Did you hear Sean gas me up at the end? B-)
April 9th was the annual AMA STL conferance, and it was a great time! Today we are listening to some marketing confessionals from some of the amazing guests!
All the guests that shared their amazing advice:
Sean: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanjjordan/
Amanda: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandachamov/
Stephanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniezettl/
Keisha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keishamabry/
Marisa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisalather/
Brandon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandontowl/
Kyle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-coble-b4258b3/
Olivia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-roberts-stl/
Katie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiemartell/
Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-niehaus/
Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryangreen83/
If you would like to be a part of the St. Louis chapter of the AMA and come to future events, please visit the AMA website: https://amasaintlouis.org/
This month is donate life month. If you are interesting in becoming an organ donor, or you would just like to know more, please visit https://donatelife.net/.
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes: https://www.themarketinggateway.com
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
Transcript:
Sean Jordan (00:01)
Okay, so last week, production assistant Holly and I went to the annual conference for the American Marketing Association, St. Louis chapter. It was at Webster University. And there was this amazingly well-run conference with some great speakers. In fact, next week, I’m gonna cover all of the talks and give you some key takeaways that I learned. But we decided to do something fun while we were there and we set up a booth and we asked some of the attendees.
to come in and tell us what is and isn’t working for them in marketing. And you know what? Some of them were actually nice enough to share that. So here’s an example of mine, just so you get an idea of what you’re in for.
I am so excited to share these with you. And since I know that some of you watch this podcast on YouTube and some of you listen on your favorite podcast platform, we’ll be sure to give you a quick introduction to each of these folks that Holly managed to convince to sit down and tell us what’s up. I’m Sean in St. Louis and this is the Marketing Gateway.
Sean Jordan (01:30)
Let’s start off hearing from our fearless event MC, Keisha Mabry-Haymore, who kept the energy going all day long. She’s a certified AI educator, author, tech leader, and community builder who works with companies like Google and Verizon and…
higher education institutions, and also speaks all over the place.
Here’s Amanda Chamov, one of our awesome conference speakers who spoke about how to make events engaging. And she should know she’s the director of the Experience Studio at American Express Global Business Travel Meetings and Events.
Nick Niehaus was another one of our speakers and he’s the founder of Everyday AI, co-founder and head trainer of Business Video School, and past president of our St. Louis AMA Chapter.
Marissa Lather is the current co-president of our St. Louis AMA Chapter and one of the chief planners of this conference. She did a great job. She’s also the data-driven communications research lab director at Meltwater.
Ryan Green was one of our first speakers of the day, and fans of the marketing gateway are sure to recognize him from his great episode a few weeks back. He’s the founder and chief media officer at The Last Splash.
Olivia Roberts took a moment to share her thoughts too. She’s a solution specialist at Black Raven AFC.
Dr. Kyle Kovill is a regular around the AMA and also a professor to many of the students who attend our events. He’s a professor of marketing at Lydenwood University.
Here’s the amazing Brandon Toll. He was one of our first guests on the Marketing Gateway, and he’s also in charge of the coffee club events for the St. Louis AMA. He’s also the founder at Human Driven Understanding, and words have impact.
Everyone was checking out Stephanie Zettel’s photography booth and the awesome head shot she’s done for many folks in the AMA. She’s the owner and president at Zettel Photography.
And Katie Martel closed out our conference as an amazingly passionate keynote speaker for the day. And we caught her while she still had some energy and excitement left to share.
She’s the marketing truth teller, communications consultant, host, emcee, and charity auctioneer at RabbleRouser.
I want to thank all of our conference attendees who stopped by the booth and shared their marketing confessional with us. Every one of you is a marketing mentor to all of us, and we appreciate you. And I also want to thank the conference organizers and volunteers for the incredible job they did. There are so many people who deserve to be recognized. We’ll post a link to Marissa’s message thanking them all in the show notes. We have an amazing marketing community in St. Louis, and it’s because these folks work so hard to make it happen.
And finally, a big thanks to Holly Wooten, the production assistant for the Marketing Gateway, who recorded all these videos. Holly’s not on screen often, but she’s a-
big part of this show and we appreciate her. Next week I’m going to take you through some of the talks from this awesome conference and share my own reactions and takeaways. I’m Sean in St. Louis. This has been the Marketing Gateway. We’ll see you next time.
Sean Jordan (14:32)
This month, it’s National Donate Life Month, and so I want to encourage you to consider registering to be an organ donor. Did you know that one organ donor can not only save up to eight lives, but can also donate corneas that can help people with their vision and tissue that can be made into hundreds of incredibly beneficial medical products? Your gift of life can go really far in benefiting others, potentially 75 lives or more.
and you might be surprised who can be a donor and what can be donated. Even people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s can be donors today. When you register to be a donor, all you’re doing is saying, if I die, I want my organs and tissues to go to the people who need them. You can be confident that the doctors and nurses who are taking care of you will do everything they can to keep you alive, and it’s up to them, not the people recovering the organs, to decide when you’ve reached a point where you cannot come back. Every now and then, there’s a sensational news story about a situation where the hospital got it wrong, but
Those cases are rare, and that’s why there are so many precautions in place to ensure that donation is administered with safety, respect, transparency, and a high degree of ethical behavior. Donors are heroes, and they’re treated with dignity. And there’s an important reason why you need to consider this. There are over 100,000 people on the National Transplant Registry right now who will die if they don’t receive an organ. Many of them need a kidney transplant and have to go…
and do dialysis treatments daily just to stay alive. Dialysis is time consuming and not a lot of fun. And those individuals have trouble leading healthy, happy, productive lives because they’re really, really sick. 13 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant. So imagine there’s a mom out there who needs a second chance to take care of her kids or a new grandfather wants to see his grandkids grow up or a child who wants to have a chance at leading a full life or
a newlywed who hasn’t had a chance to settle down and start a family yet. All of these sorts of people and more just like them are on the waiting list now and they need your help. I personally know many of the hardworking professionals who get those donated gifts to the people in need and let me tell you, I’m always amazed by their passion, their professionalism and their dedication to caring for donors and their families. So please visit DonateLife.net and click on register to be a donor. If you’re willing to read up on the resources to learn more,
Feel free, and if you’re not ready to register but still want to be a donor, please tell your family and friends so that if they have to make the decision for you, they will know your wishes. And you won’t be alone. 90 % of Americans support organ donation.
Leave a Reply