Episode 502 Making a Career Change With Marcus Burnette
Show Summary
This podcast features an interview with Marcus Burnette, who recently transitioned from a field marketing role at GoDaddy to a position at BlueHost. Burnette discusses his career change, emphasizing the importance of considering family needs and pursuing opportunities that align with personal goals. He highlights the challenges and rewards of working in support, and the value of maintaining connections within the WordPress community. The conversation also touches upon the importance of work-life balance and the impact of remote work on both personal and professional life. The podcast is hosted by Rob Cairns, who shares his own experiences with career transitions.
Show Transcript
Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here and today with me is somebody’s been on with me a couple times before, Mr. Marcus Burnette. How are you Marcus? I am doing pretty well, Rob. Still getting used to that a little bit. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but yeah,
it has been. And you’ve been a busy boy. You’ve been reaching out in your new role, talking to agencies, trying to find out what makes them tick. I know we had a conversation last week and we talked a little bit about what agencies look for and all that good stuff. And I think it’s really important uh I’ll say for web host to stay in tune with the agency market. because I think that can make their life really good or really bad depending on how you want to play it.
Yeah, for sure. Um, you know, agencies, uh, it’s no surprise agencies have lots of clients, lots of sites. It’s obviously, uh, you know, gold mine, I guess, from a hosting standpoint that, uh, if you can
get in well with agencies that, you know, you stand a chance to have some decent business there with with the clients and stuff. Blue Host is clearly not the only company um that is having conversations with agencies, but my goal is uh to make Blue Host the obvious choice for agencies. So, that’s that’s what I’m doing here.
Yeah, I don’t I don’t blame you. I mean, you got to you got to the agencies are where you don’t just pick up the oneoffs and uh and hopefully your support costs drop because the agencies know what they’re doing and things like that, right? The agent, it’s not like dealing with an individual user. where you’ve got a user who’s a user, a traditional user, and they have no technical background and they’re calling saying help where an agency client’s calling saying help, but they’ve exhausted the 20 things already, right?
Yeah. Um it it definitely spans the the gamut of different technical abilities, I guess, when you look at agencies. Depends on
kind of what they specialize in and how big the agencies are, right? How deep their their employee roster goes, if you will, um how technical an agency might be. But yeah, chances are if an agency is reaching out to you, they’ve they’ve done their due diligence. They’ve done everything they can to figure out what it is that might might be the issue. And uh
you know, now they’re reaching out for what might be maybe more difficult help, but at least they’ve done a lot of of grunt work for you and ruling a lot of things out, which is helpful.
It sure is. So, what I wanted to talk today is you just made a career move. And I need to start this talk by saying you and I both have amazing friends and colleagues at GoDaddy. We do. And I need to put that out there right away. This is And you know, I’ve got a couple sites on GoDaddy, including a large WooCommerce site. We’ve talked about that over the your time there and offline and extra. So, we need to make this clear that we both love the guys at GoDaddy, but times we make career moves for us and that’s really important. I I did that the last time 15 years ago. I came out of healthcare. I’ve been in healthcare for 22 years, Marcus. And as an IT lead, I was running million-dollar projects. Um the director called me in had a little bit of a vendetta against me. I’ve been on vacation for three weeks and my first day back, I was gone. And uh you know, no welcome, welcome home, Rob from vacation. patients and at the time my dad had pancreatic cancer and we knew we were dealing with months not and weeks and not uh years to be honest pancreatic cancer anybody doesn’t know the turnaround time is so low and I had planned and I was already kind of in that mode where I was transitioning into running a webdev agency which turned into be a marketing agency and I made that change for a number of reasons family uh friends um flexible work a little bit. I’m probably busier now than I’ve ever been, but that’s another story. That’s my choice. And so on. And I wanted to dive in. Did you make the the switch for career and for family?
Um yeah, I it’s definitely a career shift transition for me. However, I will say that my about face isn’t quite as uh as it’s not as as much of an about face as you know, moving from healthcare to web devel development. Um,
you know, I’m still in in the hosting space, still in the WordPress space. Uh, and I kind of just wanted to echo what you said up top, right? This had nothing to do with the team. I I’m quite fond of GoDaddy and the things that um the team is doing over there, especially the folks in the WordPress space
um and and especially the the field marketing team that I was on. I have nothing but fantastic things to say. about the people personally and the the work that they’re doing over there. Um that being said, the shift was, you know, it felt like I had done what I wanted to do um at the, you know, on the field marketing team there, I felt like um while I still want to be in person with the community um that maybe I wanted to travel a little bit less, which if you know anything about the field marketing team, it’s all about being in person at events um and sharing both what GoDaddy was doing with PE with with attendees at the events and also bringing back information from attendees to um to GoDaddy to help improve products and stuff. And again, I I definitely still want to be and plan to be at events in the community, but maybe not as frequently as I was doing there. And um yeah, it just seemed like a good time for me to kind of transition over this this opportunity popped up on my radar um kind of out of nowhere. Um
when I read through what they were looking for, it was essentially a culmination of my background um having worked at an agency myself for 10 plus years, working in support, working in um in the in the community and being a big part of the the WordPress community. Um it felt like something I needed to pursue just because of how closely the the job description matched my resume essentially. Um so I decided to, you know, pursue it at least and see what what doors might be open there and uh seemed to work out for me.
Yeah. And and support’s a tough one. Like you know, we’re both looking at each other. We both worked in support. Um one of my roles in healthcare was I was the team leader for the internal um call center. So I know the support gig Oh, more than most people. And I was also on call all the time. So, I can I can tell you that’s hard. And it um and when you’re doing that, especially when you’re doing after hours support, and you’re not as much, but you uh it it pushes a toll on you, your family, and everything else. And the stresses, the support is 90% of the time when people come to you in support roles, they have a problem. If you’re dealing with people with problems, they’re not coming coming to you to say, “Hey, Mark, because I’m working on something new like I do and saying, “Can you help me out?” versus, “I got a problem and I’m stuck.” Right.
Yeah, that’s definitely the case. When by the time they get to support, it’s usually usually the problem usually have already been frustrated by the problem to some extent. So, they’re
coming in hot maybe at times. Um, and I try to take my experience and support and and do this when others don’t. But you rarely rarely get much more than a, you know, five star rating at the end of it to say whether you did a decent job or not. So, I’ve I’ve taken that experience and I make sure to, you know, adequately thank support folks that have done a good job helping me out because I know that it’s by and large fairly thankless.
Y
um I would say a big part of this just knowing you as well as I do is to travel. You have a family, a busy family. Yeah. activities on the go all the time. Um, and I I just know as somebody who does some travel, it does wear on you after a while. Uh, it’s hard when you pick up, you go to a word camp, um, and then you got to pick up two days later and come home and that’s on the weekend when, you know, families are busy and people are busy and things got to happen, right?
Yeah, for sure. Um, you know, I love traveling. I love being in new places. Um, But I more love doing those things with my family um than by myself.
And so um yeah, getting a chance to kind of be home and with my family a little bit more is great. Um I have two girls. They’re 14 and 11, so they’re um you know, young enough to be sweet and not old enough to want to run away from mom and dad just yet. They want to hang out with us. They’ve got lots of fun things going on. One’s a theater girl. They both play basketball. Y
and so we have a lot of that stuff going on and you know these are
I don’t know kind of prime years I think um they’re great to have old enough to have conversations with and they’re doing lots of fun things and it’s really only a matter of a few years before they’re off doing their own things. So this is definitely that you know important time I think in their lives for you know us to be around and doing things together as much as possible
and uh yeah so I I think that’s important. I think uh family is like utmost and I always say to people you work to live um you don’t you don’t live to work and work helps you get there and if it’s
you know you’re on the go all the time that’s that’s stress enough um how’s the transition been in making the move in blue host and they’re based I forget where they’re based out of so help me out here or they’re overseas right
um no they’re based actually right here in Florida in Jacksonville. That is where the headquarters are. Um I believe back in the day they were based out of Arizona. Um just like GoDaddy is, but they are their headquarters are in Jacksonville, Florida. So
I have not been there, but they’re within a couple hours drive of where I live in Orlando here. Um
so I assume I’ll end up there at some point to check it out. But um yeah, the the transition has been good. You know, a bittersweet. Like I said, I really enjoyed the team that I was with at GoDaddy. So,
not having the, you know, daily conversations there. I mean, we we’ve still kept in touch, but not having the daily conversations there is,
um, you know, missing that a little bit still. Um, that being said,
I didn’t move to Blue Host completely, um, you know, alone in know and not knowing anybody. Um, as is the case for the WordPress community in general, we know lots of folks from lots of different companies. Um, so I stepped into these shoes at Blue Host knowing a solid couple dozen folks in the company already in this WordPress space. Uh, several of them that I now get to work with fairly closely. So, um, the transition in has been fairly easy. I’ve had lots of people reach out and say, you know, welcome to, you know, with in the internal Microsoft Teams, welcome to the team. Glad to have you here and all of that stuff. And I’ve gotten to kind of hit the ground running a little bit. Um, they’ve given me some autonomy to kind of get myself settled in and learn the products and make a plan for myself, which has been really nice. Um, so yeah, it’s been a it’s been a pretty pretty good transition so far.
Yeah. And then the other thing you were saying was and and it kind of resonates with me, you mentioned that you felt you had done all you could do at at GoDaddy at the time. And uh, that’s a big one for me. because I always say to people, I’m driven by challenge, not by necessarily money. The money will come. I I believe that wholeheartedly. Um, but I’m very much a challenged driven person. And I put you in that same pot, so to speak. Marcus, you like the challenge.
Yeah, definitely. And and I don’t know, I I did say that there’s always work to be done. It’s not that I ran out of things to do that
um you know, GoDaddy hit all of its marks and has done everything it’s going to do. They’re they’re going to keep working. They’re going to keep growing and improving. And, you know, certainly I could have a hint there. I think what drew me to this position was um maybe the the the ability to have a more of a voice and be able to have a greater impact um specifically on the agency experience at Blue Host than than maybe the impact that I was able to have where I was. on the field team. Uh I really enjoyed again being in the community with everyone and I still plan to do that. But um you know I think I have a a greater chance at impacting agencies more directly in this role than I was able to uh on the field team.
Do you miss working for an agency at times?
Um no.
Um I I miss I was I would say that I miss being creative and develop designing and developing things, but that’s where side projects come in. That’s always I’ve always been a huge advocate of people doing side projects where
you’re not on someone else’s deadline. You don’t have to answer to someone else’s design critique or, you know, make the logo bigger or any of that stuff. You can kind of do what you want. So, you know, the biggest current side project that I have obviously is the WP World
World.
I get a chance to build the WordPress directory that I want to build there in the way that I want to do it on my time. Um, and so there, you know, no deadlines there. So I I still get a chance to be creative. I still get a chance to write code, keep my skills sharp there, think strategically about how I would, you know, market the site, you know, present it on social media and all of that stuff. And that kind of that kind of fulfills that for me anytime I feel, you know, that that uh to doing the agency work, you know, I can jump into the WP world and continue to build that up.
Yeah, I I would agree with you. I mean, that that’s the biggest thing. And you don’t have to stress to dealing with the agency clients, which I can tell you at times is is a stress uh monster. And uh sometimes it’s tough. Sometimes it’s really tough. And
the arguments I have with myself in my head are hard enough. I don’t have to deal with other people on that.
Yeah, there’s a few of those. Um, yeah. So, that’s that’s uh really interesting and I think people need to really look at their careers and say, “Okay, where do you want to go and where does your family fit into that?” I think too many times we take promotions or stuff and and people don’t think about their families and they don’t they don’t think about the hours and they don’t think about the times away. So, you should be commended for doing that because I think a lot of people don’t look that way.
Yeah, it’s actually interesting. This is the first time that I’ve gone from one remote job to another, right? So, my
my office is what’s behind me right now. It was a week ago, it was a month ago, it was a year ago, it will be next week and next month.
So, the office doesn’t change, the commute doesn’t change. There are a lot of things that don’t change. Um, but there are some things that do change like the travel time and that. And so, this is kind of of my girls are now like I said 14 and 11.
Yep.
Kind of kind of shared this opportunity with the family. Talked it over with my wife first of course. Um but then we kind of had the ability to sort of talk it over together and I got you know their thoughts about you know me being home more or any of that kind of stuff. And it was definitely interesting to kind of involve the family in that process because like you said it really ultimately does affect the family. So seemed like a weird thing to just make that decision myself when, you know, there are so many people around me that are affected by it.
Um, so we had a chance to talk it through and um, you know, figure out what what made the most sense and yeah, it was definitely a a family decision.
Yeah, I think remote jobs, you mentioned that. I think for a lot of people that’s hard. You and I both do it. I’ve done it for I’m going on year 16, give or take. So there you go. The hardest part I have with remote jobs is connection sometimes. Um,
calls like this help, black chats help, DMs help, but it’s not always the same, right? And I think that’s one of the problem we struggle with in a remote job business is that connection with others.
Yeah, you can you can definitely get siloed in not just your own office space, but your own head space if you’re not talking to other people.
Like you said, the the the Zoom chats and the Slack chats do help some. At least mentally, you can kind of get out of your head a little bit and have some conversations. Um, that’s where like word camps and stuff factor in for me. I get a chance to go spend some time with other people. Meetups in town um are easy enough, right? Much lower commitment to hotel room and all of that stuff to find meetups. They don’t even necessarily have to be in the WordPress space. There are plenty of meetups in I mean I live I’m fortunate enough to live near Orlando. There are lots of people here, lots of tech folks. So, I can go to a JavaScript meetup downtown or some PHP meetup or whatever and be able to talk to people that are in an, you know, adjacent related space to me and we can nerd out over web technologies still even if they’re not WordPress people.
Um, but sometimes really just this change of scenery. Sometimes I’ll just grab the laptop and run up to, you know, Starbucks or wherever just to be out of house and out of this room and talk to somebody even if it’s not about WordPress or not about you know and just talk to them about
living in the world I live in
that’s my hour that’s my hour tomorrow afternoon after the doctors I’m uh
on Thursday I mean I’m going to run to a Starbucks or Tim Hortons and
write for a while and everybody looks at me and says why do you do that and I say I just need a change of scenery sometimes.
Yeah. And but it has to be in intentional, right? I mean, because we’ll naturally just I’ll just sit in this seat at this desk for hours on end unless I’m intentional about getting up and moving space. And it’s so healthy for you mentally and physically to move spaces to just be somewhere else for a couple hours um and not just sit in the same space the whole time.
Or I’ll take a break midday and go for a walk. That’s very common just to get my my butt moving. And sometimes just clearing your head does wonders. to creative brain, right? So, you know,
yeah, when when the Zoom and Slack conversations are overwhelming and you don’t want to talk to somebody else and just need to get away, then yes, walking outside is is perfect.
And by the way, putting the phone on mute because you know where Slack sits in my case, don’t you? Probably yours. Yeah, mine too.
It’s probably on your phone. So, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, they’ll find you. Believe me,
I’m not good at I’m not good at separating those things. So, I have Slack and email and Teams and all of that on my phone. I don’t like to be surprised when I get back to my desk.
I I don’t either. I went through
that does run with the, you know, the the the negatives, the disadvantage of being permanently connected to all of it.
Yeah. I went through a spiel in the spring where I decided to pull all social media off my phone, everything. And I have to tell you that lasted three weeks. And then it’s like It sounds healthy, but
yeah, but but it’s faster to do some stuff on the phone than it is to do in a web browser. For example,
true.
Managing the LinkedIn group that Courtney and I run, it’s easier to manage it on the phone. The tools are easier in the mobile app than on the web browser. So, it’s like, yeah, that makes sense.
I like it. So, what I ended up doing was
I added things back on one at a time and then I broke down last last week or the week before And I threw a dreaded Facebook back on my phone, too. And that was the end of that. So,
so you understand where I’m coming from. This
Absolutely.
And and I’ve even done smart things like I don’t know if you know, but I have a separate VIP line for my business than my telephone. It’s it goes to an app on my
on my phone, but it’s just I’ve even tried to separate it that way
and people still find me. They track you down.
Yeah, it’s a never- ending battle. Um, how’s your family adjusted to the um the job switch now that you’re two weeks into it? I have to ask.
Yeah, pretty pretty good. Um, again, it’s only been it’s it’s been a short period. So, uh, I have not had any travel yet in this position, but wouldn’t have with GoDaddy yet in that same time frame either. So, not a whole lot has changed logistically. Um, They still head off. My wife’s a teacher. They all head off to school. I’m in this office most of the day and then they come home from school. Honestly, their schedules are so busy right now that I’m not sure that they even noticed that I made the switch already.
I’m half joking. I mean, they know that I made the switch. But
yeah, it’s it’s been business as usual for the rest of the family so far, just because of their busy schedules and my relative you know, unchanged location here in in the office in our house.
It’s not like you’re it’s not like you’re driving 20 minutes to work or an hour to work or something like that. So,
yeah, it’s it’s kind of weird to think about those days. You know, when I did work at the agency, it was in town and it was in the office and that’s been five years ago now and I’ve been remote since then. It was very strange to transition to remote at that time and now I think it’s strange to drive into an office every day.
Hey Mark, Thanks for just sharing your experience. I think some people need to really look at what they’re doing and say, “Where does this fit into my life plan?” And I think that’s what you’ve done really well here as well as I know you. I always appreciate you jumping on and talking. Um, good luck with your time at Blue Host. Um, people can find you over there, I’m sure, if they need you for something and want talk agency.
And I know Abs, absolutely. I think, you know, the biggest takeaway for me is just to um just be open to opportunities that come along um and then
evaluate how those affect you and your family and that’s top consideration like you said that’s the top priority. So um yeah that’s that’s the takeaway there. If anybody wants to get a hold of me I’m in on the same place on Twitter. I’m at the you know on the WP world if you’re in the WordPress space please go sign up there and you can find me there. And
otherwise I’m generally pretty much just as easy to be found online as I always have been.
Yeah. Thanks, Marcus. Have yourself a wonderful day, my friend. Be well.
Thanks. You too.