Amazon/Twitch Prep Flashcards
Customer Obsessions
NPS Survey
Revising processes and hiring more experienced talent and I wanted to measure the effectiveness of our changes.
I rolled out an NPS survey
After each campaign we sent an NPS survey asking for scores and feedback
- 40 point increase in 3 years
- Great feedback for process iterations
- Saw increase in client retention YoY
Ownership
contracts
I reviewed the talent campaign contracts and they were not up to par with industry standards. I worked with legal to create a completely new template. From there I decided to review other templates, and the head of account management asked me for help with her guarantee contracts.
I decided to under take an entire project of overhauling all talent-related contracts across the org, given my previous background in biz ops.
I completed the campaign contracts, and then made several templates for different campaign types. Then I work on negotiating default templates with the top agencies we partnered with to reduce the time it took to contract with their talent. This took several months to complete, and I worked very closely with my legal team to get them in a really strong place. I then also revamped our guarantee agreements that the account management team could use, and also prenegotiated the template with the agency we were working with primarily with their outside counsel.Lastly, I worked on another contract dedicated to the am team, bc she needed my help and expertise to make sure it aligned. All of this took months of back and forth and multiple phone calls internally and with their teams. It was a major undertaking.
Contracting frustration decreased significantly with the ops team, the amount of time it took to contract with the prenegotiated templates dropped by 80%. The AM team no longer had to negotiate the contract after the business deals were struck, making it possible to move to other items.
Invent & Simplify
Campaign Tracker
There were big communication issues with xfn departments and our clients. We were losing business because of internal and external communication issues. BD was frustrated bc they couldn’t hit their sales quota, my ops team was frustrated bc they didn’t have the info they needed, and clients were always asking for info and feeling out of the loop. This was a huge problem when i walked into my role.
I needed to find a solution to increase comms in all areas, awhile improving our process. And i needed it asap.
I came up with a fairly simple solution. The campaign tracker. it was a living document that housed all information, all phases, and was updated regularly. It was shared with the client so they always knew where we wwere in the process, and they could also share with thri own stakeholders, and we sahred this internally in our project managment software and on slack.
The BD team no longer had to ping Ops on Slack several times a day asking for updates, they could easily access the tracker. The client had all the info at their fingertips and we hsred the link repeatedly in update emails, so they didnt have to dig for it. The ops team used this as a tool to manage their own process as a resource team, and I used it to hop in and see status quickly without having to bother me leads, or to help probelem solve issues.
In our NPS feedback, we regualrly received serious love for the tracker, and how helpful it was for them to follow along. Many mentioned that other agencies didnt have this simple syste, and they really loved it.
Are right alot
Removing influencer from 4 campaigns - sought feedback from multiple sources
We had an issue with an influencer posting political content that we knew was not on brand for the 4 clients she was working with at the time. We were contractually obligated to review content leading up to campaign launch and if something wasnt aligned we needed to take action.
I had to determine the best course of action knowing that this particualr influencer was important to our network but also serve our client that paid us to keep tabes on this kind of activity.
It was intially flagged to me by my team, and I asked them to talk with her account manager to see how long she ahd been creating content like this. Once I had a better idea of the issues at hand I knew we had to flag to our clients and give them the option to terminate her from the campaign. I met with the head of account management to let he rknow my conclusion and she was weary given the relationship was important to revenue, but trusted my instincts. I then alerted my GM and legal team so they would be aware of the situation, given that I knew it would escalate. We then took it to the clients, and gave them the option to release her given this misalignment.
3 out of 4 brands chose to cancel her and all 4 were incredibly grateful for monitoring the situation and bringing it to their attention. We worked directly with the infulencer to cancel contracts timely. She was not happy given that she was losing money. She was initially pretty upset with us, but I worked with my team to help minimize her anger by hearing her out and letting her know that we would still be in touch in the future. I worked with acount management to outline the areas that were issued so she could make changes to her content going forward. And i told my brand strat to pause casting her until she wouldnt be a liability. All 4 client spent with us again. And she ended up calming down in a few weeks and used us organically and we ended up casting her again a few months later. She cleaned up her content moving forward too.
Learn & be curious
New platform; raised my hand to lead initiative in early phases
as a leadership team we were discussing creating a new SaaS platform for a part of our business
It was going to require xfn conversations on how to approach this platform, what should go into, what could essentially be an MVP to test it, etc. I raised my hand to lead this initial team to discuss this platform.
I set up a kick off meeting, with a tight agenda. A big part of this was agreeing on how we want to work through this together, how we all best brainstormed, and how we could create a safe environment to be vulnerable since this was new territory and we need to feel comfortable putting new ideas into the ether. Then we moved down the agenda to discuss areas of focus. How we could go to our creator base to hear directly from them of their needs and wants, and next steps. We met several times, each doing our own exploration outside of our convos.
then took our ideas to the leadership team, and from our convos our GM gave us approval to bring on a contract product lead to take the reins and map out the roadmap for the feedback and MVP. From there the product lead brought in more colleagues to provide feedback, and we rolled out several different surveys, samples, etc to gather data. It all started just by raising my hand to be part of this new area.
Hire & develop the best
Tell me how you help your team members develop their careers. Can you give me two to three examples of a specific person in whom you invested and how you helped them develop their careers, including one who wasn’t being successful but in whom you saw potential and chose to invest?
Strong hire; stretch goals
I hired a very strong experienced AM; she showed a ton of promise immediately, learning our processes, asking to take things off my plate.
I knew I had to make sure to give her areas to grow with stretch goals to keep her challenged and retained.
I started by increasing her responsibilities by having her oversee on a campaign level 2 senior coords. When she showed she could handle this managerial aspect I promoted her to be their official supervisor and helping them grow withint their own roles. As she grew as a manager I tasked her to be come a xfn member of the team, and set up a recurring meetings with orther department managers to discuss areas of friction, where we could streamline, and gave her the runway to move forward her own initiatives. I then gave her the responsibility of becoming hiring manager and managing the entire recruiting process. I pushed her to continue to grow her own team members, making sure they were discussing long-term goals so she could retain her talent. I had her create IDP so we could be on the same page in her own growth, and I could give candid feedback on a regular basis for her performance.
I promoted her again as my last act as her manager. She is still there and taking on more and more. I checked in with her a few months ago to see how she was doing and she was still happy in role.
insist on high standards
Hitting target margin; built it into performance goals
Our company target margin was never prioritized by any department, and “dipping” into margin had become so common place thus hurting our bottom line. This was also making it hard to deliver to clients bc they were used to receiving things outside of the budget, and this was not acceptable to the exec team.
I had the task of educating not just my own ops team, but the brand strat team, BD team and account management team about the importance of the target margin. And teaching my team how to budget, and negotiate.
I had several conversations with my team to give contect behind why it is important to hit margins/budgets. I had covnos with the other team leads that this was coming from the exec team that we needed to stay true to budgets and make campaigns works inside what the client had paid for. They had never paid close attention to this in the past. It was deemed a would nice to have but not a must.
I created budgeting templates and provided a ton of regualr education on how to use the temaplate and how to negotiate with talent. This was part aof regualr education sessions.
I created an approval system for anything that was beyond budget in case we needed money to make sure we did something that was agreed to but wasnt priced correctly.
In order to hold my team accountable i had every one build this department goal into their personal performance reviews. So if they werent hitting expectations they would feel it during review time and raise reviews.
At the end of 2019, my team hit the company target margin for the first time in company history! This was a huge win for the team, and for my process changes.
Think Big
IG Breakout solution
We had a clear gap in our offerings that our influencers kept asking for that competitor had. We knew we wouldnt be able to create exactly what our competitor had in order to appese our influencer and increase campaign rev.
I wrote a BRD mapping out what we needed, why we needed it and the impact of this product. It was initially declined by the GM as still too big aka too many resources to execute to move into the product roadmap. I didnt want to just leave it, so I set up a meeting with the VP of Eng and head of product and talent recruiting.
I led our conversations by giving eng and product as much info about why we needed to create a solution that could help us recruit new talent and increase organic and campaign rev. We tossed a bunch of different ideas around, and for next steps we all had items to dig into and we would reconvene. The next meeting i set up we went over our different findings, and quickly honed in on a potential solution that was totally unique to us, and could really make a big impact on our gap.
Turn on screen reader support
At the end of the conversation, the Vp eng was so fired up he personally green-lit a beta version of the product solution. When i had left they were about to lauch the beta version to select talent to test and iterate. What started as a no ended up as a new product offering that could have a massive impact on talent satisfaction, campaign reve and client retention.
Bias for action
Walmart paid testing
Secured spend from a F50 company we had been courting for a while but their ROAS goal was really high especially for a 1st time spend
I needed to figure out a way to make this first campaign a success to secure future spend, and I knew we wouldnt be able to hit their KPIs going our standard route
I has sourced an outside vendor to bring paid media to our clients, but we hadnt brought them on board yet. I pitched to the GM that we test this vendor and paid media on this campaign to amp up our results and help close the gap. However we would have to foot the endor bill and the paid media spend, and not pull from the client budget. This request went all the way to the CFO for approval. I worked with our head of paid media to discuss our plan, I partnered with a product to better understand how to parse the data, I worked with data analytics to build a specific data reporting sheet. I personally handled the platform, content editing and launch of the paid media.
We increased traffic by 100%, Had a huge increase in impressions, and saw a list in conversions. We didnt hit their KPI, which I knew we wouldnt as it just wasnt feasible, but we created an incredibly successful campaign for the client.
They ended up signing a 3-month deal immediately following and paid for the ad product of paid media as part of the budget.
This paid media ad product became increasingly popular, and in 2021 H2 we saw a 40% increase in sales of this product. It was a very successful product for our team.
Frugality
Brand strat team tight on resources
My strat team was only 3 people when I took over the department but we had more RFP than we had people to complete.
I had to figure out a way to increase the number of RFPs without increasing headcount.
First, changed the system of what type of deals got custom proposals.
quickly reprioritized the list of proposal requests,
reset internal expectations,
and then applied a templated default format to several proposals under a certain threshold and required an certain probability of close to secure unique work
I reduced multiple manual touchpoints by creating a system that they could easily pull form and drop in reducing time significantly.
Every quarter after these changes we supported over 100% of our benchmark. One month alone the team did 300% to goal. It was incredible.
Earn Trust
Taking over the brand strat team
I was promoted to Sr Direcotr and took over the strat team that had been operating for a few years under another lead. The direcotr of the team was that was once my colleague was now my direct report. The director was also knwn as being somwaht difficult to work with, and I had my run ins with her in the past.
I had to earn the team’s trust before I could make any changes to imporve processes, or have them take on new initiatives. I espeically needed to get the director to trust that I had her and the team’s best interest at heart - not just campaign ops anymore.
I went to NY to meet with the team weeks after I was promoted. I had done a siginificant ab=mount of brainstorming on areas I knew were an issue already, and ways of expanding the team’s focus. But I didnt want to start anything before listening and learning.
I sat down the the direcotr first. I asked her a ton of questions about how she was feeling about her role now, where she wanted to go, what she felt was holding her back, how she felt with the changes of me coming in, and anything about the team and where there might be issues with growth or lack of opportunites. She did most of the talkign with me just probing and asking more questions. She truly vented, surprisingly, but I think I was the first person in a long time to ask her so many questions about her role and her growth. Then I met with the team. I had a built out agenda with some ideas on it so they could see them before we discussed. I asked a lot of simialr questions to the team, and asked them to review my ideas and give me their ideas of wherer they think we can grow. We had 2 full meeting just discussing. I did a lot of lcistening and validating.
Then I met 1-1 with the members and got a ton of feedback about management issues, lack of communication, etc.
From there I started slowly going through the list of things I could quickly implement in order to make an impact and show them that they were heard.
The team loved the immediate reults of some of the departmental changes they saw. They appreciated my open door, and the regualr brainstorm sessions. We all worked together to revamp the proceses, and when it came to the heavy lifiting of temaplte redo, I had buy in from everyone to do their part.
When I left the director told me that she truly felt supported by me and always felt that I was her cheerleader. Everyone thought she would quit within months of me taking over the team, but she never did. I saw increble changes in her work based on the fact that I had earned her trust.
Dive Deep
Buyer Rate Card
Resourcing campaigns was tighten 2021 due to increased spend, and a team that was in the hiring phase. We had a problem of too much spend and not enough people to execute on the spend.
his needed a solve that made sense for the bottom line, but also didnt overly burn out a team.
looked at the spend that had come in over the past year and we had a large portion that came in with very low spend that gave the company very little earnings. From that we knew that at some campaigns and clients took more work to execute, so I put together buyer rate card that laid out every different type of campaign and segment and set minimum spending and margins that were more aligned with what it took to execute and where budgets needed to in order to maximize our resources, made rom for our VIP clients, and increased or revenue and margins.
After we rolled out we saw the ASP increase by 54% for Q3-Q4, we saw our average maring increase by 5% and the ops team workload stabilize. We were even able to offer last minute campaign support for VIP clients, because we had significantly decreased the number of low spend, lowe margin campaigns sucking valuable time and resources.
Have a backbone; Disagree & committ
Product Pods - disagreeing with GM & VP Product
Deliver results
2021 Q4 Exceeded expectations
2021 had been a banner year and we were expecting our biggest Q4 ever
I had to find a way to maximize number of supported campaigns to hit rev goals
- Had my brand strat put together Q4 package to sell in July
- Created incentives for BD to sell multi month campaigns for Q4
- Another incentive to sell by end of August
- Increased lead time so we had more time for pre production
Exceed revenue by 25% & number of campaigns by 20%
Strive to be the best employer
Weekly 1-1s, brainstorms for introverts, team connect
