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For this episode of the Series, “Optimize for Success 2021”, I was excited to feature Miri Rodriguez – a globally recognized Storyteller, Head of Global Internship Program at Microsoft, and author of Brand Storytelling. Miri joins this podcast to discuss the components and importance of good Storytelling with our listeners.
Miri’s book, “Brand Storytelling – Put Customers at the Heart your Brand Story” recently won a Stevie Award in the Book of the Year Category for Women in Business. Miri has earned several awards in digital marketing and customer experience and is ranked as a top in-demand speaker at leading industry conferences around the world. Read more about Miri here.
In this discussion, you will learn the elements of a great story, how to build an integrated marketing plan with “story” and how storytelling can sit at the center of your marketing and branding strategy.
In addition to this important topic – Miri and I discuss her amazing journey overcoming poverty, migrating to the United States, building her career, and her roles and success at Microsoft.
As we each look to optimize for success in 2021 – I hope you listen and learn from this amazing guest.
LINKS & RESOURCES
- Learn More About Miri Rodriquez
- Find Miri Rodriquez on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram.
- Also, check out my interview with Dux Raymond Sy on Brand.
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- Follow or reach Vince – Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
- Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook
- Drop me a line – vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com.
As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us.
This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships.
Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below
Miri Rodriguez 0:00
What if we learned from every one story? How much empathy will we have in the world? What will we learn from that? So tell your story or someone else will, story will be written history will be written. If you don’t write your story, somebody else will write that history. It may not be representative of you, because you haven’t told your side. So you have a voice and you have a platform using
Announcer 0:20
Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this podcast Vince Menzione. a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders in this forum to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now, your host, Vince Menzione.
Vince Menzione 0:50
Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and as we kick off the four year anniversary of this podcast, and leap into 2021, I’m thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who’ve come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. For this special episode of the podcast, I was delighted to welcome mirri Rodriguez, and award winning author, master storyteller and the Global Head of internships at Microsoft mirrors book brand storytelling. Putting customers at the heart of your brand story recently won a Stevie award for the Book of the Year category for women in business. I invited Miri to the podcast because I believe firmly that brand is often an underdeveloped competency in most organizations. In this episode, you’ll learn the elements of a great story, how to build an integrated marketing plan with story and how storytelling can sit at the center of your marketing and branding strategy. In addition, Miri and I discussed her amazing journey, overcoming poverty migrating to the United States, building her career and her roles and success at Microsoft, as we each look to optimize for success in 2021. I hope you listen and learn from this amazing guest. Miri Welcome to the podcast.
Unknown Speaker 2:30
Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.
Vince Menzione 2:33
I am so excited to have you here today, you and I were introduced through a mutual friend at Microsoft day prior, who leads the voices for innovation group that I’m a part of. And you’ve had an outstanding career at Microsoft, as a storyteller and author of a terrific book. And now you head up the global internships at Microsoft. And we’re both here in South Florida. By the way, I wish we could be doing this in person, but because of circumstances we can’t. So I’m really excited to have you as a guest today on Ultimate Guide to Partnering.
Miri Rodriguez 3:05
I love it. And I’m supposed to be in Seattle, but nobody needs to be in Seattle at this moment in the wintertime. You know what I mean? So I did what a lot of people are doing during COVID. They just moved memorials because we can.
Vince Menzione 3:16
We’re all working remote today. It’s been a time like no other as I describe it. I would love to spend a few minutes on you and your roles at Microsoft, can you tell our listeners a little bit about you? And your journey?
Miri Rodriguez 3:31
Absolutely. So as you said, I needed the entire program at Microsoft I sit in HR never did, I think I would be in HR in an HR function in any company. Actually, I’ve pivoted my career four times within Microsoft, we were just talking about how awesome this organization is where we can just bring unusual in on traditional, you know, career paths into into an organization like this in tech. But I do that. And I also serve as a storyteller. So I actually I serve as someone who teaches storytelling within Microsoft functions, different types of orgs within Microsoft, to for everyone to learn their story to tell the Microsoft story, and neon. So it’s really a cool, cool opportunity that I have at this was coming out of my engineering. I sat in engineering for a while before coming to HR. And when they invited me to come to HR, I was like, well, I still want to do the storytelling gig. So they’re like, okay, you can do both. So I’m doing both, and it’s really exciting.
Vince Menzione 4:26
So I’d like you to peel back a little bit on storytelling. For those who don’t understand what that role is. I hosted your chief storyteller Steve Clayton to speak to a group of early career professionals when I was leading that program within Microsoft. And so I know a little bit more about it, but I don’t think many of our listeners do. Can you describe what that role is? What the function is?
Miri Rodriguez 4:48
Yeah. You know, Satya when he came on board a little over six years ago, I think it’s almost seven now. You know, he he did this, this idea of leading with empathy. We were asked, you know, at Microsoft, we were these No at all. And we were transforming ourselves into becoming learn at AWS. And so that transformation really was a cultural activation that he brought on. And we began to invite people such as Steve, to be a he became the chief storyteller with this idea that we would have storytellers all over Microsoft. And we actually today have 4000, worldwide 400, and HQ within these functions. So it’s not this one thing of a storyteller is one person that’s sensing communications, or branding or marketing. It’s truly the activation of culture through telling the stories. And so this chief storyteller, Steve, he serves as our as our, you know, head guy, he leads us in the mandate of culture, activation, and enabling storytellers all throughout the business functions.
Vince Menzione 5:43
I love that you talked about the activation of culture, I think that a lot of organizations don’t get this piece and I coach organizations on mindset. Another one of Sati is principles, right? a growth mindset. But I also talk about branding. And I think that we, in the tech sector in general, and also Microsoft partners, have a little bit of a gap here and understanding branding. I know this is an area of focus for you as well. Can you peel back a little bit more with me on this? And how the two correlate?
Miri Rodriguez 6:13
Absolutely. So actually, my book is about brand storytelling, not just storytelling, and to me, and what I’ve learned in my own trajectory, is that the brand has the responsibility to continue reminding people why they exist at the core. So that origin story, why why are we still here? Why is that important to the market? Why are our services or products important and relevant, and then beyond that, is continued to also keep telling them and reminding them, how they’re getting to the market and what they’re doing to continue to stay relevant. So it’s this approach of the brand story at the origin level, and then the approach of, of keeping on top of, you know, customers minds, that why in that relevancy, especially as we move through so many ambiguous environments, such as market trends, and we have Gen Z’s and Gen alphas coming into the market as well. And so there’s so many contending trends that continue to evolve, and we don’t have it, but together, it’s so there’s this evolution. And so the story continues to evolve, setting that tone with the story for the origin story. And then designing stories that continue to remind customers why you exist and why they should care is very important.
Vince Menzione 7:24
So I’d love to dig into this really terrific book brand storytelling, put customers at the heart of your brand story. And by the way, congratulations, you just won a Stevie award for women in business category. That’s amazing. What was the genesis? Just really terrific. What was the genesis for the book?
Miri Rodriguez 7:42
Yeah, you know, I was actually I was in London at the time and talking about the what we were doing what we are doing at Microsoft, when this work began. For me, specifically in core services engineering, a lot of people got curious, what are you doing as a storyteller at Microsoft? What does that look like? Especially in engineering, you would think it would sit in branding or marketing. And so I began to speak outside Microsoft and talk, talk to brands about the work that we were doing and things that I was learning specifically in my space. And the publisher came, you know, was at one of these talks, I was in London. And they said, Well, you should really, you know, put this into book format. And I was like, I don’t I don’t think I can do that. I was thinking I’m not I’m not an author. And so we actually went back and forth. I was not immediately warmed to the idea of a book. But, you know, she really pressed on to tell me that storytelling needed to be democratized. And that’s when she hooked me. You know, as a publisher, I said, Wow, that that’s really resonates with me. People leave storytelling. They think it’s, you know, things for leaders or for politicians or for preachers. It’s not for me, and it is for all of us. It’s so I literally spoke about my own journey of becoming a storyteller and discovering we are all storytellers. And we should all tell the story because nobody else will tell it better than us.
Vince Menzione 8:55
So as you know, this podcast Ultimate Guide to Partnering focuses in on partner organizations, organizations that are technology organizations looking how to figure it out, and how to optimize their success working in the industry. We’re early in 2021, trying to help our our listeners better understand how to optimize. Why do you think organizations struggle here? And can you share some of the experiences and teachings you’ve done with regards to brand strategy or brand storytelling and strategy?
Miri Rodriguez 9:26
Yeah, I love this question, because that’s exactly the same questions I got when COVID hygge. I mean, it was, I had brands coming to me large and small brands from different industries asking the same questions. What do I do now? Is it the time to sell I mean, we don’t know what’s happening in the world. And we don’t know what’s happened in the digital world. And so how do we respond to a global pandemic? And I think beyond that, we can take that question and say, how do we respond in general, in new environments that continue to evolve we know we begin 2021 with another hit to you know, political unrest here. In America and the rest of the world, I mean, it just continues to go. And so we can’t, we can’t pretend any more than the traditional efforts of we have a campaign and we have an ad that worked in the past. And that format will continue to work in the future with these new environments and trends that are happening. And so, storytelling really lends itself to a connection at the human level, enables us to empathize not only with those environments, but how people are feeling during these times. And so for me, that transformation personally, for me, and then at Microsoft was, let’s create that space, let’s lead with empathy, and start that process story allows us to understand that, you know, an ad can just land and that’s it. And maybe, if we put a lot of money behind it, maybe it’ll work. But a story has a life of its own, and people that connect with that story become part of the story. So our consumers are now part of our brand story. And they give it life they you know, it’s it’s, it’s a, it’s a given take. And so we deliver the story, they take it, they make it their own, so has this opportunity for continuance and emotion, which is way far, you know, it’s better in the market than just an ad that will just, you can connect with or not, you will definitely connect with the story. So how do you how do you help
Vince Menzione 11:13
organizations design their story? Yeah, so
Miri Rodriguez 11:16
in my experience, I was stuck. Actually, I was stuck when I began this, that this project in engineering, because I’m not an engineer, and my niche audience was all engineers, IT pros and developers. And so I think, you know, I cracked the code is specifically for that audience, because I used design thinking as a model, which actually begins with empathy. So I, the design thinking model is a five step process, if you’re familiar with it, it’s basically empathy, to empathize, to define to ideate, prototype, and then to test. And it starts with empathy. And that was very compelling to me, because I was like, what does that mean? What How do I take my storyline or even my marketing approach? Through this model? Who do I empathize with and why? I learned quickly, I’m not an empathetic person, by the way, and that I needed to become one, which was a thing. I was like, okay, so if I can do it, you can do it. But definitely, it was something that I had to study empathy as, as as an attainable goal and as a skill set, rather than what I thought it was, which was just, you know, personality traits. Some people are empathetic, and some are not. So I began that process myself, I empathize. And then ideation are the defining and that ideation was defining my audience defining my story, giving it a mission, asking myself every time, who am I writing the story, or creating the story for and why. And with a lot of intention, it’s, you know, it’s storytelling. It’s not just telling the story. It’s the designing the story with intention, and authenticity. So those five steps really helped me, that’s actually what my book is about.
Vince Menzione 12:47
I love that. So Miri, one of my core principles for partner success, as I mentioned earlier, is building your brand. You have a chapter specifically about building an integrated marketing plan with story. And that was that intrigued me quite a bit because of the shift, if you will, that needs to happen in terms of marketing. I was hoping to talk to our listeners a little bit about how this applies.
Miri Rodriguez 13:08
Yeah. So you know, if you’re a marketer, or you’ve been around the marketing field for a while, you know that this integrated marketing idea, this model was introduced a few decades back with the intention that marketing a brings in many different parts of the organization within that plan. So it’s not just a siloed approach to marketing from an organization. And so I looked at that, and I thought, Wow, how does storytelling play up in every function as we were doing this work at Microsoft, and as our chief storyteller needs this effort to integrate story within every vertical of the organization? integrated marketing now takes a new form with opportunity that the story theme, you know, it will always be the same at Microsoft, we know that our theme is empowerment, We exist to empower every person in organization on the planet to achieve more. But empowerment looks different to a 12 year old Xbox player and then to a 50 year old IT pro on the cloud. And so how do we enable that that one theme that storyline, if you will, into the different audiences that we have in through the different storytellers that we have these are salesmen. These are finance people that are using a numbers and data to tell stories of how we’re doing at Microsoft. So it’s that enablement, that creates opportunity for us to truly integrate our marketing efforts through a real story is being told by real people. So enablement and capacity, capacity building into these steps into these organizations moving away from this only belongs to the marketing team, or to the comms team. It’s really an entire storytelling effort by all of us who are all storytellers.
Vince Menzione 14:47
So from what I understand the mission drives the story, right? So Microsoft’s mission are about empowering every individual and organization in the world to achieve more than helps drive departmentally or different business units, how those stories are told how you, I would say bubble up the stories that resonate and align to that. Is that correct?
Miri Rodriguez 15:09
That is 100%. Correct. And that’s where I believe everyone should start. I mean, I actually talked about that. I think it’s the first chapter of my book. Go back to your brand mission. Does it still make sense today? Somebody wrote that years ago, maybe? Is it still relevant This is talk to the why of yours of your brand story? And is it compelling to people? Does it speak to an emotion that it drives because people won’t remember, you know, what you said what you did, they’ll remember how you made them feel. That’s the master storyteller. Maya Angelou there. So So truly it is does it have a word I call it a universal truth is to have that truth that people can attain to no matter how many stories you’re going to go tell doesn’t go back to that one word. So what to us our words, empowerment? What is yours? Does your brand mission tell that story? Does it have that word that everybody knows and lives, by the way, because it’s a mandate, when you think about the word empowerment for us at Microsoft, it’s not only our mission statement, it’s our past, we empowered the world. So it’s our history. And it’s our future. It’s our mission for the future. So we’re going to go and empower the world. It’s also a feeling you and I know what it feels like to be empowered or not. And so when I live that I literally wake up every day and go, I’m going to go empower the world. Have I empowered the world that isn’t that is my gauge of how am I doing my job. And all of us are doing, obviously different roles and different things at Microsoft. But ultimately, we’re all existing to empower the world through the platform of Microsoft.
Vince Menzione 16:30
So as you step in your shoes in the morning, right, you take a deep breath, you make your intention for the day, you step in your shoes, you’re asking yourself that question is what I’m hearing you say,
Miri Rodriguez 16:40
I do, I do it, I truly believe it, I have to say, I don’t know that I would be at a company where I don’t believe in its mission. I’m not there for just the money or I’m not there for the career opportunity. I’m really there to you know, we spend so much of our we spend most of our day time, and sometimes our nighttime and weekends, you know, in these efforts to deliver something at work. And so why can I you know, it needs to be meaningful to me, it needs to be meaningful. And we’re seeing that even more for the, for the next generations. We know that through the millennials, now Gen Z, and Gen alpha has this trend that they want to be a part of something big and bigger than themselves. When I sit now. And now that I sit in HR, this is even more compelling to know, as our candidates talk about this all the time. Why do I want Why should I go to Google? Why should I go to Microsoft? What is Microsoft doing that I’m, I want to be a part of. And so it’s important that you know, bringing that back from a marketing perspective, from a partner perspective, your brand needs to deliver that to people they need to people need to know beyond the product and service, what it does for the world and how it stands for social good or environmental good beyond the product of service because people are buying meaningful experience. And they’re attaining to and they want to be part of a brand that is delivering meaningful experience.
Vince Menzione 17:55
So as a marketer, how would I build my story?
Miri Rodriguez 17:58
Yeah, so start with your mission and revisit that I think, again, through COVID-19. So many brands came to me and asked that question, they actually asked, should I change my mission statement? And my answer was, if it makes sense, yes, we did at Microsoft, we didn’t always have that big mission of to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more so it start there with your with your word with your universal truth in describe that truth. What is the feeling? Ask yourself, what feeling? Am I looking to spark to evoke from all of my stakeholders from my audiences, and that is the origin story. That will be what you can go back to why is this? This company started why was so there was a need in the market for something. Let’s go back to that very core question. weave that into the part of the story and then design. I mean, I use the design thinking principles, you don’t have to use design thinking principles, but really begin to design the story, not just tell it a lot of people think oh, storytelling is just I’m gonna go tell the story. It really isn’t. There’s an intentional, authentic process to designing as you would design a product. So it’s so take it from a leadership perspective as a product development process. Because it is a product or your brand story is a product and begin to think about all of it from from you know, the inception. Who is your audience? What is that product gonna do? Ask yourself, what do I want my audience to do with the story? What will they do once they it lands in the market for them? And then, you know, for me, the prototyping piece is so it’s so special because it’s not only fully baked, right? A product may be fully baked. But a story never is a story continues to evolve because your brand’s story continues to evolve. So feel free to, you know, test it in the market, at the conceptual level, even to see how people are thinking about your story and receiving that story. It’s really about, as I said, as given a take. It’s a relationship building through story where I’m going to share some of what’s happening in my brand, and you’re going to respond and we’re going to build a story together. So I step back a little bit from a storytelling and start to design the story with there’s many resources out there. To do it again, for me design thinking is the best model.
Vince Menzione 20:03
So what are the components of a good story?
Miri Rodriguez 20:05
Yeah, so for me basic storytelling components, elements are, of course, your character, your plot and your conclusion. For me, the next best is to turn it from just a story that makes a story to a good story is emotion, it’s feeling, we have all been exposed to inconsequential stories, or in their stories, they that’s what they are, but they’re not they’re not, you know, emotional. And in essence, they don’t capture our hearts. But we have all been exposed to a story that really captures us, you know, piece of poetry, a song, a film, a show, and we find ourselves immediately connected, either with a character in the story or the actual storyline, we find ourselves part of that story. And so that’s what you want to do with your own brand story. All brands have a story that is emotional, in essence, that’s where that emotion comes in. empowerment is something that, again, what we talked about people that have not been empowered, you can go down many storylines from that you can talk about privilege, or lack thereof, you can talk about just so many things that, you know, are derivatives of empowerment or not being empowered. So think about that one that mandate again, and how that serves in communities, and humanity in that element will drive the story successfully in the market, we’ve tested so many of these stories and test them at the engineering level, if you can believe one of these examples was when we were thinking about digital transformation at Microsoft. And of course, all of the things that Microsoft is doing to move on premise was going to move on premises data to the cloud, I began to think about the humans of it the stories of these engineers that are actually actually doing this work. And I found stories of a veteran engineer who’s been there over you know, he was actually employee number 70. He’s still there. Think about the personal transformation. This this engineer has been through where there was no work, right? I mean, yeah, there was no cloud. And now he’s doing work in something new, something that has never been created before. And he’s building this. There’s fear, he was fearful. He was fearful about his job, what is that going to look like? Will he still be relevant all of it. And so that fear enabled me to think wow, not only is Microsoft going through a digital transformation, we’re going through, they’re going through a personal transformation, that’s powerful. That’s what story does.
Vince Menzione 22:18
I love that I love the stories about personal transformation. In fact, the engineering point number 70, must be there for two years and more. And having and just putting myself in his shoes, right, as you tell this story, somebody who is of a certain age, who’s had to learn new skills, overcome adversities, I’m sure in the workforce. So you’re tying the emotion back to the story, the emotion of how it’s impacted how this work is impacted. I see this too, I worked in the nonprofit sector for a period of time. And you know, seeing the relevance of Microsoft, you know, tech for social good, just the impact, what that means may be down to Feeding America or another organization where you’re doing good in the world.
Miri Rodriguez 22:58
Absolutely. And I can’t stress this enough, even now, I wouldn’t even call it out as opposed to COVID era mandate as a couple’s COVID era mission that all brands should have. We have decentralized in the marketing field, this idea and when we say human, you know, humanizing the brand. It used to be in marketing that it was the language, right, or the lingo that we used on social channels, like let’s be let’s talk human. It’s now let’s act human. It’s beyond, let’s just talk to human we need to act as human beings and recognizing there are people behind that technology, there are people behind each brand. And the more we expose those human stories, the more opportunity we get to connect at a deeper level. We know very well marketers, and non marketers, and salespeople all of us know that in business is not business to businesses, people to people, it’s human to human. And so if we, if we unlock storytelling as a tool to enable that connection, at the very core human level, we’ve you know, we’ve unlocked success. And so we’re seeing it more and more, I think Microsoft, and the way that it’s leading today speaks of that. It’s been a cultural activator. For us, you have seen the transformation, I have seen that transformation, I stayed long enough to feel that palpable empathy in the air. And we lead with this. And it’s really incredible to watch how a story can change a culture.
Vince Menzione 24:17
Yeah, I’ve seen it as well with the work that I do with Microsoft partners, and also Microsoft partner, people in terms of empathy really being at the core of what they do now differently. You know, I’ve had some amazing guests come to this podcast, also coaching our listeners on on the importance of certain aspects of what makes great partnerships, including brand and one in fact, was a contributor to your book Dux Raymond sy, who is amazing in terms of his personal brand, and what he’s done at avepoint. Can you tell our listeners about your work or insights from your conversations with ducks?
Miri Rodriguez 24:50
Absolutely. You know, ducks is someone who is just He’s full of life and I love that about him because he walks in, he owns a room and he’s someone who really lives His his core values, you know, he really lives them outside. He does. He doesn’t, you know what he’s about when you meet him and i and i love that about him. He’s someone who has developed a brand that is human is very human. And he talks about, you know, what, what got him there Why, why that was important to him. And I talked about that in my book, because I thought, Wow, it’s so insightful to learn from him, how he transformed himself and why he transformed himself and then allowed himself to be so authentic. And I think that is such an incredible, an incredible goal for all of us. In the authenticity space, we have to be authentic, what does that take? I talk about authenticity, that takes vulnerability, I actually have an entire chapter in my book about vulnerability, because, you know, it’s, we love it. For other people we love when people do it, but we were scared at the very core, we’re like, oh, man being vulnerable? Are you kidding me? I don’t, I don’t think I can do that. How much vulnerable? Do you want me to be? How deep Do you want me to get, but I have found and I’ve learned from dots, actually, the more vulnerable you make yourself, the more human you become in front of others. And the more connected he’s someone who will get into a room and get everyone you know it people, it people dancing, like he will have, literally you’ll put on a song and you’ll have people doing Gangnam Style. I’ve seen it like three times I’ve seen it done in Europe, which is even more incredible, because I’m like, these people are never going to get up. And they do they do. So these you know, these factors, really play up this idea that he does this because he’s authentic, and he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he knows his own core values. And he does it not caring and much more about what people will say, and I love that about him. So I think we can learn that lesson from ducks Overall, we can learn that we can be authentic in our own space. And that doesn’t take away from being professional or you know, he’s a, he’s a CMO from being a C suite level. being authentic is really finding who you are, and not being afraid to showcase that even more being bold to showcase that to the world. And people will tune into that.
Vince Menzione 27:04
I love what you had to say about being bold as well. And this fear exists for many of us, right? In fact, almost all of us have this fear of what other people think public speaking is probably one of the greatest fears in human society. Right. And it’s because we were afraid of what we’ll do. We’re standing there, and unsheltered. And we’re having this conversation and it is an issue. What about you know, he’s such a master on social? Yes. And I’d like that. I’d like to connect the two here, right, like storytelling brands social. Yeah. What are your thoughts around channels? Yeah, to get your branding out? Like what what do you think are the best approaches and best practices there?
Miri Rodriguez 27:41
Yeah, I’m gonna give you exactly from my book, what what he said about just that authenticity factor. And just in general, I think it applies to social media, it applies to digital applies to all of the marketing pillars that we want to enable, no matter the channel, he talks first about ensuring authenticity. He says make sure every story you tell is not a marketing or sales pitch, it should always be in the best interest of your audience. Even in some, in some cases, it may not seem like it’s beneficial for you, or your organization. He talks about exuding excellence, and he says from ideation to testing and promotion of your story. always aim for being the best in a world of compromise. I love that. And the last one is develop stand up public speaking skills, which he absolutely has. I continue to work on mine. In order to be an effective storyteller. One of the first steps is to develop your public speaking and presentation prowess. That’s really important. And I know all of us continue to work on this, especially as we move into a more digital world where presence is important digital presence is important. It’s no longer a nice to have it’s a must have to develop these skills of public speaking public persona and digital presence as well.
Vince Menzione 28:45
I love what you had to say there. In fact, some of the do’s from ducks, I would say, Yeah. What about the things not to do? Is there anything specifically are areas that you think people shouldn’t do when they talk about their or work on their marketing and branding strategy?
Miri Rodriguez 28:59
Absolutely. So one of the don’ts that I’ve learned personally has been don’t copy paste, there’s a lot of brands doing great things out there. And we may feel that the you know, the need to actually just take, take what they’re doing and implement it because it looks good. And you’ve got so much traction and so much engagement and it looks successful. But the reality is, we have our own audiences, and we should learn and understand our own audiences and deliver what they want, not what we think they want. So don’t copy paste, you can take some ideas, run them through with your team and say, Hey, you know, I saw this brand do this, I think it might work. Let’s see how this would work in my environment with our own channels and our own, you know, our own audiences. That’s empathy, right, because we’re empathizing with our audience. Another don’t is to don’t confuse storytelling at the brand level with telling stories for the brand. There’s there’s that you know, there’s two things happening here. The first one is we’re telling the story consistently reminding our customers, why we exist time and time again, one of the things that I You know, I see Satya doing consistently, once we clean came out with that mission. It’s all you hear from him, every time he speaks, he will, he will say the mission somewhere and he speech consistently, our leaders do it, I do it, all of us do it, because it’s part of our continuous, you know, approach to not only how we market how we live, Microsoft, and so continue to invest in delivering that story consistently, that brand story, that origin story, while creating other stories that serve as marketing, you know, marketing campaigns, for example, or a targeted campaign, given some something happening in the world that is not detached from the story, but it’s not the story. So always be be cognitive of the brand story being consistently in the back of customers minds. And always being the develop that and remind people of that, as well as these marketing campaigns. They’re not,
Vince Menzione 30:51
they’re not the same. I love the consistency message you’re telling because so much of what we do that first of all, we have to align all the time, we have to remind ourselves all the time, and then people don’t always get the message, right, you have to continue. You know, we are getting inundated in this world, especially right we’re on digital fatigue. But getting that message repeated in a way in a good way. Helps to just really helps to reinforce it.
Miri Rodriguez 31:14
salutely Absolutely. And that’s exactly what branding is. A lot of people get stuck on like, oh, brand new, what is that? It’s reminding people who you are time and time again, is getting in front and center of them being top of mind. for them. I did this exercise, actually, because I read somewhere that it says to effectively brand yourself, it takes three months for people to associate you with something that’s branding. So I began to I did this twice, I first did it with shoes. And then I did it with ice cream where I began to talk a whole lot on my social channels about ice cream and my choice of flavor. And I love ice cream or what kind of ice cream. It took less than three months. I mean, I was getting DMS I was getting messages from everyone people became me tagged followers who are you know, ice cream kind of stores, like I just gained a whole new audience from talking about ice cream alone, associated me with that. And that’s the same psychology with brand, right? As soon as you know that, that truth that is yours. Go out and talk about it. And people will immediately you know, psychologically respond to that. So it’s that consistency across the board that why you exist? And what is your truth?
Vince Menzione 32:18
Do you find that one channel is better than another from a social media perspective, like Twitter versus LinkedIn versus Facebook? What do you find? And I wanted to ask you about your ice cream flavors. But let’s let’s go. Let’s go down number one, and then you can answer number two.
Miri Rodriguez 32:34
The first one, let’s actually do it by order of importance. I love chocolate ice cream. I really love chocolate ice cream.
Vince Menzione 32:40
I love it.
Unknown Speaker 32:42
I also enjoy vanilla. I know it sounds terrible. But I could have a cup of just plain vanilla ice cream. And it’s good to me. So I also love all flavors, but chocolates pretty good. Chocolate is good. I know, I
Vince Menzione 32:53
love chocolate. I love both as well. So I guess we’re on the same camp here.
Miri Rodriguez 32:56
Yeah, so channels, you know, channels really depend on your audience. And I have, again, I test these so I can talk about them. From an experience perspective, especially as I as I wrote my book, I did a lot of research in these pieces, because a lot of brands will want to experience and explore different channels as they come along. And we know that they’re popping up all the time, what I have found is that there’s some legacy channels that are always holding true to a specific audience. No, LinkedIn, you can always count on having a very broad audience. And it’s also obviously as a professional network, you are going to get people from all over the world with the interest of connecting at a professional level, then you get into the Twitter and Instagram, Facebook, different types of social media that really that will depend on not only your mission, on who you’re looking to attract, but who is there in that channel because they move around around. So you know, people when Facebook first started, we know the history, it was actually college for kids for college kids, we’ve moved away from that. And now the highest users of Facebook are actually in their 50s and 60s. And now you know, these millennials moved to Instagram, eventually, Gen Z moved into Snapchat, and Tiktok. So it really depends on the majority of the audience where it says and who you’re trying to target. I have three channels, I have LinkedIn, Instagram, and I have, I have Twitter, and I have the three four different audiences. So my first one, obviously LinkedIn is my professional is typically for students and just the university network and the Microsoft network. But Twitter is actually more for my tech audience. So you’ll find a lot of tech content there. And then Instagram is actually for my personal brand I have you know, my target audience is young women in tech early in career and so I am a coach for women. And you’ll see a lot of you know, queendom and go girl go type messages there. So really learn them that learn what’s happening each channel they trends do change over you know, over time in the people the audience has changed. They move around channels as more pop up. So as you learn these channels Also mastered them before you move from one to the other. Because mastery of a channel really means that you’ve gained an audience that is consistent to you that you don’t have to spend so much money to, you know, putting ads out there, because people have learned who you are, and you’ve gained your space, you know, in your thought leadership in that channel,
Vince Menzione 35:17
that is really insightful. I don’t want to thank you for sharing some of that those are really insightful words, and advice for our listeners, and anyone on social including me, by the way. So I’ve learned a few things. Um, after this interview, I’m going to want to ask you some more things as well. But you mentioned something that I wanted to tease out, like your role has somewhat shifted within Microsoft, you’re, you’ve taken on additional responsibilities, I’ll say is head of global internships, which is also another amazing area. Why are you doing this? What are you doing? And why? I guess is what I would say.
Miri Rodriguez 35:50
I wrote so much, you know, I was invited to join HR and specifically to lead the intern program by someone who actually watched me tell stories. And and they decided the storytelling work that I was doing was so relevant to our new our new employees that are coming in that are students. They’re coming in, there’s, of course, Microsoft is so you know, it’s a legacy organization. We’ve been here, we’ve been around for a while. But how do we say? And how do we contend with the Googles and the Facebook’s of the world that are cool, right? to teenagers into early in career into undergrads. Story is important because it enables people outside of our organization to know what’s happening inside. We’ve been in, you know, a Microsoft, there was a time where we didn’t talk about what we were doing inside, nobody knew who we were, it was just, you know, people worked at Microsoft. And that said, Nobody knew the humans of Microsoft. And so in my own brand, my personal brand growth, I began to talk about what was happening at Microsoft, and people tuned in. And that attracted a younger audience as well. They’re like, wow, me or he is, you know, she’s not so bad. She’s not an old timer type thing. She’s not legacy I could work there. She came from the slums. You know, I talked about my own history, I came from Venezuela. So there was the representation. And I think that’s where that was, that became really important for people where you can have a perception of a brand from outside, when you see people from inside talking about their own stories and their own journeys, they see that representation. So I represent an immigrant, I represent a Latina woman in tech, so a person of color and tech, I represent, you know, someone who had to learn a new language, I represent someone who Microsoft has enabled and empowered on so many levels. And so that is enticing to someone from a community college, I went to community college, my first two years, and then I was able to transfer. So all these stories are the truth of Microsoft DNA. And so you can become part of that. And the work I am doing is to enable that more and more diverse hiring, we’re doing that more and more especially after 2020 and of course, beyond 2020. But the things that unfolded the situations that unfolded specifically to our African American and black community that is so painful. The mission that Satya gave, for us to focus on this, these communities, the representation, he talks about, if we’re going to empower the world, we got to look like the world. And so that, you know, that journey that we are on for a culture and for that representation, I am part of that. So why, because I want to look back and go wow, at one point in my life, you know, I contributed to that mandate, I contributed to culture transformation into representation in tech. And that is a powerful, powerful legacy.
Vince Menzione 38:34
I so share what you just said, By the way, I believe I might purpose as well is to be a champion of change. And to help drive this this shift that we need to see, both in terms of gender in terms of color. If you notice from my podcast, some of the guests I’ve been having, I tried to help lift up this story. And I do want to peel back here more with you on your personal story. You came from Venezuela, you said growing up in the slums. Can you tell us more about that amazing story and your experience?
Miri Rodriguez 39:06
Absolutely. So you know, my my mom, my mom’s family, it was a missionary family. And as missionaries, they would actually go into the deepest, darkest parts of Venezuela. They when my mom was a teenager, her family ended up going to one of the most dangerous slums in around the outskirts of Caracas, which is the capital. The cops won’t even go in there. I mean, there was murders every day, distillery is in so they actually ended up camping out there for a while. That’s where she met my dad, and ended up getting married. And so I was born there. I was born in they actually built a one bedroom house or one room house, I think it was I don’t remember. But on top of my grandmother’s house, which is not a house, it was a shack so there was like a shock, shock. And that’s how I grew up. And it was you know, we also traveled around the world and around the world around Latin America by car to deliver missions, even though we didn’t have anything We people donated things to us and we gave to other people. So it was an incredible, you know, set setting of core values at an early age of, we don’t have to have everything, but we do have a lot to give to others who always have something to give to someone else, we will always be positioned to give, I guess that’s what I learned. And so for me people in giving, as part of our core values for my own family, we have a family five, now I have two children. And I’ve been married for over 23 years, if you could believe that, and no, I
Vince Menzione 40:31
can you’re not old enough to be married 23 years, you must have been 12. I’ve had that happen. marriage.
Miri Rodriguez 40:39
You know, we have this family live and it’s getting you know, generosity is one of them. And so it’s our mantra, right, it’s it’s core values that have been instilled in us, since we were very young. It’s so powerful, because now I have more like I didn’t have obviously never thought I could have this more and this much in I have it in I can give and I do give in, it never runs out, you will never run out to give notice to other people. So I leverage Microsoft, for example. So many, so many levels, the platform that I have and the voice that they’ve given me and that I’ve given myself through that platform to reach more people. And it’s been an incredible journey, not only through the stories, but the digital platforms. We cannot you know, I used to be one on one, I can’t just give one thing to one person. Now it’s the world right? We have access to the entire world. And that is, that’s just an incredible, incredible thing.
Vince Menzione 41:25
Yeah. And I don’t know if everyone realizes how much Microsoft gives back to communities, right? I know, it’s over a billion dollars a year in software and in cash gifts. That gets published often. But tell me more about now. Okay, so you’re growing up in the slums of Venezuela in Caracas? What was that next step in the journey? Like, how did you come here?
Miri Rodriguez 41:43
Yeah, so uh, you know, it’s an opportunities. As I said, I was I was 12, we traveled the world. As a family of five, I have three, two sisters. Now, there’s three of us. I’m the middle child. And we we traveled for a while by car, it was really fun. It was, you know, we, I don’t remember really, we had so much fun. And at 12, my dad actually got an opportunity to come and serve here in the United States. This was obviously pre 911. So they they hosted us, and they gave us our papers. So we become maybe became legal residents immediately. And in Miami. And that’s where it started for us. We began to kind of live a new life, it was different for me, I actually was not fond of my new life in the United States, because it was a shock. It was a culture shock. We stopped traveling. And we It was almost like, you know, a normal, I guess, in normal life. American life, I would say and seeking that American dream at the same time, of course, our family again, humble beginnings. We were building ourselves up, my dad was working. My mom was working as well. And we began to work when I was 16. My older sister when she was 16. So we were all kind of contributing and to the household. And eventually, you know, I went to school, I got myself through school, my dad was like, Hey, we can’t we can’t pay for school. We don’t have that money. So all of you need to earn scholarships and get your way through. So we all did always earn scholarships and went to school, and also worked. And so eventually, you know, I started an operations in a company yachting in the yachting industry, which is here in Florida, put on the big yacht yacht shows, which is really fun. And I started there in operations and and, you know, basically grew up there. I was there for seven years, and then eventually moved over to Motorola, which is, of course, back then. It was the big tech company here. In Florida. They had the big big headquarters in Chicago and then what you know, is still the headquarter here in plantation, Florida, so huge. It was so much fun. And that’s how I got into tech. And you know, I was in tech for a while and of course, as you know, Motorola, the story I wasn’t actually in, in in the devices division. And of course, iPhone came out and put us all out of business. So I kind of teed around a couple of jobs. I was a Citrix. I was at brightstar. And Microsoft just called me one day the phone rang and they’re like, Hey, we’re Microsoft. And it was a recruiter. And you know, the rest is history.
Vince Menzione 43:54
That’s an amazing story. You went to a two year school first and then transferred out, right.
Miri Rodriguez 43:59
I went to a community college, Broward Community College for two years. That was the you know, the scholarship that we that I received was the Florida Bright Futures scholarship. And so you have to go to a Florida school. And you have to start first in, in, you know, as part of the program, you start first in community college, then you transfer over to a university such as Florida Atlantic University, which I did. I actually got married while I was still in college. So I was at Florida International University. And I started I needed to work full time at the time, I was working part time and I was like, okay, no, like a married woman and I have to work. So I went to work full time. And I took another program, which was I was the youngest one of everyone in the cohort, everyone was middle aged, and I was like 20 and I was I was finishing You know, my last year it was an Excel accelerated program in Trinity International University. They took all my credits which was amazing and so they could get graduate faster. Because for going to night school, I would have never finished so I was getting you know, it was it was terrible. So I ended up graduating from Trinity and our National University and then eventually, while I was at Microsoft recently, actually, I was able to get my masters from Georgetown University, which was a personal success story for me.
Vince Menzione 45:09
Was there a seminal point or inspiration that got you on the path to where you are today?
Miri Rodriguez 45:15
You know, I would say there were many, but the one that was to me one of the most transformative was I was a bright star, right up the middle. A lot of people went to Bright Star Bright Star is a mobile devices distributor for Latin America, very powerful here and the story, the CEO, the founder, Marcello clouded you know, wonderful person, he he builds it from zero and he’s he’s now a celebrities is incredible person. And I was I was actually his business manager. And I thought, up until that point, I was building my career climbing ladder ladder, I was working insane hours, all of it, doing all of it, you know, chasing, chasing, and I got there. And I saw him. And I saw his story. And I, and I really dawned on me, like, I walked in one day, and I was like, wow, you know, is this what I want? Like when I talk about success, because at that point, I was like, I wanted to be a CEO of a company. I was like, do I really want this? Is this? Is this what I want? And the answer was, no, I didn’t want to be a CEO. I basically, I thought that I could just climbing the ladder meant I have to get to the top. And what is that top? So it was defining my own success became important to me. What will I tell myself, my future self? You know what, what is important to me? When I look back, so it’s not just career, it was a holistic, I’m a person. I’m a mom, I’m a sister, I’m a friend. I’m so many things working as part of me. It’s not all of me. So success looks different. If I you know, what will it take to get to CEO if it takes everything else and I look back and I’m like, oh, what I achieved the one thing like I checked that box, and everything else failed. That’s not success. And I was on my way to do that I was I was, you know, people in my path will be moved out if they had to be I was ruthless in my in my quest to that title. And then I was like, maybe that’s not what I wanted. So, and I learned through that experience, that if I moved out of this one sided track of what success looked like, and made it holistic, everything else will fall into place. And so I no longer saw titles. And along the side of promotion, I sought my life to my happiness in the way that I defined it. And everything else kind of paid up.
Vince Menzione 47:22
It sounds like you aligned with your mission.
Miri Rodriguez 47:25
Pretty much. I told my story from the mission.
Vince Menzione 47:29
I love it. I love it. So you’re hosting a dinner party. And this is a time after COVID so we could be in person. And you could invite any three guests from the present or the past to attend that party? Who would you invite and why?
Miri Rodriguez 47:43
I love this. I love this. You know, I looked at this question. And I mulled over for a moment and I was like I just so many people would love to invite but I you probably surprised that the answers I would love to invite Hitler. I would also I would, I would love to sit at a table with him and understand understand his story. I’m curious about his personal story. I would also love to invite a month not just not a famous monk, but just a month from maybe the 18 hundred’s. Someone who, who it was part of that writing, writing, stories, writing, you know, books and things that we read today, they exist because they wrote them. I want to know what their life looked like. I want to know what why why they went into the lifestyle what what was so fascinating to them, that they would leave everything in order to leave a legacy that now we read today. That’s empowering and that’s history. And definitely I would love to sit next to Bill Gates I have not had a chance to meet him and I would love to meet him in person so that he would be my present person
Vince Menzione 48:48
that would be a very interesting dinner party. And I would love to I would love to be there although I’m very interested in the Hitler conversation if there if you want to peel back on that a little bit is there is it just to understand what what caused like what the causation was in his life or how he led in a direction
Miri Rodriguez 49:05
I got into meditation A while back and the deeper you get into it, there’s this understanding of the human notion of who we are at our deepest level of our of our spirit of our soul. And and as you understand yourself because it’s very introspective journey you know, we all have our shadow right we have we have our light and we have our shadow and I’m learning more and more how how capable we all are right to dive deeper into each into our light and into our shadow and so for me conversating with someone like Hitler, who is most definitely one of the darkest people in history, understanding his shadow understanding drove him to to feed that shadow. What were his you know, what were what was his justification we all have them by the way we all justify our shadow for some reason. It’s it exists, but when we act on that side, we just Fight. So there’s, there’s this, there’s this logic that we create for ourselves. And I would love to understand that from an anthropological perspective and also from a psychological perspective, but as a human as well, so not to psychoanalyze them, but really just to kind of sit back and hear non judgmentally actually, just to say, what happened. Why? Why did you go there? You know?
Vince Menzione 50:20
Yeah, so insightful, so deep and insightful. Miri, I really love that answer. So you have a billboard, maybe it’s on I 95. Maybe it’s on my South Beach, I’m not sure exactly where we’re going to put this. I hope it’s in a nice location. So I come visit with you. And you could and you can say anything you want on this billboard. This is sort of a metaphor for your message to the world. What would it say on it? And why?
Miri Rodriguez 50:45
Yeah, it would say, tell your story, or somebody else will. I have learned and this is why you do what you do. Why you have a podcast why people are hearing the podcast, people will actually, you know, we’re competing for time. I’m stealing someone’s time right now, by them hearing my story and hearing you. You stole my time right now I’m supposed to be working. So we’re stealing time. And it’s all under the same notion of curiosity, because we want to learn and as I wrote my book, I interviewed a lot of people one of these isn’t a double time Emmy winner journalist who is the producer of the spirit of America, which is an equal to like the morning show, like the Oprah Morning Show, by the way, when she had to reach out. And and I and she said something really compelling that it’s, you know, I sat back and I thought about it for a while. And she said, you know, everyone should write their own book, their own story. And I thought, Wow, you really think everybody should write a book, you really think that she’s like, yes. And I was like, Why? She said, Well, because everyone’s lived experiences, has insight. And if we all shared it, we would learn more, right? You’ve lived, you’re asking me about my lives. This is what we’re doing right now. You’re asking me about my lived experiences. In the podcast, dust is more and more. But what if we all, you know, learned to tell that story in different formats in different ways and learn from each other because of the story how the how the world would be, if we took a moment, like the US Capitol as surgeons, and took Everyone’s story, everyone that was there and participated in that very moment. You were there by mistake, or you were there on purpose, or you were there? Because that was your job? You were there, whatever, you people were there, and they all have a story of the same event that took place. What if we learned from Everyone’s story? How much empathy will we have in the world? What will we learn from that? So tell your story or someone else will, story will be written history will be written, if you don’t write your story, somebody else will write that history, it may not be representative of you, because you haven’t told your side. So you have a voice and you have a platform use it
Vince Menzione 52:46
so powerful, so powerful. And so many times people feel like they haven’t been heard their story has not been heard. And maybe this is why you see some of the things we see today in our culture. That’s right. So you, by the way, I was so glad to steal your time today. You’ve been such an amazing guest. And I’m so glad that David helped us connect. I really it’s been such a delight to have you as a guest. Do you have any closing comments or advice for our listeners? Yeah, and
Miri Rodriguez 53:13
thank you, thank you for inviting me, it’s been a pleasure, thank you for letting me borrow your audience as well. And borrower their time. Thanks for listening, if you are more than advises, it’s just hope it inspires you. It’s an inspiration, thought. And it’s the fact that, you know, as we enter this new era, the world has changed. We all know it and we feel it. And I think this change is gonna get bigger. It’s not the one time change. It’s an evolution we’re all going through. And so we all have an opportunity to leave a legacy in this very historic moment. And so what will be that legacy is what I would like to ask you, if you’re listening, don’t be just a consumer, be a producer, but not just for a corporation and not for a brand. I know we’ve gone full circle. And of course, for a brand. That’s our jobs, and we do it and that’s great. But beyond that, what are you a part of that people and you will be proud of years from now when they look back at 2020 2021. And the years that are coming that I suspect will bring even more historic moments. It’s like we’re having a historic moment in every five minutes, in every name these last years. And so what will you be a part of? It’s not about being on the right or wrong side of history. It’s about making history. So go out and make history. I love that.
Vince Menzione 54:25
I love your advice. Thank you so much, Miri, it’s been such a pleasure to have you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to Partnering.
Miri Rodriguez 54:31
Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Vince Menzione 54:34
As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please subscribe on your favorite platform, like comment, tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering and where they can find us and i’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at Vince Menzione on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to Partnering on our Facebook page or Twitter. drop me a line at Vin Sam at ultimate dash partnerships.com this episode of the podcast is sponsored by ultimate partnerships. Ultimate partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships, get partnerships, right, optimize for success, deliver results. For more information, go to ultimate dash partnerships.com
Announcer 55:26
thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering with your host Vince Menzione online at Ultimate Guide to Partnering.com and facebook.com slash Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We’ll catch you next time on The Ultimate Guide to Partnering
Transcribed by https://otter.ai