Meet Chad Jardine

We recently connected with Chad Jardine and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chad, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.

So, I don’t know if you ever really do get over it. I remember listening to Seth Godin talk about it one time. He said he wasn’t sure it ever really went away, but he felt like you could learn to “dance with the fear.”

That’s how I feel. I’m worried, fearful, out of my depth, and afraid, much of the time. But the more I act in spite of my worries, the more I am down to dance with the fear and get more comfortable being uncomfortable.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m focused on making marketing easier for startups and early stage companies.

I started a boutique firm doing fractional Chief Marketing Officer work. Basically CMOs are expensive execs to hire. Often too expensive for companies under 40 or 50 million in revenue.

Our model is that they can hire a fraction of a senior marketing leader for a fraction of the price. In addition, our team is empowered with AI tools to increase their output and speed so early stage companies get as much bang for their buck as possible.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. Prioritizing conversations with customers and prospects. Just talk to people. If you’re an introvert, pretend for a few hours each week.

2. Learn from the reps. Early on I started to notice that certain projects which I had done 5-6 times in my 20 year career as a full-time marketing lead, I had done 10-12 times in just my first year. I was getting more repetitions in than I ever had before. So I made sure to capture the learning and document our playbooks so every client benefitted from what we discovered.

3. Step into the dark. When I evaluated the pros and cons of starting a business, at the top of the cons list was, “don’t know how to get clients.” I didn’t know what would work. I didn’t know where to find customers. I didn’t know which packaging of our services, which pricing, which people I needed to deliver the best value to our clients. I still took the leap. You figure a lot out in the doing vs. waiting to be totally prepared.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

Outside of giving me my faith, my parents taught me about hard work and creativity.

I learned that creativity could be the secret to productivity. If I came up with a creative solution to a problem, that might save me hours.

And if I didn’t have a creative answer, they taught me not to be afraid to put in the hours.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://cmozen.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadjardine/
• Twitter: https://x.com/chadjardine