Business Athletes: Katie Perry

Hello and welcome to Business Athletes everyone! 

Each week, we’ll explore the athlete-like habits behind a different business leader. In less than 5-minutes, we aim to provide you with practical tactics that you can quickly apply in your day-to-day.⚡️

In our 7th edition, we sat down with Katie Perry, Principal at Ursa Major Media, expert in strategic marketing, and co-host of After Earnings, a podcast by MorningBrew and Stakeholder Labs, a new show offering retail investors a fresh, in-depth look at public companies and the executives who lead them.

Previously, Katie was also the VP of Marketing at Public.com during the meme stock era of GameStop and others.

Winning Routines

A Morning Of Movement

A typical day for me (hopefully!) begins with waking up early, and going to the gym before heading to the office. I try to workout most days because exercise is really important to me. It's good for my mental health, and I always played sports growing up and enjoyed it, so I'll fit it in either in the morning or at night. 

After the gym, I head to my office. My new one is closer to where I live, so that cuts about 30 minutes off my commute. Most days I am bopping around client offices and studios, so it’s not uncommon for me to be at three different locations during the day.

It’s Not About The Environment

At this point of my career I’ve worked in just about every office type one can. I’ve been in cold corporate offices, creative agencies with beer on tap, bare bones startup spaces, and co-working offices.

I’ve learned how to adapt to each of these and ultimately, the actual workspace doesn’t matter much to me. The one thing I will say is that I find it difficult to work from home, so I avoid that.

Mapping Out Time

I really like owning my schedule. On Sundays I usually look ahead and block some time for focus or heads-down work on various projects.

Sometimes my calendar feels like a game of Tetris, so it’s important for me to take control before the week starts, understanding that some things may shift.

Pre-Game Preparation

The Win Before The Show

I co-host a podcast on Morning Brew called After Earnings, where we sit down with public company CEOs. I’ve learned to appreciate how much energy it takes during the recordings. You have to actively listen, stay on your game, all while being enthusiastic. 

But I just love doing the show because every week I am forced to learn about a new topic or industry. I was a nerd in school and college. I never skipped a class and read every book. With the show, it’s the same, I’m always studying.  It’s so fun to dig into things like space infrastructure, biotech, and supply chain.

I take the prep seriously given the expertise of our guests, which means reading past earnings reports, call transcripts, and analyst commentaries. With that, I need to understand the economics of their industry and the metrics that matter most. In some ways, it feels like the early stages of a book report.

Never Unprepared

To me, performing in any high-pressure situation is 100% preparation. 

Last week I had an opportunity of a lifetime, where I got to present slides and campaign ideas to a childhood hero of mine. Coming into that presentation, I just had to know my material like the back of my hand. I got a head start on the prep work and baked in time for rehearsals.

It's all preparation. Growing up my parents always used to say, “It’s not magic.” And this applied to basically everything we did. Even the best speakers, presenters, and leaders prep, practice, and put in the time. 

If I had a professional pet peeve it would be wasting the first half of a meeting orienting around things that could have been covered in the prep.

Building Confidence Like A Skill

I see confidence as a skill. In my client work I am confident in what I’m doing. I have a lot of experience in the services I offer and only take on clients and work that align with that experience.

When it comes to the After Earnings show (on camera work), this is new terrain for me that requires entirely different skills. It’s humbling but also exciting to try something new and actively improve.

Sometimes as we mature in our careers, we think, “Oh, I’m not great at that, or I don't do that.” But it’s actually fun to learn a new skill and it's okay to not be fully confident in it.

There’s a great quote by Bruce Springsteen that goes, “Believe you are the baddest ass in town – and also that you suck.”

Gameday

Public.com & The Digital Brokerage Championship

The meme stock era was a crazy time to be working at a stock trading app. How crazy? We turned negative chatter about  our competitor and turned it into an original Michael Bolton song that outlined our differentiators. 

I remember the media coverage making it to be Public.com vs. Robinhood - but it was never about us versus them. We had our vision, our plan, and all we wanted to do was execute on it. 

Looking back at it, our team doubled in size in a couple of months. We also had so many new users coming and it was putting a lot of pressure on our processes. It was all hands on deck. It was during Covid, and we were all at home and we were all working crazy hours. I remember at one point, I even made this motivational playlist and dropped it in Slack (before realizing it was definitely NSFW).

It all felt like something big was happening and I was in the middle of it. I learned that that’s when I do my best work sometimes. And it brought us together in a way that when people joined the company later on that weren't there for that, it was a little different.

That tension we all felt meant that there was something on the line, and I am most motivated if there's some sort of drama or tension involved. It’s just like when I used to play soccer, and the game was on the line, I always wanted the ball. I feel that in my work life too. I really love when an opportunity just pops up at the last minute and I know it's going to blow up my day or week, but I'm like - let's do it, give me the ball.

Player vs. Team

Coach vs. Player

If I'm being honest with myself, I think I'm a much better individual contributor than I am a people manager.

I am often in roles that are part player, part coach. I think I’m a good coach, but I think coaching is different from people management. I don’t think I am the best pure-play people manager.

Don’t get me wrong: people management is super important - getting the most out of people, getting the efficiency and productivity out of the team.

It also means letting people fail and letting go of control. You have to be patient. That’s always been hard for me since I lean on my individual contributor side a little more. This is something I'm continuously working on.

Hyper-direct Feedback

But one thing I’ll say is that I think there needs to be more opportunities for teams to give managers feedback. I usually send Google surveys out to my team asking for hyperdirect feedback.

I don’t want them to be scared to answer truthfully. I want them to tell me straight up what I suck at. That’s really the only way to grow. 

Post-Game

No Judgment Zone

During the week, I rest when I sleep. I live in New York, so sometimes, even hanging out with friends doesn't feel like a proper rest. This is easily the most exhausted I’ve been in a long time, but I’m having a lot of fun.

During the day, if I feel myself burning out or in a mental rut or something, I'll get up and take a lap around the office or walk around the block. If it gets too much, I’ll just head home and finish my work there. 

But after a tough week, I’ll probably lean on that flexibility I touched on earlier. Maybe I’ll make it to dinner Friday night, but usually I’ll just take the day off on Saturday - like a no judgment zone - and just watch seven hours of Netflix, order a pizza, and just be lazy. I can literally feel myself charging back up.

The Business Athlete Mindset

Ownership Mentality

It's been three months since I went off on my own (building my own business vs. plugging into an organization) and the level of accountability is just magnitudes different. 

I've always been someone where I'm very accountable at work. I take pride in what I do. If I put my name on anything, I want it flawless to a fault. But that just 10x more true when you're on your own, because you're not only letting team members down or failing to meet client expectations - you’re also letting yourself down and messing with your own bag. 

It’s critical to have an ownership mentality when you’re working for yourself. 

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