was a pastor in Philadelphia, had gotten really sick. He had cancer, and my parents moved back to New Jersey, so my dad could help him with his church, so then we stayed. I mean, I had 60-plus cousins in that area, and so it was great for us to kind of grow up with our family, and so being from a big family and then kind of incubated in this bigger family. My mom is the 12th of the 14, so most of my cousins are significantly older too, so it was great to kind of grow up in a place where my cousin was our babysitter. One of my older cousins is one of my very best friends today, and so it was a great-

Julie: 14:16 You literally had a village.

Tina Wells: 14:16 Yeah.

Julie: 14:17 Where they say, "It takes a village," you had your own.

Tina Wells: 14:19 We literally, definitely did. And then obviously, an extended church community as well, from my parents. Yes, we had a lot of people who were kind of interested.

Julie: 14:28 Well, so now it makes a bit more sense to me, knowing that you went into this sort of pop culture business as a teen, that you were in Southern Jersey so your suburb, more or less, of Philly.

Tina Wells: 14:39 Oh, very suburban.

Julie: 14:41 And you're close to the New York scene. I mean, look, teenagers are into pop culture, but what happened that was a click for you that was saying, "I'm really good at this, and I can help others be better too"?

Tina Wells: 14:57 So I always say, "I'm an accidental entrepreneur." I thought I would end up being a lawyer. I really wanted to be an editor at a fashion magazine. I had no interest in marketing. I didn't even know what it was. I answered an ad in the back of Seventeen Magazine to write for a newspaper for girls called The New Girl Times. I got a-

Julie: 14:57 And how old were you?

Tina Wells: 14:57 I was 15.

Julie: 14:57 Okay.

Tina Wells: 15:17 I got a job as a product review editor, and so I would literally review a product, and it would end up in the newspaper. I would send clips back to the company whose products I reviewed, and they'd always say the same thing, "If I send you more product, will you tell me what you think?" And so for me at 16, I thought, "Okay, I'm the oldest of six. I love all of this stuff. My parents are going to take me shopping maybe three, four times a year at this point. What a great way to get all the stuff I want." So it was not at all, "I can make money." It was just, "This is great." And then I had-

Julie: 15:49 I'm actually glad to hear that because if you would have been like, "So I had this design. I created a business plan," I would have been like, "Okay, you're a freak of nature."

Tina Wells: 15:54 No.

Julie: 15:54 So I'm actually happy to hear this was...

Tina Wells: 15:56 Oh, absolutely not. I was a completely pop culture obsessed teenager and had just literally had the perfect opportunity fall in my lap, and then what happened is the companies that were representing these brands were PR agencies, and so they started saying to each other, "There's this girl. You can just send her a product, and she'll tell you what you think." This was 1996. You have to remember, this whole going online, being an influencer, none of that existed when I started, so I was the girl who you would call to help you launch your products, and I thought, "Okay, this is really cool."

One of the first "clients" I had was Jane Wurwand, who is the founder of Dermalogica. I remember I saw Jane a couple years ago, and I was talking to her, and I'm like, "Jane, I don't know who was crazier, you or me." She's like, "Oh, no. I just knew. I just knew you were going to do something huge, so I just went with it." I'm like, "In hindsight, that was pretty crazy," but I had a lot of women like Jane who were just like, "Yup. You're doing something great." I talked to the original Essie of Essie nail polishes.

Julie: 16:55 Oh, my gosh.

Tina Wells: 16:56 I decided to host this fashion show, and I don't know, talk about the products I liked with my friends. I called Essie, and I'm like, "Well, this person signed up do to this, and this person going to do this," and she's like, "And I'm going to be your official nail polish." I'm like, "Okay, great," and I'm literally like, "I think I just talked to the Essie of Essie," but these were the female founders back in the mid '90s who were just amazing people, who are like, "Yep, let's just go for it." So I was really lucky to have those type of women who just said, "Okay, she's doing something interesting, and I'm going to go with it."

It was my freshman year in college where I started having groups of friends fill out surveys, and then I'd compile all the scores. Obviously, I was really, really good in math, and so I just thought this was an extension of a fun survey, and I would compile them and send these reports back. I had someone call me and say, "I'm going to tell you something really important. I just paid someone $25,000 for market research, and what you and your friends did is 10 times better. You have a business. It's called market research. You should go figure it out," and as luck would have it, I was taking an intro to business course with the head of the business department at my school Hood College in Fredrick, Maryland.

I met with Dr. Jose during office hours, and I said, "I've been doing this thing," and she kind of stared at me for a while, and then she said, "You know what? You should take an independent study with me next semester and let's see if we can make this a business," and I worked with her for 13 weeks on business plan, marketing plan. By this point, it was '98, and so it was around the first dot-com explosion, and I was thinking of doing a fully dot-com company, and she said, "Absolutely not. I think that that's going to explode in a bad way."

Julie: 18:36 Thank God. Wow.

Tina Wells: 18:36 Right? And I totally would have gone a different direction. She said, "Build a solid bricks and mortar company and don't focus on that. There will be a place for it for online, but this is what you need to build," and so it just kind of started from there. I was also really lucky to be at university at the time where I could reach out to professors, and they really did help me kind of perfect the business model, and it's still a big part of the model we're using today. I mean, that all happened very randomly, so there was no big plan. I remember my senior year of college, I had watched Legally Blonde and had decided I was going to be a lawyer, and so I'm sitting with my advisor. I'm like, "I've decided to go to law school," and he's like, "Yes, you could do that." He's like, "You can do whatever you want, just make a decision." So then I said to him, I'm like, "You know, I have this thing," and by that point, I was working with Chrysler, and so-

Julie: 19:30 Right, that's where we met.

Tina Wells: 19:30 Yeah, and so I was-

Julie: 19:32 Were we your first? One of your first big ones?

Tina Wells: 19:34 Yeah, because I had gotten-

Julie: 19:35 We were?

Tina Wells: 19:36 Yeah, because I had ended up working with this genius in advertising, Don Coleman, back when-

Julie: 19:42 Oh, Don.

Tina Wells: 19:43 Don, when-

Julie: 19:43 GlobalHue.

Tina Wells: 19:44 Right, before GlobalHue. I met them because I had been the face of a business plan competition, and they were like, "We should talk. You do youth research." And I'm in college, right? So I'm like, "Okay, great." Then I ended up, senior year of college, I had a huge Verizon Wireless research project, and I'm trying to finish university, and we're doing a lot of interesting research. So at that point, I was like, "This might just be my hobby." I remember talking to my advisor and saying, "I don't want to be known as this girl who does..." I didn't like the...

Julie: 20:17 Moniker?

Tina Wells: 20:18 I didn't like the narrative, the PR narrative, and I didn't even know enough to know that's what I disliked. I said, "Here's what I'm doing to do. I'm going to take one year, and let's see if I can't make this something. Then if I do, I'll stick with it, and if not, I'm going to law school," and he was like, "Okay, that's a great plan," and then finished college about a year later. Well, during college, I had spoken at this huge music industry conference, and unfortunately, I kind of quite rightly predicted what was going to happen with music pirating. I had done some research and found that 99% of teens had illegally downloaded within the last 30 days. They weren't going to stop. There are many very big, very established research companies who said, "Only 17% of the population do this. This will not be a problem." So it turns out the head of research for Sony BGM was there. She called me up, post-grad, and she said, "Listen, I was there. You were the only one that told the truth, and we should hire you," so they were kind of my first major client.

Then by 23, I had opened up my office here. We were doing coworking before coworking was even a thing. We were down on 34th between 10th and 11th, and then two years after that, I had the cover story in O Magazine, which was kind of the career explosion, and then it kind of took off, so I never went back to law school. Although, my lawyers always tell me that they feel like they're arguing with another lawyer when they're talking to me, and I'm like, "Could have been a lawyer." But yeah, it just kind of took on a life of its own, but I often say we talk a lot about product-market fit in our industry. Where I was in 1996, if you look at culture, it was NSYNC, Brittany Spears, Backstreet, Teen People, Teen Vogue, Elle Girl. There was a teen explosion that I kind of got to ride that wave.

Now, I think we're in our industry in a totally different place. I'm literally in the second week of my six-month sabbatical, figuring out what do I want to do next? Do I want to stay in marketing? Do I want to use my skills in a different way? It's been 23 years since that kind of first iteration of the company, and what I've done in 23 years have been great, but I'm not even 40 yet. So I'm now thinking, "What's the next big thing, and what does that look like?"

Julie: 22:36 You're too young for a midlife crisis, right?

Tina Wells: 22:38 Not really.

Julie: 22:40 But you've lived what most of us live over 40 years in half that time, so I get it, but I do remember. It's funny. When you said Don Coleman... So at Chrysler, for those listening, that's how I met Tina when I was alluding to it at the introduction. I was running marketing at Chrysler during the Daimler-Chrysler years, and Don Coleman was CEO of GlobalHue, which was our multicultural agency, and he, I guess... I don't even remember the connection, but you said that it must have been... must have recommended I meet you, and I will never forget you walking into my office and sitting there. You had a couple of people with you. I feel like they were family members.

Tina Wells: 23:21 I've had several siblings who have worked for me, for sure.

Julie: 23:24 And I was like, "This woman is so young," and I remember just being so impressed. I was like, "Okay, I totally get it. She's amazing." I didn't realize that we were one of the first though. I mean, you were so young.

Tina Wells: 23:39 And also someone like Don, right? I mean, I was in college, and he just said, "You know what..." And we had a great network. I think for a lot of us who are young or African American in this field, Don was who taught us how to really be able to professional service advertising agencies for sure.

Julie: 23:59 He was great. Still is great.

Tina Wells: 24:01 Yeah, still is great.

Julie: 24:02 Powerhouse.

Tina Wells: 24:02 Oh, I'll never forget. I mean, we were prepping to pitch you guys and to see a CEO who had built the reputation he had, practicing this pitch in the room 12 hours, "Let's go again. Let's go again." I'm like, "He could have farmed it..." No, he was in it, and I'm like, "I'm so lucky to watch a genius work, really and to see that he's doing the work when he..." At that stage, Don could have just said, "I'll be there at the meeting." It was just a really genius, creative, fun place, and it was kind of one of those right time right place, you get to be with the right people. There are so many of us, I think, who are working practitioners who have had some kind of influence from Don and Ron Franklin and a lot of the team from that time.

Julie: 24:49 Still, I mean, they just...

Tina Wells: 24:49 They really... I know.

Julie: 24:51 And very personally invested, to your point. I mean, Don was on my speed dial all the time. I mean, whenever I wanted, and he had a whole team servicing us. I mean, and he was just always there. He just felt personally committed. It's great to have that.

Tina Wells: 25:04 And understood culture and where culture was evolving and genius at moving clients in the direction of culture. I think one of the things that happens that's been interesting to watch is the rise of the voice of the consumer. I think I was on the first wave of young people need to have a voice. But also, I think moving from that era, like the big ad people, to now, consumers are driving culture and what that looks like, it's been a huge, I think, evolution for all of us.

Julie: 25:33 Yeah. So I'm going to move forward a little bit to more recent times, and I think I told you previously that the podcast, I like to... I have sort of a question I've coined which is about holy shit moments or hoshimos. These things that I think... They're a major pivot point. You have a great story... I say great... It's a great story because you had such a learning moment, and it was very transformational for you when you had a big client who maybe was not who you thought.

Tina Wells: 26:17 Yeah. It's interesting because I like to frame this by saying, "It took until I was maybe 35 years old, so 19 years in business, to have something like this happen." You have to understand. I've only ever worked for myself, so when I hear friends talk about issues with diversity in the workplace or inclusion issues, they're not issues I face because by nature, my workplace is diverse, and it's inclusive, and I don't think about some of these things. So when I was presented with this serious challenge... If you work in multicultural or... First of all, this is the first time I was kind of presented with this space. We are a general market, primarily thought of millennial agency, and so while we're certified, we don't really go out and recruit work based on that at all.

 It's a really nuanced situation, and I was put in a position where I was going to have to do something that just did not agree with my personal values. I knew deep down it wasn't the right thing to do, and so it was a hard lesson. It meant a loss of $50 million to our company. I'm a boutique agency. Anyone knows that $50 million is-

Julie: 27:27 Is life-changing.

Tina Wells: 27:28 ... is transformative. But I remember my CFO saying, "There is no question here. You will go to jail. You will be left holding the bag. This is a bad thing." In that moment, you think, "I want to tell everyone about this horrible thing that happened to me," and then you realize, "But what am I going to do my career, to the agency? Is this the best thing?" It was a lot of learning because I think sometimes we see this play out in TV or in the movies, and then the good guy wins. In real life, the good guy isn't always going to win. I think eventually, yes. Am I happy I didn't take that business? Really happy I didn't take that business, but I think about the loss and what could have been for the agency had we been able to capitalize on that opportunity and do the work we wanted to do, but it just came packaged in a way that it wouldn't work. It couldn't work.

Julie: 28:26 Well, not only that it was packaged... I think I remember the story... but also that you had come through this life being an entrepreneur, being so successful, sort of a Field of Dreams sort of scenario, and you kind of ran across this, which was a major disappointment. But you had also mentioned that it really came home to roost... I think you said your CFO made you sit silently on a...

Tina Wells: 28:59 Oh, that was tough. That was-

Julie: 29:01 ...call.

Tina Wells: 29:01 Yeah. Well, there was a call where it's like, "Okay, this isn't going to happen, and we know you've spent all this money making this happen. So we're going to talk about what we're going to pay you," and I had no interest in that conversation. He said, "No, I think you need to listen to this." Listening to someone just pick apart, "No, we don't want to pay for that. No, we're not going to do that," and you realized like, "Wow, you're so wrong." I think about a lot of colleagues who have grown up in this industry who maybe have had to deal with these situations on a daily basis. This is one thing that happened to me, and I've moved on, but I think about people who exist in the environment where this is just how they're seen. They're just a number on a checklist. For me, I felt like it made me really... There's a difference between empathy and sympathy, and I went from, "Oh, I sympathize with your situation," to now, "I empathize, and I know what it feels like to..."

 I remember talking to a friend and saying, "You know what's so interesting?" At this point, we'd had about maybe 180 clients. I said, "I have 179 clients who hired me because I was the best at what I was doing, and that's what they wanted. I have this one situation where the only reason this company looked at me is because I checked a box, a diverse box, and look at how this has fallen apart." And so it's created... When I think about diversity hire, there's so many different layers to it where I'm like, "The only time in business I can think about, from my marketing career, that this thing happened, it was because I checked the box. So was I not taken seriously as a partner? Was that not why they hired me because they didn't fully value what I was bringing to the table, and they thought I was just going to do whatever because I checked the box?"

 So it makes me think a lot about when we're in the workplace and how we view it. I posted something recently on Instagram, where I talked about the difference between diversity and inclusion and belonging, and I think we have to move past the discussion of just diversity because that's not working. Inclusion is... We're getting closer, but it's really creating a place and space where everyone belongs. And I think when I look at marketing and advertising, what's happening right now, we like to say that this is multicultural or these are minority marketing. I'm like, "Well, the minority has now become the majority," so how do we change the landscape of what that looks like because from a business perspective, when you have agencies of record who are not diverse, there's a lot of money on the line, right?

Julie: 31:35 Right.

Tina Wells: 31:37 What happened to me four years ago, it's going to happen over and over again now, because there are people who need to lead the work from a creative perspective because that is what the consumer looks like, and how are they going to be empowered to do that because the ramifications of that change? I don't know how these big companies are going to take that on. So I think I'm sitting kind of as a person just... And you, probably. You too... We're just constantly observing this, but it is the big things that's got to get figured out, I think.

Julie: 32:06 Yeah, so and I think you've come to these places, and you had this very, for me... And again, I had the benefit of knowing you when you were younger... This very altruistic, idealistic...

Tina Wells: 32:18 Absolutely.

Julie: 32:19 ... individual, and it's sad. We all become realists eventually because life just always will eventually throw us something like this, but what I love about your story is how you had this sort of bump, and it switched you, maybe, from being a pure idealist to a bit more of a realist, but yet you maintain that optimism and that belief in people, that this was one out of 180, whatever that percentage is. It's certainly less than 1%, but it kind of happens again, unfortunately, right?

Tina Wells: 32:53 Oh, God.

Julie: 32:54 It's a lesson that sometimes we have to learn more than once.

Tina Wells: 32:57 It is. And again, they show up in different forms, right? This was just the more recent one I was talking to you about. I think because I tried to do the right thing, sometimes we assume other people do, and things happen. We're often all doing the best that we can sometimes, but I do think that there are opportunities when we can show up as our best selves, and for whatever reason, we choose not to. I had a recent situation where it was just a compensation issue around something unrelated to my day-to-day, and I was just not properly compensated for the work that was put in. There are different things I could have done about it. I talked to great lawyers who said, "Honestly, the best thing you can do is just walk away, walk away from that company and that experience."

 What I realized... It was the first time I had to actually ask for what I thought I deserved. When you're an agency, there are budgets, and people have budgets, so there isn't always that need to... I'm not doing like a salary negotiation, right?

Julie: 34:02 Right.

Tina Wells: 34:02 So I don't know how to go in and ask for what I deserve, but this is the first time I had to do it, and I remember saying to a friend, "It's fine that they didn't give it. What I needed to learn in that moment was how to ask, and to flex that muscle I never had to flex before. So that the next time, I can sit down, and I know how to negotiate, I know what I need to ask for, I know what this should look like, and I won't make that mistake again." I always say unto my team, "We're going to make mistakes every day. The goal is to not make the same mistake again," so what happened in that agency scenario, that's never going to happen again. What happened in this situation, that's never going to happen again. But it's interesting because I do always come from the perspective of, "Well, of course they're going to do the right thing."

Julie: 34:49 Because you would.

Tina Wells: 34:51 And if I had that to give that's what I would do, but then you realize, well, there are different sets of experiences, right? I have a set of experience where I started at 16, and then I kind of had this little bubble, and I've grown, and so I don't know what it's like to compete. If I'm even competing against another agency, I mean, do I really know? It's just a client that comes at the end of the day and says, "We're going to hire you or not," right?

Julie: 34:51 Right.

Tina Wells: 35:12 So I'm not in the throes of competition, and so it's always a reminder of the fact that I just don't live in this way. I think what I'm also encouraged by is when I talk to younger people, they know that there is a better way of doing business, and so I think the last few years, unfortunately, are general culture. I love your phrase that culture eats strategy for lunch. I think our culture, right now, is not the nicest. I think it's mean and winner take all and I'm going to call you a loser, and that's what I-

Julie: 35:49 Social media sort of creates that ability to...

Tina Wells: 35:52 Yeah, to just be mean, but I think what's okay about that is we're now making our way to the other side. Now that we've done that, and we realize that's not great, we're going to kind of migrate over. That's why when we see an explosion like Me Too... I was talking to a friend the other day about my sabbatical and the need. I'm like, "I just need to get away from business this way." It doesn't mean I don't like marketing. I don't want to sell that stuff anymore. It's just I'm not that interested in that. I'm interested in the best use of my skills, whether it's bringing my books and the message in Mackenzie Blue to a bigger audience or... I just want to take those skills and do something that, for me, is more personally fulfilling.

 I'm not being like, "Oh, I'm going to do this greater good." No, I want to do work that I love, but I've just decided I don't like that anymore, and that what happened with the agency. I'm like, "I have to remove myself from that because I'm not..." I think you come to a place, a fork in the road, where I could say, "I'm going to double down on the agency, and we're going to get really big and we're going to go big or go home," or I'm just going to do something else that I really like to do, and that's kind of, I think, more where I'm moving towards, is that's going to happen. They can have all of that. I have no interest over there.

Julie: 37:13 So now I've had the pleasure of interviewing many successful people, lots of them women, and there is a thematic thread coming through several of them, of this taking a moment and pulling yourself out. So your sabbatical, others... Some of them it's less formal, less thought out, they just sort of are at the breaking point, and they have to get away. But I think what I hear from you, and it seems very symbolic, is you're still that same 16-year-old girl who is... You've got this sort of passion whatever it is for, whether it's the same sort of thing, but it's this need to be true to yourself and to follow where your heart leads you, and I think that optimism... I think it'll serve you well. I'm excited because I know you speak at Wharton. I know you speak to students. I know you're writing these Mackenzie Blue books for teens and tweens, so I'm just excited to see what you do over these next few months on your sabbatical. Do you have anything you want to share about trajectories and things you're exploring?

Tina Wells: 38:25 I'm reading a lot, which I love to do anyway. Just reading for pleasure is great, and I've always done that, just to kind of flex that muscle. I realized over the last few years, I really love, love, love advising companies. There's something about having been a marketing practitioner for 20-plus years and knowing how it works and being able to help a company make the right decision and pairing the right agencies with the right internal team and helping to make strategic hires that I love. And I want to do more of that. I think there are so many amazing young entrepreneurs who are creating really game-changing companies. I just came from a meeting with a company I'm advising, and I'm really, really, really, excited about this product, and I think it's going to change lives. I think it's really going to help people live healthier, and I love advising that.

 I was talking to a friend who is running for senate, and I want to help however I can help. I'm super excited about what she's doing and her platform, and that's something I wouldn't have the headspace for if I were actively working on big client launches, and so I think I'm just happy to... I don't know. I feel like as a marketer, our brains are for hire a lot of times, and we're just kind of letting other people use that brainpower, and I'm happy just to own that 100% for myself and what I want to focus on right now. If I want to take a day and sit with a friend and brainstorm, and I don't have anywhere else to be, that feels great. I've been doing a lot of Orangetheory, which... I don't know. It's fun.

Julie: 39:59 Yeah.

Tina Wells: 39:59 And I love that the woman who created Orangetheory did it when she was, I think, over 50, and her whole philosophy around it. So I'm like, "Okay, this feels great." It's just no real plans. A lot of travel, that is one thing. I'm doing three weeks in Australia and New Zealand, and so a lot of just whatever feels nice. For me, it's about just like a season of being inspired and just looking at... Next week I'll be giving a talk for a friend who is doing something really great for female entrepreneurs, and I get to talk about marketing. So just things like that where if it feels great, and I want to try it, and it feels right, then that's what I'm going to do.

Julie: 40:41 Good for you. It probably is very freeing. Does it also feel awkward and uncomfortable because you're so used to having sort of this agenda, or is it just feel like a deep breath?

Tina Wells: 40:51 I have always felt like I'm just going to do what I want to do. I know it sounds weird because I had this career that kind of just happened, but I always felt like if tomorrow I don't want to do it, I'm not doing it, like when I sat six years into it in my advisor's office, and said, "I might go to law school, and this was fun, but maybe I'll do something else." So I've never felt tied to it, and I've never been wrapped up in that persona at all. I've always felt like that was a piece of my life and the public took the story and ran with it in a way that they do because it's fun. If it weren't me, I'd be like, "Well, that's kind of a cool story," but I never really bought into it. I was just like, "This is what I'm doing, and it's fine. I'll do something else."

 Also, I think going back to our earlier conversation. I think my family has a lot to do with that. When you're one of six, you definitely are not the priority, so it's all about everyone doing... And I have five amazing siblings who just are doing amazing work, and so I never really had that moment of sitting back and saying, "Well, let's focus on me." It's always been, "Okay, what's the next right thing to do?" And that's where I am, is saying, "Okay, this is where I am right now. I can't do one more project on X right now, and six months from now, I might find a company I fall in love with or a job I fall in love with. But for now, this is where I'm at, and I'm going to stay here for as long as I want to be in this place."

Julie: 42:09 That's amazing. I so appreciate you sharing your story and your backstory. I think it's super inspirational, and for me, it gives me hope that it's just... I'm just going to do what feels right. What's good. It's often we feel tethered, and it's amazing. Just for the record, reading it, you are really all that, so it really is impressive.

Tina Wells: 42:34 Thank you.

Julie: 42:34 But thank you for being here today.

Tina Wells: 42:36 Thanks for having me.

Julie: 42:37 Thanks.