Latest / The Marketing Brief / The Social Fabric Sessions: E4 Rose Steinberg
Transcript
- Brian: Hello, and welcome back to the Marketing Brief Podcast. I am your host, Brian Aquan, and this is the podcast where we explore things across the marketing landscape. This is a special episode and special subset of the Marketing Brief podcast called The Social Fabric Sessions, where we're exploring a lot of ideas around community. We're really loving the through line of relationships shape opportunity. So that's been something we we've been exploring. And of course, it's not just me talking to myself that can happen in the shower or when I'm in traffic. I like to bring on a guest. And today we're very excited to be joined by Rose Steinberg. Rose, how are you doing today? Rose Steinberg: I'm doing great, even better now that I'm joining you on this Brian: I'd love to hear that. How would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners of the podcast? Rose Steinberg: Sure, I'm happy to. So Rose Steinberg, I run a recruiting firm called People Obsessed. I'm a big believer that great businesses are built by great people and that relationships are the foundation of every great team, every get great company, and every great opportunity. So, you know, running a recruiting firm in today's landscape is as ever challenging as I think it ever was. but I think it's a lot more fun, to be honest. yeah. Brian: Yeah. Well maybe maybe we start there. Like, what is going on this year? What is happening with with crazy? I mean, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal last week that was like, big businesses are now hiring again, right? Which is kind of like, maybe the pendulum's swinging back. But how are you seeing things like as we sit in the summer of twenty twenty six? Rose Steinberg: Yeah, so, you know, being in this space, you know, people have always been hiring. There was it was sort of a myth that like hiring, you know, there were no jobs and there wasn't hiring. I think what we see is that everything is just a lot more specialized, right? A lot of layers were flattened. there are a lot fewer true leaders. There's a lot of player coaches. People are being asked to not only lead and strategize, but be in the business with their teams, Brian: Yeah. Rose Steinberg: leading from the front, removing the same old blockers that you always would, but but you know, true people management roles are fewer and far between and it's much more about being in it. and I think that's a big theme. But we we've honestly we are as busy as we've ever been. Brian: Yeah. And that's probably both now and in anticipation of going into like the rest of the year, I imagine. Rose Steinberg: Yeah, companies are are are certainly hiring. We have two different businesses that are already hiring now for 2027, thinking about how they're building their teams next year, planting seeds, you know, in sales. We have one business that's like, I'll let somebody sit in that other company until they get paid for their hard year of work, and then they'll Brian: Mm. Mm-hmm. Rose Steinberg: move over. So people are really getting creative. Brian: Yeah. Rose Steinberg: and I think people are getting a head start. I I would also say the other theme is specialty, right? People are hiring people for special skills, special relationships. And it's a lot harder to pivot or change or make a move or reinvent yourself because if there's five really qualified people who can all do a job, who's the person with the most recent relationships, the most recent experience? They're they're always gonna do the safer thing, right? They don't oftentimes they don't Brian: Hmm. Yeah. Rose Steinberg: have time to wait for someone to sort of, you know, you have all these skills that you bring, but they also don't wanna have two quarters to get you up to speed on the business today, right? Time is of the essence. Brian: Right. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, you mentioned relationships a couple of times when you were introducing yourself. How do Rose Steinberg: Yeah. Brian: you how do you think about how relationships shape opportunity, like over a career in a in in an organization? Is that a statement that you kind of agree with? How how what does it invoke in you? Rose Steinberg: I absolutely agree with that. you know, I don't think I've ever personally landed a role specifically or or only because of skills or experience or or a past life. It's always been about a relationship, somebody opening a door, somebody introducing me to somebody else, somebody saying, Hey, you should take a look at this company. And even now in my business, I do not sell. I do not. Go around, you know, the globe, the cities, or even the conference circuit, asking people, like I would never be like, how's your hiring going? It would never happen. it's more, I I care more about understanding what somebody's business problems are and how people can help solve some of those problems. And a lot of times people ask me for my help and I didn't even know they were hiring. So it's about helping people put the right You know, if you think of people as a product, how do you assemble the right product? Brian: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, I'd love to kind of get more into who Rose is. Better know a Rose. since you Rose Steinberg: Ha ha ha Brian: are a member of the social fabric, I'm a member of the social fabric. This is a community IRL in real life, right? People who have have have are brought together by common interests, w but professionally we think we can help each other out. what I guess this is a good question to get into it. If you had to describe yourself. or introduce yourself without saying what you do for a living, how would you do that? Rose Steinberg: Ooh, that's a good question. Brian: Yeah. Rose Steinberg: I I would probably say I'm a people person and I really am. I'm also a people person who's completely okay being by themselves. Brian: Mm yeah. Yeah. Rose Steinberg: I'm also an animal person and an animal lover and a deep, sort of very passionate person about. Taking care of our animals, taking care of the animals on the planet. so I get really involved in a lot of those kinds of things. so I'm I'm a people person and an animal person. And I I would say those who know me know about my animal love. But Brian: Mm-hmm. Rose Steinberg: but if you didn't, you you would never walk up to me and and probably have any clue how involved I'm. Brian: You're not like wearing a horse sweater around? Rose Steinberg: I mean I've I'm sure I have one in the c in the closet. As a kid, Brian: For the weekends. Rose Steinberg: I certainly had a lot of those things. Yes. Brian: Yeah. What are the we talk a lot about community on this podcast and certainly the social fabric is is a community. What are the communities that that you're most active in in your life? You know, they can be professional, but also would love to learn about personal ones. Rose Steinberg: well, perfect. you know, it's a it's a good question. I would say we're lucky to work in an advertising and marketing community, you know, that's at least my professional world and my personal world are deeply intertwined. I don't know if that was by design, but certainly it is now. Brian: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Rose Steinberg: I love when people from all aspects of my life meet each other and and find their own common interests or better yet, like hang out without me. Create value without me. That's like, yes, I've won. you know, but community isn't about having, you know, it's not about volume. It's not about, you know, early in career it was like, how many people are on your LinkedIn? How many people are on your Facebook? Now I don't I wouldn't even, I don't even think about those kinds of things. It's more about, are are you Building something on trust and generosity? Are you able to help other people? do you have deep relationships? Who's gonna show up for you when you didn't even know you needed it? That that's how I sort of measure my community. And I I feel I'm I'm I do my best to be super active and involved with as many people as I can. And when you need it, it comes back to you. Brian: Yeah. Is there a specific community that you go to a lot in New York that like might be like your trust community? Like, hey, I want to run this idea past you. Rose Steinberg: yes. I have. I mean, I I think it's really important for literally everyone to have those trusted people. Like I call my my personal board of directors. One was Brian: Nice. Rose Steinberg: a woman I interviewed with more than 10 years ago, and within five minutes we decided this wasn't the role that was big enough to make a move, but like let's keep each other. you know, I'll call Joanna at any given time and she always Has an ask for knack for asking the really hard question you might even not want to face yet. She's always like right there. And I'm like, I'm also on the board of Babbel, which is a group of women who came together really organically. And it's absolutely, you know, I think the aspiration really is to be that prosperity platform. form for for powerful women, whatever powerful means to you. And I get a lot from that community. I I love being active in that community. And just like anything else, like you get out what you put in. Brian: Yeah, totally. I think is Tamara on that? Tam, our friend Tam? Yeah. Rose Steinberg: Pam is absolutely also a board member, yes. Brian: Amazing. That's awesome. another idea we've been kind of talking about here is the idea that maybe we've become too transactional in all of our kind of relationships. And you are in the people business. do Rose Steinberg: Yeah. Brian: you feel like we've become too transactional? I know obviously you probably tried to not be that way, but have you kind of seen a trend towards that? Rose Steinberg: You know, I think that's always sort of been there. Like everybody's, you know, in business to get things done, right? but I think everybody needs to slow down. So sure, I think we've become a lot more efficient, but you could ask for the deal or ask for the thing, you know, in an early phase of relationship and get nowhere because you didn't see. The long-term value, right? I'm a big believer in the laws of attraction. Whenever I'm at a crossroads or I'm like, I don't know what the right thing to do is, I I simplify it down to the laws of attraction. Like, what's good for everyone? Where there's friction, it means there's there's something that's not working. So move away from the friction and find the smoother path that makes more sense. and so yes, I think we've I think we've become transactional. I think it comes from speed and efficiency and sure, you know, AI is helping that. Everybody's optimizing, but you know, I can't recommend enough playing the long game, right? In recruiting, Brian: Yeah. Rose Steinberg: I'm not looking at someone as like, they can do the job today. It's like, are they gonna grow with this business? Is this a platform? Brian: Yeah. Rose Steinberg: Upon which that person can build the career that they want to build. And is that person, even when, you know, I run a recruiting firm now, but for the first 30 years of my own personal career, I was not in recruiting. I was building teams, I was leading customer organizations, I was highly operational, almost like, you know, a COO of a sales organization. And so when I was Brian: Mm-hmm. Rose Steinberg: interviewing people, I was like not only thinking about like, can they do the things that I need them to do today? But where will they be in three or four years? Whether it's at this company or another company, you know, that's what I'm hiring for, you know, today and tomorrow and potential. And so I think if you're expecting something immediately in return, you're probably asking the wrong question. Brian: Right. Yeah. When you first started talking, I was like, long term view. Absolutely agree with that. I Rose Steinberg: Ha ha ha. Brian: mean, that widen the scope, right? Think think of it Rose Steinberg: Mm-hmm. Brian: bigger and the total relationship. And I also love that you rely on your intuition for that. Right. If you're pushing too hard on something, pull back. Like that's probably something you've just learned from experience. Yeah. Rose Steinberg: You're missing something, right? Or like sometimes people will come to me and I have this amazing role. I need your help hiring the C level thing. We're doing X, Y, and Z. And it doesn't really happen. It may happen six or eight months later. When that happened in the beginning of running this business, it would, I mean, it would really affect me. I would, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing nothing wrong. It's a time and a place. And Brian: Yeah, I know. Rose Steinberg: If it doesn't materialize right away, it's because, you know, n they don't have all their ducks in a row. There's other things at play. You just don't worry about it. Timing. Exactly. Brian: Yeah. Timing. Timing. Timing. It's out of our control. It's so important to it. Yeah. Well, Rose Steinberg: Mm-hmm. Brian: in terms of the social fabric, w I mean what I'm trying to get at like why would you be part of this community? Is there something you want to get out of it? Is there something you can think you can give to it? But what's the general idea of you kind of joining the social fabric? Rose Steinberg: The biggest reason I want to join the social fabric and why I joined the social fabric and why I love being part of the organization is because it introduces me to ideas and people I might not have met outside of this organization and this group. it's super organic. And, you know, I don't want to just be one with the same people, one with the same thinking, one with the same ideas. I also love that like right now my networks. really strong across the country and also globally. But there's a lot of folks from the West Coast. And being that I spend most of my time in the East Coast, even though I grew up in California, it kind of brings me back to my roots and, you know, there's a lot there. So I think it just brighten broadens the horizon. And that's Brian: Yeah. Rose Steinberg: important to me. I don't want to just be, you know, in one circle or two circles. Like I'm I'm Motivated and sort of a very curious, interested person. And I love the different perspectives or even just what's going on in these other cities. Brian: Yeah. Likewise. I love that answer. Well, I've been asking people this question, which has been kind of fun for me. do you know when the last time you danced was? Rose Steinberg: yes, I sure do. So I was just in Cannes a few weeks ago. that Wednesday, I woke up in the morning and sent a few texts saying, We're gonna be twenty five again today. Get ready. Today we are gonna be 25. So I started my day at Laguerre. My intercession was, and there was some dancing, quite a bit of dancing Brian: Mm-hmm. Rose Steinberg: at Lagered. I was lucky enough to to be part of the TSO Yahoo event. That was some hardcore, literally incredible show. He was incredible. The energy, it was three almost four hours. of just energy. And I mean, why would you stop there? We ended Brian: No. Rose Steinberg: our night at Baioli. Hello. So yeah, I was successful in my I'm gonna be twenty five again. And I didn't do that on Thursday. Brian: Yeah. It sounded like you had a whole day of dancing. Rose Steinberg: Yeah, no, I felt fine. I was good. Brian: That's great. I love that answer. Rose Steinberg: Yeah, we're gonna be twenty five. Everybody can do it. Brian: Yeah, you can do it. Just a mindset. Rose Steinberg: Usually requires a passport. Brian: Yes. Well then that case it did. Who else should we have on the podcast? You want to nominate somebody to to come and have a conversation with me? Rose Steinberg: goodness i i need to think about that for a second i feel like Brian: Ha ha. Rose Steinberg: there's lots of people building interesting things Brian: yeah. Rose Steinberg: a lot of people i would think about my friend melissa grady melissa grady Brian: Okay. Rose Steinberg: she is a a marketer turned ceo you may remember her from her days at gm catillac Brian: Nice. Rose Steinberg: and now she's She's trying to solve some really interesting challenges around healthcare and and humans taking control of their health journey, you know. Brian: Yeah. Interesting. Rose Steinberg: Rob Beeler is another another really interesting person. You know who would be incredibly interesting. I mentioned her earlier. Joanna Blur, the person Brian: Okay. Rose Steinberg: who always seems to poke holes in the thing I'm not ready for her to poke holes in just yet. Brian: That's a great sounding board. Rose Steinberg: Yes. Joanna considers herself a potentialist. So I think you're gonna you're Brian: that's a great way to describe it. Rose Steinberg: you're gonna wanna talk to Joanna Blore, that is for sure. Brian: Potentialist. I really love that descriptor. good. Rose Steinberg: a Californian. Well, she's actually l living in California the last few. she's actually English. Brian: Yeah, a lot of us are transplants here, myself included. Well, Rose Steinberg: Yeah. Yeah. Brian: Rose, it has been an absolute pleasure to get to know you and to and to have a conversation with you. Thank you for joining us. Rose Steinberg: Thank you for having me. It's been my pleasure. Brian: Awesome. Well, this has been the Marking Brief Podcast in a special episode of the social fabric sessions. And to all the listeners out there, find your community.