Questions Flashcards
Tell me about a strategic initiative you initiated
1 IG Breakout Idea - We had a clear gap in our offerings compared to our competitor and in conjunction with the sr influencer recruiter I built a BRD to initiate large org thinking around the problem as it needed product and engineering focus. I spearheaded multiple meeting to collaborate with the heads of product and engineering as to potential solutions, and after a few discussions the vp of engineering got the greenlight to resource testing a solution to resolve parts of the issue. This wouldn’t have happened without my taking ownership and pushing people to think outside the box. The funny thing is the direct KPI didnt impact my teams’ goals but they did hit our company’s overall goals and a trickle down effect for my own KPIs.
Tell me about a time you collaborated cross functionally
I prefer collaborative cross functional roles as you get to partner with counterparts with different focuses. One example of this was when i had to work with engineering and product to integrate a new platform vendor to support my teams. I had a laundry list of needs that I knew would take convincing to secure resources from these highly sought after teams. We had weekly meetings to discuss needs and progress, and I always approached the other leads with respect for what they do and their workload. I would provide them my ideal scenario and provide context as to what it was needed. Sometimes I would actually demonstrate how something worked/or didnt work and how that then impacted the overall process and thus our company KPI.
Using empathy, understanding, context,demonstration and KPI outcomes helped me secure the changes and work needed to have the process succeed. In the meantime, I also gained strong partners on these teams that worked with several times after and had a very solid and fun work relationship with.
Why am I the right fit for this role
My background is grounded in unerstanding influencers and creators. Leading strategic change initiatives, and collaborating within my own teams and cross functionally.
I am excited by the opportunity to be on the platform side working with creators as I can see incredible value in applying my knowledge working directly with creators for the past 7 years to this role
Tell me about a time when you had to leave a task unfinished.
Agency partnership Agreement
This was an agreement that an agency we partnered with was pushing for in order to tap into affiliate dollars they weren’t seeing from their talent. Since i was taking the leading negotiaing 2 other deals templates with their counsel and lead business stakeholder, we included this agreement as well. This was a deal that truly benefited the agency but did little for our business needs but we had agreed to move forward initially to keep the relationship strong and we were in high recruiting mode. After several months of back and forth we ended up prioritizing the other deal templates due to them being necessary for business across both parties. Once those came to an agreement I circled back internally to review a few sticking point on the partnership agreement. It became pretty obvious that our business relationship with this agency had shifted in the months of putting this together, and given they didnt push for it after initial conversation and negotiions we decided to simply let it go. We were pretty far off from being aligned on deal points so it didnt make sense to conitnue to use resources and time on an d adeal that we werent invested in and they simply no longer cared about.
Tell me about a time when you gave a simple solution to a complex problem.
Changing the communication on campaigns to the PM team instead of the BD removing internal strife, increasing productivity, creating higher client satisfaction, etc
Large deal with a client that had been on going for months, were in the final stages of negotiation. There were a few issues sticking that our own BD rep struggled to push on. I was brought into every large agreement negotiation to provide answers/guidance for the business decision terms. Ultimately the BD rep had to pull in the GM to talk to the client since she struggled with pushing back on terms that were detrimental to our overall business. It was a very stressful situation since the overall value of the agreement was impactful to hit our OKRs. after significant swirl and back and forth, we had a quick internal sync where i offered 3 different terms to negotiate that would appease their side by giving them something, yet we didnt give on the that meant the most to maintaining company requirements.
Tell me about a time when you invented something.
Campaign management platform
Content approval platform
Tell me about a time when you had to work with incomplete data or information.
Covid pause
Tell me about a time when you influenced a change by only asking questions.
Marketing presentation about community growth initiatives. I was a key business stakeholder on the call. I wasnt entirely clear on their goal or how they would measure success with the initiative or how it contributed to the overall success of the business. So I simply asked these questions, and it was clear that they hadnt asked these question amongst their team fist bc they werent entirely sure. This opened up a dialog in the call on how this program could be pivoted to support a standing KPI and how that could possibly get us the momentum we needed to achieve this success sooner than anticipated. The GM was on the call and later thanked me for pushing on the team to answer these simple but important questions that helped shift the program to so something that was more meaningful to the business.
Tell me about a time when you solved a problem through just superior knowledge or observation.
Working with the new VP of product when he wanted to overhaul our OKRs for the second half of the year to change to focus and metrics as to how we calculated success. He was completely new to the creator and affiliate space, so I walked him through the challenges we faced in the moment and how the metric he wanted to measure success wouldnt actually move the needle as to significant change or revenue growth.
Tell me about your proudest professional achievement
One of my proudest achievements was when i was leaving I was running the numbers of growth during my tenure at Rak/SS and saw that my contributions led to a 253% increase in revenue.
Leavign i had multiple team members that reported to me either directly of skip level tell me how much I made an impact on them and how they felt heard and appreciated. One that was particular difficult to manage told me that she felt that I always had her best interests at hart, and she learned so much about how to be a better manager, how to collaborate with others
Tell me about a time when you took a calculated risk.
I pushed to include a value ad product to a campaign with a new (big) client in order to see if we could drive lift in KPIs. It was a new vendor and a brand new kind of offering so we really werent sure what we were going to see. That said, knowing the space and seeing this type of spend play out in at another company I felt that it was a necessary risk in order to even come close to our client’s expectations. I pushed that we fund interanlly for this campaign given that it hadnt been tested. It went the Rak CFO for review and approval - which this kidn of thing was usually never approved, but with the strong case I laid out and utilizing the backing of the GM and the VP of Marketing the CFO agreed. The results were very strong, and we saw significant lift. This vendor and offering became standard in many of campaigns from that point forward and not only helped hit client KPIs but help us increase our revenue in this last Q4 by 30%
Tell me about a time when you had to work with limited time or resources.
Brand strategy team - 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
Give me two examples of when you did more than what was required in any job experience.
SS I overhauled all the contract templates with legal to make them easier to draft, and better aligned with industry best practices - this was definitely not something in my JD, but I had the experience and saw a need to I jumped in
ON a similar note, I was a key stakeholder negotiating larger BD deals for the company,
Took on DEI initiatives for creators and casting and created roundtable series to speak with our diverse community
Participated in a mentorship program to help grow more junior talent
Tell me about an unpopular decision of yours.
To not support bringing a particular influencer on exclusively with us based on their sales data we had on hand, the social metrics she provided, and our experience working with her on previous campaigns. She was asking for a large contract and her fee didnt align with her ROAS. She was supposed to be part of our sales driver section of exclusives which means she really needed to hit a consistent ROAS on paid campaigns. Her organic content was performing well but jkust not with brands we partnering with. I suggested an alternate route given that we wanted her organic performance. Reducing the overall number of guaranteed campaigns, and fee but increasing her rev share. The recruiter went back and forth with her, and ultimately we met in a place that I was comfortable with. Initially my colleague was not happy that i pushed back since my block would kill the deal. She even went to my GM to bypass me, but luckily the GM understood that if I didnt fee like we could sell her as pitched it would ultimately hurt our ability to give her more campaigns and bring in more sales from clients. My alternative deal got the recruiter what she wanted wich was her organic performance with much less liability on our end.
Tell me about a time when you thought of a new way to save money for the company.
When I started the agency teams had a target margin of 30% but no one was holding any of the teams accountable to hit this margin, therefore, it was never hit. Margins were regularly “dipped” into to serve the client’s needs, which was making it hard to hit our own goals and stifled growth of the company. I immediately set out a required 30% margin across all campaigns, and increased the margin for higher level touch campaigns that required significantly more work (video, event, etc). The cross functional teams that led a hand to the margin handed over the reins of the budget to the project management team that I was training on budgeting. A year after starting this requirement we hit the 30% average across all campaigns, which was an 15% increase on revenue earned solely by hitting this new margin requirement.
Tell me about a problem you had to solve that required in-depth thought and analysis. How did you know you were focusing on the right things?
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. This needed a solve that made sense for the bottom line, but also didnt overly burn out a team. I 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 spends 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 roll out we saw the number of campaigns drop but the revenue increase which was the goal - quality over quantity. This also helped increase team satisfaction with the project managers as they were able to give more focus to the client and spends that needed it.
How have you leveraged data to develop a strategy?
We did this regularly for casting - needed our proprietary data and the social metrics to find strategies that works; recaps with in depth key learnings
I brought key learnings to SS as a way to provide more knowledge on the data presented and provide strategy to move forward on future campaigns.
What did you do when you needed to motivate a group of individuals or promote collaboration on a particular project?
CIQ team on boarding - I spoke to the team early on letting them know this was coming down the pipe in order to get them ready for change to process. I partnered with our vendor to have comprehensive trainings that we recorded for future reference. I highlighted all the benefits that would come from using this platform, even though it was more work on the initial upfront it streamlined all work for the live content dates and reporting purposes. After roll out we held feedback sessions with the vendor to help clean up process, or issues we may have run into. I had 1-1s with the team to discuss this new process and let people feel heard. It was a definitely a process, but we got everyone up an running and they saw the value and efficiency come to life.
When did you make a mistake, or fail? How did you respond, and how did you grow from that experience?
I took a risk on a talent negotiation to get the best deal to hit our budget. It didnt work, bc I was missing key information from the project team that she was a must have for the client. I had to go back and make deal that wouldnt have aligned with our business in typical cases. I learned to get all info up front - asking more probing questions. I realized that there are times when you do need to hold but other times to let go - its not about your own ego of winning but getting the best for your clients.
Tell me about a time when you made a difficult decision with input from many different sources (customers, stakeholders, partner teams, etc.). What was the situation and how did you arrive at your decision? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one? Why or why not?
Removing an influencer from 4 campaign due to her political posts that didnt align with the brands. I pulled in the head of account management, the account manager, the GM, and legal. We chatted through her content issues, what the risk was with our clients should they spot it before we called it out, the issues with breaking contracts, and her possibly leaving and taking her amazing performance with her.Not too mention she had been a prettyvlaued influencer to us the past few years so mindful of wanting to not to hurt her but needing to also protect our business and do what we say we do - which is monitor influencers for content that would go against our client’s morality codes. After disuccsing the issue with the stakeholders, the legal team supported my decision to notify our clients of the content and give them the option to remove her from the campaigns. 3 out of 4 opted to cancel her contract. I worked with the account team to outline the paragraph in her contract that allowed us to terminate, but also put together what she would be paid on each campaign if any. The influencer was clearly upset asit was almost 100k taken out of her pocket. She did appreciate the pro rata fees we paid on campaigns where work had been completed and we were able to salvage the relationship with her. In addition, our clients were incredibly appreciative of us bring this to their attention, even the one the kept her on board. We were able to renew new spend with all clients and they all mentioned that they felt that we were truly partnering with them. We also out a hold on casting the influencer on future campaigns for a few months in order to reduce the liability if she continued to post content that was problematic.
What are two suggestions given to you to improve your leadership skills from previous experiences?
Took a leadership course through rakuten and learned how to manage people individually based on the personality and work type.
Be willing to let someone figure it out on their own before I jump to “save” them.
Can you describe a time you needed the cooperation of a peer that was resistant? What was the situation and how did you handle that?
Getting BD on board with changing the communication with clients to the ops team.
OR
VP of Product - was new looking to shake things up. He revised our OKRs for both sides of the business. He presented his revisions without consult of stakeholders including myself. I scheduled a 1-1 with him to talk thru his thinking and to get more context as to how he landed at the objective he did, and why he believed it was better than the an alternate focus. It was a very productive call where we both talked through the value of both sides, and he was pretty firm on thinking his way was better to hit growth metrics. I laid out my thoughts based on my vast experience in the field and how I believed that the alternate route would not only be more efficient but would better serve our current community and increase revenue. I relied on reasonable thought but also the metrics we had on hand that proved that my approach would most likely scale faster to revenue. But the overall business needed to decide what the prevailing metric needed to be quantity of users or quantity of revenue. He completely appreciated my point and made several adjustments to his OKR but did ultimate keep the methodology. At the quarterly stakeholder read out we didnt see the push he had been hoping for so I used the opportunity again to suggest a redirection, and after testing the first approach and seeing less that stellar results he was much more on aboard to try my suggestion. I did leave before the metrics came out, however, the result for me given my departure was getting a person that was so steadfast in their decision to change course to better serve the business.
What’s the coolest thing that you’ve learned on your own that you’ve then been able to apply in your job and to further perform your job?
Rest is key to unlocking productivity and creativity whether is strategies, or solutions
Building trust with teams can be difficult to achieve sometimes. Can you give me an example of how you effectively built trusting working relationships with others?
I had just been promoted to lead the brand strat team. I flew to NY and had several days of meetings to explore where they had pain points, what are their thoughts or relieving them. Had a 1-1 on the director to hear everything she felt about her role, the team and where she doesnt feel valued. I had prepared several changes in advanced but didnt roll these out until I heard from them first. I front loaded the changes with the one they had mentioned with actionable solutions or changes to implement. Then introduced new initiatives. I had received internal buy in so they were more on board to do work that they hadnt before and were excited to do it.
Sometimes influencers make unreasonable requests, can you tell me about a time you pushed back or said no to a customer? What did you do in response to that request?
We had one exclusive influencer that regularly scheduled meetings with me to discuss her issues with our clients demands and campaigns. Wanted to remove aspects of production but it was something that diferenitated us with our competitors but I did have the power to agree on 2 AO campaigns since we handled internally - that made her happy, kept her on guarantee, and continued to grow her relationship with us
Can you provide an example of when you when you asked for client or influencer for feedback? How did you use that feedback to drive innovation or improvement?
We asked for feedback after every campaign from our clients and influencers. We received a bunch of valuable insight for strategic partnerships with influencers and how to better serve both sides. We would present our finding to the client in a palatable way, and would work really closely to achieve the goal at hand.
