TransferGo’s leadership strategies for maximising growth with Gareth Knight – Episode 7

We’ve all been through our personal hell recently. So how do you adapt your leadership style to make the most of your team when they’re battling the stresses of home life? In Gareth Knight’s view, a small show of vulnerability and a healthy dose of empathy goes a long way to earning your team’s respect.

Having held numerous senior and CMO roles at TransferGo and PayAsUGym and bringing his expertise to Trainline, Gareth goes into detail in this episode of the Scale of One to Tech podcast on tailoring campaigns for local markets, the varying utility of Facebook and Google’s technologies in different regions, and the conception of his incredible and unique ‘Heuristic Growth Formula’…

 

This episode covers

  • The method behind Gareth’s ‘Heuristic Growth Formula’ 
  • Identifying the skills and traits that best fit your growth marketing team
  • How leadership styles have adapted to recent adversity
  • Getting people on board with you as a new senior leader
  • How FinTech differs from other high growth industries
  • Facebook vs Google in different territories
  • Combining messaging, channel and localisation for maximum results

Links & references

 

Alex Marriner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalmarketingrecruitment/

 

Acquire Digital Talent: 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-marketing-recruitment-london/

http://www.acquiredigitaltalent.com/

 

Gareth Knight: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garethknight/

Trainline: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trainline/

 

Gareth’s LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/garethknight_growthculture-growthoriented-growth2021-activity-6775341516891160576-nSZ5/

 

Episode highlights

 

“You start needing to bring together product and data and marketing people. And in today’s world, that’s kind of called growth. You know, the old way of thinking was like just marketing, or just product, or just data. But today the loops and products are so intertwined that you need to have everybody around a table.” – 2:05 – Gareth Knight

 

“Growth marketing is becoming more of a buzzword, and there are probably companies that use it incorrectly, probably to try and make their jobs look a bit more appealing because that’s, that’s what everyone’s talking about. Then when you actually go for those roles, it unravels that it isn’t growth, it’s just a marketing role.” – 5:22 – Alex Mariner

 

“I came across a formula for conversion rate, given to me by an intern in a business I co-founded in 2007, who then went on to be head of acquisition or conversion at Spotify. He introduced me to this formula around conversion rates, and that got me thinking about what the parallel be for growth.” – 7:06 – Gareth Knight

 

“If a candidate can’t talk about how P/M Fit and data work together, then they don’t really understand growth. They’re just applying for the role because it looks good, and so that’s probably the wrong person for the job.” – 14:20 – Gareth Knight

 

“At the moment, I think leadership is about trying to understand how to be empathetic towards everybody’s situation, but at the same time trying to get them to perform so that you can still keep your business running.” -19:10  – Gareth Knight

 

“Leadership is something that you earn. It’s not something that you get given. I think the way to earn it is to build a bridge with people to understand them, and understand what drives them, and try and get them to see what value you can bring to the table so that they feel like you’re someone who understands what they’re doing.” – 25:17 – Gareth Knight

 

“What I think is happening is that FinTech is kind of like what social networking was 10-15 years ago, the curves and investment cycles are very similar. They’re just at different times. It’s been driven by the fact that people now have mobile phones, which allow them to have apps, so the attention span for finances is greater than it was in the past.” – 28:06 – Gareth Knight

 

“The one thing that was absolutely mind blowing for me was that before I got into FinTech, I was much more of a Google person than a Facebook person. Through TransferGo I’ve learnt that I was wrong, that Facebook is a lot bigger than I ever gave it credit for. And the stuff that we were able to do on Facebook really surprised me. ” – 32:13 – Gareth Knight