Paige Beal - Associate Professor, Point Park University
During her childhood, Paige Beal sold local newspapers and taught swimming lessons, never foreseeing the future career she is now able to reference to in her teachings at Point Park University. Beal attended Hood College in Maryland in 1978, graduating as a double major in Sociology and Psychology.
She reflected on this period of her life stating, “I didn’t declare that double major until the end of sophomore year. I think you have to do stuff to figure out whether you like it or not. When getting that degree, and like so many people now, I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this.’” This education decision continues to allow Beal to connect what she learned into her marketing/advertising careers when it comes to concepts like consumer behavior. “It was a plan that worked that I didn’t know was happening.”
While in her college years, Beal involved herself in radio by bringing a station to campus. Though she was unsuccessful at doing so at the time, it helped to keep her interest peaked about the radio business. “There was a really small, and I mean SMALL country radio station that was outside Harpers Ferry, West Virgina, in a little place called Brunswick, Maryland. They had advertised for somebody to be working and I was looking for a job too, so I applied. Low and behold, they accepted me and then immediately… say like, in the first couple of months, put me on air.
They taught me how to do everything. Honestly, if I hadn’t taken that opportunity who knows where I would have been or what I would’ve been doing. I just really didn’t have much direction up until then.” From that position at WTRI, she continued working in radio by holding new positions in operations, management and sales.
Now as an Associate Professor at Point Park University in the Rowland School of Business Department, she has helped students for the past 20 years become skilled in marketing through sharing her knowledge and expressing intense passion for her work.
Over your years in the marketing industry, what skill or ability do you think is the most important to embrace in the business?
“I think a combination of things, like to be curious and to like to learn a lot. You have to constantly be curious about what is next and experiment with it. In that same sense, you have to be okay if it doesn’t work out. It can be so frustrating because you’re messing around with all these technologies and platforms and you know, it may look fine then you get into it and it’s not so fine. You have to be able to step back and be like, ‘Okay… now I know that. Now I’ve learned that. Now, I have to move forward.’ Be curious, don’t be frustrated – look for a way out, it all builds together.”
When you were in Sales, what was the hardest part when trying to get people engaged in what you were selling? Did you have any tactics in your advertising that helped make it simpler?
“My philosophy on Sales is that you shouldn’t be trying to sell to someone. The word sale has become synonymous with trying to force something down somebodies throat that they don’t need.
In media, I absolutely believed that my mission was to help businesses understand what is an incredibly complex media world. Think about yourself, if you were a small business owner, let’s say you have some expertise, but not much when it comes to online marketing (building a website, manage your own socials, etc.). How do you begin? Where do you begin? I think its mind boggling for someone who is already trying to start his or her own business.
I always felt like we, as a group wherever I was, were doing a service to businesses to help them understand better what they needed. It was so great when you were able to put together a plan and see businesses succeed and it happened so frequently. That was rewarding.
When you walk into a business, you need to know that stuff so that you can help them. You can’t do it in a vacuum; all marketing exists together. There wasn’t any kind of specifics there. I would try and listen and hear what they needed. I wouldn’t get too deep in the weeds of reach and frequency, cost-per-point and stuff like that. Small businesses don’t have time or the bandwidth to deal with that kind of information. Try to speak plainly, clear and give them information that will help them. Listen and hear what their problems are, respond with things that they can do something about and do not overwhelming them with huge proposals.”
What was the experience of owning Moxie Marketing Media Consultancy like compared to when you owned WPME FM 95.5?
“That was a station in Maine that I owned, built the tower, got the frequency from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Honestly, I didn’t end up operating this station; I sold it to someone else to run, for a variety of reasons. It had to do with the economy and being a female owner of a station in Maine, which didn’t put me in the best situation. It did pay for my M.B.A. though, so that worked out really well. It helped me a lot for understanding more about engineering. That was very different from Moxie.
My main client there was Comcast and I did a ton of training. It was all about trying to keep their account executives up-to-date on what they needed to know about emerging technologies and platforms, as well as Sales skills and a variety of things. I also worked with KDKA and a couple other entities at the same time. I ended up doing so much work with Comcast that I had a hard time taking on any other clients.”
Looking back on your experiences of business establishing, is there anything that you would warn those wanting to begin a business about or would you encourage the challenging opportunity?
“I was doing a couple businesses when I was with Moxie. I was doing some adjunct teaching, which I loved. It was the first time I did some teaching while I was doing the consultancy. I was also running the alpaca farm at that time.
In that alpaca farm, I had another business where I worked with other alpaca breeders and farms. I did weekend seminars with them about how to build a business, things that are important to that (particularly an alpaca business) and what they needed to know about marketing to do it well. Yeah, so there was a lot going on at that time, but I think it is helpful to have somewhat of a business background to have an understanding of the general aspects of naming, branding, accounting, website design, content creation, etc. You need to be relatively selfdirected to do that kind of stuff and enjoy that; essentially you have to be a jackof-all-trades.”
Wait- what was the alpaca farm?
“It was ‘Pittsburgh Alpacas’ in Zelienople, up north. It was a small farm. I had 10 alpacas at any given time on my farm. You breed alpacas kind of like show dogs or show horses. So, I bought alpacas. There was one that was exported from Peru to Australia and then to Canada and I bought her there. You have to try and find the right combination to have the progeny that’s a good alpaca.
Alpaca fleece is some of the finest fleece in the world. The Inca used to call it their ‘gold’ because it’s just, amazing. We would shear them every year. Their fleece was a separate part of the business, kind of like merchandise.
It was so much fun and I love animals. I enjoyed being outdoors; I had an orchard and vineyard at the same time.”
How did you get into that?
“You know what, I had just launched the consultancy and I was doing a variety of things. I wanted to have a good balance of home and this work. I always wanted to have a small farm, but I didn’t know what animal I would be able to work with or what kind of crops that I could physically be able to handle as one person. Alpaca’s are about our weight and size, so they’re not too overwhelming. They’re real fun to be around and just bizarre.
I looked into the business and it worked out to be great. When I exited the alpaca business it was because I got my full-time position at Point Park. At that time my parents were alive and I needed to put them into assisted living. I thought to myself, ‘I think there is really a limit to the amount of poop any one person can pick up in one lifetime and maybe it’s time for me to make a move like that as well’. So… I moved into the city.”
Out of all the positions you’ve held, which has been the most uplifting, educational and fulfilling?
“Bar none, teaching.
When I’m working full-time, like when I went back to Spotlight, you know, I learned a lot there, but it is very focused. It’s business and it’s about monetization. I had to meet a budget of 35-36 million dollars a year and so, you have to be really focused on that. The world outside of that bubble where you are becomes less important by necessity because you only have a certain amount of bandwidth.
I love teaching because I get to meet 80 new, fascinating people with a lot to offer, two times a year. I learn a lot from all of you and I can experiment and kind of be curious. Try and fail in a world that has less ramifications. Where else do you that?
A close runner-up would be when I was with Cox Interactive Media because that was a shift from traditional media into a completely online platform. That was like the early 2000s, so it was a great time to do it. It forced me to continue to do more with technology.”
What is your favorite and least favorite part about teaching at Point Park University?
“My favorite is the learning and trying to make class as engaging as possible: it’s very challenging, but a good challenge. My least favorite part is, you know, there are great students, but sometimes there are some people that are so disconnected. There are so few of them, so I don’t want to take a whole lot of time talking about it.
I just get frustrated because I know somebody is paying for that person’s education. I worry about what I don’t know, like what is going on in their life that they don’t have any time for this and there is so little we can do to help when that happens. This is kind of what I say to myself when I think of those issues, is that you know, you might want to help, but honestly, if people don’t want help or if they’re just in that place, there isn’t much you can do. They really have to do it for themselves.
Anyway – that was kind of a downer, sorry.”
Do you favor any companies based on their marketing tactics (like their digital media content, advertising strategies, website design, etc.)?
“That’s a great question – I don’t know if I have a favorite. I more just check out a ton of different ones.
I watch what’s happening on AdWeek or AdAge or Marketing Grew. I have a number of things I subscribe to see what is going on recently. I don’t know anybody off the top of my head that I’d be like ‘Oh, 360 - I love everything they do.’
Erykah Badu and what she did for exploring and trying to do her own thing: wanting to own her audience, create her own pay wall and stream her own concerts. She seems to have created a reputation solely around that.”
With everything happening with the current pandemic, have you seen any marketing strategies or campaigns that have stood out to you the most? Why do you think they did?
“I think, in this time, a socially responsible approach to things is super important. Like I admire the fact that Dicks Sporting Goods isn’t selling guns. I usually make post to try and remember and recognize these things. I think being thoughtful at this point is a good idea. I really have enjoyed how Nike goes about their business. They do really embrace social issues thoughtfully in a way that can be inspiring, which you don’t see often.
We’ve seen a lot of pivots in the sports teams about social justice, which I think is wonderful and unexpected quite frankly. Honestly, I’m not a huge Taylor Swift music fan, but I am a fan of her approach to things. I think she has really stepped up. From a marketing perspective, I think that her expertise has been outstanding. She really connects with her fans, keeps it real and has learned how to monetize that. When she began speaking out about politics, I thought that was really brave and something she did without people getting irritated. When I was watching about her documentary about how she kind of realize how she needed to say stuff, I realized it was a specific decide she made and had.
I love Michelle Obama. Those aren’t really brand… well, I guess they’re kind of brands in the sense of Marketing.”
Connect with Paige
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigebeal/
