We had a good run
As many of you probably know, up until a late January I was working as the Vice President of Marketing for a large Architecture and Interior Design firm based out of ATL. I enjoyed my job and had spent over 6 years fully committed to rethinking how marketing is valued in the professional services industry. When I started in 2017, Marketing had been essentially relegated to cranking out RFP’s and various sales enablement collateral. I’d like to think that during my tenure there, marketing had become a more integral part of the firm’s business strategy. I helped break down the silos between marketing, BD, the design studios and the rest of the firm, and did my best to position the firm for success in a digital economy. I reported directly to our CEO, and Marketing officially had a seat at the grown up table.
In late January we parted ways. I was incredibly proud of the work that my team and I had accomplished over the years, from leading a total rebrand, to all of the various projects that stemmed out of my involvement in the Executive Leadership Committee. I was fortunate enough to have an outstanding team with complimentary skillsets, who always stepped up to support one another. My team was like an extension of my family, we were close-knit and highly collaborative and leaving them was without a doubt the most difficult aspect of my departure.
Regardless of the circumstances, leaving an employer I’d been with for years is one of the more jarring experiences I’ve ever been through, especially since I didn’t already have my next gig lined up. I didn’t realize how much of my identity was tied to the Company, both physically (the routine of driving into the office, the company laptop, etc..) and mentally (my work owned my thoughts around the clock). I ate, slept and breathed my work, and here I was taking a major leap into the unknown.
Me walking into HR like…
Pulling out of the parking deck for the last time, I honestly had no idea what I was going to do next. I had bills to pay, a family to support, and a career to pursue. There was no time for lollygagging, although that’s not really in my nature anyway – this 6 year stretch was the only time in my adult life that I’d ever worked for anyone else (kind of crazy to think about).
I updated my resume (UGH), reached out to my network, and took a step back to assess the situation. Over the years I had become something of a generalist; I was able to go from setting up a pipeline and marketing automation workflows in our CRM to responding to an RFP in InDesign, to dipping my beak into business development and marketing analytics. I had become familiar with SEO/SEM, had been learning and applying my knowledge on RevOps as the Co-Chair of the firm’s Revenue Subcommittee, had led a rebrand and development of two new websites, the second one relying heavily on data analytics to understand the user journey at the market level (we worked across ~10 different markets, all with their own ICP), and remedying the roadblocks and bottlenecks of the site it would replace. When talent was at a premium, I pivoted to recruiting, sourcing a number of top notch new hires from cold outreach on LinkedIn. Basically, I was just as comfortable tactically in the weeds as I was looking down from 30k feet and thinking strategically, but it was the strategy that I really fell in love with.
I think the prompt for this one was “A somewhat minimalist illustration of consultants doing what consultants do.”
My First Client
I decided to tap into my network and started having lunch and coffee with a handful of people who’ve always been in my corner – that inner circle of successful businesspeople who I can count on to shoot straight with me. I met up with Jeff, one such person, and gave him a download on my situation. He had two recommendations: Read a book called Be More and have lunch with an old friend of his who was running her own brand agency.
He said she’d be a good person to connect with, and gave me the contact information of an industry veteran who owned a local agency. Jeff said she was heavily into branding and event marketing, and we’d probably have a lot in common. So, I read the book (it’s a great read and helped me identify what I was truly passionate about and good at), called his friend, and the two of us made plans to grab lunch the following week.
While at lunch she told me that she had a client who needed help with digital marketing, analytics, SEO, and the general optimization of her website. With her specialty being events and brand, this wasn’t her expertise, and she didn’t have anyone to partner with on digital marketing projects. She had previously taken to Upwork to source freelancers for digital marketing projects. She asked me if I was interested, I said yes, and just like that I had my first client. I walked away from lunch thinking to myself “I guess I’m officially a consultant now” (I didn’t have an agreement, invoice or even a business name) and got to work building a website of my own (it’s coming!), working out the logistics of keeping time, fine tuning an agreement, and (of course) how to send an invoice.
My copy from Amazon was inscribed on the inside cover, “Be More, Dave —- Todd.” I hope this Dave fellow has become more.
After a week of back and forth, the agreement was signed and I received access to the client’s website and analytics. I found myself immediately enjoying the work, first conducting an initial audit, identifying various issues, and then looking at her user/site analytics and identifying several solutions that could dramatically improve her digital presence and drive more clients to her business. There was friction in the user journey that I could eliminate, and I took personal satisfaction in my ability to help a business owner attract more clients. I quickly realized that I took a lot of my knowledge and skills for granted, and that I was actually really good at identifying opportunities, developing strategies, and executing on the work. If I learned one thing in my previous employer, it’s often the greatest challenges that present the greatest opportunities.
For example, one of the many discoveries I made was that although she offered 6 distinct services, all her services were on one long vertical page, and that almost nobody was scrolling beyond the 2nd service, missing out on a few areas that represent her largest growth opportunity. No biggie, we’ve turned those other services into a drop-down menu off the home page, and now have distinct URLs for each of the services as opposed to just one for “services”. By having unique URLs for each service, she’s now able to link to those services directly, build out content specific to that service, and this should help her with the search engines. That’s just one of the many “fixes” we identified that will help her capture more customers that are in market for her services, all without spending a dime on paid advertising. This was one of numerous opportunities I identified that will improve the user experience and reduce friction for potential clients.
Marketing Go-to-Market Consultant
What’s more, she ended up being one of the driving forces behind my shift from Marketing to Go-to-Market. As I started to work on her digital marketing, I realized that there are easy optimizations to make (the various items I discovered in my initial audit), but to really help long term I had to step back and better understand the underlying dynamics of her business.
I had to get to know the economics of her business. I needed to know where her business came from, was her business growing, shrinking or flat, what was the average LTV for a customer, the NRR, etc… I needed context for the data I was looking at. I had to make sure I wasn’t going to recommend she spend $3 to make $1 or just as bad spend $3 to make $3 and have it take 5 years to break even on that investment. Sure, it’s nice to notch some quick wins, but long term it’s all about building a go-to-market engine that’s capable of sustained growth.
I quickly realized that you can’t just address marketing, you have to look at the business holistically, and the focus needs to zoom out and look at the entire go-to-market motion.
That was the beginning of my consulting career, one that I didn’t intentionally set out to build but which feels like a natural evolution of my career. While it’s only been about 2 months since leaving my last employer, I’ve taken on more clients and projects, ranging from video editing for a learning management system, to marketing analytics, RevOps, content strategy, product development and go-to-market strategy. I’ve honed a variety of new skills, met new people, and am working on exciting and diverse projects that are keeping me fresh and teaching me new skills. I’ve been given an opportunity to work with some amazing businesses and executives, and a chance to apply the knowledge and skills I picked up over my career. I’m also taking time out of the day to learn new skills and sharpen old ones – I’m about halfway through a professional course on CSS and HTML, and plan to move on to Javascript next.
Oh, and that STEM degree is finally coming in handy as I get deeper into the world of data analytics.
The Universe Owes Us Nothing
I’m not saying that consulting is easy or for everyone, or that this is the plan indefinitely. It has its challenges, mostly dealing with uncertainty and instability, and striking a balance between finding new clients with managing the ones I have, not to mention the administrative tasks like invoicing and accounting. But, it also incredibly rewarding and has it’s perks – autonomy, creativity, and growth – plus, when you work for yourself you’re only limited by what your ambition.
I’m in networking mode and open to grabbing lunch of coffee with anyone who’s interested in getting together and talking shop. I’ve found that virtually no work or jobs comes from applying on LinkedIn (you’re 1 of ~1k applicants for any desirable position, and they’re probably just posting the job online because they have to) and that everything positive in my career has originated from a casual conversation that’s opened doors – sometimes massive barn doors that ended up being multi-year journeys.
I’ll continue consulting while keeping my options open, but this feels like the perfect blend of strategy and execution. Also, staying incredible grateful for my extended network who’s had my back and kept me connected.
One of my old colleagues liked to say that “the universe doesn’t owe us anything,” and he’s right. It’s a tough lesson to learn, but one that I’ve learnt before, and I’m sure one that I’ll have the opportunity to learn again. And while the universe may not owe us anything, we can at least play the hand we’re dealt and learn as much as possible along the way. No doubt that change is inevitable and instead of fearing the unknown, embrace it and don’t let losing a job stand in the way of you and your career aspirations. You never know what opportunities might come your way, and you might discover a new path that suits you better than the one you left behind.
