What is it like to work for marketing?

Marketing: What is it like to work at a marketing firm as a manager?

• I am interested in what it is like day to day. I am also keen to hear any interesting stories or little details that others might not know. You could also answer with the perspective of working your way up to a manager or anything else you please.

• Answer:

  I started my first business in 2001 and along the way I worked for a lot of other people to get a lot of real world experience after the all wonderful dot com crash. All three of my companies have been started during recessions and they have all taught me extremely valuable lessons. You have to be an extremely effective communicator and be pretty organized to be a marketing manager. At the end of the day it's about bottom line for you and the client. Talk in business numbers and things the clients can relate to for the best results. I measure everything so I can demonstrate results to clients to continue to get ad spend buy in.   Market focused art is often up for interpretation but you have to be able to effectively reinforce as well as explain the science/reasoning behind your results. I've learned clients really like things broken down as you're often working with managers and primary decision makers of companies which may or may not have any education about these topics. The more they understand and can see value in it the more successful you are likely to be. This is an area worth investing time in. A big part of marketing is educating and empowering great businesses you believe in. Do not work with businesses and things you do not believe in.   You'll have to be patient and work with people that you know are going to be counterproductive for your clients from time to time which is part of business. It is your professional obligation to inform your clients of the things that are going to hurt their business despite the resistance it may cause. Be very aware of the people you'll be working with because if a third party is employed it could definitely reflect very poorly back on you when the overall outcome are undesired even if the client hired them. I had this happen to me and also to one of my clients. Always, always know the people you work with and their competencies thoroughly. It's sometimes better to walk away from a project then to let it impact your reputation for excellence. Marketing is every bit as much about knowing how to deliver the results as it is about understanding sales. You really have to listen to your clients, their clients needs and build strategic marketing plans around that. Never do anything without cash down, an agreement in hand, and a solid plan with goals. Meet and exceed these outcomes in every way possible. I have been burned financially big time despite delivering amazing results and took it as an expensive lesson to be applied to future business. Always get cash down and work with an agreement. I learned after that particular client's BBB report shows previous history of burning marketing firms financially. Everything about marketing is reinforced including in the kick start meeting when the strategic marketing plan is outlined and agreed upon by primary decision makers. A lot about marketing is up for interpretation but agreements/plans solidify everything. It's your obligation to protect you and your clients with streamlined communications which is the foundation of business. When talking timelines try to give your team as much as possible and give the team the deadline well in advance of the actual deadline so that the client is not disappointed when things are not delivered late by undetermined variables. Working with employees you come to appreciate that they have personal family matters, health, and a multitude of variables outside of your control that can/will effect your delivery date so you have to account for that. Worst case scenario you finish well in advance and the client is happy. Clients can and will change their mind frequently during projects. Be prepared for this and be prepared to bill for this. Outline in your marketing plan what exactly are the deliverable parts are from you and the client is so they know exactly what they're responsible for. Getting information from clients is often extremely difficult and time intensive. Set limits in your marketing plan so you don't end up building the next Facebook on a penny budget. I tend to be too nice to my clients going well above and beyond what I should be results wise. You'll find that some clients will often try to take advantage and you really need to outline limits. Everyone wants things for free but there's a cost of doing business. If your company or clients wants great results they need to pay for them. I've not been too worried about this as I love what I do but over time I've learned to get better at  settings limits on things. When it comes to determining budgets insure that you're working with the right people. I built a really strong company for someone and at the end of the year they wanted to expand into three new regions without spending a dollar more on marketing. I had to tell them their expectations were unrealistic on their budget and walked away knowing that it's better to do that then under perform to the results you know you can deliver. After walking away I watched a third party company take their online presence more or less into the ground by trying to do too much with too little. Get the budgets and tools you need to do the job right. If you don't explain and break down what each thing does for the client in numbers or things they can relate to then it's your fault when you fail to reach goals. I'm totally guilty of being too nice and not asking for enough money. I've learned that this is bad and that one has to change their mind set to work with the numbers required to equate to the success the client is asking for. It's a competitive world out there! I now have a stronger intake form for new clients which prequalifies them based on ad spend and if they would be prepared to increase ad spend as sales increased. Some people aren't and you don't want to work with those people. Developers, graphic designers and the like tend to not be very time oriented. It's best to work with more than one at any given time to make sure that they essentially keep each other in check. Always have qualified management to over see things you're not an expert in yourself. I did a massive programming project and learned the expensive way that there's definitely some con artists out there. You absolutely need a second set of eyes to look things over to insure things are being done right if you don't understand something yourself. Getting great talent can be expensive but it can be a lot less so if you insure you have the right quality checks in place to hire and fire fast for the right smart, driven, talent.  Your company's bottom line depends on marketing deliverables and by setting realistic goals that are always measured at regular intervals you insure continued growth.  Unfortunately, as much of marketing falls into creative mind share your personal time will be at sacrifice especially as a manager. Insure you get regular sleep because I've found those all night work sessions do nothing for your weekly productivity. It's ok to work 16 hour days but take time out to eat/sleep. Learn to connect with influencers in social media and the world around. I attend conferences regularly regardless of whether I'll learn from them as the real value comes from the networking. I've made connections with some of the best marketers in the world and our shared knowledge has definitely helped us all. As you probably already know marketing is about sharing ideas and you can't do that without learning about how others are communicating.  I'm very greatful and thankful for my network as they've helped me become much more effective in the marketing profession. Take a chance on creativity. I'm often trying new things and shocked at the results that come from it. Sometimes it's the things you never expect to do well that well out perform the things you expected to do well so measure twice. When it comes to marketing it's better to often say something then nothing at all as you control the share of voice. I turned a young blossoming interior designer into an internationally recognized design rock star by empowering them with a strong marketing campaign which ended up winning them a young interior designer of the middle east award this year. I also turned a brand new couple fresh out of medical school to grab over 1000 patients, be recognized in February's Men's Health and Mercola with in just 4 months of their opening their office doors. A 100MM+ dollar client took over 10 months with a third party marketing company to write out content and failed to gain a fraction of the recognition they did during twice the time the others had because thy said nothing. If you look at every major company out there they all went through tons of brand revisions but it was with falling forward they grew to success. Take chances on the creative!  I wish you all the best in your marketing adventures. I hope it brings you all the success it has for me and the people around me.