Humans of HubSpot: Chris Martin
Hey Community,
This week we want to spotlight Chris Martin you might know him as @CJ_24K in the Community.
Chris shared how he started using HubSpot and what he does for work. Discover what he does in his free time and with whom he would like to have dinner.
Tell us about yourself
I didn't always want to be a marketer. For the longest time, I dreamt of directing movies. But the young enterprise programme changed that for me. And over the year that followed, I fell in love with marketing; learning how to blend creativity and strategy to create commercially successful, purposeful brands.
Since then, I haven't looked back. And now, in my capacity as a marketing leader, I aim to ensure my work aligns with three key principles:
1. Sustainable growth is the best kind of growth.
2. Marketing brings the right products to the right markets.
3. Brands should prioritise people, planet & profit in that order.
Over the course of my career, I have helped brands in the finance, technology and insight industries achieve sustainable, meaningful growth.
Today, I am proud to be a part of the FlexMR leadership team, guiding the agency's international presence from strength to strength. I bring a digital background and classical education to this role, complemented by experience in communications planning, brand management, strategy development and tactical execution.
In all that I do, I am passionate about business sustainability, promoting diversity in tech leadership, contributing to local economic empowerment and improving global food security.
Outside of my professional life, I enjoy table-top RPGs, geek culture, and travelling as much of the world as possible.
How did you start using HubSpot? Was it in your current role, or a different role?
I was the first marketing hire at FlexMR during a critical period of change and growth during 2015. One of the first changes we soon realised the company needed was an integrated CRM (to replace excel spreadsheets and digital rolodexes), as well as a concerted digital marketing push.
Over the next few months, I led an evaluation of the various options on the market - including the big three: HubSpot, Salesforce and Marketo. But it was pretty obvious early on which platform would be our winner. HubSpot solved the challenges we had, near to a tee. So, for the next year, I disappeared into a world of CRM setup, content creation, workflow management and more. Ever since, FlexMR has been growing alongside HubSpot, taking advantage of every new feature we can.
Tell us a little bit about your company and your position.
FlexMR is the Insights Empowerment Company. For over a decade, we've been building online consumer insights technology that helps research, product and marketing teams act decisively, with confidence in their decisions.
We work with leading brands, including The Home Depot, Philips, Reckitt and Formula One to put customer insights at the heart of decisions and build a culture of customer-centricity. Our award-winning InsightHub platform offers access to a suite of data collection and analysis tools spanning online surveys, focus groups & communities among others. Our experienced research team also offer a variety of operational, consultative and supporting services that help our clients take their budgets further and deliver agile, impactful insight.
In short, we don't believe in maintaining the status quo of slow, dull market research. We know the future is agile. The future is hybrid. The future is empowering. And we're building it today.
As Chief Marketing Officer, it's my role - alongside a fantastic leadership and marketing team - to set our strategic vision, align FlexMR to the needs of our market, and cultive sustainable growth.
What do you do for fun outside of work?
Outside of my day job, I'm actively involved in the UK's North West entrepreneur community - supporting homegrown, local business growth. I'm also an avid Dungeons & Dragons player (who has even published a few modules of my own). When that's not keeping me occupied, I'm working on an upcoming research paper about the future of the purpose economy - and how it could shake the foundations of commercial capitalism as we know it.
If you could have dinner with anyone in the world. (past or present), who would it be and why?
I'd have to say David Lynch. Not only is his work an inspiration to me, but I'm fascinated by what I can't understand. And that is one creative mind I'd find incredible to witness in action.
Thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself with us @CJ_24K. I loved reading about your career journey!
Do you want to keep in touch with Chris? Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Stay tuned for our next Humans of HubSpot post for next week!
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Humans of HubSpot: Chris Martin
@CJ_24K stumbled upon this and am really glad I did, nice to learn more about you and your journey with HubSpot! Looking forward to seeing you around the community!
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