848: What It Means to Do Category Design in Marketing With Christopher Lochhead, Category Pirates [Main T4C Episode]

Christopher Lochhead is an entrepreneur and former three time Silicon Valley CMO at Mercury Interactive, Scient and Vantive. He is also the host of two top-rated business podcasts, Follow Your Different and Lochhead on Marketing and is the co-author of two books, Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets (2016) and Niche Down: How To Become Legendary By Being Different (2018). Chris got into entrepreneurship at a young age because he was thrown out of school at 18 after failing most of his classes.  He was later diagnosed with dysgraphia and dyslexia. Chris is a self-described graduate of the School of Hard Knocks. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE: Why profanity has become such an integral part of Chris’ identity (5:30) Why Chris was kicked out of high school when he was 18 (8:00) Why the arts were so important for Chris while he was still in school (18:08) How entrepreneurship can be both a way “up” and a way “out” (23:25) Why Chris rejected traditional marketing advice and carved out his own path (26:00) How working as a member of the volunteer ski patrol helped Chris meet multiple mentors (34:43) Why Chris thinks it’s important to be entrepreneurial, regardless of the career that you’re in or your age (40:07) Why listening is such an important skill and what’s the most important question you should ask (52:18) How to differentiate yourself (57:55)