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The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (00:05)
Welcome to another edition of The Marketing B-Sides. I'm your host, Tom Hootman This, as you recall, is the podcast where ⁓ everyone's a marketer. No one really has it figured out. And we're all just faking it till we make it.
there's been this theme recently of higher education. Maybe because we're in the backyard of Indiana University, Go Hoosiers. That's probably it.
Today's guest is Dr. Mansur Khamitov
Mansur is an assistant professor at Indiana University at the Kelley School of Business. And what I love about his background is that no offense to anyone else in higher ed or an education, but he spent a quite a few years in CPG, consumer package goods for the uninitiated, and in pharmaceutical goods, consumer goods. And his focus is really on consumer behavior, which I find fascinating.
Because I think consumer behavior is a thread that you can pull along performance media, you could pull in AI now, you can pull with your Don Draper, Heinz Ketchup in a boardroom on a flip pad. It really is consistent for decades, consumer behavior. and I love the fact that he's worked on the brand side, he's worked in-house, and now he's on the higher ed side, really primarily working with.
⁓ seniors, students getting ready to graduate. it's a fascinating conversation. We could have gone for a couple hours because there's just a lot to go through. And I love picking his brain because the depth of his experience in research he does and continues to do, because he's been published in too many places to mention. and his
resume is intimidating to be honest with you. Pretty intimidating. But I consider him a friend because we've met before and he does a wonderful job with his classes and I really appreciate him taking time to sit down with me. enjoy the episode, Mansur, Dr. Mansur Khamitov thanks for sitting down with me for a bit and I'm excited to hopefully get to meet ⁓ some of your classes again in the future, but also sit back down and
Extend this conversation I hope you enjoy it. As always, shoot me an email and tell me what you hate about the show. If there's something you like about it, that's cool too. like, subscribe, all the you know the yada yada yada. let me know what you think. And ⁓ thanks for listening.
Tom Hootman (02:23)
You've been kind enough to invite me into your class to speak, which I always I still tell stories about to this day. It's an insanely amazing experience. Thank you, by the way. I always like I I prep I remember preparing both times, like we were gonna talk about X, Y, and Z. And then we get through X, Y, and Z, and everyone's half asleep, and then we start talking about A, B, and C.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (02:23)
That's right.
you
Tom Hootman (02:42)
about like just like how this shit runs and what what it's like in an agency and everyone lights up and asks a bunch of questions. So it's fun for me because I was like worried that the the student story was going to be like in the weeds because I hate weeds. And instead they're like tell what tell me your best clients like and I'm like, Yeah, I can do this all day long. This is fun. So I'm curious, you come from a background in CPG, you've worked on ⁓ the brand side.
Tell me how your journey of g how you started there. Did you think you'd be in academia, like higher ed, or did it just kinda happen upon you? Like what what did that path look like?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (03:16)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks first, mean, for like this kind introduction and also for being my guest speaker, the classes. I let me say that was everyone had a tremendous blast as for my experience, right? So yeah, I mean, pretty different. So what I do now in the higher ed is ⁓ clearly different, like you said, from what I've done in the past. most of my ⁓ industry experience have been all on the client side. So first at PNG.
I mean, as a brand manager, so I was responsible for Oral-B, Crest, Kamei and Safeguard brands. kind of, you know, personal care, slash kind of oral care, stuff like that. And then after that, I actually had a stint at Big Pharma. So at a generic company, also on the brand side, a lot of brand marketing, brand management strategy, those kinds of things. Little did I know where that path is going to lead me. So what happened was
I mean, I was in the industry, enjoying myself enjoying my time there. And then at some point, you realize ⁓ if you know what you do is great is awesome. learn a lot, but that's something that necessarily that you want to do over the long run, like long term, I was like, do I really see myself, you know, growing in the company becoming CMO, whatever, like, is that something that I'm built for what I want to do? And long term, I was like,
Yeah, I learned a lot. a great experience, but I don't see myself doing that forever. So that was kind of my realization, I guess, the big realization there.
Tom Hootman (04:42)
How many years were you in that before you started to realize
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (04:44)
⁓
Yeah, so I would say so I think what was I was actually in the industry and will not for that long. So I think total must have been what like three and a half years. So probably like two years into the role. I'm like, yeah, you know, this is you know what, I want to do something different. I want to do something that's also quite intellectually stimulating and challenging. So in the industry, I mean, please, my experience was a lot of these tools frameworks that we use, right? I mean, if they work,
they work, that's great, but no one cares why no one kind of ⁓ worries about, you know, like, why does this stuff work, right? Or what are the assumptions that we're making? Like, yeah, don't worry, it works. Just do it the way we've been doing it for a long time. Use this framework, use this tool. And I was like, well, I'm kind of curious to learn more about the why and you know, the assumptions and the process. And I think I was not really getting that much and big part of that was also I mean, I was working for a big
Tom Hootman (05:18)
Yeah.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (05:37)
multinational corporations, right? So there's only so much wiggle room. Like I like the space we're in right now where there's a lot of creative flexibility, right? I was like big brands, big organizations, big budgets, just, you know, stick to the to the normal stuff.
Tom Hootman (05:52)
Yeah, there's like a script. Like you almost have to like you kind of like fold into the herd a bit. Now there's there's changes within each nuance of each project, but you kind of learn how the machine works and you work within the machine initially. This is more creative. I hear this a lot when you work for large agencies or large brands? Did you ever have any concerns about and this was a concern for me, right? Like job security long term, right? Like, do I hit a ceiling?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (06:04)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Tom Hootman (06:17)
And or do I one day wake up and I'm not a fit, right? Like did you feel pretty safe?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (06:21)
Well, I mean, think feeling the same that like, one would truly feel safe. mean, that's an overstatement. It's always a dynamic food environment where long term again, like there's no guarantees, right? Even though I mean, like we're not in back then it wasn't 2026, which is a whole different kind of Wild West type of story. But ⁓ back then, exactly. But back then I was like, you know what, I mean, I didn't have
Tom Hootman (06:40)
Yeah. Yes, very much so.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (06:47)
like, I guess, existential concerns or anything like that. But I was like, yeah, again, you know, not that excited, I guess, in some way, we're like, not that intellectually stimulated. And then, yep, that's how I ended up sort of like, what was the next best thing? What can I do next? And that lead me to a more of an academic path, which we can also talk about that part too.
Tom Hootman (07:07)
Yeah,
absolutely. ⁓ it's interesting because you you're making the sh the switch from really private sector to public sector.
it's a big change to do what you're doing now versus what you were doing before.
what was that moment like or when was that moment where you transition, you walk in the classroom and you're like, Holy shit, this is radically different than I expected and like this is a whole new ball game versus where I was before.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (07:28)
Yeah,
for sure. I mean, you get that right. Like, so in the private sector, it's very sort of self focused, organization focused, right, like profit ⁓ making and all that kind of stuff, which is, mean, still critical in many ways to, you know, our own lives. And even like, if you think about the notion of a personal brand, but yeah, I think in, in the higher education, it's way more inherently pro social, right. So it's about the community. It's about ⁓
building the future generation of marketers of whether they're going to be on the brand side or in the agency side, etc. So I was quite a quite a bit of a change. I was a little little prepared for that solely because when I was actually doing my like undergrad and MBA in what not, I had a very early sneak peek of what that could be. So I was doing some like teaching assistant research assistant. So I was vaguely familiar at least with ⁓
the whole system. But again, what came to me, for example, as a surprise was how much of an emphasis is made on research. So to me, what I was signing up for, I thought it's completely teaching gig, it's going to be like teaching instruction. And that said, little did I realize that in academia, it's teaching is still hugely important. But so is research and kind of publishing papers, stuff like that.
Tom Hootman (08:42)
Yeah, things that we I I think that I'm making a an assumption based on my sample size of one. You I don't think about at all. I think teaching like you're you're in front of the the students all day long. Like the research you mentioned it before we were recording, like this is your time of year to like do your research and get your papers, like that is an entire job in addition to the job that you have.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (09:04)
100%. 100%. A very different feel, very different vibe. But, you know, I love different elements of our profession, right? So they kind of in some ways very complimentary and you don't get bored because it switches up quite a bit.
Tom Hootman (09:16)
Yeah. So do you ⁓ do you reserve this time for the summer to work on research? And throughout the year are you keeping track of directions you want to take your research or research you want to do or does it come up how does that process come about?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (09:28)
But yeah,
so it's it's I mean, a lot of it is always ongoing, right? So I mean, even when you're teaching, right, you always stumble upon a cool idea, cool project, like, for example, because a lot of the research that we do is on brands, branding, brand loyalty, brand trust, consumer relationships, right? Like if I, you know, read a practitioner book or look in the popular press, I'm like, okay, this, this is super interesting, right? Like they're talking about
brand purpose in this way or that way. So I started to get excited naturally. that a lot of that happens even during the academic year when I'm teaching. But then of course, once you have that some specially reserved time, like let's say summer, or maybe during like a longer break or something, I think that ⁓ is a bit more focused time. But I think it's always an ongoing process throughout the year.
Tom Hootman (10:14)
Yeah.
And ⁓ for the listeners, I think ⁓ you focus I think with me you asked to focus on consumer behaviors, right? Like it's it's the psychology of brand recognition, consumer behaviors. Can you talk just for a little bit about like your class in particular and what your your key focus and what you work with the students on?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (10:32)
Sure, Yeah, happy to take it. I mean, again, a lot of that sort of interesting consumer psychology of brands so related to branding are again, naturally happened since my industry days. So again, as a brand marketer, so to speak, I was always fascinated about that aspect. And then what I'm teaching right now, and that is informed a lot by my research is consumer behavior, consumer psychology. in fact, again, it's a structured process where we looked at
different domains of consumer behavior, different elements right behind who we are as consumers, how we behave, how we make decisions the way we do, et cetera. But ⁓ even that big part of that course is, again, very much kind of driven by consumer brand interactions and relationships that consumers establish with brands, organizations. So we try to have ⁓ quite a bit of that strong element in the classroom as well.
Tom Hootman (11:22)
this is what fascinates me a bit, ⁓ two amazing members of my team at Mixtape, Noah and Madison, I met through speaking to your class. I'd always worked with entry level, but I didn't have as much exposure to entry level team members. And so I might interview them and have a check-in once a month for the first 90 days, but never
By the time I started working with them or s started to see them start to speak up and be on calls on my agency side life, they were already six months a year in. Now I started to work with the like the next generation of marketers, like from day one. So and I've been completely impressed with just the acumen. And I mentioned to you, like the how open to feedback they are and the way that they're just hungry to learn constantly. I'm interested in your your POV, looking at your former experience, like
What do you think this generation of new marketers, what are they better at today than most seasoned marketers may realize or or may take for granted?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (12:17)
Absolutely. Well, at least a number of things. And again, I love to talk about that, given that, you know, all our direct access to them and sort of how we get to shape like a lot of their thinking. But yeah, I think there's at least several things that very much distinguish the the current marketers who are entering the workforce, right? So there will be like, what if they're about 22 or something like that, that would be 2004, which is kind of crazy blows my mind.
Tom Hootman (12:44)
Jeez
Yeah, don't let's not do the fucking math. No, I don't want to the math.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (12:46)
not getting any younger. basically
with them, what I see immediately, So just, well, first, their heart, right? How passionate they are about the world of marketing, broadly speaking, how very invested they are, like coming in with informed perspective on things, just being quite driven. The other big thing that I'm seeing, and I'm not sure I would love to also hear your take on that, but
the notion of values and kind of being a values driven consumer, but also being a values driven employee. I had, talked to so many of them where unlike maybe some of early generations, they're like, you know what, if I believe in the mission of the organization, I'm excited about what they do, about their vision, about their purpose. You know what, if I'm in a competitive offer situation, I may even go for whatever 10 % pay cut, 20 % pay cut or whatever, just
to be able to contribute to their mission, to work for them. So it's a very different mindset where for a lot of the older generation was like, whoever pays me the most, I don't care what they do. I don't care what they sell. I'll just work for the better, know, paying job or just the, I don't know, bigger name organization. They're different. They're different to build. So I've come to appreciate that a lot.
Tom Hootman (13:59)
It ⁓ I appreciate you bringing that up because it it is true. And I think that I it's hard for me to d to delineate the generational component versus the impact that I think COVID had on people's perspective, right? Because these are students who, if they're if they graduated last year, they were in high school during COVID, right? So their entire world kind of changed during those formative years. And I think that a little bit of the I've seen it in in a lot of people I've worked with before who have made changes. They make life changes.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (14:12)
So true.
Tom Hootman (14:27)
Because it's it gave us ⁓ I mean this insane event happened that changed everyone's perspective on what was really truly important. And I think it was something that was bubbling up for a while, but it kind of was the breaking point. I don't want to say breaking point, but the change point of okay, what's really important to me? And maybe I can make less money and have like the work-life balance, harmony, work-life harmony that I want, and really focus on what I want. And maybe it's not just chasing money. Because there's also this.
The economy sucks. They can't people can't buy houses. 7% interest rates, down payments, like the '08 crash kind of broke that initially, and then COVID happens. There's this environment where if you're 22, 25, you you can't just you can't follow the old script. And you remember the old script was from back in our day, you wanted a six figure job. And it was like, I make six figures. And it was like that for decades. Like a
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (15:00)
It's real.
Tom Hootman (15:19)
This is a it's a six-figure job and you everyone just kind of knew, this is important, like this is a lot of money. Now, six figure job, you probably still can't buy a house. or like you have to save. Like it isn't a ticket anymore to like an automatic barometer for success. Success, we'll say, if money equals success. So I think part of that being broken leads people to realize what what do I really want out of life? And I remember those days when
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (15:31)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (15:45)
Well, I worked at an agency that that didn't pay as much as other agencies, but the work life harmony was great. And we had, I think, at one point over 85, I mean 85% employee retention, maybe 90. Almost to a point where you're like, we should be losing more people than this, right? But there was a I think, a a good balance of great people doing great work for amazing clients and the freedom and ability to like, we're you're a professional, we trust you. Go do your thing.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (15:55)
Wow.
Tom Hootman (16:13)
Here are the parameters with which you can work. Be here between 7 and 10 a.m. work your eight hours. That was different at the time. And I remember my friends would be like, you can go in whenever you want. Like, yeah, I can go in between seven and ten, get my eight hours in, and I can I can leave. I try to go in early because I want my day to end early. And it it was kind of mind-blowing because we came up through a world of eight to five. You probably had to wear a suit and a tie, as did I back in the day. And
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (16:35)
Yep, more formal,
yep.
Tom Hootman (16:37)
Very formal, stringent guidelines. And I think as those relaxed and loosened, people start to have perspective on what's really important to them. Because I I have friends who went remote, who are now in environments where they're having to go back in and they're changing because that they realize it's a better for their mental health and their well-being to be able to have more flexibility. So I think that that this generation that that is graduating now is part of that early wave, the people who kind of come
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (16:50)
you
Tom Hootman (17:03)
into adulthood with that environment versus the bankers hours suit tie rules. So like they are more comfortable with flexibility than the previous. So it's less about money, inherently.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (17:14)
Yeah, well,
that's what we also see. I mean, again, everyone has their own career path and preferences that are but even what you just said, right, like the whole rise in, hey, you know, we're gonna do things differently, right? We, you know, we're gonna be maybe like more and more people are having freelance roles, right? Or the whole rise of the influencer economy, all that stuff, right? Like previously, like who would think it would be like considered
like a real job. And now we have a bunch of our students who will be like, you know what, I have this couple million followers on TikTok upon graduation, I'm going to move to Miami, I'm going to continue with that, right? And they're, mean, great, you know, that's, they're excited about that. They see good opportunity, very different from the traditional roles that we would have in the mind.
Tom Hootman (17:58)
Yeah. I mean I'm reminded of a conversation I had with Dagan Thogersen who was the drummer in a in a very popular band called Murder by Death. They toured every year. They had, I think, ten albums, ten or twelve albums out. And we talked about how the creator economy has changed and created a separate track for musicians on TikTok or Instagram.
Where they just play along or they'll just show you the chord, or there's a guy I love who shows you every guitar part in tandem for like all of these like old 80s metal songs. So you get to see who's playing what part. that's a really great income. And it's it's ⁓ another path that doesn't involve hopping in a van, staying in a Best Western every night and traveling city to city. That was the only path. It was the atter studio, right? Like you were a session musician, and now you can.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (18:24)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (18:44)
You can be a musician and not have to follow that path, similar to like influencer economy or or user generated creative, has changed the game for creative teams. I mean you can turn it around fast and you can you can engage with an influencer long term or you can do a one and done. It's it's there's flexibility that wasn't there before.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (18:51)
Uh-huh.
Absolutely. It's a very different and interesting world we live in.
Tom Hootman (19:06)
Yeah.
So you work predominantly with seniors, correct?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (19:09)
I would say it's a good healthy mix of kind of everything. here I mean I had experience doing MBAs or like grad courses, PhD courses, undergrads and then within undergrad it's a pretty healthy range. I mean for sure just because traditionally the course that I've been teaching more focused on consumer behavior, consumer psychology, it's been elective at least for longest of times. Now things have shifted around quite a bit but I'd say good.
a good number of seniors always I get to see them quite a bit but then yeah some juniors sophomores too every now and then.
Tom Hootman (19:43)
Well, I I get asked this a lot. I I also I've I have friends in the media school. So I spoke at Career Day and I got this question a lot. Like, people are really focused on networking. How do I get a job after school? How do I and I it it's a lot of it is the same advice I give of like do some work for free, right? Build your portfolio and just know that you're just gonna talk to people. You don't have to like submit resumes and go through interview like you just find time with people who work in the industry you wanna be in and then just talk to ask them questions, interview them. And
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (19:45)
Yeah.
Okay.
Tom Hootman (20:10)
I'm interested from your perspective, the reason I asked that you work with seniors is that you're a bit more of this at this turning point for students who are going out into the workforce. do you engage with brands or with agencies or with companies? Are you involved at all in those conversations? And I mean, if you are, like what what advice would you give to like a brand or a company hiring a marketer that
they may take for granted at this point. Like if I'm a brand or I'm an agency and I'm hiring someone straight out of your school, like what's the what's the good piece of advice for them? Like how do I find the best candidates? Because I think everyone at right now is just dumping a bucket of of job postings on LinkedIn and hoping for the best.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (20:44)
Yeah.
Exactly, exactly. No, and I mean, it's fascinating topic because even though yeah, I mean, we as individual faculty, right, we may not be formally involved in like recruiting process, right, which is happens a lot through career counselors and stuff like that. Still, we as faculty serve as this bridge between the industry and the friends and connections that we have among like different, you organizations and then the students themselves. So in fact, when I when I talk to
our like good friends, especially in the industry and who are searching for this promising entry level talent and candidates, including from our school. There's a couple of things that I always mentioned, right? One, mean, right now, especially with and I totally get it. I mean, it is what it is. But a lot of this recruiting or scouting for talent is done via automated tools, right? Whether, you know, you just having Gen AI do the job or maybe some kind of
I don't know, proprietary HR analytics, whatever system. And my advice there is always like, yeah, I mean, it's cost effective, efficient, right? You probably don't want to see through this hundreds and hundreds of resumes, etc. At the same time, right? Like, it's, I mean, it's a missed opportunity, because a lot of times, right? Like, if you look at this, when there are certain standard things that people care about, like, let's say, GPA, or where did your internship or what programming languages you
use well or like whatever. yeah, that thing is, I mean, it's on the paper. But really, where you'll see potential where you can see that is by well, first getting yourself as a recruiter from this marketing agencies or organizations, getting involved deeply, like even if it means spending a bit more time to go through some of these resumes, CVs or reaching out to the promising candidates that are so, so kind of automation is good to some extent, but maybe not necessarily in
this kind of process. There's a human component there. There's something that the machine may not pick up on, but you with your years of experience may. So I think that's almost like, I mean, sounds pretty simple and generic, but that's a big one.
Tom Hootman (22:53)
Not generic at all. Not generic. I think part of it is it's a it's a game. It's a machine is a game and people learn how to how to game the system. So there's like when you know, when people started leveraging AI for hiring, then there's a wave of people leveraging AI as individuals to get their resume up front. And then it just it shifts and it iterates. The one thing that doesn't change is a bit of right place, right time.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (23:02)
So true.
Yep.
Tom Hootman (23:15)
And that isn't something you can really manufacture necessarily through AI. Like you you just have to put yourself out there and have the conversations. And you'll you never you legitimately never know. I mean, for our business even, there are people who reach out to me who are like, Hey, I ⁓ do you guys work with X, Y, and Z type clients? Yeah, sure. Great. I I actually went to school with someone who's doing a thing. Do you want to talk to them? And they're a great client.
I never asked them for a referral. They just they saw something on LinkedIn because we put ourselves out there or we came to mind and they took a moment to like check in. It's like those moments of serendipity that you can create just by like I I tell people when they're they start consulting or they start their like a freelance role. I'm like, hey, like spend months just talking to people.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (23:45)
Uh-huh.
Tom Hootman (24:01)
Like you can sit and talk to people and have five meetings in a day and nothing comes of it, and that's okay. Thank you. It was great, five great conversations. You have to have no expectations. And if you walk in expecting nothing and just give to the universe, it gives back to you. And there'll be days where you have two conversations and both of them turn into something. You just never know. But like by having the conversations is the only way to make it happen.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (24:22)
very similar to what we briefly, I guess part of it we discussed before started recording or something, but even what you did, right, like engaging with the academia, right, like small things like come give a guest talk, right, or introduce yourself, put your name out there of your agency or organization and then
guess what happens right life happens people get interested you get excited so and then next thing you know these people could be your ⁓ really great workers or just you know people part of your network so again nothing quite like the the in person the analog experience
Tom Hootman (24:56)
The analog experience. That is great. It's absolutely
that's a perfect way to put it. ⁓ I have a question for you about like think of all your favorite and least favorite students. I'm kidding, but not really. Like in your opinion, like what separates the top five percent of students from everyone else?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (25:02)
Yeah.
Hahaha
from everyone else. So I mean, I'm gonna be so I have a pretty strong opinion about that, which which again is something that I've like, yeah, something that I've shared this view over a long time. I'm gonna also draw some sports analogies here. I don't know if it's gonna be relevant, but in sports, right? And I'll transition to the classroom, promise to the students, but in
Tom Hootman (25:23)
Yeah, yeah, hit me.
I'm all for it. You're singing
my song right now. Keep going.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (25:37)
⁓
So like in sports, right? You always have, people always say this talent, that talent, generational talent, but you know what we don't see even within those talents, right? Or even like the sheer number of talents is always limited. What really is the long term success predictor over the long run is all the things like grit, perseverance, how hardworking you are, you know, do you give up or you don't give up, right? Do you go
knocking on these doors, even some of these doors seem to be hidden or I don't know, maybe they're just not excited, that excited to open these doors for you. So I would say that's like the top, top really percent. mean, at that level, because we're talking about, hey, kids going to good schools, like good public school, prestigious school, right, like even to get in here, they all are good enough. So what's going to distinguish that top 5 % are some of these things that I said, very similar.
how in sports, right? Like you look at, I mean, people like, I don't know, Christian Ronaldo or someone who for sure is pretty talented. I mean, no one can argue with that, but he really built himself with his hard work and ethic and dedication. I think at the end of the day, that's what matters, especially over the long run. Like, are you willing to take that cost and persevere and really, ⁓ you know, go all in versus not? So I would say this, I mean, if you were to ask like this, ⁓
Tom Hootman (27:01)
Yeah.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (27:01)
what is that skill or skills, I may probably single out that one or those ones.
Tom Hootman (27:06)
I think that there's you nailed it in that there's you see this with like five star, players coming up who are like highly touted. It's almost like if it if it was easy for them to get to this point where they worked their ass off, but then it got easy and it kind of got not handed to them, but they they they hit this like, Hey, I'm a five star recruit, top program, the work actually gets harder. And they're like the work increases as life goes on to a point where you eventually will have to work hard.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (27:25)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (27:32)
For some people, like these three stars who turn into five stars, like the IU football team is a good example. Like you they recruit a bunch of three stars who work really, really hard and come together as a team or a unit. Like, think there's an element of like it's it's easier to always work hard and have to have a chip, a little chip on your shoulder. And it can be d more of a distraction to be highly touted, five star, the expectations, but then not having to work as hard. Like people I went to school with who were just naturally A students.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (27:37)
Yeah, it's a great example.
Tom Hootman (28:00)
in in high school struggle sometimes in when they move out of high school in the second tier because there's an issue of ⁓ the second tier of education now at the work is a lot harder and I haven't had to work in so long, you forg you lose it. Like you lose that chip that allows you to like push yourself a little bit harder.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (28:17)
Absolutely. Well, especially in your world that's like very dynamic, right? I mean, it's never going to be perfect, right? So there may be a roadblock with a client, right? Or some issue or like, know, if you're not used to just, like you said, your ass off and really kind of getting the job done, maybe you'll be discouraged. You're like, well, you know, this is really not working for me, or just kind of ready to give up. And if you haven't consistently
reinvented yourself, rebuild yourself and encounter those situations and came out stronger, right? It's so easy to just feel down. But yeah, this is, mean, it's a very dynamic world.
Tom Hootman (28:54)
It's I love the sports analogies. you're gonna get me started. So I'm a huge baseball fan. Go White Sox. And there's a saying, like, if you get a hit 30% of the time for your career in baseball, it'll put you in the hall of fame, right? You're a career 300 hitter, right? That's an amazing career. And it's really easy, like the team at Mixtape's amazing. Every agency I've worked at, like it's really, really easy to lose.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (28:59)
Nice.
Tom Hootman (29:16)
You go on everyone has hot streaks, you go on a heater, and everyone has streaks where you can't win, even though you know you deserved you were the best choice for four in a row. And it's really easy when you lose a couple to think, what are we doing wrong? What could have I done better? What what could we have done differently? Because it's really easy when you find out they went with another agency or you didn't win the deal to look back and think we could have done this, this, and this. Hindsight's 2020. But also if you win half of the deals you pitch in this business.
It's remarkable. You're doing great. It's awesome. Like I think any agency owner would say, hey, if 50% of the deals we pitch, we win, I'm all for it. Sure. ⁓ because that's kind of where you want to land. And that's a great success rate in baseball, but not necessarily if you're a quarterback and you're completing 50% of your passes, you're out of the league, right? It's just so different for every microcosm or environment you're in, whether you're in sports or you're in
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (29:50)
Amazing, yeah.
Tom Hootman (30:10)
entertainment or you're in like private or public sector, right? Graduation rates. I'm sure you're like if none of your students were graduating, someone would sit you down and be like, hey, graduation rate's pretty low. What are we not doing here? Or if everyone was getting A's, right? They'd be like, hey, there's a you have to learn the balance within like where success lies within your your given industry.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (30:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's another extreme.
Yeah, well, in the research, I mean, since we all like talking about or started talking about consumer behavior, so being a consumer behavior decision making kind of nerd, right? So there's a really nice term that I like, right? It's called regression to the mean. It's a pretty kind of famous concept where basically no matter like you had an amazing day or if you're at the top of your game I mean, it's impossible to stay there. There's always going to be
kind of a central tendency where you're just going to go to your normal baseline average and that's okay, but how do you handle that? How do you kind of own it and keep at it? That's really important.
Tom Hootman (31:09)
Yeah, sometimes you feel like you can't lose. It was like we're never gonna lose another deal again. And then there's a there's a month where you're like, are the phones still plugged in? Right? Is our website still up? 'Cause you just don't know. And it's you're right, it's a regression to the mean. I think a a key component of that sports analogy again in baseball is that you can go 0 for four with three strikeouts. You literally have to forget that shit the next day. Like it it's a hundred and sixty two games. It's a long season.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (31:11)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (31:33)
And every day you could have two airs, strike out twice at a lousy game. The next day, if you can't clear that, you're in a bad spot, right? You've got to be able to reset blank slate. Totally. On the ⁓ I I've always been fascinated by the your work in consumer behavior. And now that you've you've you've done so much research on it and you're on the the public sector and but you also worked on the brand side, what's one thing you would tell
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (31:41)
Blank slate, exactly. Yep, yeah.
Tom Hootman (31:57)
a CEO about consumer behavior that you think maybe most C suite execs struggle to grasp or struggle to understand or come to come to terms with.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (32:08)
Yeah, that's a good one. There's like some like 1 million things that I would love to say but but let me let me pick on one. I like this one. And I mean, it always to me, I mean, the reason why I'll talk about it, even me when I was on the brand side, I think I was also vulnerable to that or sort of subject to some of the same bias. But the biggest thing, I think, when you're a CEO of an organization, right? I mean, clearly,
you're there for a reason, you built your way up, you did well, you're passionate about your company, your organization, you want to see it succeed. But with that always comes the notion of just kind of optimism, bias, right? You have you kind of wearing this rose colored glasses, So you think that, right? My brand, my organization, right? We are awesome. We are the best.
And everyone else should think so about us, our consumers kind of raving about us or and part of that is if you're CEO, I mean, of course, you would have to tend to have that optimism tendency, but also whoever, you know, your C-suite, other people who are advising you, many of them not going to tell you otherwise, they'll be like, we're doing well here. We're doing well here. Maybe if something is not as good, we're going to fix it. Right. So it's, it's a this bubble kind of this environment where you're getting this positive frustration. Well, guess what?
Tom Hootman (33:18)
So it's a disability you get this you're getting this year from this
one.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (33:24)
The average consumer
could care less about your brand. It's a very competitive space, right? They're overloaded with information. There's data suggesting that average consumer, especially in the urban environment, get exposed to up to 5,000 commercial messages, brand messages per day, right? There's just no way they can handle that ⁓ amount of information. So it's a big, big overload. So ⁓ competing for that space.
is super hard. I think the biggest takeaway is that like, you know, get a reality check, get a sense check. It doesn't mean that consumers hate you or don't like you, but maybe have a more realistic assessment of the strength of your brand and you know, how good it is, but also some potential opportunities to grow and the kind of how you want to stand out in that competitive space.
Tom Hootman (34:08)
The CEO myopia, right? Like they're in this in this like tunnel vision. And I think that I'll add to that that as companies grow, it's really easy. You have to have people you trust. You have to have that circle of trust of like your senior execs, but you you have to be certain that they are comfortable telling you when you might be wrong or or surfacing something that's that is a struggle, is a weak point for the org, because if they can't bring that up.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (34:11)
Yep.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Tom Hootman (34:33)
they're not going to bring it up. It's just going to atrophy even further and then something falls apart and you think that as the CEO, you've got these rose colored glasses on that you're the greatest ever. And in reality, you're losing customers out of the bottom of the bucket faster than you ever realized.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (34:46)
Exactly. You
don't need just yes men or yes women, right? Like you need kind of a reality check and especially comes, especially when it comes to the customer because I mean, customer centricity is important and there's all these adages of customers, the king and you know, being obsessed with the customer is important, all that stuff. ⁓ yeah, I think that's my lengthy response to your question.
Tom Hootman (35:09)
No, it's a great answer. It's a great answer. And it reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, which is the customer's not always right, but they're allowed to be wrong. So like one of my favorite books is Unreasonable Hospitality, because I come from restaurant, right? it's basically about this this restaurant owner who ran a restaurant that earned Michelin stars immediately like straight out of the gates that did these kind of The Bear is a bit of like a lot of the what the
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (35:21)
Uh-huh.
Tom Hootman (35:33)
the show The Bear is about is like the front of the house experience from a Unreasonable Hospitality of just doing things absolutely crazy just to make someone's night. And part of it was that when a table says a steak is undercooked, your your immediate reaction as a server, because I've been there, is to explain that it's actually to temp the kitchen wasn't wrong, but we'll fix it. And it's like take everything up to the comma before we'll fix it and just don't say it. Cause it doesn't matter. It doesn't
They're allowed to be wrong. It doesn't matter. Just cook it how they want it and like fix it. Like there's this and you feel like you're like, but we didn't make a mistake. And you're like, now you're just arguing with the customer. Like, just let it let it go. You're not gonna win. Like, what's the point of winning that? There's they're just never gonna come back, right?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (36:03)
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah. And that also, mean, what I had in mind, what I mentioned about sort of customer space being very competitive, many customers not really caring about that. There's even a pretty interesting, so it's a research study. the, you, I mean, you probably know them, Havas. So Havas is a pretty big kind of player. So they have that, they call meaningful brand study. They've been doing that, I think, over several years now. So they run a bunch of surveys, longitudinal tracking, but what they find top of line highlight is that
Tom Hootman (36:29)
huh.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (36:42)
If the vast majority of the brands in the world would disappear or were to disappear, customers would absolutely not care. They could care less and they usually provide numbers like 80%, 85%, whatever. So again, we overthink it as senior executives and we feel we take very strong pride, but maybe we should rethink our approach or not take it so dearly and personally.
Tom Hootman (37:08)
Totally agree. hundred percent. Last question for you, and this one is not related to anything whatsoever, but it's my favorite question. I ask it on every episode. Because it's Mixtape Digital, and because I love music and because I worked in a music store years ago, I love the thread, and I love hearing this answer from guests. If your career had a two to three song playlist, what songs would you include and and why those songs?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (37:10)
Yeah.
Uh...sure.
Okay, two to three. so it's gonna, it's not so easy to narrow it down. But let me, let me try and in these songs, I think, like you said, I'm probably gonna think more from the perspective of the career and maybe describing my journey in some way, not necessarily. I mean, I love all sorts of songs. So anyway, so first one or the one that I'll say, and that's also song I think when I was kind of growing up a bit younger, that was a pretty popular song.
Destiny's Child Survivor. young kind of Beyonce or something. And the reason why, mean, this song, I mean, it's a decent song. Yeah, it's a decent song. But what I especially like about it is that theme of of like resilience and again, pushing against the odds and coming out stronger in some whatever, like difficult situations, things like that. So I think that's probably why I would single
Tom Hootman (38:05)
Everyone knows that song. Yeah, that song was huge.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (38:25)
the song out and even I mean, that's probably going to be a recurrent theme in in today's episode because I also talked about how that's important for like young generation of marketers. And that's how I felt also growing up like, you know, yeah, exactly. And then the other one is the that's a pretty interesting one. Don't Worry, Be Happy. I think it was Bobby McFerrin or something. But just like, to me that song
Tom Hootman (38:36)
Nice dual meaning there. Look at you. I like it. Thematically diverse.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (38:52)
Kind of reflecting back on my career, both in the industry, but also in academia. Just this notion of seeing on the bright side, staying positive, staying upbeat, right? Like no matter what goes your way or what happens, you just kind of be optimistic about it, keep pushing, keep enjoying what you do because the outcome or the final goal of where you want to be is important, but at least as much, if not more, is the process, right? So just... ⁓
positive i mean everyone needs a bit more positivity in our lives in our world these days. so i'll leave you with that hopefully that works
Tom Hootman (39:24)
That means that
honestly is a f that's a phenomenal choice, Mansur, because it is ⁓ is it resonates with me, right? Like I I suffered for years, I still suffer from too cool for school, right? Like I would never try anything different because I didn't want to embarrass myself and I didn't want to seem like a weirdo or a nerd, right? And I would like I still struggle, like, no, like share, it doesn't matter, right? Like I'm gonna do something, so this is what I like. And there's a it
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (39:38)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (39:46)
There's a comedian, Pete Holmes, who had recently he's had a reel on Instagram that I saw where he talked about yes, thank you as his mantra. So like, your flights delayed, yes, thank you. This this shit happens, right? Like now maybe no, I'm gonna get to my house two hours later or four hours later. I'm still gonna get home from across the country in a in a tube in that's at thirty thousand feet, traveling hundreds of miles an hour faster than that would have taken months in a covered wagon.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (39:54)
Interesting.
Tom Hootman (40:14)
Right. You have to look at this like you have to really it's really, really, really easy and tempting. And I still do it. I look at every little thing as like catastrophic. Or what I do is like I'll be having a bad day and then I will drop an egg or something. And it will be like the the straw that breaks the camel's back. And I'm like, I f I fly off the handle when in reality it's literally nothing. It's being dramatic. Right.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (40:33)
Hehehehe
Yeah, in the grand
scheme of things. Yeah, it's all good.
Tom Hootman (40:41)
grand scheme of
things, it's all just stuff. It's stuff you can fix. It's not a huge deal, right?
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (40:46)
Yep. Yeah. So we just keep doing what we do. Keep pushing and enjoying the process.
Tom Hootman (40:49)
Keep
enjoy the process. Dr. Khamitov Mansur, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Love this conversation. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Dr. Mansur Khamitov (40:56)
My pleasure, thanks for having me, Tom.