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Could you give me an overview of your current role?

 

Ok, so I’m a marketing director for a company who sell WIFI technology, networking routers–that kind of thing- essentially technology - and I head up the marketing team in Europe. There’s about 15 of us in total in the team and I have people in the UK and people across Europe as well.     

 

Ok great. Do you have to travel frequently?

 

Yes, there’s a little bit of travelling involved but in general I try and keep that to a minimum but I try and get everyone together every 3-4 months.

 

Here in the UK?

 

Yes.It helps the team to be face to face occasionally and to work better together.

 

And how many in the team?

 

There’s about 15 of us in total.

 

Sorry - you did tell me that.

 

There’s 5 in the UK and the rest are spread across Europe.

Do you enjoy managing a team?

 

Yeah, I don’t see myself in charge of them but more of a mediator in terms of how we put ideas and campaigns together. I like to mediate when we’re given tasks by senior management and like to work with everyone on how we address these tasks and yeah. When we put a 6-12 month plan together every now and again and we make changes to it as we go along it’s very much a team effort rather than left to an individual to get on with it – it doesn’t work that way.

 

Are there any aspects of your role that you dislike?

 

Yeah, sales people {big laugh}.

 

Why?

 

{Still laughing and saying} No..um.I’m probably being stereotypical but they can be stereotyped...I think my biggest dislike is the fact that people in all areas of the business seem to have an opinion on what marketing should do and how we should do it rather than just giving suggestions. It’s directional rather than giving advice. Er..maybe as a team we might be over-sensitive to this – I’m not sure –but I don’t think so {short laugh}.

 

Is this you being over-sensitive or the whole team?

 

No, it’s the whole team and another thing is that we are, we feel and we areas I know this is true, quite isolated from the rest of the company as in, I don’t think we are regarded as a necessary part of the business.It’s almost like it’s not an integral part of the business. So the product team who build and develop the products in Taiwan have a massive amount of power and influence and then sales are then next and we’re down the chain a little bit. Rather than having three pillars of the business you have three areas that are quite unequal in influence.So I think that inequality in the business is a better way to put it.

 

How do you deal with these inequalities?

 

Pick the battles you can win I guess (sounding deflated).Yeah, it’s frustrating as they don’t see the value of marketing which is incredible because they’re sales people and they get marketed to. We all get marketed to all the time and it’s one of the things that drives usto buy but some of the sales people think that’s all down to them. So, quite a common themeis that if our products sell well then it’s sales that did it but if they sell badly its marketing’s fault {short laugh}.

 

I understand.

 

Broad generalisation but it’s not far off the truth.

 

Yeah, so if it’s going well they’ll take the credit!!

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

You mentioned earlier about technology. Have you always been associated with technology?

 

Yes, pretty much from day one just after leaving school I ended up in a small computing firm, well perhaps not so small – Unilever!  I was in their computer division in operations. Then over the years that changed as technology has changed and I ended up in the software industry and have probably been here for the last 20..25 years.

 

You’ve chosen to remain working in technology?

 

Yeah, because of the money {big laugh}.

 

Have you been interested in any other fields?

No, no, you get very pidgeon-holes, especially in marketingbut certainly when you go for other jobs or when approached by head-hunters it’s always about the sector you’re in, or even the sector of technology you’re in. I used to work in the security sector as well so you’d get a recruitment agency phoning you because there’s a security marketing role going not necessarily a technology marketing role.

 

Ok. Have you ever been interested in moving to another area of the business?

 

No, Nah! I like product marketing and marketing in general because you get to talk to different areas of the business - huge areas of the business. You tend not to be at the top of the pyramid you tend to be in the middle of a matrix where people feed into you and you’re feeding out. I particularly like focussing outside the business too.I like talking to customers. One of the things I least liked about my previous role was the lack of customer engagement.

 

So you particularly enjoyed that aspect?

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

What aspects of customer engagement did you enjoy?

 

So..talking to people about our products, the company, what we’re about, what we do, our culture, what we sell, how the customer can benefit.Yeah. I’m not in front of you trying to sell the product but I’m trying to explain what we’re about and get you interested really.Nothing else.

 

So, can you walk me through a typical day at work for you?

 

If there was such a thing then I’d spend about an hour on emails because of the time difference between here and Taiwan and then deal with anything else that crops up. Then usually one or two meetings throughout the day and then really looking at anything else that might occur. You can build so much structure into your day but things just crop up on an adhoc basis so a meeting might be cancelled that you were supposed to go to and it might be rescheduled for that afternoon. Um..and that’s as typical as it gets but then a typical month would be a number of meeting both at the office, outside the office. You’d meet agencies, suppliers and also travelling abroad possibly to go and meet some of the people in my team.

 

In Taiwan?

 

We used to go to Taiwan every 6 months. That was where the company was headquartered so you’d meet with the global marketing team and the CEO but the majority of my travelling would be Europe.

 

Where is it based in Europe?

 

Wokingham.

 

That’s not too far away.

 

No. No.

 

The role was full-time?

 

Yeah.yeah.the role itself..yeah..um…wellit’s one of those positons that’s supposed to be 9 to 5.30 but you’re constantly, you know, if you’re away from the office and you’re busy and you have to go home – you go home and you check on your emails and you try and catch up on stuff you may have missed an um there’s this never-ending flow of information so it’s very difficult to keep on top of it.

 

Ok…so where would you like to be in your next role? 

 

Um..so I’ve done a lot of presenting and pushing information out to other people and trying ot make sure they understand that so um.. I like to either be involved in..well..why I’m doing this course – training was one of the areas that attracted me um..and I’ve done it in the past but I wanted some sort of academic rigour behind it. So, as of today I’d like to be doing maybe training this time next year running my own business.

 

And you want it to be run by yourself?

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Part-time or full-time?

 

As part-time as possible..yeah I think working for myself and having control over my working schedule and hours..yeah. I mean initially obviously if it’s your own business..I think..what I don’t want it to do is get out of control where I’m working all hours but obviously to get the business up and running I’ll make some sacrifices to start with but I want it to be a very good work life balance.

 

So the ultimate goal is to work hard to get it up and running and then structure it around your life?

 

Yeah, yeah, and if it got out of control then I might consider getting other people involved in the business.

 

I think that’s a great plan. On that note I think that wraps it up. Thank you for taking the time to chat to me. 

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