RevGenius Member Spotlight: Nick Bennett
Nick Bennett is the definition of a “go-getter.” When he sees a challenge ahead, he steps up to the plate (sometimes, quite literally ⚾).
One of those challenges for him has been personal branding. Over the last year, he’s found his voice on LinkedIn and inspired countless revenue professionals, and showed that anyone could find their niche and use the power of their “brand.”
For RevGenius, he’s the person leadership can rely on. Whether it’s writing for the Mag, leading a roundtable, or helping launch a podcast, Nick is there.
A community like ours needs individuals like Nick, and we’ll forever be thankful for the contributions he’s made and those he’s yet to honor us with.
Below is the latest interview in our Spotlight Series with Nick Bennett.
Introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us who you are and what you are currently focused on.
Hey everyone, I’m Nick. I live just outside of Boston (The city of champs) with my wife and 2-year-old daughter. I am super passionate about marketing and field marketing, particularly personal branding, and how it plays a role in our lives and sports. I am still playing competitively in a few baseball leagues as a pitcher and co-founded one of the premier amateur baseball leagues in New England. I am currently the Director of Field Marketing at Logz.io, a cloud observability platform for modern engineering teams. My role is to partner with sales and drive pipeline for them, which results in the word that we all love: REVENUE! 🙂
How did your journey lead you to Field Marketing?
I went to school for Sport Management. Marketing was the furthest from my mind that I would ever do in my career. I thought I would honestly get out of school and get into some fancy athletic director or assistant athletic director role. I was wrong. I realized I could sell tickets for the red sox making $10 an hour. I had a friend who worked in sales at Industrial Tool Supply, and I joined him there. My job was to answer the phone all day, place orders from people, and then pick them in the back and have them ready for pick up. Super boring. I ended up coming across field marketing after a few sales roles, actually, and then was like, this is great, I get to do all the fun stuff without having a quota hanging over my head. Field marketing is literally amazing. I wouldn’t change what I do for the world. Every day is different and being able to build something is something that I really enjoy.
Why do you think personal branding is so important?
So, I started on this journey in March with really no goals except that I will never back down when someone challenges me to do something. I love anything that involves competition, and when my former boss at Clari put out the challenge back in March to a group on his team, I ate that up and went with that. Is it easy? No, but the impact that it has had on me is through the roof. I went from having 2,000 followers in March to 11,000 today. All of that growth? All organically driven too. I will also say that it’s 100% opened doors for me to opportunities, people, groups, podcasts that I know for sure that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Also, when you provide value in the content you write, many people will seek advice from you. The number of people that have reached out to me to say thank you is honestly part of it that I feel has had the most significant impact on me. Everyone has something to say. Never let anyone tell you differently. Tell your story and build your following, but know that it won’t happen overnight. Have patience.
What advice do you have for people looking to get into Field Marketing?
So, some people may not agree with this, but I would say start in sales. Lots of salespeople have made the transition to field marketing, myself included. If you think about field marketing, our internal customer is sales. We want to make sure that they crush it and hit their goals, make the club, whatever it is. There are two types of field marketers. Field marketing 1.0, which is basically event marketers, and trust me, there is nothing wrong with that, but your value to the company is so much more than that. Then there is field marketing 2.0, the modern-day field marketers that genuinely care about being revenue-driven and partnering with sales to be a strategic advisor. You aren’t afraid to say no, and ultimately you are the one that should drive all marketing activity for your patch. You need to figure out what type of field marketer you are.
What gets you out of bed every morning?
Honestly, my 2-year-old daughter wakes up super early too, like 5:45-6 am, haha, but all jokes aside, she is why I do what I do. I am trying to do well for myself so that, at the end of the day, I can provide a better life for her as she gets older. I mean, that’s what we all want as parents, right? My parents wanted more for me than they ever did for themselves, and I feel like that just cascades down the generations. She is my world, and whenever I feel bad or down about something spending a few minutes with her instantly changes my mood.
What would you say your personal superpower is?
I think I would say being a fast learner. There is a ton I don’t know. Funny side story, when I launched this amateur baseball league 7 years ago, we were like, “well, we need a website.” No one knew how to make a website, so I started reading about WordPress and built the site we have now by reading online and watching youtube videos. That is one thing that I pride myself on being able to learn really quickly anything that is shown to me and not only learn it, but be able to have success with it.
Why should other revenue professionals join RevGenius?
Take it from me, who is part of multiple communities, that RevGenius has 7,000 members willing to help at the drop of a dime. The significant advantage for me is the $0 cost associated with it and learning from so many people whether they are just starting in their career or are a C-Level at a company. There are so many great things to take part in, like the roundtables, the RG Mag—and the one I am particularly excited about, The Revenue Podcast, which Ashley Levesque and I will be hosting the marketing episodes of. So much access at your fingertips for no money is crazy, but I am always recommending it to people, so something must be working right.