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How I Made it in Marketing

Marketing Strategy for Media: Listen first, sell second (podcast episode #127)

Feb 20, 2025
39:44

What if collaborating with a competitor could significantly boost your revenue? That’s exactly what Sagnik Roy, SVP at Times Internet [https://timesinternet.in/], did. In this episode, he shares how listening before selling and prioritizing soft skills reshaped his career.

Times Internet has 571 million monthly users and a US audience of five million. It is owned by the Times Group, publisher of The Economic Times and The Times of India, the largest English-language newspaper by circulation. The Times Group is a private company and claims revenue exceeding a billion dollars a year.

Roy manages a team of 15 to 20 people across three customer-facing brands.

Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

  • Ask, or you’ll never know
  • Prioritize soft skills when hiring
  • Listen first, sell second
  • Lead with latitude
  • Precision builds trust
  •  Transparency is strength

Discussed in this episode

Join us for Get Productive With AI [https://join.meclabsai.com/mec050-accelerated] on February 27th at 1 pm EST.

Strategic Delegation: Time is your most precious asset (podcast episode #96) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/strategic-delegation]

Marketing Pragmatism: Embrace ‘hand-grenade math’ over false precision (podcast episode #101) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/marketing-pragmatism]

Sustainable Marketing: Take the time to understand your target audience deeply and your value proposition (podcast episode #104) [https://marketingsherpa.com/article/interview/sustainable]

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This podcast is not about marketing – it is about the marketer. It draws its inspiration from the Flint McGlaughlin quote, “The key to transformative marketing is a transformed marketer” from the Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages [https://meclabs.com/course/] free digital marketing course.

 

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