Neil Heckman Of breakfast consulting: 5 Non-Intuitive Ways To Grow Your Marketing Career
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There’s nothing wrong with admitting mistakes — in fact, leaders appreciate when mistakes are owned, corrected, and learned from.
As part of my Marketing Strategy Series, I’m talking with fellow marketing pros at the top of their game to give entrepreneurs and marketers an inside look at proven strategies you might also be able to leverage to grow your business or career. Today I had the pleasure of talking with Neil Heckman.
Neil Heckman is a marketing professional hailing from 2 of the fastest-growing start-ups of all time (Casper and Away), in addition to working with Fortune 500 brands like Nationwide and Johnson & Johnson. In 2021 Neil founded breakfast consulting to bring an experienced and nimble approach to supporting founders and entrepreneurs.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
To be honest, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I finished undergrad. I had a feeling I wanted to be in New York, and that I wanted to get into marketing — but had no idea what any of the job titles meant or how agencies and brands existed/co-existed. I was applying to every sort of job at every sort of company, and the first job that I felt a connection to just happened to put me on a performance marketing path… and thankfully, I found it to be the perfect balance of art and science where I could use my interest(s) in data and analysis and storytelling and collaboration to drive meaningful change.
From 2 different agencies to then landing gigs at 2 of the original DTC starchildren, to now owning my own consultancy helping seed/series brands drive their businesses forward through fractional marketing leadership and execution, I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting and what lesson you learned from that?
I was working at my first agency doing some marketing for a fortune 500 telecom company that we all know…
