Favorite Parts of Working in the Marketing Industry as a Founder and CEO
Anna, Founder & CEO at Mustard & Moxie, most enjoys the flexibility and autonomy of business ownership, allowing for work-life integration exemplified by working from Mexico City during a vacation; the marketing aspect excites Anna due to "the storytelling aspect...combined with the human behavior aspect," particularly applying corporate marketing strategies to the nuanced challenges of the non-profit sector with its diverse stakeholders.
Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Nonprofit Management, Human Behavior, Strategic Storytelling
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Anna Boudinot
Founder & CEO
Mustard & Moxie
New York University, 2000
UCLA Anderson MBA
Film, Media Arts, Visual Arts
Nonprofit, Foundations & Grantmaking, Advertising, Communications & Marketing
Entrepreneurship and Business Owner
Scholarship Recipient, LGBTQ
Video Highlights
1. Anna enjoys the flexibility and autonomy of being a business owner, enabling her to work from anywhere and prioritize personal life.
2. She finds the storytelling and human behavior aspects of marketing fascinating, focusing on understanding consumer choices and building sustainable loyalty.
3. Anna is passionate about applying corporate marketing strategies to the non-profit sector, addressing the unique challenges of diverse target audiences (those in need of services and donors).
Transcript
What do you enjoy most about being in your industry?
There are three ways to answer this question. What I enjoy most about being a business owner is having flexibility and autonomy, and also being able to work from anywhere.
After grad school, I took myself on a vacation to Mexico City and worked from there. I stayed in the hotel room for a couple of days and worked throughout the entire vacation. I felt so fortunate to be able to do that.
I was really grateful that I could have that fun travel experience and still get work done. Also, I have flexibility in my day-to-day schedule. I can go help a friend if they need it or help my parents.
The benefit of running my own business means I get to prioritize things in my life that are more important than my business. Making money and surviving is important, but when it comes to friends and family, I like being able to take time off work to be with them. I don't have to ask for vacation days or fake a sick day to do something I need to do.
What I like most about working in marketing is the storytelling aspect, combined with the human behavior aspect. This means trying to figure out why humans behave a certain way or not.
When talking about marketing for products, the question is why are people buying our product or not? Why are they choosing a competitor's product instead of ours? If we have a new product, what need does it meet?
Why can we convince them to buy our product instead of our competitor's? These are all fascinating questions. It's not just about influencing human behavior, but how to do it sustainably.
How can we make them want to keep buying our product again and again? How can we win their loyalty and trust? These are very interesting questions, and I do that all day.
What I love about working in the non-profit world is applying corporate marketing strategy to it. Nonprofits are businesses; they just have a different tax status.
Helping nonprofits understand what their product or service is, who their competitors are, and who their target audiences are is really interesting to me. Nonprofits have a complex set of audiences, different from companies selling products.
They have to promote services to those in need, but the people who need the services are rarely the same people who make donations. The needs of these two groups are very different.
Nonprofits also need good relationships with government, other organizations, academic institutions, or hospitals, depending on their work. These are different audiences with competing needs.
Helping a nonprofit figure out how to stand out and tell a story that convinces these different audiences they are meeting their needs is endlessly exciting for me.