Today's guest has marketing experience going back to 2000 when she was with the British Council, since then she has been in marketing leadership roles with household names like Bosch power tools, Premier Foods Burger King, and Britvic PLC. She has also been a course director and capability consultant with the Chartered Institute of marketing for 15 and a half years. She founded her business, Labyrinth Marketing in 2015. She is the host of The Whole Marketer, Podcast and author of the book The Whole Marketer, which is about supporting marketers to have successful and fulfilling careers. What you won't know about her, what she only discovered about herself in the last 18 months is that she is absolutely the queen at grabbing machines at amusement arcades.

Today's guest is Abigail Dixon.

00:00 Introductions.
17:41 How are you qualified to talk to us about providing marketers with more fulfilling careers?
1:00:55 Who do you work with and how do you add value to their lives?
1:04:17 Why did you call your business a labyrinth marketing and what is the labyrinth mean?
1:06:03 What is your recommendation for people who want to be finding more fulfilment from their marketing and fulfilment in their lives?
1:13:01 What should people read?
1:14:39 Who might enjoy to be a part of the Talk Marketing series?

Martin Henley
How are you qualified to talk to us about providing marketers with more fulfilling careers?

Abigail Dixon
So there's the on paper, and I'm gonna do two things. I'm gonna do in paper, an in soul. On paper, I can sit here and say, I'm a Chartered Marketer and a Fellow. I'm a course director. I'm an accredited coach, and an associate level coach, I'm part of the ICF Federation, I can sit here and tell you all those things in paper. In practice and in soul, , I am a marketer. I am a marketer who has cried in the toilets.

Abigail Dixon
I am a marketer who has had a period in her life where she wasn't feeling fulfilled with the profession. It wasn't giving her what she needed. I am a marketeer, who knows what it feels like to try and navigate through a complex organisation and who is struggling to find balance in her life as a whole and with her family. I'm also, as we mentioned earlier, my why, if we sat here to talk about my purpose is all about helping others grow.

Abigail Dixon
That's the thing that I get the most fulfilment from, and is the thing that sets my soul on fire. For me, I could sit here and say to you, why am I qualified? Well, because of all of those reasons, I'm an award winning marketing, an award winning consultant. I think what's more important is that I get what it feels like. There's so many people that talk about things in theory, but never in practice. I suppose what I bring to the table, why I'm qualified is that I can relate. I can relate because I've been there. I've done that, and I've got my fulfilment back.

Martin Henley
Excellent. Okay, cool. Okay, so I'm happy to let you know that I think you are adequately qualified to talk to us.

Abigail Dixon
Thank you.

Martin Henley
That's alright. It's always a relief when we get here. The thing is, that's not all of it is it? What I'm wondering is ... it's really interesting in sales and marketing, I came from sales to marketing, and it's really interesting because I think we are all positively motivated people. You know, we want to do better, we want to have more, we want to deliver more value, we want to have more kudos, more money, more challenges, more ... all of this stuff.

Martin Henley
Then, when we get into roles, it quite quickly becomes quite disheartening. What I'm interested to know is, how much of that is environmental? How much of that is about the way that we are treated? And how much of that is kind of personal? Or internal do you think? Then the next question is going to have to be out of we resolve those issues, but, but that one's first.

Abigail Dixon
So I think the first point is, it sounds like what you're asking me is what's in our control and what's outside of our control. Now, as human beings, we are all programmed to want to be liked and loved. If you look at the deep rooted psychological reason of why people do what they do, they want that security, they want that psychological security they want, of course they want a roof over their head and, and money to pay the bills; they want to have that kind of altruistic, I am worth something, I am giving back something and I am liked and loved and accepted.

Abigail Dixon
That's fundamentally what we're looking for as human beings, I suppose that's what separates us from the rest of the mammal species. What I often find is that we enter profession without sales or marketing and we take on that organisations, or our peers definition of success. We take on the next role that we want to go to, or what success looks like in that organisation. That might be a sales figure, or bonus that you hit, or a car that you drive or whatever those success markers are.

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