RWL219: How to Build Connections and Succeed in A Remote Marketing Career

Alex:
0:00

Are you at an inflection point in your life and struggling for ideas on what to do to start or grow your location-independent career?

Alex:
0:09

This series is all about uncovering the opportunities that await in the world of remote work and location-independent business. I'll be sharing case studies of location-independent freelancers, solopreneurs, founders and leaders to give you ideas on what they do and how they're growing. Imagine waking up in a new city, a new country or even just a new coffee shop every week, with the freedom and the ability to work from anywhere in the world. This isn't just a dream. It's a reality that so many have achieved, and it's a reality you can achieve too. My name is Alex Wilson-Campbell.

Alex:
0:46

I'm the founder of the Remote Worker Life podcast, and this series is dedicated to those at an inflection point in their lives. Maybe you're feeling stuck in a traditional job, maybe you're yearning for more flexibility and autonomy, or perhaps you're looking for a way to balance your career with your personal life. Or maybe you're driven by a way to balance your career with your personal life, or maybe you're driven by the desire to explore the world without sacrificing your professional ambitions. Whatever your motivation, you're not alone. Throughout this series, I'll share case studies of location-independent freelancers, solopreneurs, founders and leaders who have successfully navigated the transition to location independence.

Alex:
1:26

From digital nomads to entrepreneurs, we explore a wide array of careers and businesses that can be pursued from anywhere. So join me as we dive into the nuts and bolts of building a remote work life, tackling topics like finding your niche, leveraging your skills, creating a sustainable income and overcoming the inevitable challenges along the way. We'll also share the tools and strategies that can help you thrive in this exciting new landscape. So if you're ready to break free from the confines of a traditional office to embark on something that is new and matches your goals, you're in the right place. Today's guest is Harriet McCullough. She's an all-round marketer specializing in community building, content, seo events, social media and digital PR. As a coordinator for the largest Gen Z Insights Festival globally, harriet handles all aspects of B2B marketing, event planning and execution. Her expertise lies in crafting full channel marketing strategies that foster authentic brand connections through content, social media and community management. Welcome, harriet.

Harriet:
2:40

Hi Alex, thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. I'm super excited to be here. Yeah, I guess just to dive into a bit about myself, who I am and what I do. So my name is Harriet McCully and I'm a B2B marketing manager here at Pion. We were formerly named as Student Beans, but we did a big rebrand back in January. But my current role is all about community and events, so that includes planning and running our third party events. I also do a lot of customer marketing with our existing customers and clients. I manage our B2B social media channels and then kind of a big part of my role is building out YMS, which is our youth marketing strategy event. So it's actually the largest youth marketing event in the world and we run it twice a year in New York in March and, coming up in June, we have the London event.

Alex:
3:26

And what made you choose to work at the company that you're at at the moment.

Harriet:
3:30

So Pion is a really innovative brand to work for. Our offering kind of spans across three different product areas. We've got insights, advertising and verification, so they're kind of in a nutshell, like the services that we offer. So to give you a bit of context, insights is essentially giving brands the data they need to understand the next generation of consumers so we can undertake kind of research projects and stuff like that. Advertising is essentially, you know, we offer brands a platform to showcase their brand, their offers, their discount, and give them that exposure they need to kind of a large audience. And then verification is, you know, the actual technology that verifies different consumer groups and allows brands to kind of distribute those gated offers that they want to specific groups, whether that's students, whether that's military, whether that's, you know, healthcare industries, professionals.

Harriet:
4:17

So yeah, we have quite a vast offering and I think that was something that really excited me when I first kind of stumbled upon the brand and understood a bit more about what they did. But the other side, the culture, is really really strong and I think, um, when you look at you know what previously was student beans across different social networks and on their own website. They really do kind of live and breathe a bit of like an employee-led culture. They offer, you know, a fully fast kind of working environment, as well as having like a really great supportive team and people within the business. So, yeah, I think they the kind of mixture of the culture is really great and strong and the people genuinely love working there, combined with the product and the offering and the services that they have, and that's something that, yeah, really enticed me and made me want to work for the company.

Alex:
5:07

Describe a personal, notable story or experience that's influenced who you are today.

Harriet:
5:13

Yeah, of course. So actually at the start of this year I kind of set out to work on prioritizing my personal brand a bit more within the industry and I essentially made a bit of like a personal growth plan on how, you know, I wanted to achieve that and a big part of that was heavily focused on LinkedIn as a platform and I wanted to kind of just set out and like define, you know, what do I actually want to be known for and who do I need my audience to be. And with that came like obviously, a whole host of other questions like how consistent do I need to be with things, like when should I be doing this and should I be targeting kind of different people on different channels, and all those sorts of questions. Given like my experience in marketing for brands, I kind of thought I've never dedicated time to actually kind of marketing myself. So it was a really notable experience at the start of the year and has made a real kind of difference to both my personal and professional work.

Harriet:
6:07

Kind of fast forward six months or so and I've managed to kind of really build a network kind of like hyper engaged, hyper relevant people that you know I find really inspiring but also are great to. You know, spit all ideas off of and, you know, just build relationships within the industry. Of all ideas off of, and, you know, just build relationships within the industry. But aside from, like, the networking side, I've been able to produce an ebook on personal branding. So that was a big project for me recently where I worked with contributors within the industry to pull together this essentially like a guide to personal branding, giving people tips and tricks that are also starting out and looking to build and maintain a personal brand. So that was, you know, a great kind of achievement.

Harriet:
6:44

Off the back of this I guess, self-reflective exercise at the start of the year, and obviously from kind of then, I've been able to gain access to this community of amazing marketers, which, in turn, has then meant that I've been able to take opportunities like appearing in reports and sharing my expertise as well, as you know, going on podcasts and doing in real life panel discussions and speaking opportunities and stuff like that. So, yeah, I highly recommend, I guess, kind of setting yourself personal goals in the same way that you do at work, because, yeah, that was kind of a notable experience that's influenced like who I am today and where I've got to. Kind of. I guess I'm still on the journey of building my personal brand to get to where I want it to be, but that exercise really helped me and I think it's, you know, made me learn and grow much faster and really kind of hone in on what I really want to be known for and achieve in both my personal life and my career.

Alex:
7:36

What are your aspirations for your career going forward?

Harriet:
7:41

Yeah, so my long-term goal has always been to one day become the CMO of a business, so something I've always strived for.

Harriet:
7:48

You know, I love like the people management side of a role, as well as being able to deliver and drive great results for brands in the marketing space.

Harriet:
7:55

So a CMO is like my dream long-term goal, I think. Shorter term, the idea of community building is something that really intrigues me, so, yeah, I'm definitely keen to start working on a bit of a project around community building. We've got lots of things in the works, specifically around customer marketing in my current role at Pion that I'm gonna be working on, which is a great project and a big aspirational kind of thing that we'll be working on over the next couple of months. And aside from that, I think something else that I'm really intrigued by that I definitely want to implement more of in my career is like leveraging AI and experimenting with different AI tools to be able to kind of better perform and understand more about the industry and essentially just, yeah, create better projects, better tools and, yeah, essentially just use AI to my advantage and learn a lot more about that and adapt to be able to use it in my everyday role. So yeah, various different kind of aspirations in terms of short term.

Alex:
8:57

As you look back on your life and connect the dots that led to where you are now. What are those dots?

Harriet:
9:04

so I studied media and cons at uni, specializing in journalism, but I knew that I kind of wanted to go down more of like a corporate role within marketing. So yeah, after uni I got my first role at an agency which gave me kind of exposure to a whole host of different industries and businesses and it's definitely a great first step. I guess, out fresh out of uni pursuing you know, something relevant to my degree fast forward a few years, I guess the next kind of dot. I moved around a couple of agencies just to gain more experience across you know, a wide range of marketing channels as well, as you know, working with various different clients, and I did gain some really great experience working agency side and got really thrown into the deep end.

Harriet:
9:47

And it's been a year now since I've been working in-house at Pion and it's actually my first kind of brand in-house role.

Harriet:
9:55

And, as I said, like formerly student beans, we went through a big rebrand at the start of the year which was a super exciting project to be a part of.

Harriet:
10:02

So I think like the key dots definitely have to be, you know, defining, I guess, what I wanted to study at uni early on, which then kind of led me to you know lots of different dots, I guess working across different agencies and getting great exposure to you know, finally landing my current role at Pion, where you know a significant part of my career, or, you know, I guess, the kind of final closing dot of this question, a recent highlight for me was kind of taking to the stage to host a panel discussion in front of over 500 marketers, which for me is something that I used to find incredibly daunting, but pushing myself outside of my comfort zone essentially, you know, has enabled me to to overcome a bit of like a nervousness around public speaking and allowed me to do more fun stuff, like appearing on this podcast today. So, yeah, just a bit of an insight into some of the notable dots that have led me on to you know where I am now and what I currently do what made you choose this particular profession?

Harriet:
11:00

so I've always loved writing and had a bit of like a creative flair. You know, right from a child, all those kind of school subjects that you get to choose. Mine were always very creative driven subjects. I think within marketing you get to use those creative skills than maybe other professions that or industries that are out there. But also I'm, you know, a huge lover of experimentation and innovation, which I personally think the marketing industry is kind of at the forefront of. You know, alongside the tech industry, marketing follows very closely behind when it comes to innovation and experimentation, in my opinion. So yeah, I guess being able to use those skills that match my personality and my interest is really why I chose to work in this industry.

Harriet:
11:41

And then, I guess, why my kind of specific role? So currently I have quite a broad role which spans across, you know, social media, email marketing, events marketing and community building, so I really am able to cover quite a lot of channels within my day-to-day role and the strategies that you know I implement for our brand. I've got like a great variety and flexibility. That gives me something that you know I've always wanted to have in a role there. There's this, you know, I guess digressing a little bit. But there's this concept of a T-shaped marketer. So essentially it's somebody who has expertise in around kind of one to three marketing facets, but then also then kind of savvy in other marketing facets. So it's essentially shaped into, you know, like a letter T. And that is one of my personal goals, you know, to become a good as good of a of a t-shaped marketer as I can be. And this role really helped me to strive towards that by giving me, you know that, exposure to as many channels and outputs as possible.

Alex:
12:38

And was there a particular aha moment for you which confirmed that you were in the right profession and in the right role?

Harriet:
12:46

So I think the rebrand project at the start of the year that I've mentioned a few times was a key moment for me.

Harriet:
12:52

You know, being involved in such a big project was really exciting and I was able to utilize my skills across various channels and work very cross-collaboratively with other departments to achieve like a company-wide goal.

Harriet:
13:05

So I think that was like a great moment where I was able to kind of see like a direct impact of the actions that I took and the work that I implemented.

Harriet:
13:13

Which kind of made me feel like I was definitely in the right role, but also like a huge one, I guess, was seeing out this year's Youth Marketing Strategy Festival in New York that we host. So, as I mentioned at the start, we host this event twice a year, once in New York and once in London, and this was the first ever event that I'd organized and done all the marketing for since starting at Pion, you know, a year ago now. So seeing eight months of work, of marketing activity, content planning, you know, event setup actually come to life was such a surreal experience like you live and breathe the event agenda and all the comms that are going over out kind of over such a long period of time and to finally kind of be there in a room over a two-day conference and see everything you've been working towards in the flesh was such a great aha moment and made me feel, you know, very grateful to be in the role in the industry that I'm in.

Alex:
14:05

What advice can you offer to somebody who's looking to build their own location? Independent career.

Harriet:
14:12

So, if it is a business or a company that you want to work for, my advice would be research businesses that promote having a strong culture, those that kind of foster personal development and, in this case, a remote first way of working. I think, if remote working is something you're really striving for, ensuring that you're asking those businesses the right questions around you, know how they work, what processes they have in place to make remote working actually work for everyone, but also speak to people within the company who might be, you know, more junior, that are kind of like you're going to give you a super honest answer about what the company is like and then you have kind of a more holistic view of whether this kind of company is going to work for you in your remote setting and if that's something you want to prioritize. I think that that's some things that I would potentially do. On the flip side of that, I'd also say you know whether you're working for a company or working for yourself, remotely, making sure your working environment is different to your home, relaxing environment. So I can't stress enough how important this is.

Harriet:
15:13

Previously, like at the start of the pandemic, when everyone was thrown into, you know, remote first working, I really struggled, working from my living room or working from the spare bedroom, to then like shut off at the end of the day. But we then kind of since moved house and we've now dedicated a specific space in the house for working. So you know, once you've finished your you know you've finished working at half five, six o'clock, whatever time it might be you can shut the door and leave that room alone and you don't have to go back in there until you know the next day. So it just gives you that guess balance between home life and work life, because I can't stress enough how difficult it can be if you don't have that kind of I guess balance and that barrier of separating those two.

Alex:
15:59

What made you choose remote work as an option?

Harriet:
16:09

kind of forced everyone into the remote work really. But I guess, post-pandemic, I found myself far more productive working from home than the odd office day you know here and there. I think office days for me felt more like social occasions, you know, catching up with colleagues. Hadn't seen them since last week in real life and I'd really struggled to kind of focus in a busy office environment initially, especially when that kind of transition back to you know, once a week in the office came back.

Harriet:
16:29

I think people did struggle initially with the, you know, fully remote environment in Covid. I definitely took, you know, a while to adjust to it and mental health was a big part of that switch. But obviously the situation then was heightened because of the pandemic. But once I had fully adapted, you know, changed my work, setup my routine and set boundaries and, you know, started to completely fall in love with this concept of remote working.

Harriet:
16:54

So I guess, in terms of why I continue to work remotely, I think flexibility and freedom is absolutely fantastic. So think about, like the commute time that you're saving you could be gaining you know, two hours plus a day from previously that you know you previously would have lost to commuting. But I also think, in terms of like productivity, my focus and attention to detail is so much greater when working from home. I think it's testament to, I guess, working for a company that's very well set up to work both remotely and hybrid, and obviously as well in the office as well when people do go in. But we have a great mix of you know, in-person events, catch-ups, workshops in real life, but we also have, like, all the tools that we need to be able to successfully work collaboratively online too and how would you describe your current company's culture?

Harriet:
17:44

I think to put it into three words, I would say supportive, innovative and, I guess, pioneering. You know it's in our company name, pion we. You know we have great initiatives to give you the best working environment and balance of home and work life as possible, I think, aside from being remote. First, they have kind of monthly P&D sessions blocked out in people's calendars so that you have dedicated time to focus on your personal development. We have Flexi Fridays so you have like options to have a bit of a shorter week, some weeks and some not. We also have budget allocation for like training and development. So if there's something that you think will help you develop in your role and you need extended budget for it, you know that option is there. So, yeah, the culture is really encouraging and I would probably say employee led.

Alex:
18:36

What qualities and characteristics do your hiring managers look for when they're recruiting new hires?

Harriet:
18:42

So, as a business, we have defined values which essentially form an acronym, sharp, so that stands for speed, wins, be humble, we are all accountable, deliver results that wow and choose positivity. So these characteristics essentially you know perfectly encompass the type of people that Pion want to work with and the behaviors that they essentially encourage. So, yeah, I would say that the hiring managers 100% would consider those kind of five values that the company has created and that's what they would look for when they do come to hiring.

Alex:
19:18

What's your philosophy for building a great team?

Harriet:
19:22

I mean, I think there's a ton of things you could, you could, answer here. I think the first one is probably talent. So you know, you need skilled individuals who believe in each other and can work collaboratively. Following on from that, I'd say trust is a big one. So being able to foster, you know, open communication and honesty, to build trust within your department or your team, is absolutely imperative. And then the last one, probably togetherness. So you know, celebrating achievements together, creating a sense of belonging and also having like a shared purpose and togetherness within the team. I think is is really important.

Alex:
19:58

Is there a particular team or organization whose culture you admire? If so, tell us about that.

Harriet:
20:09

So I don't particularly know like specific organizations other than you know the huge brands like Google and Cisco, who are super well-known for their culture. But I guess, as a piece of advice to anyone who wants to find out a bit more about a business that they're applying for, I mean, I'd 100% recommend talking to people who work within the organization, right from you know interns and junior members through to senior people. That can give you a real feel across the board on what that culture is actually like. I've done this before and it's gone. I guess you know both ways. You know where it's helped me push forward with applications or, maybe you know, hold back for something that from something that might not have been right for me at the time. So, yeah, google and cisco are known for having great culture, but if it is like a smaller organization that you're applying to or you're interested in knowing what the culture's genuinely like, I would 100 recommend reaching out to people who currently work there and just asking their feedback what do you prefer to do when you're not working?

Harriet:
21:05

get out of the house and get active.

Harriet:
21:08

So it's great for mental health, obviously, and, you know, ensuring you're not constantly in your home office or like home environment. So, me personally, I play sport three to four times a week and it's, you know, a fantastic way to decompress and just totally take your mind off of work. You know, specifically, I've always really been into sport, but I've been trying out new sports over the last couple of years, which I really do recommend doing. As you know, if it's something you've not tried before, it can be quite challenging and like being able to kind of stick at it and overcome a challenge in your hobby or whatever it may be, will also then reflect in your work life. And, you know, build a stronger character and personality, make you more resilient, and stuff like that. So, yeah, I absolutely love, you know, build a stronger character and personality, make you more resilient and stuff like that. So, yeah, I absolutely love, you know, getting out of the house and getting active if, if I'm not working, what are your best tips for organizing your day and staying productive while working remotely?

Harriet:
22:02

so at the start of the week I set out daily to-do lists every single day of the week. Something that I tend to do is, within those days, I will set myself three major tasks that I have to get done on that day and they're kind of like non-negotiable the three big tasks I absolutely have to get done that day. And then, if there are smaller tasks that come in, there's more flexibility to like move those on to the following day. But also, I guess, like a big tip is just hold yourself accountable, especially when working from home. You know there are so many things that could distract you, but it's about, you know, being resilient and holding yourself to account.

Harriet:
22:38

So something I do is break my day down into thirds so in order to like basically check in with myself on what I set out to achieve within that day. Have I got there or not? So I will do check-ins at kind of before 11am, then 2pm and then 5pm, just to hold myself a bit more accountable, to did I achieve those three major tasks that I set out at the start of the week? And then, lastly, I guess, just plan for the week ahead. So on a Friday it's very easy to, you know, log off on time and embrace the weekend. But I guess a top tip for me is set yourself up for success for next week. Plan what you need to do on Monday, tuesday and Wednesday on your Friday so that when you come in on you know Monday morning you've actually got a set to do list and you know exactly what your plans are for the first couple of days of that week.

Alex:
23:28

Yes, it may change, but having some kind of rough notes or a rough structure of what you need to get done and having that planned will just make your following week so much easier that's it for today's episode of the remote work life podcast, but if you're a location, independent freelancer, solopreneur, founder or leader and want to provide a case study for the remote work life podcast, get in touch with me via LinkedIn using the link below in the show notes.