Episode 93: How to become a young leader

Introduction
Welcome to the CIM marketing podcast. The contents and views expressed by individuals in the CIM marketing podcast are their own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the companies they work for. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Ben Walker
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the CIM marketing podcast. And you know, on the show, we talk a lot about tools of the trade, tricks of the trade, how to do better in your job, how to get promoted, how to move jobs and pivot. But we've talked less frequently about how to get started in marketing, how to set out how to get that first job, that first promotion, how to become a young leader in marketing early in your career. I'm delighted to say we've got a couple of young experts on this very topic today with us in the shape of Miss Louise Crossley, who is Digital Marketing Manager at Target internet. And Miss Jess O'Neill, who is senior marketing executive at Baulker Motor Group. Jess, Louise, how are you today?

Louise Crossley and Jess O’Neill
Yeah, really Well, thank you. How are you?

Ben Walker
Great, it's great to have you on the show. And you know, it's great to have two young marketers on the show, most of our guests are 30 something 40 something. And it's great to have a couple of 20 Somethings here too, because actually, you know what, certainly from my career as a journalist, I think getting that first job that first promotion is often the toughest and the biggest Gambit you make in your career. And it'd be great to learn some tips from you guys on how we do that, and how you've managed to move into position on sort of young leadership. I'll start with you, Louise. Let's go back a little bit. Why did you choose marketing as a career in the first place? What did you find interesting and exciting about it, what attracted you to it?

Louise Crossley
So I think originally, when you're at school, when you're sort of trying to figure out what it is that you want to do, what you might want to go into marketing is really not a sector that's pushed. And definitely, in my school anyway, where I'm from in Jersey, finance really heavy, and you know, finance was pushed, or you know, you can go into teaching or be a doctor or be a vet, but marketing isn't really something that's ever discussed. And I was really adamant that I wasn't going to go down sort of traditional banking finance route. So I was just exploring my options a little bit. And I was actually speaking with a careers advisor, and they were talking to me, and they were like, based off talking to you, we think that marketing is something that you should go into it. And the more I looked into it, the more I just fell in love with the idea of it. And I think having you work for the right organization, that ability to just be really creative, and not be constrained in your role. And you can sort of really thrive and seeing projects that you've worked for, whether it's for a client, or whether you're working client side, having a project been started by you or a bit of creative or social assets. And seeing it follow through from start to finish is such an amazing feeling. And I think just being able to work on such different things, and with different people every day is amazing.

​Ben Walker
It's an this is an unusual place isn't jersey, it's a bit like the City of London, but on an island next to France, isn't it? Everybody there works in banking or finance and you took a different path? Did you find that? You know, by taking that different path? You got some raised eyebrows? And people said, well, you know, there's all of these fabulous jobs in finance for you. And you're doing something I haven't got.

Louise Crossley
Yeah, I think so. And it's one of those where the majority of my friends are in finance. So they can ask me 100 times what I do, but they'll still never remember. Because it's something that over here still not a lot of people into but I 100% don't regret it. And I think marketing is a great, great career.

Ben Walker
What about you Jess, you live in Lancashire? Is that right?

Jess O'Neill
Correct Yes. It seems as a little girl I always had a very prominent creative flair. And I think I believe I said growing up and being an education marketing is never at the forefront of a conversation in terms of careers. So I went very much down the aisle through the dabbled in graphic design. And to be honest with you, marketing was never an option for me. And I never really discovered it until later on. So long story short, I interviewed art schools in Glasgow, London, that got Kai Bosched on the back of an operation I had to have and then I'm not talking about as you can sit at home and not do anything. So I was like, right, I need to get myself back in a job and actually fell into the automotive industry through accounting, believe it or not, I went into an accounting apprenticeship. Because at the time, it was something that I found that I thought that I can do that. But as you can probably imagine, it wasn't me, I wasn't probably in that environment. And then a marketing job came up within the business and I thought. Shall I go approach or not? But it was quite risky, obviously within a business. I was going through my counseling studies. And I thought you know what, I'm just going to go for it. See what happens. Anyway, I ended up interviewing and I did get positions market executive, although I didn't have any record or qualification uses of marketing. And I do think like we've seen again, that creative passion for being creative. And thinking outside the box, I think is what essentially landed me the job. So I've not really had a typical path to marketing. And I kind of had to hustle and bustle to get there myself. But yeah, absolutely love that.

Ben Walker
There's a common thread here you both in your own way rejected finance.

Jess O'Neill
I wasn't going to fall down that hole.

Ben Walker
And you rejected it in the first place, Louise, and then Jess, you had a taste of it, and you rejected it laterally. But you stayed in your same company. And you get this quite incredible pivot, which is a bit risky at the time, you're sort of halfway through your accountancy exams, and you think you get this really isn't? That's more me. But did you feel that you were sort of wasting the accountancy stuff you've done? Or did you think that you know what, I've just got to take the opportunity and do something different.

Jess O'Neill
Unless it's always good to be a string to my bow, I think you can't regret anything. And I do see it that if I hadn't have got that place within the business, then maybe that opportunity to go into marketing may not come to light. So you've got to see it like that, I suppose. Because like I said, I didn't have any background in marketing, all I had was like, crazy ideas, creative flair. I knew that that's what I was passionate about. So it was almost the right opportunity at the right time.

Ben Walker
But nevertheless, both of you sort of broke out of the norm. So you were in an accountancy job, Jess, and you decided to move into marketing. Louise, you were in finance Island, and you decided to move into marketing? Presuming that was one of the challenges for both of you, wasn't it? The initial phase, you have to prove to people around you and to yourself, that you made the right move?

Jess O'Neill
Yeah, absolutely. I think obviously, there was no just because it was a business, there was no slack on there, it was hard to prove yourself, I went through exactly the same interview processes. And I think, obviously, I did my research I'd studied or it wasn't, I definitely worked for the position I'm in today. It was just, I had to put together a piece which showed my creativity, and it's a lot this is me, hopefully, steady income secondhand today. And this is what I can bring to the table as a marketer. It was more trying to show them what I have, what tools that I had at the time, and what I could bring to the job in the future,

Ben Walker
Focused on your strengths, not your weaknesses, which is always tip when starting out or actually throughout your career, if you can develop your strengths and not focus so much on your weaknesses, which we all have. And how about you, Louise, when you decided to break the mold in Jersey and go into marketing? What sort of challenges did you face.

Louise Crossley
So as I was saying about earlier, in Jersey, finances sort of really heavily pushed upon you. And so there's loads of schemes for entering. So there's, you know, graduate schemes, school leave schemes, first joint programs, whereas a marketing group, there's no like, easy route, to sort of join to sort of have to make your own path. I think when I first joined, there was a CIM, Shadow scheme, which was in Jersey, and it was open to your tenant, and I was two years too late. So I was in Year 12. And I was like, please let me join. I've just figured out what I want to do. And they let me on and I had some work experience at an agency. And that was actually how I first got my job. So there might not always be an easy route into the job that you want to do. But if you push yourself out of your comfort zone and prove enough that, you know, it's the journey we'll embark on then.

Ben Walker
That's interesting, though, what you've just said there is really interesting, because there was a form. This is the year 10. And the form didn't fit. So you tried to break the form. You said, Hang on, I'm not supposed to be able to do this, but I want to do it. And this is why it worked. But there's a lesson there for other people isn't there that if you get to a hurdle like that, don't always take something on face value.

Louise Crossley
Yeah. And I think even you just have to try and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Because they might have said, No, we can't accept you. And then you've got to find sort of another way of doing things. But if you don't try, then you'll never know where it could take you.

Ben Walker
So interesting, isn't it just when you particular when you're starting out, these natural obstructions do sometimes face you and you have to find an interesting way more than usual way of getting around them.

Jess O'Neill
Absolutely. But I do. I do agree with you. I think if you're passionate enough about something and you want it enough, and you make a decision like that, that's my career path. And you've got to find a way you've got to find that opportunity and that door that's maybe slightly ajar for you to come through and progress on to your next step as a marketer.

Ben Walker
You had a challenge in itself in that you were moving from one industry to another and had to make the case in your own business. But beyond that, what are the challenges have you overcome at the start of your career?

Jess O'Neill
I think a huge one was the fact I didn't have any qualifications to my name. I think as an industry especially it'd be such a saturated industry. A lot of people ask for industry experience they want to see those qualifications and want to see that you bring in that the table before, essentially, the technology as a candidate. So I think I was quite lucky in a sense, because I managed to get myself on the table to open myself up to that conversation without that behind me, and then go on to study with CIM, and gamer qualifications off the back of it. So I suppose, in the sense, that may have been my downfall if that opportunity hadn't arose. Because I didn't have that the backfill, I only had my word and my skills as a person, and not essentially as a qualified marketer.

Ben Walker
So at that stage, when you're just trying to talk yourself and talk about your skills, there is a skill in that in itself isn't though we talked about focusing on your strengths, but how do you convey that to the person who you hope will be employing you?

Jess O'Neill
I just absolutely love being creative. I love coming up with ideas. I'm a planner or storyboarding, I love taking a brand, understanding the brand understanding its people, and creating that sentiment and emotion through these campaigns. And I think, even before you get that something you can't, that can't be taught to an individual, I think you've even got it or you haven't. And I think that is something that I brought to the table. And since I did my interview with the Porsche brand, and, you know, I took before I went into the interview, I took away with me what the brand is all about the people that markets to the stories it tells, you know, it's a brand completely driven by emotion. And that's what I absolutely loved doing. That human team and marketing. So yeah, I think that was probably one of my biggest strengths in going into the interview for my job that I'm currently in.

Ben Walker
It's interesting, isn't it? And you, you've moved beyond that first gate, that first stage. And now to both of you in sort of quasi or actual leadership roles, aren't you? And that brings with it doesn't it? Louise, its own challenges once you move into actually leading others.

Louise Crossley
Yeah, for sure. And I think in terms of when I sort of started in my role, and the challenges that I faced, you are quite often leaving school, I think, think you're going to go into your first career, and you're going to be taught everything. And that's not the case, especially when you're joining a really active, you know, work environment. In my case, it was an agency that I started at , and there is a lot to learn. And it's not just all about marketing models and principles and why people behave the way they do, but understanding the platforms that you use, but understanding how Google Analytics works, because I'm mainly in a digital role, understanding how Google Analytics works, how to run Google Ads campaigns, or meta business suite or your CRM system. All of that isn't necessarily taught to you, but requires a lot of self learning. And the more you take on this sort of self learning role, you actually understand platforms better than you would maybe if they had been taught to you. But there is a lot of self initiative that needs to be used to understand sort of the everyday workings of your business.

Ben Walker
And you do that you decide just to immerse yourself in it, or when you come across something that you don't understand. You make sure that you learn how to understand it.

Louise Crossley
That's exactly it's just understanding, you know, there's something here now that I'm not fully aware of how it works, I'm going to try and figure out a way to do that. So you know, I enrolled on a bunch of different courses, watched endless amount of YouTube videos, just asking for guidance, but just, you don't necessarily get everything taught to you in the way that you think that you would. So you do have to do a lot of sort of self understanding.

Ben Walker
That's really interesting point, though, isn't it just that when you're starting out, you're becoming a leader, you're starting to take on new duties, new tasks, new roles, you're going encounter, serially encounter things that you've not encountered before, things that you don't know how to do. And you can wait for someone to tell you how to do them, or you can get somebody else to do that. But what Louise Crossley is saying is that that's not the best route, the best route is to fire yourself straight into them, and get your hands dirty until you do know how to do them.

Jess O'Neill
Exactly. I completely agree with Louise, I think the higher up you climb, the more responsibility comes. And I think I'm like, really, I do a lot of the things about marketing, it's that they do a bit of social media do a bit of this bit of that, but I do a lot of digital based things. And I was in exactly the same position. Ladies, I was like, right? Okay, so I need to set up a GDN campaign, I've got to bid PPC and that these terminologies have been thrown at me and you do have to adapt to the marketeer, you have to outsource yourself to find these resources to be like that, how am I going to learn this because otherwise you will never grow and again it goes back to being driven as a marketeer to want to be in that position and to want to learn because it's an ever changing environment, and you just have to keep up with it.

Louise Crossley
Especially as a younger person moving into an industry, there's this whole culture around, you know, it's bad to fail, and failure seems such a bad thing. Whereas now it's like, fail fast. There's nothing wrong with failing and if you're going to fail so hard and do it fast because at least you're trying and you know, if you if you throw yourself into something and you try it out and it doesn't work, then you can move on and you're much quicker then find out what does work then if you're too scared to try in the first place.

Ben Walker
Do you find that that's welcomed by the people around you? You're bosses and your colleagues that they sort of accept that you're not going to get everything right first time.

Louise Crossley
100%. And I think it sort of comes down to the culture that is obviously in your workplace and making sure that there's a safe space to be around. And that people that you're managing, you aren't necessarily micromanaging them, but you're supporting them and guiding them, and you create a place where they feel safe enough that they can learn and grow.

Ben Walker
So that's a two way thing. And isn't it Jess O'Neill that, yes, you've got to find yourself and you've got to work out how to do things. But you've also got to find a company, an employer or an agency that has the right culture. So you're able to do this stuff. So you're able to learn you are able to work in an environment where people say, You know what, we know, you're not going to get everything right first time, but as long as you get there, and you try hard, we're going to back you.

Jess O'Neill
Absolutely, I think without that support, I mean, I certainly wouldn't be where I am today without the support of my peers, and the stakeholders and the directors, putting me through my studies and supporting me. And I think obviously, you have to prove to them that you will fulfill your promises as a marketeer, and you will deliver, but also, by going back to the culture, having that trust, having to transparency bill to have the conversations, and that that sort of speaks volumes, and it also helps with confidence as well, I think being able to know you have that support in the background if you need it.

Ben Walker
The interesting thing to think about here is that I think I did this I made this mistake when I was starting out is that you think that when you're trying to get your first job, your first promotion, your first leadership role that you know, somebody in that company is doing you a favor, but actually, there's a lot that happens the other way that you can be doing your organization a favor by bringing new perspectives of young people and new ideas, and a different lived experience to people who are long in the tooth like me in their 40s we will probably your bosses or your boss's boss, as a young leader as a young marketer, Jess, what do you think that you can bring or your marketers generally conveying to businesses? In terms of fresh ideas, and new ways of doing things?

Jess O'Neill
It's exactly that I think we bring a fresh perspective on things. I think they come in with an untarnished opinion. I think, especially in this digital age, we can adapt, we can learn we can we know what's happening, we do keep on top of trends, especially your marketeers is working within the digital space. And I also think if they're nurtured properly, through a business, they grow with the brand, and they become an advocate for that brand. And like going back to the conversation about culture, if you looked after within a brand, you're going to look after the brand itself. So it's a two way street realy.

Ben Walker
Do you find that you have to challenge based on your different experiences, someone who's my age, would be 20 years older than you or more than 20 years older than you? Do you find that you're challenging the business and say, Well, hang on, I'm not sure that that's going to work. And this is how I would suggest doing it instead.

Louise Crossley
Yeah, I think it's really important. But I think that also does come from hierarchy and making sure that people feel safe enough to do that. And I think a culture that's definitely ingrained in my work workspace is the sort of removal of the hierarchy. So it's not a case of you know, the people at the top of speaking down to you, but everyone's an equal, and everyone's comfortable to give their opinion and have their voice heard and make sure that they're really seen in the business.

Jess O'Neill
I can't speak for all businesses, but I know like our marketing meetings, will have like the CEO sat in with us. And he will sit back and listen to what we're saying, you'll have to opinions and ideas. But it's nice to have that shared space. And again, remove that hierarchy. And that, oh, maybe we can't say that. Or maybe we can't bring that idea to the table. So it is again, that transparency between everyone on the team

Ben Walker
That comes to the quality of leadership, doesn't it? And if you're thinking aboutthe people who are leading you, your leaders, your sales, but every leader has also led and let's learn the chief executive, and even then they should be being led by their customers. What do you think are the great qualities of top marketing leaders from what you've seen in your career so far?

Louise Crossley
I think something that's really important, especially as we're younger, you know, we are really passionate. And I think having that passion from somebody who you look up to in the workforce really rubs off on you. And it really inspires you and it really inspires the people around. I think, as I was sort of touching on before, we don't want to be too restricted because that is the depth of creativity. We need the people who, you know, are above us to be giving us that freedom to sort of do our own thing, because that's where the magic happens. I think we're also to touch on the whole COVID point. But you know, we're sort of now at the beginning of the working from home era and the hybrid working and I think it's also adapting to the fact of, you know, let us do what we're comfortable as well with, you know, we're sort of more accustomed to maybe Flexi working and working from home. But if you let us sort of thrive in the environment that we feel comfortable in, then it works for you.

Ben Walker
Now, have you found that you're both in the office today? I can see, but you're not always in the in the office, presumably, you're in the office every day, every day.

Jess O'Neill
I love it, I wouldn't want to work from home.

Ben Walker
Well, as I was going say, it's an interesting point, because one of the critiques of, of home working, probably permanent home working rather than hybrid, is that for younger people, it's harder to learn and collaborate if you're stuck, you know, in your living room every day. And it's interesting that you're actually a big fan of working in the office Jess?

Jess O'Neill
I think it's obviously different for everybody. And I work with ours, essentially. And they're very tangible product. And I think you have to be around that, to be able to sell the product and be around the people be around in the showroom. So obviously, people's environments change, and everyone's different. But I think most importantly, as a marketeer, to be in the room with other marketers, and designers, you've got to bounce ideas off of each other, you've got to have those conversations. So that for me that is why I prefer to be in the environment of an office rather than being at home independently.

Ben Walker
Interesting.

Louise Crossley
And you think, yeah, because I'm in the office most of the time, but is it sort of very flexible in terms of what works for you. And I think it's just in terms of what leaders can do to help the younger generation is more, just make sure that they're willing to adapt. And so if something does work better for somebody, and they feel like they thrive better in that environment, then sort of adjust to them and make sure that they feel like you know, they can work from home, if that's what works for them.

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Ben Walker
Now, how do you like to be lead? If you're from your boss, you know, what is it that you like to see in terms of the qualities of people who are leading you?

Jess O'Neill
Well, I think marketing, I think it's always about being curious. And it's always about, right, it's, it's never been the cleverest in the room. It's about what can we do next? How can we innovate. So I think it's important to have someone who's leading you who is very much on the same wavelength and bouncing ideas off you rather than blocking ideas, and allows you to experiment as a marketeer and be openly creative, and try different things. And like we said, failure, things don't always work. But it's about trial and error. And it is about building a strategy, which you know, is going to work and then also innovated and my boss is absolutely fabulous. And I think what's so good about her is she's she has an open line of communication. She's supportive, she's transparent, trustworthy, and she allows me to work independently with that trust, because she knows we have that working relationship, where I will come to when things that go wrong, it is about building those relationships, I think with your leaders.

Louise Crossley
And we also talk a lot about this whole idea of creating T shaped people in the workforce, which, you know, my boss, and we will talk about it a lot. And it's essentially the idea of somebody has a diverse range of skills up at the top, which is like their short part of the tee. And then down the middle, you've got a large area of expertise. So it might be where you specialize in. And so for me, it might be digital marketing. But the whole idea of that is you have an understanding of how business works, how to communicate with people in an office environment, and everything like that. So then when you go into the workforce, especially if you look at it from an agency point of view, you might not understand what the web developer does, really, or you might not understand what the design it does, but you understand of how their role works and you know how to write a brief or you know, how to communicate with them. And then what you've got is someone who can go into the workforce, and you know, that they can be thrown into environment and they can problem solve, and they can understand everyone's roles and they can collaborate with other people all whilst they're sort of specializing in one area so that's a good sort of thing that we like to look at quite a lot.

Ben Walker
Tee base people to Tee base leaders to Tee based executives, it's a really interesting idea isn't it? It's these ideas you say the breadth of skills or disciplines across the top of the tee. And the long vertical of the tee is your your area of expertise, which is obviously a lot deeper but you get gives you an idea Jess O'Neill of everything that's going on, you know, everything from the perfect people who are selling the cars, you know, valuing the cars, looking after the show room, doing the accounts, etc, etc, etc. You've got a little bit of knowledge about how all of those people work, but obviously your area of expertise. The deep line of the tee is in marketing.

Jess O'Neill
Yeah, absolutely everything and I think sometimes that's not what people understand about marketing. It's, yes, you kind of have a specialist area, but you have to be able to understand all areas of business because essentially, it's all about the person that walks through the door. So everyone has a responsibility to make sure that the minute someone enters the business or contact your business, they're looked after and it's understanding from Point A to Point Z, how they get to that point, and everyone in every single department, whether it be in our case, sales, after sales, balloting, retention, CRM, everyone has a responsibility. So you have to have those open communications to be able to nurture your customer through you business.

Ben Walker
It's interesting, we do talk a lot on this podcast, about marketers having to understand our whole business, which is which I think is absolutely true. We shouldn't stand our whole business. But it's also important that we make sure that the businesses understand as marketers, Louise.

Louise Crossley
Yeah. And I also think there can be quite a lot of stigma around, people think, oh, you know, we're just the younger people in their organization. And we don't really care how well stuff does. Whereas actually, we are younger, and we have this whole career ahead of us. And, you know, we actually really do care how that project turns out, or how that campaign runs. So I think people often sort of do have that stigma on us, but, you know, we want to be involved, because we do care about the outcome.

Ben Walker
I think you're right, you know, I think you're absolutely right. I think there is a prejudice against young people in business. And in life. I think it's one of the sadly one of the last acceptable prejudices, and it shouldn't be acceptable. And it's often down to the young people themselves to overcome it. So how do you go about overcoming that prejudice against young people in your businesses and your companies, in your agencies.

Louise Crossley
You do just have to prove yourself. And whether it's a case of, you know, constantly showing what you're doing, or different courses that you might have enrolled onto. But just proving that you're really passionate, and you can really care about the business. Obviously, that works both ways. But I think that's one way to do it. And I think, as younger people, but also just so intrinsically digital. And we have such a high understanding of the way that everything digital works. And we spend so much time on social platforms, as Jess was saying before, we're constantly looking at trends, and we can really help drive. I think there was a stat remember exactly what it is. But I think 21% of the population is now Generation Z. So it's like, we really understand the way that we work. So I think just constantly proving your knowledge and looking to better yourself and looking into those trends and proving that you give what the company you do.

Ben Walker
It's interesting, isn't it just that as well as having, you know, young people, young marketers understand their business, you need to find a way of getting the business to understand the young marketers, and what you guys are trying to achieve and what you want to do your ambitions for the business.

Jess O'Neill
Yeah, absolutely. And it goes back to what Louise was saying, you have to have the confidence to speak up for yourself as a marketeer not in a negative way, but to bring positive change for the business. And unfortunately, sometimes people do have to see that before they then, Oh, actually, yeah, you're doing all right, you're right, what you do, you've just got to have confidence in your ability, and you don't always know everything, there's always gonna be someone who knows more than you. And it's just being able to say, okay, I need to learn, I want to learn and continue to grow in the role that I'm in.

Ben Walker
All of this happens in three ways. First way is that the marketers themselves, you guys have got to do the right things, you've got to get to yourself out there, we've got to get our hands dirty, and make sure we're constantly learning, practical learning CIM courses, anything we can do to make sure we're learning. We've got to find the right employers, you know, we got to search out and look for the right employers, it sounds like you guys have got really good employees that help to create a culture where you can thrive. You've also got to find the right boss, you got to you got to find somebody who's helps you get up, get up and get on. And, you know, as we come to the end of the show, I just wanted you to think a little bit about the best boss you've ever had, and how he or she showed up in the workplace and what they did for you and what you learned from them.

Louise Crossley
Yeah, I think as we sort of touched on before, a lot of it is just give us the freedom that we need to sort of come up with our own ideas, let us know that our input is valued, because then we've got enough freedom to sort of let that magic happen, and just really sort of guiding and supporting us, obviously managing us as a part of their role. But we don't necessarily want to feel micromanaged. We want to feel like it's a safe space, and that we've got the guidance and support that if we need it.

Jess O'Neill
If it wasn't for my boss, she went through the CIO. She's now chartership and she was the one who encouraged me she pushed for me to go down that route, because she saw my potential as a marketeer. So I think it's so important to have a boss who does support you, allows those conversations to happen doesn't stop you in your path of growth as a marketer. I think honestly, I think it comes down to that support, obviously to a level you have to prove yourself as well, you have to be even in the middle because you've got a job to do. But you need to find someone who does see your potential and sees how good you are. And helps you along that path because you've never stop learning. Like, I'm still doing small courses here and there, I'm still picking things off. Like when you said, I'm still going online, YouTube, you've got to continually develop and to have someone as a boss who sees that and support that. I think that's essential.

Ben Walker
How long have you worked in marketing now?

Jess O'Neill
Four years, maybe five years?

Ben Walker
You Louise?

Louise Crossley
Yeah, I'm coming up to about six years and two years of those were in an agency, and now I'm client side.

Ben Walker
So between four and six years, both of you, if you think back to four or six years ago, when you were starting out, if you could give your self one piece of advice, knowing now what you didn't know, then what do you think it would be?

Louise Crossley
I think, don't suffer in silence. As I've sort of touched on before, it's not a bad thing to fail. It's not a bad thing to try and get something wrong. But, you know, ask questions, if you're stuck. Don't feel like you can't seek advice, guidance or seek help, because that is what you know, sort of mentors around you, therefore. And yeah, I think it might just be something from being fresh out of school as well. But just don't feel like you have to struggle, because you are new in the business. And you're not going to know everything and you are there to learn. So don't be afraid to say, you know, I want to dedicate 10% of my day to looking up some things on YouTube or just doing some learning, because you are there to learn. And I think yeah, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Ben Walker
Great to hear. Jess?

Jess O'Neill
I'd say, my younger self, I'd say don't be afraid to try different things, I think. Find yourself a space where you can try difficult. You can try social, you can try SEO, you can try event management, you can try brand strategy, you can try advertisement, graphic design, find what you're passionate about. And don't be afraid that you're going to do a bad job or you're going to fail. Because if you've got the right support around you, then you will find the correct path view and you'll find your little niche. Coming into new industries can be scary and it can be a bit a little bit out of your depth. I think just remember why your are there. You're passionate about it. And I think just back yourself and don't be afraid to fail, like we've said before.

Ben Walker
Great. Great tips Jess O'Neill, Louise Crossley. It's been great having you on the show. Hope you've enjoyed it. Will you come back in another four years or?

Louise Crossley
Yeah, sure.

Ben Walker
Good to have you on the show. Thank you very much indeed.

Jess O'Neill
Thank you.

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