In my senior campaign-management job, I was the pinnacle person for a diverse group of project managers. I had many representatives from all the product bases constantly coming to me to develop databases of customers they could sell to. They wanted to know who they could market to. I would collaborate with them, asking questions like, what’s the budget, how many pieces do you want to direct mail? Or do you want to call these people? What media will you use? I worked to ensure each group got all the demographics it wanted. I’d pull the requirements into the data. And I’d be darned if the group didn’t change its mind and ask for a different demographic. Or something unpredictable like a hurricane would mean the group couldn’t mail to a certain region. So, I’d have to throw all the data back in to the pond and re-fish. And the changes wouldn’t happen with just one group; they would happen with all of them at one time. I dreaded my pager going off at 7 a.m. because a project manager had a thought while sleeping last night: “Ooh, I would love to see how many prospective customers wear toenail polish.” But whatever their requirement was, I said, “I’m on top of it.” I enjoyed the analytic aspects and the busyness and the constant go, go, go. Change drives me. It’s something I enjoy because it’s an extra challenge.
Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.
