Just F'in Tell Me What To Do
Business is hard, and when nothing feels like it’s working, I know all I want is someone to come in and say it like it is. This is especially true in marketing, which DOESN’T have a straight forward easy answer. Luckily, I love telling people what to do, and I’m F’ing good at it. And I’m particularly good at it when it comes to marketing.
When I was a young 26-year-old living in NYC working at McCann Ericson. I got a phone call from PHD to pull me over to work for the Chrysler account. You see, they were trying to hold onto the business for dear life and someone got the “brilliant” idea to “mix things up” by moving a Detroit Auto business to NYC. (Someone who doesn’t understand the way Detroit works, which, to be fair, neither did I, at first.)
Well, I was the Woman for the job!
I came in to manage and hire the digital team for Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep across all of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 business. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars and a team of around 10 (It should have been bigger).
The first thing I was thrown into was a full audit of the billing issues. This seems to be the case with every single account I came onto at the big agencies. Zero process and no actualized billing flowcharts. It’s pretty outstanding something so foundational, is just missing.
So, the first thing I did was teach my team how to clean up years of billing discrepancies, build new flowcharts, and come up with a clear process for our client's business that made sense.
The second thing was taking a look at the upcoming launch schedule. We had something like 5 launches, multiple sales events, and of course, the digital-auto-upfronts. So, my team got to work, and we built some incredible and strategic digital marketing campaigns for those launches. (My team was full of rock-star media peeps, look at you all now!)
The next big project was to plan for the next fiscal. I was given the goal of increasing Tier 2 auto budgets to 10%, from the current 4%. So, I wrote the entire digital strategy for the next FY across all of digital Tier 1 and accomplished the goal of strategically increasing Tier 2 budgets to 10% which also most sense for the business.
Not to mention, while I was doing all of this strategic and process work…I was managing the full team in NYC. I was flying to Detroit on Monday morning and back on Friday night. Remotely managing my team so that I could be the face of the agency in Detroit.
I was exhausted! I would come home to NYC and wonder why it was so warm on a brisk February evening…because it was F’ing cold as hell in Detroit! I was getting used to sloshing around in the Detroit winters, driving icy roads, and flying back and forth. This was no way to live.
After 9 long months, the clients said “enough” to having their Agency in NYC and they wanted to move the business back to Detroit. Which made perfect sense.
The team who took over the account “used” my strategy for the next Fiscal. I write that in quotes because I watched the new incoming team steal my strategy. They presented my ideas to the CMO in front of me and gave me zero credit. The CMO was so pleased she applauded their thinking and strategic vision. I was only 26, and I didn’t know how to use my voice to stand up about any of it. But, I did create an amazing strategy and the CMO was impressed.
(Younger Rhiannon, Union Square, Circa 2008)
One day, I was called to the office of the Executive Vice President of the NYC office, and I experienced one of those movie-like moments. I sat across from the EVP, a very kind person doing his best to retain this client, in a spacious corner office within the Superman building (yes, the actual Daily Planet building from the movie).
And he says, “Rhiannon. really, what is it going to take to get you to move to Detroit?”
And I say, “You couldn’t pay me enough money to move to Detroit”. Especially after the new team stole my ideas and presented them as their own.
He takes a pen, and a post-it, and hands it to me and says, “Try me, how much do you want? You don’t even have to say it out loud, you can just write it on a piece of paper.”
I literally laughed out loud set the Post-it and the pen on the desk and said, “No, thank you. Really. I am burned out.”
You see, he knew that I could run that account. He knew that I could do the job, very well.
What I knew, was I would HATE that job. I had been put through the wringer and had really had enough.
So, if you have thrown up your hands one too many times, first of all I SEE YOU.
And second of all, I might be the right person to give you the ass-kicking you need to get your marketing straight again.
Because if I can clean up a big mess like that, and just come in and tell Chrysler Automotive what to do…
I certainly can do that for your business.
Think of me as…
Your personal CMO.
I can just F'in tell you what you need to do.
And, my team and I can do it for you.
From designing your brand, website, CRM, Marketing Automation, Social, to Paid Media.
We will RhiVive your Business.
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