Shelly Linkerhof, Head of Marketing Communications, Americas, Clariant

Welcome to the podcast Above the Cloud: Stories from the Boardroom. In every episode, we interview business leaders who are navigating the complex world of B2B marketing. Whether you're trying to grow revenue, swoop into a new market, or launch new products, we promise you've landed in the right spot. And now, your host, Richard Bird. >> Welcome to the Above the Clouds podcast. Today, we have Shelley Linkerhoff, and she is the head of marketing communications for Clariant. Welcome to the show. >> Thank you.

It's good to be here. Thank you for the invitation. >> Yeah. Well, I'm really happy to have you here today and because I think you're going to have some insights that are really going to help a lot of our our listeners and it's I really love having, you know, guests that have work for international companies because I was we were had a conversation around the the the office the other day about, you know, account management and managing international clients versus managing, you know, American clients.

And you really have to think about it differently when you have an international client. I mean, there's the logistical things like time zones and stuff like that that uh are logistically tr, you know, challenging, but but I think it's the amount of polish. I think the European clients especially uh have and even when you get to Latin American clients and all these other, you know, clients that that are used to working internationally, they show up right on time. They're ready to go. They expect you to be very prepared.

you know that level of expectation is so so much higher and so I love I love bringing on international guests. So thanks for being on the show. >> It's good to be here. >> Our first question we always ask our guests is your company were a bird. What kind of bird would you be? >> Thank you for the challenge of trying to find a bird and I definitely had to do some research on this one and I discovered the kingisher. So a new bird to my vocabulary so thank you for that. The king fisher bird is about the size of a swallow but has a bigger head, very long, a skinny beak, very colorful feathers.

The wings are always contrasting to the chest. So the what's nice about the kingisher is they have a Greek mythology background. So the scientific name is rooted in Greek and in back in the day their belief system was that these birds were able to nest in calming waters. So the gods must have given them powers in order to calm the water. So there's this connection to calm water and these birds which is also a sustainability aspect of this bird because they're an indicator of healthy water. >> Oh, >> which was again very fascinating to learn about all this one from a personal perspective.

I love water myself. If I can have a vacation or have a a zen moment, it's always by water. And Clarion, we have two key strategic pillars, innovation and sustainability. So this bird represents sustainability, clean water and as a chemical company, especially chemical company which we'll get into a little bit later in the discussion. We are always looking for sustainable solutions. So there's one you know parallel between the bird and the company as you've asked and then the other one is the innovation aspect.

This bird is um symbol you could say of nature inspiring inspiration. So a scientific discovery that they have found is the long skinny beak the bird dives in first with by beak first and that very few water ripples very less noise and so they've realized that if you have that type of a nose then you can go faster and and it helps with the sound barrier. So the Japanese uh bullet speed train was designed with that in mind. >> Oh that's awesome. >> Yeah it was really cool. So then again we in Clariant also are looking at nature for inspiration and we just published an innovation video on our LinkedIn and website about Glucopure which is a product that is linked it's um a surfactant that's linked to sunflower oil and glucose so sugar and when you mix the two it makes a very good solution for washing dishes good on grease soft on hands and then also good for the environment and it's also good for textiles.

So it makes the clothes softer, makes them easier to iron and less wrinkles. So again, this bird who inspires inspiration, we as Inclarian have a good parallel to that. >> Yeah, there's some awesome parallels. I love that. That's a really great answer. And those are s such cool birds. I see them. I'm a kayaker and so we'll see them on the water out and when we're in know the bayus and lakes and areas of you know near the coast >> and they are always so cool to see. Everyone gets excited when we see one.

>> I can't wait. I've never seen one in person. So now that I know so much about them, I'm ready to look out for them for sure. >> On the Texas lakes, you'll see them. And and I will tell you that it is true about their grace >> because the other birds we see a lot out there have the same habitat are pelicans >> which are also really cool birds but they are the least graceful bird ever and with the way they fish they make a terrible noise a big splash. They're just like gangly. They're and the kingish are so such an elegant bird.

>> Yeah. Well you think about a lot of birds get their prey with their with their claws. Yeah. Again, an innovative way and a different way for them to feed is, you know, diving beak first into the water. So, yeah. Yeah. >> Very cool. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about Clarant? >> Okay. So, Claren is a specialty chemical company based in Basil, Switzerland and uh we're global and uh we have a purpose-led strategy that is encompassed in a slogan that says greater chemistry for people and planet and which is a really great way to sum up what we do on a daily basis.

constantly looking for innovative solutions, pushing that innovation box, looking for ways where we can improve the environment, working with our customers to understand what their needs are in their end formulations and how we can work with them to try and find that. So, you need people to do that and and conversation and and collaboration and so forth. We make chemical solutions for a wide variety of industries ranging from oil production, chemicals, mineral processing, catalysts all the way to personal care and healthcare.

Right. So, it's a very very long industry verticals in that sense or multiple industry verticals. So, we get to touch a lot of facets of of life. >> Yeah. Especially chemical I think is one of those industries that people don't really think about and it is literally in in everything. It's just such a and it go like you said it expands all these boundaries and different industries and you know different processes and they might use the same chemical at a food and beverage facility that they use at a oil refinery and they do the same thing but >> I think so many companies couldn't produce their final product or sometimes the special chemicals are part of the product the not only the process of making their final product but are actually in the final product.

It's a really interesting space. There are a lot of challenges I would imagine and kind of getting your head around all the different verticals and all the different geographies that you guys will definitely be touching on that. >> Tell me how big is your team? How do you address all these those challenges? >> Sure. So, my marketing communications team for the Americas, there's five very creative, talented, professional ladies and myself. They the R team spans from North Carolina to Houston here all the way to Sa Paulo, Brazil.

>> Oh, wow. >> Yeah. And everyone has a certain number of industry verticals in their portfolio that they partner then with that business segment. We're a centralized function together with corporate comms, brand, uh, digital, yeah, issues management and so forth. So we all work together as a global communications function and then we work very closely with with the businesses across the different segments. So myself overseeing all of them. It's about 14 that we're constantly working with on a on a daily basis.

I'm always working on a few. So I refer to it as like stakeholder gymnastics. I probably could get a really solid gold in that category because you're just jumping from from one business segment to the next. just really trying to understand their dynamics, the landscape, customers, and how we can best add value to their hopefully business growth. Right. That's the aspiration. >> Yeah, that's right. That's the at the end of the day, that's that's what we're judged by in the marketing world. I bet that would be really challenging just because I I bet the the buying center and the way their customers buy and >> all that has to be very different across those across those industries.

>> There are definitely some differences. For instance, in the mining um business that we have, the sales cycle could be five plus years because you're not going to change your mineral processing chemical components overnight that if you have product that's not working and the plant has to shut down, you're talking billions. Oil plants are millions. You know, mining plants could be billions. So, you really have to be very careful when you're wanting to introduce a new solution or changing some things based on the customer's operations, right?

Whereas you look at personal care, trends are changing every year. You know, consumer trends, what they're looking for in their con their cosmetics, what they're looking for, hair care, skincare, and so forth. So, they're having to come up with different formulations annually and their buying cycle is very short. So, your mindset changes, decisions, make the process to make decisions and so forth is a very different approach. Yeah, you got to be a lot more agile and the yearly planning is probably gets a lot more interesting in that world than in the mining world.

>> Yeah, it can be. But what there's a lot of similarities too because we work with formulators. So the customers are the formulators. They're the ones with the formulations to make what it is they're trying to do. Try not to get too technical because I could geek out any moment if you want me to. >> Geek out. We can geek out on this is a show we can geek out on. It's a show for by geeks for geeks. So for instance, if you look at a cosmetic formulation, they're wanting they need different components. We don't supply all of those components, but you need to understand what they're trying to do.

Are you trying to less wrinkles? Are you trying to have shiny hair? Do you have textured hair? All of those different components. And then the formulation needs to be crafted to develop a certain need. So then our products need to be able to help them address that that issue, right? And so you need to have that customer intimacy to be able to understand what is it you're trying to do. So maybe this product or this product or we need to combine those two to make a different product in order to make this work for you.

And so you know and a lot of times we don't even know what cosmetics our products go into because there's secrecy you know agreements in place. So that you know that's that end. But if you look at oil production chemicals for instance there are so many different factors there. You have pressure, you have temperature, you have the length of the umbilical if it's offshore where you're pumping, surface temperature, and then underground temperature. I mean, I'm really not even scratching the surface on all the variables, but you have to have a chemical solution that's going to stay together, that's going to work.

You can't plug your umbilical because then you're not getting any over Yeah. a product out. So it's a very fine line that our oil production services team has to monitor on a continuous basis. So then you have to make sure that that chemistry solution is going to work. So again customer intimacy understanding their operations understanding what their KPIs are on an operational standpoint and the components of the crude. You can have high acidity you can have scale issues you can have paraffin issues.

U you can have all of those issues >> and it might change from this month to next month. You might have introduce a new challenge once you go into a different layer. >> It can most definitely. So again, it's the similarities that we have across the board is the customer centricity understanding their operations. So then we can be able to advise and work with them best to come up with the right solution. >> Yeah. Well, that's interesting too because I think this is similar to a lot of our other clients where it's a very technical sale and your salespeople are almost always PhDs or you know these kinds of of people.

It's not, you know, somebody you just hired off the street and say, "Hey, go sell this sufferant." And >> that is true. I I probably have worked with some of the smartest chemical uh engineers, scientists, all types of um the the STEM, you know, areas you can think of, right? And um me being a classic marketer trained in marketing, I'm fascinated how that world operates um how they their language and then having to translate that into a marketing speak is is a language in itself. And so I have put a lot of uh you could say uh brain investment into understanding their world, translating it and to make it sense from a marketing standpoint.

I just feel like that is so important for marketers to be able to be passionate about understanding what their company does. You know, I worked for a nerdy company in-house marketing department one time and you know, I had to hire the people to come and and help our internal clients. At first, I wasn't very good at it. Uh, and took me a while. Well, some might argue I was never good at it, but uh but I certainly was not at the beginning because I would bring people in because I would think, okay, well, they're very talented graphic designers or they have they have really good smart writers and and a lot of them would fail >> in that role and and I thought what what is happening here?

And the thing that I that I think I landed on was that to be successful in that role, you have to have curiosity about the technology. It has to be innate. You have to just be curious about that stuff. because if you're not, >> you won't take the time to learn that stuff. You just said you dove into it and you learn about it. And that was the biggest contributor to the success of somebody in that role over anything else because they were all smart. I mean, I wouldn't they wouldn't have made it through the interview process if I didn't think they were smart.

They were all nice and they wouldn't have made it through that. you know, they all I felt like they fit our culture, but man, without that, I just don't think you're going to be motivated enough to really take a deep dive into these, you know, what some may consider, you know, dry or boring topics. And and I think that is it's just critical. So, I'd love to see how passionate you are about chemistry. >> I'm glad to see it comes out. I think my high school chemistry professor would be quite proud of me, right?

Because I wasn't quite uh you know, passionate about chemistry in high school for sure. So if I could look back at my younger self, it's like pay attention a little more. Um but back then it didn't make sense, right? It was just equations and you know beers with smoke out of it and you don't didn't really connect on how this makes our world go round or it makes it safer. It makes it makes it easier. It makes it you know we have light in places that we didn't have light before. I mean that's just a sill the silliest example of what chemistry has done for us, but it really is a an element that we can't live without now.

Oh, for sure. I had a uh my high school chemistry teacher, Mrs. Olsen. I love you if you're listening. Thank you so much. She really helped me a lot because I thought chemistry was going to be fun and it was all going to be in the lab and very hands-on and, you know, mixing chemicals and learning how to make stuff blow up, you know, and then I got in there. It's like you said, it was like these long equations and I'm I'm dyslexic and so it was really hard. You know, you mess one thing up and you're done and you could do the whole thing.

So I got terrible grade, you know, my first I failed my first test and then so my cousins was in school to be a dentist. She was really good with STEM. So I asked her to help me and like she really coached me and all these other things and the next test came out and I got even worse. I get like a 40 on it. I was like, "Oh my gosh." And so I talked to Mrs. Olsson. I said, "Hey, like I'm really struggling with this." And she goes, "What do you want to even do when you grow up?" And I was like, "I want to go into advertising." >> And she's like, "Well, what are you even taking this class for?" And I was like, well, I I thought I had to take it.

And she really was the first person who told me, I mean, there's some classes you have to take, but then there are some that are under your control. >> Go take a writing class. >> And I was like, really good advice. >> You could do that. It was the best advice ever. And I was like, it was the first time that anybody really told me that you have I had control over the things I got to study, right, >> as a, you know, a freshman in high school. And I was like, oh, wow. This is pretty cool. All right. I'm gonna, you got it.

I'm gonna go take something fun. as opposed to this. That is crushing me right now. So, where if you're listening to this, Miss Olsson, thank you very much. >> Where would we be without our high school teachers? >> I know, right? How are you managing that that team? Sounds like, you know, they're they're all over the place and and hopefully you're getting to go to Sa Paulo as much as possible. I love Brazil, but hopefully you're going to be able to do. What are you looking for when you look to bring on people on your team?

How are you helping them to understand this complex world? You know, how are you shaping them? >> Yeah, that's a good question. And it does start with recruiting. Thankfully, the last few hires I've had have just been excellent additions to the team. Um, there's definitely the level of they need to be curious for sure. They need to have some confidence that they can ask for help >> that I'm there to help them because we are in a very complex world. The matrix aspect of a global company as well is something that if you're not used to, you have to teach how to how to navigate multiple stakeholders, different personalities, different cultures.

So, it's a lot of talking. Thankfully, I I like to talk, so that, you know, fits well in in my wheelhouse. The one question I do ask during my interviewing process is, you're going to work for a chemical company, and there's probably going to be somebody in your personal circle that's going to, you know, speak ill of chemicals or the chemical industry and how bad it is. How comfortable are you going to feel to defend the company that you work with? And >> great question. Yeah, because and I have actually been able to kind of weed out the ones who I'm here for a job versus I really think that I could do something within this role and I really appreciate some the deeper answers that I've received and then I thus hire them and they've been quite successful in the role because you can't this isn't just a job to do marketing which a lot of people just want to do marketing.

This is a job indeed you need to be curious. You have to ask a lot of questions. You need you can't be afraid of of the chemistry. You can't be afraid of the complexity. Some of the things I still don't understand and you know I have to tell my stakeholder I'm like quite I don't quite get the chemistry but I know the marketing side of it and I this is where I feel confident to be able to give you the advice that you need from a marketing standpoint. Let's try and figure out how to help me with chemistry, right?

And when you're able to have those open dialogues with with your technical team, they always love, you know, showing off what they know, which I appreciate. I love showing off what I know. So it's an reciprocal relationship in that in that standpoint because they I get to teach them about marketing when they're open and then I get to learn more about the chemical solutions. So that has a lot of grounding foundation training to be done from the recruiting on boarding perspective and then then from there it's just applying the the knowledge and the projects understanding multi- channelannel strategy.

It's not just a trade show anymore. It's not just getting a brochure out like it used to be. Yeah. >> I mean, if someone asks me to make a brochure, then okay, we're having the wrong conversation and you can count on it that I'm going to change the conversation very quickly into what is it that you truly are trying to get done and I'm confident it's not a brochure. So, we're going to park that and we're going to really talk about what it is you're trying to accomplish. And then you really then get to dig into what their sales goals are, what the customer mindset is, and then you just have to ask a lot of questions.

Um, and so that's how I I'm continuously training the team, whether they're having those conversations or I'm sitting together with them in the conversations with our business stakeholders to understand indeed, okay, what is this customer trying to achieve? What do we do that's different than everybody else? So we can help promote that distinction in the market because everybody could make a chemical solution almost, not everybody, but there's a lot out there and so how are we going to let everyone know >> about Clarant, right?

Yeah. >> So, it's just a it's a constant training field, which is fun, too. If you're curious and you you keep want to learn, there's always something to learn. >> I love it. And I think that is something that we see a lot too. You know, even as consultants, you know, people come in and go ahead. Uh but people come in and they are like, oh, they've self- diagnosed is what I like to call it, you know, and technical people are really good at that because they're smart, right? And so they're like, oh, I have I'm experiencing this problem.

Here's what I think I need. >> And go. I think that's such a smart question to say. Why do you, you know, it's interesting that you picked brochure as the thing you're asking us for. What tell me what you're trying to do with this. Why do you think you need a brochure? >> What What are your goals here? And in STEM, they have first principles. And uh and I think marketing has them too. And I think understanding the goal is one of the first principles for marketers. >> Marketing has in the past had a bad rap.

And it's because we just throw brochures out or we just buy ad space and it doesn't bring any value back. And now times are too lean anymore. We can't afford just to spend money to spend money. We really need to come with the value um creation through that. Thankfully, digital marketing is helping out a lot with that. You can customize, you know, who you're trying to talk to with what kind of materials you can track it now. You know, from once I give you, if I do give you a brochure, once I give it to you, all the way to hopefully they end up on the website and they're asking for a quote or a sample.

You can track all that now, which is super helpful. And also even with existing customers, you're understanding, you know, more and more through a digital interface what their buying behaviors look like. And so you're you're able to help them with with that. And we didn't have that before. That's that's helpful. But then you're also digging into another type of marketing competency that we do need to build and understand not only within the organization, but also within the team. So that goes back to your earlier question of how are you helping your team and digital competencies is something that we're always working on and building >> and that's challenging because it's always changing and you know I think as somebody who's been doing this a while and supposed to be the CEO of my company so I shouldn't be getting my hands dirty and getting in the weeds and things but I can't help it.

>> No >> because I want to know like and I got into Google Analytics the other day for a client just and it had been a really long time since I got in there years. and and I was shocked at how much it had changed and I was like I don't know you know >> which end is up anymore and like nothing why is anything clickable? It was really challenging to get in there and figure it out but you know I did figure it out in the end. In fact it was a lot simpler than it used to be but I didn't find it as useful as it used to be but it but I think there and it's like that with everything in the digital world.

You know they're always changing their product. They're always changing the way things are. I was in HubSpot the other day and I was trying to add somebody to a marketing list and and it was like and I couldn't find it and they changed the name of list to segments and I'm like okay well why did they do that? That is that was not helpful. >> But yeah, it's like just staying on top of that stuff is challenging. What are you doing to make sure your people and yourself um you know stay sharp on on all the the latest and greatest digital stuff?

We have a digital competency center that sits in corporate communications in Basil, Switzerland. Um, so that global competency center help we have a few experts there who stay on top of all the trends for us and then also work with us very closely on the HubSpot marketing, the website, the Google Analytics. So that's really kind of the core competency there and that we tap into and that they work with us on our campaigns. And then we just recently introduced a regional spock single point of contact for all digital marketing activities as well within my team.

So it's a development opportunity for that individual to work closely with the competency center globally but also working across all of the industry verticals not just the one that they are that is assigned to them in their portfolio. So they can see HubSpot or other digital marketing tactics are used across different customer segments. So that widens their development lens um within that that digital marketing aspect. So when we have we have issues when we're doing um our own campaigns or we're having challenges or questions, we can have someone in our time zone that helps us out.

If there's something that needs to be escalated, fine. It can go to the global uh competency center. So that's a way where we're constantly trying to stay on top of it. Obviously going to conferences, reading up, you know, following the HubSpot trainings. As you can tell, we're a HubSpot user. all of those different things, curiosity, trial and error, challenging each other, going, "Okay, who's going to do this one?" Or, "How how have you done that?" Sharing best practices. Uh, we're constantly doing sharing is caring, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what has changed.

So, it's it is a constant weekly, monthly process. You can't just go, "Oh, well, there's there's nothing going on this week. You're going to miss it." So, >> that's right. What a great resource to have that center of excellence that you can you can rely on. And of course, it's a a STEM based company, so it has an acronym name. So that's what you can always count on for STEM companies. >> Oh, uh, and I love that, you know, you guys are HubSpot. One good thing about HubSpot to me is that their training is, I think, world class.

The videos that they have and the and then the help you can get on there is really useful. So I think that's one I've been known for being kind of guys just throw people in, let them figure it out. And that's and I've I've maybe changed my mindset that on that over the years, gotten softer as I got old have gotten older. But that's one I don't I I feel very confident about, you know, when people come and say, "Hey, how do I do this in HubSpot?" I'm like, "Did you check the >> their library? Check their library." Like before you come to me with any HubSpot questions, I want you to look in the library and then if you can't find it there, hit the chat because >> their chat is great.

Like you'll talk to a real person >> has real answers and all that. So yeah, that's great that you guys are HubSpot shop. >> It's interesting international companies. I think I see that more with, you know, domestic companies or people who work in in one country >> more than I see people work internationally just because of the email laws and all that other stuff. How are you guys managing that? >> We have one person in again in the the corporate communications team. That's not all they do, but that is a component of their job that that works very closely with legal compliance.

And because the EU actually has more stringent laws than everybody else and being a European company, we do have to follow those laws and they keep us updated and you know this is how you share a list, this is how you don't share list, this is how you delete a list when you're done because of the GDPR that you have to follow. And then you learn that Brazil does something different. You're like great. And then Mexico does something different. Wonderful. So again, going back to that international component, I'm like, great, but we're still the EU company and we're following EU laws and you get this w you know in other places where it might be more lax but it it is what it is and in the end >> we should you know manage data >> privacy I mean that just is a fundamental thing I think for humans to do and so you know happy to follow that compliance law even though it can be a bit cumbersome >> yeah and you're right people around the world don't see it that way we were we're working with a client that is international company and operating with this they were in Houston and you know America's a wild west show when its to data privacy and data collection and all that stuff.