Episode #1 Tips for Women Starting a Career in Advertising
In our first episode, we talk about our start in advertising on different coasts, our different approaches which eventually led to holding the same position and area of expertise, and similar personal lives each with three kids and a dog. From the importance of job training, mentors, trusting your gut, and how the work world is a jungle gym, not a ladder, our stories zig and zag through each new phase of life.
Tips for Women Starting a Career in Advertising Episode Recap
The podcast conversation features two marketing professionals, Julia and Kelly, who have more than 50 years of combined marketing and advertising experience. They discuss their respective paths into the advertising industry and the challenges and wins they experienced throughout their careers.
Julia shares that she always wanted to be in marketing and started taking marketing classes in high school. She got involved in internships, including one at AOL during the dot-com boom, and eventually joined Williams Whittle, where she worked for many years under her mentor, Martha Wilcox.
Kelly talks about her journey starting with an account management training program at Grey Advertising in Los Angeles. She emphasizes the importance of finding a mentor and gaining experience in various aspects of advertising, such as research, media buying, production, and more.
Both women reflect on the pivotal decisions they made in their careers, including moving to different locations for job opportunities. Julia highlights the significance of training and mentorship in shaping her success, while Kelly values her experiences in boutique agencies and gaining technology experience during the dot-com boom.
The podcast is intended for marketing and advertising professionals, especially those who are aspiring to advance their careers. The hosts hope to offer valuable tips, tricks, and advice to help listeners navigate work and life and excel in their marketing careers.
In the rest of the podcast conversation, Kelly talks about her career journey, which started with working on the launch of NetCom, an anti-AOL Internet Service Provider. She then moved on to work with various dot-com companies during the tech boom, including a sports website where she became the director of marketing. Later, she joined an online therapy website called here2listen.com, which was ahead of its time and offered therapy through online chat with licensed therapists. Despite the innovative concept, the website didn’t succeed commercially.
During her time at here2listen.com, Kelly met her future husband, who was the head of content for the website. They began dating, but due to work opportunities, they had to endure a long-distance relationship for a year. Eventually, Kelly moved to DC to be with him. She then worked on the Nissan Motor Corporation account at Carol H. Williams. Later, Kelly found a job at Choice Hotels, which led her to move to DC.
Julia and Kelly discuss their experiences working in different areas of the advertising industry. Kelly also mentions the importance of seeking advice, being open to change, and trusting one’s gut instincts. She likens career progression to a jungle gym, where it’s not always a straightforward upward climb but involves navigating different paths, taking steps back, and making lateral moves. They also touch upon the challenges and rewards of balancing a career and motherhood.
They conclude the podcast episode by expressing their excitement for future episodes and the discussions to come.
Episode Transcript:
Julia
In our first episode, we talk about our start in advertising on different coasts and our different approaches within the same area of expertise, nonprofit marketing, which eventually led to holding the same position as president of ad agencies. And of course, what we have in common– juggling being a mom with three kids and a dog.
Welcome to the Two Marketing Moms podcast. We are two women with more than 50 years of marketing and advertising experience between us and we want to talk about the struggles, the fails and the wins that we experienced while building our careers. Being a boss, juggling work and home life, and arguably the hardest and yet most fulfilling job, being a mom. This podcast was created for marketing and advertising professionals, especially the up-and-coming marketing stars of the future. We hope these tips tricks and advice will help you navigate work in life and get ahead.
Julia
Okay, so do you want to dive into our first ever topic? I feel like we’re going to also learn a lot of things that we did not know about each other.
Kelly
Do you want to start in college and high school? And where did you get the inspiration for getting into advertising and marketing? You know, was it in high school. was in college? Was it not? So, after graduation? Where was your sparks of where you kind of started to feel like this is the area that you wanted to succeed in?
Julia
You know what? That’s a great question. You know why? Because I feel like I’m one of those weirdos because I always wanted to be in marketing. I was doing like marketing classes when I was in ninth grade part of deca.
Kelly
Oh, you were a deca girl?
Julia
I was and I don’t meet a lot of people like that. I mean, a lot of people that work in marketing, you know, kind of went through college maybe had business degrees, but not a marketing focus, and are some of the best marketers. So, I always am fascinated by the answer to this question. How about you?
Kelly
You know, when I was a child, I wanted to be an actress, actually. And I was in young people’s theater for years and years.
Julia
Oh really?
Kelly
Yeah, I know, it’s a surprise. And one day when I was in elementary school, my dad asked me what I wanted to be when I when I grow up, and I said I wanted to be an actress. And he said, “well, you’re not going to make any money as an actress, one in a million people make it. So, you should come up with something else”. So, he destroyed my dream right then and there. Which is fine, because I realized that’s not an area that I would have excelled at. But I think there’s parts of acting in what we do in terms of presenting and coming up with ideas. So, I think there’s elements that I took from that.
But for me, the spark didn’t come till freshman year of college. I went to University of Colorado Boulder, and they had a school of journalism, and I decided to join, you didn’t join the journalism school until sophomore year. So, you applied freshman year. And I applied and was accepted. I thought maybe I wanted to be a broadcaster.
Julia
Adding to broadcast my segue. Yeah.
Kelly
And, you know, I started to talk to people about it and interview people who were older than me. And what they told me was in broadcasting, what they do is pick the top 10 people in the class and out of that, they end up picking the best looking, which was a little intimidating. And then also you end up you know, working in Iowa or Illinois, in very small markets and working your way up. So, then I thought, okay, well, maybe reporting because I love to write. And I started in the journalism school and started taking all these basic classes. And then I started taking kind of an advertising 102 class and I realized this has everything I possibly want to do. It has writing, it has presenting. It has strategies and concepts and I realized that advertising was it, and that’s what I wanted to do. And I did. I was a part of the AAF program annual competition. Did you did you do that?
Julia
No. You know why? Because I actually never did advertising in college. So I was an AMA, but I always wish that I had done AAF because they have that cool competition, right?
Kelly
It was a fabulous program the year that we did it. It was the Hearst Corporation sponsoring it. So, we got to come up with a magazine. And that was super fun to learn about the magazine world and we ended up getting second place. You know, bummed we didn’t get first, but it was a really fun, fun experience for me. And that kind of cemented the idea that I wanted to be an advertising. And for me, I knew then by junior year, that that’s what I wanted to do. And I got an internship in Minneapolis and BBDO. And my dad had an old buddy of his from college, and I lived with him for the summer and his family and I worked at BBDO and learned about advertising. And then senior year. I’m a little older than you.
And so, when I graduated, it was the Gulf War. And it was kind of a bad time period to be looking for a job spring break. But I did a market trip on spring break where I interviewed. I said, Okay, if I’m going to be an advertising, I’m going to be in the top markets. And at the time, Minneapolis was hot, but I didn’t want to you know, there was Fallon McElligott, and all those old school fabulous ad agencies. But I didn’t want to live in Minneapolis after the summer there. I liked it. But it wasn’t the major market I wanted to be in. So, I decided to interview in New York, Chicago and LA. And I did that spring break of my senior year, and I ended up getting job offers in all three cities for entry level positions, and I decided if I’m going to make $18,000 a year, which is what they paid back then.. I think that’s hard for students to imagine now, I think they make three four times that now as an entry level position.
Julia
Oh, well, you know, when I interviewed for Ogilvy, um, before I graduated college, I mean, I think that they were offering for New York City, I think they were offering like 30,000 a year. I mean, that’s more than 18. But like, if you think about that, in New York City, even at the time, like I would have had to like live with six people in studio to afford be advertising.
Kelly
And that was my decision as to why I didn’t go to New York, because I thought if I’m gonna make that little amount of money, I’d rather live at the beach. And so, I’m all for LA and I take that job. What about you?
Julia
Oh, man. Well, you know, as I said, I never took advertising classes, I was much more into marketing, but kind of something that you said made me think about, in retrospect, a lot of my jobs were sales. My internships were sales. And I didn’t really necessarily like sales, didn’t feel very comfortable in sales. But in retrospect, um, gosh, thank goodness, I had all that sales training, because kind of like acting, I feel like, that’s all I do. You know, I’m, I’m selling myself, I’m selling my agency, I’m selling for my clients. Um, even though you know, both of us work in that nonprofit space. And we’re not necessarily selling a product, we’re definitely selling them, you know, the core narrative of our clients to donors or members or constituents. So, like sales, is huge, but I wanted to say like, I so admire that, because I like have these dreams of like, what if I had done, the big advertising thing? And what if I have really pursued going to New York, but I really just wanted to stay at home, you know, near my family here in DC.
When I look back at my experience I was huge into internships, my first internship in college after my freshman year, I was like, the youngest, so they put me in the sales with the sales team. And of course, I felt kind of gypped because I wasn’t with the marketing kids. But being with the sales folks was so much more fun, and got immersed into that. And then I went after more of a marketing role. I was actually I was an intern at AOL. Oh, well got 30 million dial up subscribers, if you can remember that.
Kelly
I still have an AOL account.
Julia
And so, my department actually we were the ones that were in charge of doing creative testing on the CDs that got mailed out. Oh my God, they gave you know, 500 free hours or whatever. That’s a great time. It was the greatest time being part of AOL. And then in the .com boom, you know, awesome. And then, um, drum roll. I got an internship at Williams Whittle. I ended up working for many, many years, for those of you who do not know us, and now Kelly works at Williams as well, so that is our connection.
Kelly
Was this before college or after college?
Julia
No, I was 20 years old. So, in college. So, I was gonna say like, kind of my path there was I was involved in AMA and I went to this career day with Ron Owens of LM&O.
Kelly
I know Ron very well.
Julia
Yeah, he’s a fixture in DC. And obviously, anyone who knows LM&O has a very successful history. He said, if you want to work in advertising in DC, go to the Book of Lists. I went to the Book of Lists, and I emailed every single person on it saying, I want an internship. And one of the people that interviewed me ended up being my mentor and lifelong bosom buddy. Martha Wilcox at Williams Whittle. And I just had such a great experience. And I think that’s what catapulted me into advertising. Because she was able to give me that hands on view into advertising. And quite frankly, we were we there was three of us interns and Rob Whittle tapped us to help with all sorts of new business pitches, which is of course, super fun, you know, when you’re young, and you have no responsibilities, and you get to think of fun, out of the box ideas and go do man on the street interviews and all that stuff.
So, yeah, I guess that’s how I got started. I feel like the takeaway from that is like, and you also said this, is that I’m asking for advice, you know, like Ron Owens, and I told him like, on LinkedIn one day, and I’m listening to that advice of others, when they impart it is was really helpful for me in my career.
Kelly
Absolutely. Sounds like it was for you, too. And so, you stayed at Williams Whittle after college in an entry level job?
Julia
No, so I went back into sales. I decided that I really felt like sales was the place for me. And so, I went and sold high end real estate. And did not like it.I think maybe I would like it now. But as a, you know, newly of college, not for me. Then after that went to I became a corporate concierge for a while. And then Martha called me and would not let me say no to coming. And so I worked with her. And we worked together for almost a decade. 10 years. And then she left and I obviously stayed for a little while longer.
But I mean, that was the other thing for me. It was, my mom had told me a long, long time ago to find a mentor. And I know that there’s lots of programs out there, especially in the DC area, like American Marketing Association offers them — I’ve seen a bunch of like Facebook groups, like people that are starting up mentoring programs, and, it’s totally worth the investment. You know, I am literally indebted for the rest of my life to Martha because she actually would put down her paper and pen and look away from her computer and actually teach me things. And give me advice, advice that I still follow today. So, that was kind of my path.
How about, tell me about what happened or what decisions you made after you were Associate in LA, so where do you go from there?
Kelly
It’s very similar to you in terms of finding a mentor. So, the reason why I went to LA, not only because the beach, was actually because Grey Advertising in Los Angeles at the time had an account management training program. And I know you, I wanted to be in account management. And it was the only account management training program that existed at the time. In fact, I don’t know of any other agency that’s had one really since and it was a very organized program. And there were probably five to eight account management trainees – that is what we were called.
And so, what we did is as a trainee is we did job rotation in each department. So, I was an assistant in research for the first six months that I was there and this is pre-internet. So, I got to go to LexisNexis training to learn how to use LexisNexis to do research for you on a CD-ROM Yes, it was these old programs that had the computer paper that made a lot of noise and went up into the air and you had to rip it off. And so, that was way back in the day.
And then after that I was assistant media buyer for Lucky Stores. So, I got to use the old computers and input the buys and do the make goods and then from there I was a Traffic Manager in the traffic department which I loved. And I was working on Caesars Palace and Caesars Tahoe. And that’s where I met my first two major mentors in my career. Ben Worthing was the head of the traffic department at that time and Arline Vezina was the head of production at that time, and they were fabulous mentors to me and taught me everything I needed to know about print production. I mean, I, I literally toured every print production facility. I learned the basics of making a brochure, of an outdoor board, etc. And Ben used to take me out with his old buddies back in the day to have these nice high-end lunches at Grey, And then from there…
Julia
It’s sad that new, freshly new to advertising people, I feel like so many of them will never like go to a printing press, they’ll never see, they’ll never understand what a blueline is.
Kelly
That is such an art that is so different from those times. And the way they used to build ads back in the day, you know, nothing was digital at the time and the other…
Julia
type centers.
Kelly Callahan 17:41
Yeah. And so, it was a lot to learn. And I enjoyed that time. And I from there, I got promoted to through the program. You get promoted to assistant account executive, and then you’re out of the program. And part of the program is every week different people teach you things, you have to read a book a month, that’s where I got addicted to reading. We actually had to write a book, review a book report and hand it in, it’s graded. And then you had to learn about presentation skills, and then they would record you and all sorts of things through the program. But it was really helpful.
And then I got promoted to assistant account executive on Carl’s Jr. Fast Food. And what was great about that job is I managed all the collateral because everyone wanted to do the television and no one cared about collateral. And they had 650 stores across California at the time. And so, they wanted to do this huge promotion, it was a multimillion-dollar promotion at the stores. And I had an art director draw all of the interiors of the store, the exterior of the store, and the drive thru. And we put all the collateral pieces and all the translites in the dura trans on a piece of paper and art directed the way it was going to look and presented it to the client and got it approved. It was the biggest promotion they had ever done in their history, which was so much fun because no one cared of what I was doing. They only cared about the TV because that was glamorous right now, a lot more fun stuff.
And then six months later, I was ready to be promoted account executive and I wrote a report, an overview of here’s what I’ve accomplished in the last six months. And I present it to Larry Varnes the VP, and here’s what I’ve done. And he read it and said, I don’t see why wouldn’t promote you to account executive. You’re right. You deserve it. The agency doesn’t exist anymore down in LA, which is very, very sad. Wow. But yeah, and I stayed there, you know on Carl’s Jr. Fast food and about a year later, Larry Varnes called me into his office and this is the funniest story of my career to me, and the most exciting. Snd he said to me, I was 24. And he said, I need an emergency account executive in the San Francisco office, would you go to San Francisco for the summer, and we’ll put you up in a hotel and pay for all your meals, and stay there for the summer and work as an account executive?
And I’m like, I’m sure. So, I stayed in a nice hotel with the view of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. I had meals out every night, because I had a per diem, 30 bucks. At that time, 30 bucks, a per diem per day was insane. So, I would have these nice meals, on Grey Advertising’s dime. And I worked at great San Francisco, and I loved it. And they actually after the summer offered me the job to work their full time. And I said, No.
Julia
You wanted to go back to LA?
Kelly
Well, at the time, LA was, you know, a much bigger ad market. The San Francisco ad market had not really blossomed yet. And there were bigger accounts. And so, I went back to LA, and a couple months later, they came back to me and said, you know, are you sure? And I said, you know, I think I’d like to go, I’d like to try it. And so, they paid for me to move to San Francisco.
And so that was an amazing experience to be able to move up to San Francisco, on another company’s dime at that young age and to take that risk, and it ended up being the best thing that I could have ever done.
Julia
Yeah, Isn’t that crazy? Like, when Martha called me to try to get me to come work with her, you know, I was happy I loved this corporate concierge job that I was in. It was sales and marketing and entrepreneurial and, and so I originally told her No. And then like, a month later, she’s like, would you reconsider? And like, I really thought about it. And I thought about my life, like long term, you know? And I thought about the mentor thing. And I also finally decided, yes, and it was also the best decision I ever made. It’s interesting that that happened to both of us you know, a knock on your door twice in that way?
But you said something, to go back to something that you said, which I also think is a super huge important thing, especially for people coming into the marketing, especially the advertising business in DC, right, which is not like the ad biz in New York. Right? Yeah, people should be asking the questions when they interview about training, right, because in DC, I feel like a lot of the younger, more independent agencies may not put as higher value on training, new employees. And I think for both of us, it was so pivotal, you know, when I went into sales, my first job, they had a six-month training program, there was like 15 other people in my class, so to speak, and we just did, we had like, lots of retreats where we got sales training. And it was it was really elite, and that investment in me as a new person in the working world was really valuable.
So, I would say, and you tell me how you think or how you view it. But I would say that for a young person interviewing, they should ask questions about what type of training they’re going to get how long that training period will go on. And even if it’s not something super formal, they should really like dive in to understand how much are they going to be thrown into the deep end, which has its benefits? But how much of an investment are they gonna feel once they’ve been on the job for a while? Because I think that’s something that’s, and you know, maybe I’m just speaking to specifically about the DC market, because it is so different, but I don’t know, what’s your take on that?
Kelly
Well, no, I don’t think it’s market specific. I think it’s, it’s like any career, you need to learn every aspect of the job, you know, back then digital didn’t exist. Okay, so you have advertising production, and there’s a lot that goes on with production,
Julia
Right production,
Kelly
Broadcast production, you know, media buying, all the basics on that, then there is traffic was a big deal back then. And traffic is really making sure that there’s no mistakes on your ads, and we could do a whole seminar on mistakes made. Because I usually start with that with some of my younger interns to teach them not to make the same mistakes I did. And it’s all about proofreading, right?
Julia
Yes, we should do that. We should do that. Episode on the top 10 mistakes. Oh, I got some I got some doozies.
Kelly
Yeah, would be great.
So, there’s that there’s, you know, account management. What are the basics of account management? New busines is its own entity? How do you sell it? How is it written? How is it drafted? How do you do an RFP? Um, there is, what am I missing creative, I mean, the basics of creative copywriting versus art direction, how do they work together? So, there’s so many different elements of advertising, just the advertising side, not even the marketing side of things that you need to learn in order to be a strong account person, because if you don’t know all the different elements, and how they come together, money tracking, budgeting, all these sorts of things for accounting. And that’s why I was really, you know, pleased that I had all that information up front, because then then you’re really a well-rounded account person, and you know, all the aspects and they can let you go because the whole point is you want to be independent, you want to be able to be that account executive that runs her own show. And, you know, yeah, there may be certain people above you, but the more knowledge that you have, the quicker you can make it up the ladder, so to speak.
Julia
So, just like you did for the agency now, I think that’s awesome.
Kelly
Well, all I had to do was replicate what Grey Advertising did back in the day, so they were replicating the best. That made it easy.
But, I wanted to kind of just quickly go over the rest of my career path, because it was very strange, if you think about it, going back. And I think there’s some lessons learned there. I mean, once I was in San Francisco, I worked for a bunch of different boutique agencies. I knew that I was better in a smaller boutique environment. I’m not a politics kind of person. And so, I love the smaller boutique firms and getting a chance to, you know, have greater, greater access to the accounts and not having so many different layers and you know, greater access to the clients and that knowledge base. And so, after working for a couple different agencies, I realized I was in San Francisco in the 90s. And the dot com boom was starting, just like at AOL for you. And I needed technology experience. And so, I went to an agency specifically to gain technology experience, and you’re going to love this link. I worked on NetCom.
Julia
Oh, that’s awesome.
Kelly
Yeah. So, NetCom was the techies Internet Service Provider — the anti-AOL. So, I worked on the launch of NetCom. Back in the day. Wow. I know. And so that’s funny. And then from there, just the dot com heyday happened. One of our clients was a dot com. It was a sports website. And they asked me to be, they were my client. And they asked me to be director of marketing. And I took that job. They weren’t very happy to the agency. But I thought, this is my opportunity to go client side and see what it’s like. The only negative was that it was in Sacramento, and I lived in San Francisco. And that’s an hour and a half to an hour, 45-minute drive each way. Oh, so that was crazy. And I did that for about nine months. And then one of the founders started another dot com back in San Francisco and said “Hey, will you come and manage this as not just head of marketing, but will you find an office for me and open it?” And so, I had to literally go and find office space and find a location, which we did right near the Transamerica tower and open up this office of this dot com. And so that really kind of started the idea of, you know, entrepreneurship, and you know, learning from the ground up, how do you set up?
The desks, and the phone lines, how do you do all this sort of stuff.
And then from there, I went to a couple different dot coms. And the story got even funnier because I landed at a dot com called heretolisten.com. And it was an online therapy website. It was backed by real licensed therapists. And the idea was like online chat with therapists, it was an idea that was 15 years ahead of its time. L ike people do that now all the time. But it was a big kind of idea then, but of course, it didn’t succeed. But I helped come up with a tagline, which is “therapy from your couch”.
Julia
Wow, I’m sure it was a hard sell back then. It probably, you know, it took a decade for people to start to be comfortable to do that.
Kelly
Well, that’s what’s interesting. There’s so many, there were so many ideas back then, like pets.com and things that just didn’t work because the world wasn’t ready for them yet. But the best thing that came out of that experience is I met my husband at this online therapy website. He was the head of content and I was a head of marketing at and we dated for three months.
And then he got a call from National Geographic to to Afghanistan and do a documentary with Sebastian Younger, and he went to Afghanistan. And a month, two months later, he moved to DC. And so, we did long distance for a year, which is why, and then 9/11 happened. And the bottom of the market fell out in San Francisco. I did do a stint over at Carol H. Williams, which is an African American agency, and I worked on the Nissan Motor Corporation account, which I loved as well.
And then I decided to look for a job in DC and in New York too. And I got a job at Choice Hotels, and they paid for me to move because I was one of the few that had both digital and traditional advertising experience, which was really hard to find at the time on the east coass. So, they paid for me to move from Francisco to DC, and I moved across the street from my husband because I wasn’t going to move in with him, because we weren’t married.
Julia
Wait, so okay, so which one is better? East Coast or West Coast? Are you an East Coast girl or a West Coast girl?
Kelly
I am so much a West Coast girl. And I’ve been in DC for over 20 years. And I’ve been with my husband for 20 years married for 17. And I always tell him that I moved to DC for him. And I’m bitter about it. And I will remain bitter about it for many years. But I’ve adjusted to it here and I you know, we it’s a great place to raise your kids. It’s a good market, the market has changed significantly over the last 20 years. And so, I’m in a different place in my life. And San Francisco is too expensive now we couldn’t afford to live there.
Julia
So, I don’t think I could ever live on the west coast. I think I’m just way too east coast.
Kelly
Really? You never know, the environment. And you it’s almost like starting over really because you don’t have a network. And you have to build it back up again.
Julia
Wow. Wait, so how many years did you do client side? Well, I have had zero. Well, you know, that my first two jobs out of college, I mean, I guess I was technically client side, but I wasn’t, you know, I was in sales. So, it was different, you know, then managing marketing or advertising in house. You know, I’m so yeah, I’ve never, I always feel like I’m going to be an agency girl for life.
Kelly
But it’s funny, because I went back and forth. I also went and did client side when my kids were young, I worked at National Council on Aging. Oh, and I had this amazing boss, Donna Phillips Mason who had children that were my age and grandchildren. And she let all these women work for her that all work like after 8pm.
Julia
You were telling me about that, it’s fabulous.
Kelly
And so, I got to stay home with the kids during the day and then work at night. So, I probably spent client side maybe five to eight years. And then I got a call from Albert Gonzalez who used to work at Grey Advertising and started his own agency Pulser. And they were based in LA but they had an office in DC.
Julia
Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that.
Kelly
And so, they’re still going strong. And they specialize in transportation. And so, I started working there, but I wasn’t ready to go back because the kids were young. But Alberto convinced me and I went to the DC office, and I stayed in advertising ever since. And so that’s been since 2009. And so that’s been for 10-11 years.
Julia
And I love advertising.
Kelly
So, I’m happy I came back, but I’m glad I had both experiences.
Julia
Yeah, well, you know, for all of our new listeners to this brand-new podcast, you know, there you go. Like we’ve had both of us, I feel like I’ve had a lot of similar road to where we’ve gone, where we’ve, you know, how we’ve gotten to where we are, but then some differences too, you know, like, I’ve never done client side. Whereas you have.
What are your takeaways for, you know, advice for young people who are just starting we talked about the mentoring, huge, however, wherever you can get it. If it’s not someone that’s in your company, I think you can look for something outside, you know, especially in these days, you know, like, had a business coach six months before Coronavirus, which was super helpful, wasn’t like mentor but like that coaching style and having someone to help you along. And handhold, I think that is super important. To kind of goes along with that, I think like asking for advice, right? Like, a lot of the things that we hear about and, I’m a millennial, so I feel like I can say this, you know that millennials are overconfident or millennials, think they know everything. And I don’t think that they necessarily do I think that it’s a– it’s a confidence thing, it’s like a — let me not be vulnerable. Because then I might not look smart enough, or I might not get a promotion, or, you know, whatever that vulnerability might set them up for, but I really encourage everyone to ask for advice. I think that everyone loves to give advice. Once you open that door, you actually aren’t really, you are being vulnerable, but you’re going to get a lot of value out of it. You’re also going to build some rapport with whoever you’re asking the advice from.
You also have mentioned a couple, you know, little things in your story about, you know, asking for advice. So I think that we also have those that comment, and then my last one is like, trust your gut.
Kelly
Oh, perfect. Yes, absolutely. Right.
Julia
Yeah. Like we both talked about that, you know, with the whole, like, saying no, then thinking about it, but eventually saying yes. And I think, you know, maybe we won’t get into it today, but you know, the career path and becoming, once we had our feet, you know, kind of more firmly on the foundation of our careers then, kind of venturing into motherhood? Yes. I’m really, I feel like makes you have to trust your gut, because you’re making a lot more decisions that affect a lot more facets of your life at that point, that point, and what are you going to fall back on?
Kelly
Yeah, well, save that for another topic. Right?
Julia
Absolutely. I think we have a lot of, I think we have probably more to talk about in terms of like, how do you really navigate that time in your life when you’re career driven? When your family driven? When you’re having that shift? You know, just internally? Personally? I think we have lots of advice to impart there. What about your other advice?
Kelly
Well, I think I’ll just close with I, you said everything that needed to be said — I would close with, it’s not a ladder, it’s kind of like a jungle gym. And I’ve heard this analogy in terms of you’re not going to always go up, especially if you’re going to be a mom, sometimes you’re going to take a step down, and a couple steps over the side. And then maybe you make a big jump to the top.
And I think you have to be open as life’s going to throw things at you — that you’re going to want to change your life and your career based on those things and be able to customize your career because of where you are in your life. And so, in advertising, you’re gonna lose your job, you’re going to get laid off at least once. And you have to go through that because accounts are lost. And I think that resilience is really what the biggest thing that you need in this business and be able to dust yourself off and get back up again.
Julia
I agree. I also think that in 2020, it’s taught me that you know, you can still be ambitious, while not climbing the ladder straight up. You know, navigating that jungle gym.
Kelly
Right, well, let’s end there for this series. And we’ve got lots more to come soon in. Thanks, Julia. Thanks, Kelly.
Julia
Hope you enjoyed this episode. Please leave us a podcast review or send us a message to twomarketingmoms.com and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time.
