Episode #5 Advancing Your Knowledge in Advertising
In this episode, we advise you on how to advance your marketing knowledge while juggling kids, a family, your team, and your job. From having a regular practice of reading, attending webinars, events, getting involved in local and national groups with like-minded professionals and/or Mom’s groups, there are so many ways you can continue to learn innovative ideas on-the-job to keep you sharp.
Advancing Your Knowledge in Advertising Episode Recap
In this episode, Julia and Kelly share their insights on how marketing professionals, especially moms, can advance their skills and knowledge while juggling family, work, and other responsibilities. Julia and Kelly are experienced marketers with over 50 years of combined experience in the advertising industry.
The episode begins with the hosts discussing their personal experiences in the marketing and advertising business, including the challenges they faced when starting families. They emphasize the importance of learning and growing professionally while balancing personal responsibilities.
One key advice they offer is to attend conferences and events relevant to marketing and advertising. They highlight the benefits of networking, learning from industry experts, and staying updated on the latest trends and ideas.
Julia and Kelly discuss the value of reading books for professional development, noting that top CEOs read extensively to enhance their skills. They recommend reading books related to marketing, advertising, and business strategy to gain new insights and perspectives.
The hosts also emphasize the importance of seeking advice and learning from peers and industry experts. They suggest joining professional groups, both in-person and online, to connect with like-minded professionals and discuss ideas, challenges, and best practices.
Additionally, the podcast advocates for continuous learning through webinars, online courses, and social media groups. They mention Facebook groups and Slack channels as excellent platforms to engage with professionals, share knowledge, and seek advice.
The hosts acknowledge the challenges of balancing work and family life, especially for new moms or those returning to work after maternity leave. They advise setting realistic expectations and prioritizing tasks to avoid burnout.
The episode concludes with a recap of their advice, encouraging listeners to be open to learning opportunities and to actively seek resources that can help them grow professionally.
Overall, the podcast provides valuable insights and practical tips for marketing professionals, especially moms, to advance their careers while navigating the challenges of work-life balance.
Episode transcript:
Julia
In this episode, we advise you on how to advance your marketing knowledge, while you’re in your own personal tornado of kids, a family, your team and your job.
Welcome to the TwoMarketingMoms 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 winds that we experienced while building our careers. Being a boss, juggling work and a 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.
So, we welcome all of our listeners back, we’re so excited you continue to listen to us. And we have a great topic for today, I think something that will resonate with all moms. I think where we got to this was in episode one and two, we talked about our journey of how we started in the advertising and marketing business. And all the decisions that we had to make when we decided to start families. And so, it’s kind of a natural thing for us to just start talking about how we learned along the way. Now, Kelly, do you want to start it off? I know, you said you had a good story to tell.
Kelly
I have a little story. When I was younger, in my 30s, I had a little bit of a crisis of consciousness where I thought maybe I was in the wrong career. And I decided that I wanted to have some sort of proof whether or not this was the right career for me. And I went to a skills assessment workshop, and I forgot the name of it, I can look it up. But basically, what they did was almost kind of like an SAT test — they tested my skills in a whole range of things, everything from –Can I tell the difference between different shades of blues and greens, to my vocabulary, to math to writing skills, you name it, they tested everything. And then afterwards, they in essence, graded me and provided me with the report as to what I’m best at.
Julia
Yeah, I know. And it was like the Myers Briggs?
Kelly
No, it was literally a skills assessment. So, you come out and say, these are the things that I’m good at. And these are the things that you need to work on from a skills perspective. In fact, I’d like my high schoolers to do this, because this might help them as well. The funny part was, the guy sits with you at the end and review your recommendations. And he says, your number one skill is ideation. He said your ideas are off the charts, I’ve never seen anything like this, someone who can come up with the most ideas in the least amount of time. You’re absolutely in the right career, you’re just in the wrong place, you’re in the wrong environment. And so that really gave me everything I needed to know about who I was and what my identity was and what I’m good at. And so that remains to be the area that I want to continue to focus on is coming up with ideas for clients that make sense and solving their problems and coming up with creative solutions. So, ideation is my favorite thing to do. And I think all good account people want to be creatives in a certain way, and really strengthening that muscle is extremely important. And there’s a lot of different ways that that I do that and have over the years.
I’ll start with one and then I want to go over to you and get some of your thoughts on it. When had more time, which has been harder lately, I really made an effort to go to three or four conferences a year. For five years in a row, I probably I went to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, which was fantastic because you had these amazing speakers and all different types of people. So, you’re not only learning from the speakers that are speaking there, but you’re also learning from the people who are there and they all have the same wavelength, they all want to learn, they’re all want to be these sponges to soak up these ideas. And I would probably get enough ideas out of South by Southwest every year that would give me ideas for RFPs and ideas for new clients and existing clients for the whole year. And that was really a great way to soak up ideas. Since then, I haven’t been able to make it out to Austin. And it’s kind of morphed into something different. And so, I tried to go to other conferences. So, as you know, we’ve gone to Digital East, the Cause Marketing Conference in Chicago, AMA Nonprofit in DC.
This fall, I’m going to attend two virtual conferences Ad World and the MAC Summit, which is now marketing, advertising and communication summit. And those are where I really love to be able to hear case studies, how do people solve a problem? What worked for them? What didn’t? What are the new things that I might not be considering for one client, so you can’t just sit in your office without talking to people, you have to be able to absorb knowledge from other people and conferences is one of the best ways that I’ve found to be able to get that knowledge by stepping out of your normal routine and hearing what other people have to say, what about you?
Julia
I agree, and I think that it’s honestly, especially for the for the younger set, there’s a challenge in convincing your boss to fund these trips to these conferences and the on the other hand, it’s some of the best tools you can use to kind of help your career, shoot out of the gates. And so, I’ve seen some conferences have a page on their website, where they will literally help you auto generate a letter to your boss, where it gives the five reasons why attending this conference will help me in my job and make me more effective for our clients. And I always thought that was a really smart idea. Because at the beginning of my career, I had lots of sales training. But then when I started off in advertising, I was at a small agency, where we didn’t really have big budgets to do these — travel and go to conferences and things like that. So, I really had to make the best of any opportunity. You know, if I was in a meeting, and someone mentioned, oh, there’s an American Marketing Association event, or if there’s an Ad Cub event, I would be right on it for signing up. And fight for that for that place. So, I think now, like this year, I’ve gone to so many digital conferences, which obviously are different in nature, right, because I love the networking and the seeing people in person aspect of conferences, but I’ve got to attend things that I haven’t in the past. So definitely some of the ones that you mentioned, I’ve never been to South by Southwest. But definitely, it’s a dream of mine. But one of the really cool ones that I participated in was the 3% Conference this year. And that was really it was talking a lot about diversity, but it originally started with having more representation by women in the creative industry. And it obviously it came during this time in our country where we have, the narrative of the news is, is so heightened around social injustice. And there were so many wonderful speakers about diversity. And it just took this turn that was so organic. And it was really, it was really powerful. I also really love all of the conferences put on by ASAP. Yeah, they have lots of different conferences, their annual meeting is kind of generic in nature. And they have lots of different topics and lots of different tracks that you can learn from the marketing and communications conference is, specialty for, for us folks and advertising and marketing. And then obviously, you mentioned MAC, so I didn’t even know that they were combining all these. So, back when Ad Week DC started, I was on the organizing committee, kind of like as a support person. Because every agency had at the time would take a year and be Chairman or Chairwoman. And that was so fascinating to for me to be at the table with all the heads of the big ad firms in DC and I got quite the peek under the covers there. So that was another really great opportunity. And as I said, I would keep my ear open always looking for those opportunities. So those are the ones that I would I would mention.
Kelly
I wanted to add on to your thought about convincing bosses because that’s always the job. And it’s easier when you’re your boss or your company has a set amount of money set aside each year for an employee. And we do that at Williams Whittle where we have a couple thousand dollars that we set aside for each staff member for continuing education or conferences and the like. And so that’s already baked into the system. And that makes it easier. But back in the SXSW days, it wasn’t…
Julia
Like $10,000 to attend. It’s outrageous.
Kelly
But here’s what I did. I went with two of my bosses, I went with two different bosses and I invited them to go I said, you got to come with me, you’ve got to understand what this is like. And one of my bosses Alberto Gonzalez, in the year he went, he got an autograph and met Cory Booker, Al Gore, Shaquille O’Neal, Shaquille O’Neal signed his iPad. And he was so thrilled because he met all sorts of interesting people there, he understood it was an experience. It was a total experience. And he was totally in and wanted to go on from there on. And so sometimes bringing your boss with you is a good bonding experience. And also, to get them to understand, wow, this is really something that it’s this important that you got to check out at least once.
Julia
And here’s the other thing is, I used to go to the AMA Nonprofit conference every year, they have a little break, they didn’t do it for a couple years. But I remember when I went, it was like, the whole staff would go, and we would all listen. And we would break out and make sure we went to all the different simultaneous breakout presentations. And we come back at the end of the day, we all be so excited by everything that we experienced and things that we heard. And then the next day, we go back into the office and dive right back into work. And all of that momentum and excitement from that event kind of got, I don’t want to say evaporated, but it was hard to harness it and come up with a plan of how to incorporate it. So, from a young person’s point of view, like as you said, like going with your bosses to these events, I mean, one way that you can really be helpful and show that demonstrate that you’ve gotten a lot out of it, is to kind of do like a debrief with your team and summarize these ideas, capture them on paper, and identify while it’s really fresh, you know? Should we bring it to this account person and let them know about this idea? Should we go have a brainstorming session with a client and talk about how this could apply to them? So, like, really like being the catalyst for absorbing that information, and then bringing it back? And like actually applying it?
Kelly
That’s the most important part is just memories.
Julia
And as a young person, I feel like that’s a really good thing for you to avail yourself of, that’s one way to step up and show that you’re a leader that you’re eager to learn. And even if you’re not young, like you’re a new mom, right, who is trying to figure out how to get to the next level of your career, even while juggling it all. Again, it’s a great, it’s a great way to show some initiative.
Kelly
The other one that I’m that we belong to is ICOM which is a global network of more than 80 independent advertising, digital marketing communication agencies in 60 different countries. And we have regional meetings and international meetings once a year. We haven’t had them this year, obviously because of COVID. But they’ve gotten more sophisticated over the years and they brought some extremely wonderful presenters. For example, David C. Baker, Blair Enns, David Mead, he co-wrote Find Your Why with Simon Sinek, a wilderness adventurer, the chief storyteller from Microsoft. And so, these speakers are really impressive to meet and to be inspired by. And then the other thing that they do is, every ad agency that attends needs to present a three-minute presentation of a bright business idea that they had that year, and they have to present to your peers, your other agencies and that and then they create a book out of all of these ideas. And each of the agencies can see all each other’s ideas and use them –You know, for their own to use for clients or new business. And so that’s another way of collaboration, which I’ve really enjoyed over the last couple years and received a lot out of. So, there’s so many ways to tap into some of the resources that are that are already out there. And the other thing that, obviously, now webinars are huge. And we have, we have a Slack channel, just called learning opportunities. Anytime I see something free webinar on social media XYZ, you know, someone is attending at least a webinar a week on our team, because there’s so many now that are free and available, or low cost and worthwhile. And we all share notes with each other and discuss it as well. So that’s important, too.
Julia
I mean this whole technological advancement of webinars and being able to go to conferences virtually like that did not exist when I was first starting out in the industry. And quite frankly, some people weren’t comfortable with it even a year ago, they really felt like the in-person experience was the only way to go. And I feel like that’s really, there’s so many more opportunities, because of that. But going back to what you said about ICOM, what’s really unique about that, and there are lots of other agency networks out there, the Agency Management Institute is one of my faves. There’s also Bull and Beard. There’s, there’s so many, but what’s so great about these groups is that they’re tight knit, and very selective. And so therefore, when people come together to share ideas, they do so within a safe space. Yeah, so it’s no BS, like sometimes people want to present case studies and work, but they don’t really want to give away the thing, but with those groups who really get it, that’s so helpful. I wonder if I’m because I remember hearing about ICOM meetings and never participating, I wonder if they’re willing to live cast those so that people at the agency can participate in the future?
Kelly
Well, they do record them, so I actually am able to share those recordings with my team when we get back. So, it’s not just about my notes, we can actually, especially with the speakers, they do record all of those. So that’s very helpful. But and the other thing that we do is, we have an online system where anyone has a question about resources. So, I’m going to do a pitch on XYZ, does anyone have experience in this background, and then we can use each other as resources, we can co-pitch together, because there’s offices all around the world, we can use those resources together. So that’s, that’s been a great, great opportunity for us. And a really great resource.
Julia
One of the cool things that we decided kind of as a young group, at Williams Whittle when I was starting out was we started this thing called Tech Tuesday, and it really was to try to take our staff meetings and make them like a learning opportunity. Right? Not just like a status meeting. But let’s talk about all the new and emerging things, right. So, at the time, Twitter was new, and clients were coming to ask us, what is this Twitter, and a lot of people, the agency couldn’t speak about it, along with all the other things, obviously, that were happening. And so, each person would kind of sign up for a week, and they would do kind of, a quick tutorial on things. And it really was a way for everyone to show leadership, everyone to participate in brainstorming and help people out with new ideas. Like, I would personally love someone to give me one of those on Tick Tock right now, because..
Kelly
You could probably ask your children or my children.
Julia
Yes, my children are too young. Your children might know more about Tick Tock than I do. But it was it was again, another opportunity for self-learning and for teaching others. So that’s another kind of idea for juggling at all. Let’s talk about when you’re a mom and you’re coming back into the workforce, maybe from maternity leave or from like a longer break right? From having kids and you’re coming back into the office or the workforce, just in general, even freelancing, learning and becoming an expert takes on a whole new meaning. It’s a different thing, right? Like a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about definitely I feel like are good for newbies into the into the industry. But what about that, like next step? What do you think about that? What were your be your top tips there? Well, okay, so personal story. So, like each child that I birthed, I would take, the standard amount of maternity leave at 12 weeks, and come back into the workforce. And quite frankly, I was overwhelmed. It was half of my brain was still left at home, thinking about my little ones thinking about all my responsibilities. And yet, I was also eager to prove my place on my team. And so, balancing that was, I think, mentally and emotionally taxing. And after, I think, once I had my first kid, I kind of came back in trying to pick up where I left off, but realizing that maybe I have a little less gas in the tank. I’m just –things were different. And so, for me learning and juggling at all, quite frankly, at that time, compartmentalizing and doing the best I could, and maybe not going that extra mile for a certain period of time. And like, I don’t know, doesn’t sound so great. But at the same time, I feel like I mean, this is real world, right?
Kelly
You know, it’s really true. And I remember when I had first had kids, a friend of mine who had a child older than mine said to me, and I couldn’t get over this at the time. She said, “You need to be okay, that you’re not going to check everything off your list every day.” And I’m such a list checker that I was like, what do you mean? I have to be okay with that? It took me a while to comprehend what that meant. And that’s absolutely true. It really helps you focus on that 20% of things that’s most important, that’s going to give you the 80% of the benefits and prioritize because you have to because you have to leave on time, you’re not taking long lunch breaks, you might be pumping at lunch, I mean, all sorts of things. And so, during that time, you’re not necessarily going to have the opportunity to expanding yourself in that way. Because a lot of it’s just kind of getting through it getting by and that’s okay, that’s a part of being a mom and a part of the evolution of everything. And so, you have to be able to, to give yourself a break.
Julia
Yeah, I think that’s what I meant. I think we needed to say that to this audience. Because, being an eager and a type A person is great. But when you are juggling at all, you have to realize that. Maybe a different, at the time that I do remember, I was for a while, especially after my first child, I was just kind of treading water, trying to figure out what felt comfortable for me, and figuring out where I could best use my talents instead of volunteering for everything and trying to get…One of the things I wanted to mention was the young professionals’ groups, I was really into that. I had to take a little bit of a step back at the time, and kind of pick one or two things where I felt like was really going to support me and support my career.
Kelly
Well, that’s the challenge, especially when you have young children because before they actually get into elementary school, if you’re like in preschool or Montessori school, they actually require a lot of your time. With the kids, you have to volunteer to do XYZ and it’s extremely difficult to do that plus the job and etc. So, you kind of have to be okay with you know what, here’s my store-bought cookies. I didn’t make them…
Julia
And I’m okay with it.
Kelly
That was me. You know, I did what I could.
Julia
Making a new checklist right? Going back to your things on the checklist make me look different, and also the amount that you can commit to doing. I also think that’s a huge, huge key tip in juggling at all is setting expectations, either with your boss or your team about what’s realistic, and what’s doable. I think this also speaks to people like who are working in firms, you know, big firms where I was reading something online, like a new mom was saying, now that I have a kid, I can’t work 12 hours a day. Because, agencies are notorious for expecting an incredible amount of time, expecting employees not to leave at 5-6-7 o’clock at night. I’m expecting them to, I’m just hitting the gas pedal and never letting off. It was a new mom that can be really daunting to navigate. Let’s continue on with some more ideas for juggling it all.
Kelly
For me, along with conferences, I like to read and you don’t have time to read when you’ve got three little ones, right? So that’s an area that probably paused or went on hold because you’re just too exhausted, really. I started reading more avidly in the last couple years. And finally, this year, I had heard that CEOs, top CEOs read 55 books a year. And Bill Gates will go on an entire week holiday where he brings 50 books with him. And he only reads. And that’s how CEOs learn. They spend a huge amount of their day, maybe up to three hours a day reading. And so, I decided that I was going to commit to reading a book a week, early this spring, and I have been doing it. And I’ve legitimately been actually reading the books, meaning I don’t have Blinkist. I am reading them. And what I tried to do with the books is we started the Williams Whittle Media Club, and it first started out as books. And then I realized, well, sometimes I just want to listen to podcasts, or I want to be able to watch a documentary that’s relevant. There’s all sorts of media that are out there that are relevant to the business to community. So the theme around the books that I read are really professional development. And so, I read what’s interesting to me, and I try to pull out the tidbits that I think are most interesting, whether it’s a recap of the book, a quote or two that interests me the most, or what are the top five things that I learned from that from that particular book. And so that has been a game changer for me personally, because it’s helped me in my, in my personal and professional growth, just in terms of learning, but also in connecting with a lot of authors. So, I now have people who are actually reaching out to me on LinkedIn saying, I just wrote a book, will you read it and review it? And so that’s exciting. And the fear I have is this, well, when I finish the year, am I going…
Julia
To keep going?
Kelly
It’s a big commitment to do all year. But I think ultimately, it’s made me a better person. And it’s been a fun thing for content for the agency.
Julia
I once had a client that did a book club with his employees and included us as their agency partner. And I think they did like one book a quarter. So, it wasn’t like a book a week. I don’t think I can keep up. And it was a positive thing for everyone to kind of read the same thing and talk about the concepts together. Because once you start talking about its kind of reinforces what you’ve read. I love that idea. I’m super impressed by your reading abilities this year.
Kelly
Well, don’t be and my kids certainly aren’t. I just reviewed it Who Moved My Cheese. And there’s a teen version of it. And so, I bought it for my teenager and I said I love this book. Would you please read it? And he like looked at me like no…
Julia
Well, my kids, when I ask them to read, they’re like, well, why should I read if you’re not reading? And I’m like, Oh, no, no, I read, but it’s on my Kindle app. And it’s when all the lights are out, and everyone’s asleep. Yes. Finally, when I can read, and I should do a better job of reading business books. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of nonfiction and historical things, but I’m super in awe of your reading book club.
Kelly
Well, read my reviews, and you’re all good. And the other thing that’s been helpful for me is, in the last year, one of my friend’s kind of started this woman’s group where we would meet, we’re all in marketing, and we would meet once a month and talk about ideas and what we were working on. And that was very helpful, it kind of dropped off pre-COVID. But I want to bring that back up again, where you start to meet with people, other women and get ideas that are similar, and even women that are older than you and have more experience, so you can kind of pick their brains. So that’s another good idea is to make sure that you’re getting together with people regularly, like minds and continue to push each other and, teach each other kind of Lincoln Team of Rivals idea where you’re definitely pushing each other.
Julia
Yeah, there’s actually made me think, I’m part of so many different Facebook groups now. There’s one that’s really great, like Nonprofit Communications Professionals. So, it’s a very specific group of people that are working at nonprofits that have communications challenges, and everyone is very open and honest about what they don’t know, what they should know, and asking questions and asking for help. And I’m just seeing those posts, I do keep up with those groups, right, it really is so helpful in building that expertise, just like one little nugget at a time, when I have time to access it. And again, another thing that I didn’t have several years ago, I feel like Facebook groups now are more popular than ever, and I see so many of them.
Kelly
Yeah, there are a lot of women’s groups. There’s another one that I belong to Forbes Women’s group, where it’s through Slack, and you meet all sorts of interesting women on there as well. And they post their own content with their reading list. So that that’s fascinating, too. You know, the last thing that that that I’ve been doing recently, especially in the last couple years, but more often, probably this year, is I have a lot of people who have partnered with in the past like production companies, SEO/Search experts, SEM experts, you name it, and they reach out to do a lot of co-promotions, and those are people that I can talk to on a regular basis to get advice and say, okay, look at my site, can you look at this from the lens that you would look at it from — I look at it from a marketing communication standpoint, you look at it from an SEO standpoint, what am I missing? And, get advice from the people who know it best. And, vice versa, you can trade those services. I’ll help you with your communications if you help me with, whatever areas of your expertise and, and that’s important too, is making sure that you have a wide range of people in your network, who will look at a problem from different points of view. And being able to have that feedback is really important.
Julia
Absolutely. And even if you’re new to this industry, no matter what your ages, there’s all these people that you have contact with on a day-to-day basis that you should reach out to do that list. Because I think as I said, on maybe Podcast one, like everyone loves to be asked for advice. So, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for it. And so, I remember when I was first starting out at the agency, at my client, there were other people my age. And so, we would often talk about those things that we had in common and marketing challenges, what they’ve encountered throughout the day, and even though I wasn’t talking to someone in the C suite, I was still certainly learning and having good conversations.
So, with all of that said, let us let’s recap what we said, our best advice for our listeners. So, here’s what I heard. We encourage you to attend events, whether they’re in person or virtual or webinars on a regular basis. Read books. Get involved in local groups, such as AMA, young professionals’ groups, Moms groups online, getting together with just like-minded professionals. Look into industry groups such as ICOM or Agency Management Institute that talk from a higher level and share real ideas, be eager to participate in learning, whatever that is, however, that is within your career or at your agency. Anything else I missed?
Kelly
I mean, it’s a matter of just kind of being open to, to what’s out there because it’s all there for you to find. And most of it is free, and finding the resources or finding the time to go out there and connect with people.
Julia
So, and you don’t always have to be checking everything off that list. Depending on where you are in your career, it might look at learning and juggling and all looks different. So, with that said, we’re going to sign off and see you next time.
Wow, I hope we left you with some great ideas for enhancing your skills. If you like what you heard, please subscribe or we as a podcast interview match with us.com. Until next time.
