What Pro Wrestling Reminded Me About the 4 Pillars of My Work

In 2003, I began training to become a professional wrestler. In just a little over a year-and-a-half, I made my in-ring debut as "Nice Guy" Mickey Gambino in a black singlet with pink letters that spelled my monacher across my posterior -- and not much charisma. Over the course of the next 12 years, I was one-half of a tag team known as the Gambino Brothers and peppered in some solo matches; I wrestled in a lot of the continental United States, also out to Hawaii, and traveled internationally (Japan).

I have a lot of stories and, to any wrestling fan, a lot of name-dropping to do. That, however, is not my point in this LinkedIn article.

In 2015, I helped form Reunion Marketing. As a result, professional wrestling largely took a back seat. While I didn't quit, I also wasn't filling my weekends with travel and shows. My focus was creating content for our Dealer partners. The other consequence of that is a lack of exercise -- wrestling was the impetus behind my need to hit the gym. I cannot say that I regret things because here I am, today, a part of an organization that has grown from 6 to nearly 60 and with hundreds of amazing Dealer partners.

There was a period from, I believe, 2018-2019 where I didn't wrestle at all. Not once. Now that the company had thrived past the three-year hurdle, I began dabbling with the idea of getting back into the ring. The the pandemic hit. And if I thought that I allowed myself to get out of shape before that, the pandemic put a whole new poundage on -- and I hit a point of actually being ashamed of how much I had let myself go.

I began to workout again about two-thirds of the way through 2020. I began to think that I could get a few more years in wrestling; that I had some mileage left. I worked hard and reached out to my old tag team partner, Marshall Gambino (not his real name). Boom.

We worked what in the wrestling world is called a "program" with a team of two young guys known as Hardcore Hammer Time. It culminated into a street fight as the blow-off -- the final match in which either the good guys will prevail or the bad guys continue their bad streak.

Here's what that match reminded me about my work as a thought leader and brand evangelist for Reunion Marketing.

TRUST.

That's a 320-lbs. man who has 240-lbs. Mickey Gambino (me) on his shoulders and giving me a Death Valley Driver into the corner of the ring. That takes trust. As a professional wrestler, you have an implicit contract that you "sign" every match: that you will do everything you can to protect, and not hurt, the guy you're in the ring with.

In business, trust is everything.

My role at Reunion is to help build that trust in our professional communities. Our partners and prospects need to know that I, and we as a company, will do everything we can to protect their investment by doing our best work. So I use the data and insights we aggregate from our Dealer Partner Network to help craft true stories to tell in conference sessions, webinars, and other content like our Dealer U series on YouTube. To help further the depth of our value, to help build the trust that we are an advocate for our partners, I also host the KPI Cafe podcast, where I bring on guests who want to provide specific insights they've gleaned from their years as professionals -- in all different roles -- in automotive retail.

One thing that I promised myself at the outset of this journey as Brand Manager for Reunion was that I would never charge people for insights -- that I wouldn't be just a profiteer who'd offers teasers but gate the substance. Why?

Trust is an invaluable commodity, so it's vital to continue to think about ways in which you can establish, build, and solidify the trust you have within your industry and professional network.

HUMOR.

Yes, that is, indeed, a trash can on my head. And, yes, the wrestler you see approaching from the left-side of the picture will, in just a few seconds after that picture, hit it repeatedly with a golf club. To be honest, I love funny moments like that because the funny moments are usually the ones that hurt the least -- this is no exception.

We need to have fun at our work. In my role, jokes and humor are a necessary part of daily life. I spend a lot of time conceiving new content that I have yet to pull the trigger on because I want the execution to be perfect -- and it's content aiming to extract a laugh; to be entertaining and yet informative. I've tested a few ideas with the KPI Cafe, like last season, I did a "Let's Play Pittsburghese" where I read off idiosyncratic language from my hometown just outside of Pittsburgh, PA, and had my guest try to guess what it actually meant.

"Red up." -- For example. Any clue?

There are people like Tyler Champagne with his Heated Seats and Steve Roessler with his wrestling-promo-style interviews, as well as Greg Gifford, whose conference sessions might not always be "humorous" the entire way through but that are thoroughly entertaining and contain plenty of laughs.

Never forget the power that humor has in building relationship.

CREATIVITY.

When the chairs are all used up, grab a crutch!

Creativity is an ongoing process. It helps you to continuously improve (a Reunion Core Value) your content. And let's be honest: taking time to just be creative is a really satisfying outlet and break from the rote aspects of our jobs. So not only does it yield ideas for you to test, it also gives you an opportunity to travel beyond the four walls of your office through the mind's eye -- like a restive nap but filled with conceptual opportunity.

With creativity often comes the feeling of being mired in doubt because you don't exactly know what will work. That's the beauty of testing. In digital marketing, it's A/B testing language and calls-to-action and page layout and headlines and more; in evangelism and branding or thought leadership, it's being innovative about what message your communicating it and the means and modes by which you do -- trying different platforms and outlets; doing infographics, or podcasts, or vlogs and blogs, or short videos; using different copy, spoken lines, tag lines, and so much more.

ACTION-ORIENTED.

In a pro-wrestling match, you have to think about the action. Every movement matters. Every moment matters. Every piece of the action has to help tell a story to the fans.

A lot of the content we create at Reunion has the intent to allow the reader or listener to take action. It has to be action-oriented just like the staged violence of a wrestling match. Whether it's a white paper, a case study, a conference session, a webinar, a KPI Cafe, a Dealer U, or anything else we produce for public consumption must offer those who invest their time to hear it or read it something to take away and apply to their professional life -- even it it's just a simple lesson to think on.

If the content I produce doesn't even give someone a thought, then I've failed. Even this piece. I hope that this has offered some introspection on what pillars comprise your job, and can you clearly define what they are? Do you have examples of them?

IT TAKES A TEAM TO DO IT ALL.

Here's the last important piece.

You cannot do it alone.

I'm just part of a team. Although this is "my work," it always needs the support of the team to really make it happen. From conception to distribution, it is a team effort to make sure that we're sending the right message with the right takeaways in the right format and at the right time.

Chad Graves. Emily Usher. Courtney Wait. Aaron Holland.

Those are my Gambino Brothers (and Sisters) of today. They are my tag team.

SO HOW ABOUT YOU?

What are your pillars of work?

Think about what really drives what you do and how you're ensuring that you fulfill those responsibilities.