Power To Thrive

00:04

Kicking Off The Marketing Stir with Kelly Grover

Welcome to the Marketing Stir podcast by Sterista, where we chat with industry leaders and get their take on the challenges facing the market.

And maybe we’ll have a little fun along the way.

On this episode of The Marketing Stir, Vincent engages in some electrifying discourse with Kelly Grover, CMO of EV charging company Linkwell.

00:22 – Vincent Petrafessa:

Hello, everyone.

It’s me, Vincent Petrafessa, the host of the Marketing Stir.

Thank you so much for listening.

Ladies and gentlemen, who am I again your host.

I’m also the Vice President of B2B products and partnerships here at Starista.

00:38

Who is Starista?

Let’s talk about us just for a split second.

That’s all if I can do a PowerPoint presentation on who we are, but pay some bills as they say.

In the radio business, Strista, we are a marketing technology company.

We own our own business to business data and business to consumer data, but also the technology to help companies to reach out to that data through our e-mail, GESP, right, our display connected TV.

01:04

We help you get new customers.

Who doesn’t want new customers?

Maybe something you don’t, but you know most of our clients do.

That’s what we do. e-mail me vincent@starista.com.

Thank you so much.

You are emailing me.

Is it always for what I intended?

01:19

No, but you’re listening.

That’s all I care about.

Another person I care about is my Co host, Mr. AJ Gupta, the Sultan of San Antonio as I call him.

But he is not here.

Ladies and gentlemen, he is traveling today.

01:35

He could not be here.

He misses us and I know he will miss this guest because we’ve got a great one.

This next guest we were just discussing, I was like, wait, we met.

Don’t I know you, but it was on a zoom.

We were on a panel together for coffee and conversions hosted by the great Meg Eugenie.

01:53

But again, I feel like I do know this person.

An amazing company, a company that unlike any other company we’ve had on.

Ladies and gentlemen, please, a warm marketing stir.

Welcome to the CMO of Linkwell, Kelly.

02:11

Owen Grover.

What’s going on, Kelly?

02:13 – Kelly Grover:

Hey, Vincent, good to be with you guys.

Thanks for the conversation today.

02:16 – Vincent Petrafessa:

Oh yeah, I’m very excited, right?

That’s like when I first I was like, wait a minute, don’t we know each other?

02:21 – Kelly Grover:

Do we do?

We’re in the same circles, of course.

02:24 – Vincent Petrafessa:

Exactly.

And you are also a New Yorker.

Yeah, right.

New York’s the whole state, people.

People just think it’s, you know, New York City.

I’ll even go to other cities and people are like, yeah, we’re going to go to the city tonight.

And I’m like, really?

I was like, oh, you mean you mean Austin?

02:39

No, no, no, there’s only one city, New York.

02:42

Understanding Linkwell’s Comprehensive EV Charging Ecosystem

But Kelly, let’s get right into it.

Talk to us about the organization.

And as we’ve had many CMOs on your role, because a lot of CMOs, different hats, different functionalities, it’s never cut and dry.

Tell us about it.

02:57 – Kelly Grover:

Yeah, I love it.

So I am the Chief Marketing Officer for Linkwell.

As you just mentioned, we are headquartered in the beautiful upstate New York City of Schenectady, which is right outside the capital of Albany.

Linkwell is an electric vehicle or EV charging company.

03:15

And so we are vertically integrated.

And for us within our industry, that means that we do the hardware, which is the physical chargers themselves, the software that runs it, all of the support along the user journey and all of the ongoing service and maintenance all out of Schenectady, NY.

03:35

We’re an all US based team and we’ve been doing this for about 10 years.

And that might not sound like a long time compared to a lot of other more mature industries, but actually for EV charging, this is actually a pretty mature business.

03:51

In this industry, there’s a lot of newcomers, especially when you see something that’s really growing the way our industry is, no surprise, it attracts a lot of different facets of new companies.

But one thing that’s really interesting and special about Linkwell is where especially over the past several years where it really has been a growing industry, you might see players that just do hardware, just do software, just do service or support.

04:17

One piece of that puzzle.

No one really has that comprehensive, all-encompassing offer the way that Linkwell does.

And that’s honestly one of my favorite parts about my role within this company is that when we think about a new industry where there’s so many questions, so many learning curves, sometimes we’re the first person from this industry that a potential customers talking to knowing that we have all the answers that we are that one partner really is such a special place to hold kind of within the industry and certainly is a big part of our competitive advantage.

04:51

And so within Link, well, from a scope perspective, I own and manage all of marketing, which stands our entire customer journey from the moment I waved to somebody like you on the street all the way through, hey, we’ve got chargers in your site and we are managing them for the entire life cycle of the charger, right, could be years.

05:12

I also oversee all of our product management as well.

So that includes new product development, our product road map plus the commercialization of all new products and existing products because we are vertically integrated.

How we take those different components of that customer journey of our portfolio and combine them into specific offerings is actually a big piece of what I do right, Taking this hardware plus this software package plus this support and turning it into something that folks find valuable and unique within the industry.

05:47 – Vincent Petrafessa:

I love it and and you’re in an industry like it’s emerging.

05:51

From Pharmaceutical Sales to Leading EV Cleantech Marketing

It’s one of those very specialized industries and I have so many questions about that because, you know, my mind is going right now, Kelly, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I want to take a step back because this is a question we ask every one of our guests because again, also not always cut and dry or a clear path.

06:09

How did you get started in marketing?

06:13 – Kelly Grover:

Yeah, great question.

I actually did not start in marketing.

I started in sales.

I carried a bag as they say.

I started in pharmaceutical sales with a physical bag on my shoulder, but always actually had a marketing component right from day one.

06:28

Actually when I was in field sales, they actually had what they would call marketing liaisons, right.

So it was a great feedback loop from folks like myself, feed on the street talking with end customers and users as a feedback loop back into the internal marketing team.

06:43

So even when I was on the sales side, I always had that marketing component.

Eventually graduated from field sales into a business development role.

Now both of these first experiences were actually in the biotech industry, so not necessarily the industry that I’m in now, but actually a ton of overlap, very mission driven, very technical, complicated, high value, high touch B to B go to market strategy.

07:12

So even though different industries actually very similar, let’s call them mechanisms, right from a go to market standpoint.

And when I was in business development, I got to the point where I was kind of the senior person on the team.

So all messaging, all PowerPoints, all assets, all training for new team members started to flow through me.

07:32

And it was actually during that business development role that I just organically transitioned into full time marketing and honestly never looked back.

I what I loved about sales is the ability to make a material impact, right?

You’re the person on the front line.

07:49

But what I think is so special and lovely about marketing is it still is that, but it’s amplified, right?

The things that I create are the things that all of those frontline people use in their engagements.

And so for the past 10 or 15 years or so, I’ve been solely focused within marketing in a couple of different industry verticals, but have been really passionate and fortunate to transition into what I’ll call cleantech sustainability companies for the past, gosh, now probably going on five years.

08:23

It’s a personal passion of mine.

It’s something that we as a family live in our everyday lives.

And it just got to a point in my career where this is happening, right?

This is that magical moment in time.

You can just feel it in the air around you.

And I don’t want to watch it from the sidelines.

08:39

I want to be at the forefront helping to drive these initiatives forward.

And going on two years here at Linkwell and wouldn’t change a thing.

Love the people, love the company, and certainly love our mission.

08:50

How a Sales Foundation Drives Effective Marketing Strategies

That’s awesome.

No, it’s it’s a great mission and it’s valuable.

I love that you said you carry a bag.

That’s so funny.

I.

08:57 – Kelly Grover:

Carry a bag.

08:58 – Vincent Petrafessa:

I, I, I haven’t heard that term in a while, but I love it.

I it resonates with me.

But also, let’s stay on that.

You have that sales background and now you’re in marketing.

You’ve done them both and you’ve done them both.

Well, how is that background helped you now as a marketer?

09:15 – Kelly Grover:

So when I wanted to make the transition into marketing, I just felt like, gosh, this is my passion, this is where I want to be.

There was a brief moment in time where I almost regretted not immediately going into marketing because as everybody who listens to your podcast knows, marketing is a discipline, right?

09:34

You study it, there’s technical information, there’s best practice, there’s all of these things that go into making a great marketer and it isn’t something that you learn overnight.

And I kind of beat myself up for a little bit.

Gosh, like I’m behind the 8 ball.

These really brilliant people that this has been their focus, right?

09:52

For however many years I was focused on sales.

But I would say with time comes a bit of wisdom.

And I think that piece of my history actually is the most important part of my marketing skill set because I think there’s a practicality and a pragmatism to how I think about marketing.

10:12

We don’t do things for marketing sake, right?

We do things for go to market sake.

So if I create materials that no one ever uses, if I create beautiful messaging that no one ever says, if we create ads that no one ever sees, it was just an exercise in academic marketing, right?

10:30

But it didn’t translate into anything.

And so I do think it actually shaped a lot of how we think about marketing, both as a discipline and also as an investment, right?

When you’re a salesperson, you’re a number.

Is that good or bad?

It just is, right?

10:46

I have this goal and it’s very clear.

I still think that way about marketing.

Our legal, our OP goal, our booking goal, our revenue goal.

Those are my goals.

If we missed them, I messed up.

I’m not doing what I need to do because that’s a company goal and I own a big piece of it.

11:04

And so I do actually really cherish that part of my background because I think it’s helped me bridge that gap that you talk about that is, is a real thing, right?

A lot of folks struggle with it, but I, I like to think that I navigate it a bit better because I carried a bag, I walked in your shoes.

11:22

I know what it feels like.

Sales is not easy.

It is different.

We are different folks and we have different tools in our toolkit.

But to say that one is easier or better or more important than the other is simply not true, right?

We are two links in the chain and if either one of us is weak in any area then our go to markets week.

11:43

Identifying Key Customer Segments for EV Charging Solutions

I love what you said there about you still have those goals with marketing and I want to talk about leads demand.

How does 1 Kelly create that demand and kind of an emerging industry?

Who are these industries that you’re targeting?

12:00

Who are some of you go to market?

I think off the cuff, I think like hotels, I think commercial real estate.

I just curious like kind of A2 parter there for you, but playing off the answer you just had.

12:11 – Kelly Grover:

Yeah, I love it.

And I’m going to actually answer them probably in the reverse order that you asked them.

So target customers for us and fall into just a few buckets.

I would say one bucket is what I would call a destination and a destination could be, you gave some great examples, right, hotels, retail, strip malls, right restaurants, gas stations, anything like that.

12:37

Anything where you have customers coming to you to do some sort of transaction, right, conduct business, I would consider a destination.

And separate from that are fleets.

So organizations that operate a fleet of vehicles think certainly delivery services, right?

12:54

I think that’s the the most obvious ones.

But most municipalities have fleets, right?

There’s folks that give us our parking tickets that drive around in fleet cars, right?

So there’s a lot of different types of fleets that also are on the pathway to electrification.

13:10

So the reason why I break these personas into those two buckets is it actually shapes the value, the messaging and our go to market strategy.

So with fleets, it is actually an operational and financial decision to take your gas powered fleet and convert it to an electric powered fleet.

13:33

Reason being, without kind of going too much into the details, is typically electricity is cheaper than gas.

Electric vehicles have much lower ongoing maintenance and upkeep costs.

We simply just don’t have a lot of the mechanisms in an EV that you have in a gas powered car.

13:50

So you don’t have to do oil changes, you don’t have to do a lot of those things that tend to add up over time.

So regardless of how you view sustainability or anything like that, a lot of companies that have fleets are making this transition because it’s financially and operationally advantageous.

14:08

Leveraging EV Charging to Attract, Convert, and Build Loyalty

It’s a business decision now let’s go back to that first bucket, right?

I think the ones that would be a bit more familiar to yourself and folks that are listening to the podcast, these destinations again, hotels, retail outlets, restaurants, convenience stores, anything like that.

14:24

Part of why I love what I’m able to do is it presents a really challenging but fun kind of marketing puzzle.

And if you’re someone who kind of likes the challenge and to geek out about different marketing techniques, this actually is a great opportunity.

14:40

And here’s why.

Electric vehicles as a percentage of total vehicles on the road continues to grow.

But when you think about demand, right?

So let’s go back to like marketing one O 1.

We’re like, all right, where’s that demand coming from?

Who’s pulling at us to do this thing?

14:57

That pull is coming from drivers, folks like me who drive an EV.

But I’m not the buyer, right?

I don’t buy a charging station and put it in my strip mall or my restaurant that I frequent or anything like that, or my Public Library.

15:13

That’s not my purchase decision.

The purchase decision lives with what we would call a site host, right?

Someone who would host a charging station on their site.

And so that’s kind of 1 nuance here.

The demand is not the same as the buying decision.

15:30

So here and actually gets to the meat of your original question, how do we engage with these people?

How do we create that interest level from them when demand is a little murky, right?

It’s not as linear as other industries and the industry itself is actually new, right?

15:47

This is not a mature industry that’s evolving every single day.

Well, one tactic that we use that I think it’s incredibly powerful is we market to them that chargers are a marketing tool.

16:02

If you think about charging as digging a hole in the ground in front of your building, you are missing the point.

If you’re thinking of this as an infrastructure project that you’re like rolling your eyes like, oh, I guess I got to do this because I’m going to have some customers who are asking for it.

16:17

You’re missing the point.

So like, let’s step back and let’s think about as marketers, what are we tasked with doing?

We’re a tasked with acquiring new customers.

That’s what we literally put your business on a map.

16:33

Not figuratively, literally, right?

I can tell you as an EV driver, I look at a map on my car of gosh, I’m going to need to charge.

Where do I go?

I’m not looking at my favorite coffee place or what’s convenient.

I’m looking at where’s the charger?

16:48

And that is now my destination.

So by having chargers, you have now leapfrogged over so many of your competitors in attracting new customers.

So attraction conversion, when you charge, you have to stay plugged in.

17:05

I know that sounds silly, but it means that you actually have these customers that are trapped at your facility for some period of time and guess what they do?

They spend money.

We don’t sit there and stare at our car.

I promise we don’t.

We go inside and we buy coffee and we buy books or we buy a meal.

17:21

That’s what we do.

And this is proven out in the day that you can actually see changes in spending behavior and increases in per visit spending when businesses invest in EV charging.

And then the third piece is loyalty, right?

17:39

A1 off transaction actually isn’t all that beneficial, right?

We want to bring people back over and over and over again and build that loyalty.

And I will tell you, that’s exactly what happens.

It has been really fascinating for me as an EV driver to see how my life patterns have changed.

18:00

There’s places that I used to go to all the time that will never see me anymore.

They’ll never know why and there’s places that I never would have gone to for whatever reason that now a frequent, they are now baked into my travel patterns by daily patterns, what have you, because I’m an EV driver.

18:19

And so just to kind of bundle it all together, that attraction, conversion and loyalty is actually the benefit of EV charging.

And when you think of how much business is spend on Google Ads or display ads or, you know, out of TV or whatever, this is actually so much more effective and a fraction of the cost because you’re not hoping to convert people.

18:46

This is something that people have to do, right?

So your chance of actually getting an impression that turns into something of material value is so much higher.

18:56

Exploring Unique Marketing Tactics and Growth Incentives in EV

I love that approach because you’re so right where that I am a New York City native, I don’t even own a vehicle.

However, I, I research certain things as a parent when I’m traveling that, you know, somewhere has to have a pool because I have children.

19:13

They love swimming, right?

Same thing if you’re an EV driver.

I love that marketing tactic where it’s like, well, all right, if you’re a bookstore or you’re a restaurant, all right, what are we going to do?

Let’s go inside.

Let’s eat something and then now, you know, if you’re traveling there again, that’s smart marketing.

19:31

Some even would call it an unconventional tactic, right?

Just telling people.

But what are some more, I would imagine in your line of business, Kelly, where are there any other unconventional tactics that you’ve used?

I’d love to hear more.

19:46 – Kelly Grover:

Yeah, it is a good question because I will say for any new industry plus you kind of have this interesting demand aspect, right, where the demand again isn’t necessarily the purchaser.

It does take a little bit more elbow grease on the upfront to get folks initially interested and then convert them.

20:07

And so because of that, it does actually change kind of our marketing mix in the channels that we use.

You said events.

Events are incredibly valuable for us because.

When you see us and it doesn’t take long for this story to resonate, but it just gives you that forum to tell the story, give the examples, show folks how easy it can be and then boom, you got them.

20:30

We do have, I would say probably lower contact to lead conversion maybe than other B to B industries and businesses I’ve been a part of, but higher lead to opportunity and then on conversion rates because once you get it, you get it, right.

20:48

One other thing to keep in mind that’s certainly a sweetener is currently, maybe not forever, but currently there’s an incredible number of incentives to help with this cost.

And in many areas, and it depends on your utility, it depends on a couple different things, but in many areas, this is free.

21:08

And so you get this incredibly valuable marketing tool plus a physical asset on your property that adds to your property value and it’s free.

And so that’s another piece of that just initial education that folks don’t necessarily understand, right?

21:27

If you haven’t been interested in it enough to kind of do that cursory research into incentives, by the time you actually talk to someone like my team members at Linkfall, we say not only do you get all this stuff, but hey, most or all of the cost is actually covered.

21:42

Folks like, Oh my gosh, well, of course I’m going to say yes, this is crazy.

And I think, you know, on top of maybe all of those other things that I’ve mentioned, there’s also just an inevitability aspect of this.

You know, one of my colleagues has AI think a great way of putting it.

21:57

There’s never going to be a point in time where there’s fewer EVs on the road than there are today, right?

All trends are that this is going to continue to grow and certainly overtake gas powered cars at some point.

Why would you not do this at a point where it could be free or certainly, you know, really lucrative incentives to do it and where you get that competitive advantage where folks like me that are literally rewiring the patterns of their life based on this thing.

22:28

You are actually part of that rewiring as opposed to, you know, you wait a couple of years, everybody has it right and you’re just now one of many.

So there certainly is an urgency about this moment in time where for the folks who get it, they really get it and they’re like, yeah, well I want this now.

22:44

I want to out compete all of my competitors right now.

22:47

The ‘Soup to Nuts’ Approach and Surprising EV Charging Trends

Are you then providing the construction crew or and and the means to come in and install that?

Is that like kind of soup to nuts?

22:56 – Kelly Grover:

You described it actually perfectly.

It is exactly soup to nuts.

So when you pick up that phone and you call Linkwell, we are handling everything with that one phone call, which I think going back to when I was introducing myself in the company is so important because you have to remember, let’s pick a hotel, right?

23:15

Your Vincent’s local hotel, you’re not an EV expert.

Even if you bought in, you recognize that this is incredibly advantageous and you bought it and you’re ready to sign.

This is not your area of expertise, right?

You couldn’t move this project forward even with all of that enthusiasm.

23:34

So to know that you have a single point of contact that is going to walk you through securing that funding, helping design the site, choosing the chargers, doing the installation and providing that ongoing maintenance and support is huge.

23:50

People can do this with a single phone call, even though it’s different and it’s outside of their comfort zone or area of expertise, it doesn’t actually matter.

That’s what we’re here for.

We’ve got that for you.

So it’s an incredibly important point actually.

24:04 – Vincent Petrafessa:

Are there Kelly, any emerging additional markets that are kind of coming up or surprising you are also is it, you know, not just major city locations, is it kind of on the outskirts?

What’s kind of, you know, what’s surprising you the most about some of the emerging markets or people utilizing Linkwell services would be curious to know that?

24:28 – Kelly Grover:

Couple different things spring to mind.

I think one thing that’s surprising for folks if they are not yet EV drivers is in their mind.

I think they equate charging to pumping gas, and it’s actually not a great analogy.

I know that kind of sounds silly because they’re serving the same purposes, but how it actually weaves its way into your life is actually quite different.

24:51

I don’t know that I would consider a gas station a destination where I’m going to go set up shop.

It is something I quick have to do just to get on with my life.

When you actually look at where people charge, it isn’t necessarily on the road.

25:07

Air quotes.

I know folks on on audio can’t see me, but I’m air quoting on the road.

For you, it is either at home, right?

You have a charger at your house, it is at your workplace, right?

And actually it was helpful that you called out and said that you’re in a major metro area because one of the largest verticals is apartment buildings.

25:28

Because if you’re an EV driver and you live in an apartment, then you are totally beholden on the owner of that complex to make it viable for you to drive an EV.

It would be really tough to own an EV and not have charging within an apartment complex.

25:47

And so now let’s think about that for a minute.

You don’t think that way about driving a gas powered car.

None of that would be relevant.

And so a term that you will find within our industry is we think about these destinations by what they call their dwell time.

26:03

Where do I sit and kind of set up shop for a while?

We do it at home and we do it at work.

And so that’s a lot of actually what we do.

And so workplace can mean many different things, right?

It can be independent businesses, it could be government and municipalities.

26:20

And then again, working with multi unit housing, apartment complexes, metro area or otherwise is a huge piece of what we do because that is actually where people dwell and where they charge their cars.

And then kind of that on the road, road trip, what people tend to talk more about in the media is only secondary.

26:41

I actually charge, quote UN quote on the road maybe once a month maybe.

I’m charging at work, I’m charging at home, right.

I call that out as I think something that surprises people.

Once I see it, you’ll see folks on the head.

Oh yeah.

All right, that makes sense.

26:56

But if you hadn’t been presented like that, I think people just naturally equate it to pumping gas and it is not.

And so I would say that’s one thing that continues to be surprising and it actually plays out in the types of products that you see.

27:13

You know, there was a company that actually kind of scaled back within the space recently who had developed chargers that had these big display screens for advertising.

And at face value, you’re like, that’s genius, right?

Folks are there, they’re going to see this ad.

27:28

But then go back to what I said.

I’m not standing at my car for 20 minutes and watching this screen.

I’m inside getting a bite to eat or doing my grocery shopping or, you know, going into work, whatever the case may be.

So that to me is just an example where I think if you don’t walk in the shoes of an EV driver, you actually are going to make these false assumptions that are going to lead you straight a little bit.

27:52

Kind of tip, different answer to your question, big picture answer.

There’s a ton of peripheral pieces of the puzzle as well.

So think your metro, let’s go to the opposite end of the spectrum where you’re in a rural area, Even if you’ve got somebody who’s on board wants to be charging, what if the power is not available?

28:09

What if it’s not consistent?

And so there’s a ton of, I’m just going to lump it all into like peripheral energy products that are also coming on Sidecar with this.

Because the reality is if you want energy equality for people, it shouldn’t matter where they live, right?

28:25

So batteries is a big piece of the puzzle where even if you don’t have consistent energy, you can store it and have it be reliably available for something like charging or other uses as well, right?

So a lot of that other related infrastructure actually is a big piece of the puzzle.

28:42

Kelly Grover’s Views on Professional Engagement and Personal Passions

That no, it’s very interesting.

It’s kind of it’s like I always love these episodes where it’s all new to me, right, Because I don’t know, I don’t even own a vehicle.

I guess it’s so funny when like we even have a car company on in my end, my employees make fun of me.

28:57

They’re like, oh, this is a truck, Vincent.

I’m like, I don’t need a truck.

I live in Manhattan anyway.

But this is great.

Kelly, let’s get into, I have, you know, we can get into some fun questions here about you getting to know you.

I have a question that we asked all of our guests LinkedIn, right?

29:15

You are the chief marketing officer and people probably solicit you all the time.

What is a message that resonates with you and what is one that you just see through?

You are like, I do not like this one bit.

You’re so nice.

So I can’t imagine you’d be like you probably still answer some of them, but I I would love to hear your thoughts.

29:36 – Kelly Grover:

Well, let me say it this way.

I fancy myself that I’m pretty nice, but I will say this, I my line kind of of demarcation between answer and no answer is if you send me a canned message, you will never hear from me.

Even if it totally resonates.

29:52

It doesn’t matter, especially with LinkedIn, because one thing that I value with LinkedIn in our crazy hectic world is it’s a little bit closer to actually having some level of relationship with somebody, right?

I can see your face, I can see your background.

If I wanted to engage in cold exchanges, I use e-mail, right?

30:11

Like I could call you, right?

And so I just don’t think that has a place in LinkedIn for me anyway.

If you send me an actual personal message and you’ve spent more than 30 seconds looking at my profile and you have something interesting to say, even if I’m not in market, even if what you have is just not on the radar for me, he’ll probably answer you.

30:33

We’ll connect because you don’t know.

I might not be in market today, but it could be next year, right?

And I like that.

If you cared enough to send me something personal now it that says something about who you are, your character, and how much trust it would potentially put in you if we ever did business together.

30:49

So that’s I would say my quick answer to that.

30:52 – Vincent Petrafessa:

Yeah, that’s a great answer.

And I want to ask you about before we get to know you personally, which we do on this podcast, what you’d like to do your leadership style as Acmo.

What is something that you’ve changed in the last couple years that you kind of had to adapt or change that you now instill in your style?

31:12 – Kelly Grover:

I think for me, one of the things that just comes with living and experience and walking different paths is that dance between empowerment and independence and getting strategic guidance.

I think I’ve oscillated a little bit, right?

31:29

And kind of, it’s not that I was here and I swung here and now over here is perfect.

It’s actually that middle point that’s really perfect.

And I, I think I try to continue to hone.

Nothing is worse than not having clarity.

We all want a North Star.

We all want to know this is what I need to do.

31:47

How I do it is maybe up for discussion, right?

That’s where the creativity comes from.

But what I need to accomplish and where I fit within this larger picture that’s presented to me, I owe that to my team.

That is maybe the most important thing that I owe to my team.

32:05

And I think balancing that within, giving your team the autonomy then to say here’s your goal, I think you are brilliant.

That’s why you are here.

And my partner, you tell me how you want to go after the goal, right?

And working with them to kind of create that path.

32:21

I think for me, finding that balance, which changes within the company that you’re with, changes with the human that you’re actually interacting with, I think it’s probably the most important part of like my personal maturity curve.

32:35 – Vincent Petrafessa:

I love it’s the opposite of micromanagement.

I love that Kelly get to know you personally, right.

So we never met yet, but we’ll meet one day in person.

I know it.

And were you always living upstate there?

Which I love upstate New York.

It’s so great and so beautiful.

A lot of people I went to school upstate New York and Oswego.

32:53

It’s AJ went as well.

Upstate New York.

It’s beautiful.

Did you always live there from that area?

Talk to us.

What do you like to do on the weekends?

33:02 – Kelly Grover:

Yeah, great question.

So yes, to upstate New York.

I’m originally generally from the greater Utica area, which is, if you want to talk the middle of New York, we are about as smack dab in the middle as I think it can be.

I’ve been to SUNY Oswego, didn’t go there, but I visited Oswego, so I know it well.

And then eventually moved from Utica to the greater Albany area for college.

33:22

So I got my bachelor’s degree and my MBA from Union College in Schenectady.

Yep.

33:28 – Vincent Petrafessa:

Yeah, I know it well.

33:29 – Kelly Grover:

Yep, love Union and then have a second master’s degree from the University at Albany and ended up falling in love with a great guy and just set up shop here and really haven’t left.

33:39 – Vincent Petrafessa:

That’s awesome.

And what do you like doing with that great guy on the weekends?

Going out movies, you know, cooking meals.

What do you like doing?

33:47 – Kelly Grover:

So me and that great guy now have two great kiddos, 2 boys that are 10 and 15 and we, it would say 2 fun things.

One, we are all actually black belts in Taekwondo.

What?

So we’re pretty cute.

We we spar together and we we go to classes together.

34:06 – Vincent Petrafessa:

That’s awesome.

That’s a first.

34:08 – Kelly Grover:

It is something fun that we can do together as a family and I personally, and I drag those other Grovers with me is I am a travel junkie.

So probably 3-4 times a year we are taking everybody on some plane going somewhere.

34:24

We actually just got back from Iceland a couple weeks ago, which was absolutely beautiful.

34:29 – Vincent Petrafessa:

Very nice, that’s awesome.

I love that is the first a family of black belts.

I love that Kelly.

I have two boys as well.

This has been awesome.

Your, your passion shines through people really, you know, check out Linkwell.

If you’re, you know, an organization that could utilize Linkwell services, reach out to them.

34:50

Reach out to Kelly, ladies and gentlemen, that’s the chief marketing officer of Linkwell, my new friend Kelly Owen Grover.

This has been another episode of the Marketing Stir.

Thank you so much for listening and we’ll talk soon.

35:02 – Narrator:

Thanks for listening to the Marketing Stir podcast by Starista.

Please like and subscribe.

If you’re interested in being a guest on the podcast, please e-mail us at the Marketing Stir at starista.com.