• Always answer your phone and emails
• Be honest. If they didn’t make the plan be clear as to why. Was it the rate, placements, etc. They want to be helpful and flexible where possible and won’t know how to change if you don’t tell them.

I found by taking this advise to heart and being sure to do both of those things on a regular basis, I have really strong relationships with all of my publishers.  They keep me in the know of the latest and greatest.  Provide competitive rates. Let me know what competitors of my brands are up to. So on and so forth.  Basically they help me look good to my clients just as I try and make them look good to their bosses.

While I have these strong relationships and good partnerships, I still feel there are some fashion fo pas when working with sales representatives.  Here are examples of what sales reps should not do when creating a strong relationship with a media planner:

• Do not Call & email all day everyday. If a planner got back to you and said they’re looking into it, trust they’ll follow up and let you know what they found.
•  Do not ask what competitors were put on the plan along side you. We’re never going to tell you as it’s conflict of interest.
• On that note, never ask what rates they provided. If we’re negotiating we’ll give you a ball park of where we need you and chances are it’s because another publisher gave us something similar, but don’t ask who and don’t ask how much.

To conclude, here’s a story of the worst sales representative experience I’ve ever had in all my five hears as a planner.  I made a call to about a dozen publishers in one day after BCCing a list for an RFP.  My request was unconventional as I was buying media directly from publishers who are used to brand awareness campaigns and I was asking them for placements to drive acquisition.  I know this is unusual, but my client was super brand conscious.  They wanted to be around high end B2B content, even if it was going to cost them. However on the flip side to that they were driving white paper downloads and trial sign-ups so we were still going to measure these actions and back into a cost-per-acquisition.

In explaining this to a sales representatives she was condescending and frankly flat out rude telling me I was an idiot for planning this way and that you should not measure publishers against acquisition. Several points I made in the RFP and on the call to give insite to my strategy in measuring success:

• I’m not looking for homepage take overs or rich media placements of any kind
• I wanted standard banner placements hyper targeted to our audience
• They’d be measured against other publishers in the same genre, not a network or DSP.

I told her again that I knew this was unconventional, but her publisher wasn’t the only piece of plan and the over arching strategy was Reach, Teach, Convert.  Her brand fell in the teach bucket.  We’ll use a network to drive the overall reach, but we wanted to be in smart targeted placements against high end relevant content to teach users about the product. Then we used a DSP to convert users and find more users with similar behaviors.

She then went on to apologize and say how sorry she was.  She’s not used to working with media planners who “get it”.  Even if I didn’t have a strategy and was taking client orders, it’s her job to make me feel comfortable and confident in working with her.  All I could think was don’t even bother putting a plan together because you just lost my consideration.

She went ahead and provided a recommendation, after calling me several times a day with follow up questions, one of which was asking if we RFPd her sister company, which we did, and she said that’s fine because her recommendation was going to be better anyway.

Media Planning components in making a recommendation:

• Audience
• Content
• Placement Recommendation
• Rates
• Relationships

In this day and age, the brand you represent isn’t the only place I have to go (unless you’re Google). I can justify to the client any recommendation I make.

I’ll always pick up the phone. Answer all questions with the latest answers I have.  I will tell you like it is so that you can better your recommendation next time. In return don’t ask me who made the plan and what rates they offered and under no circumstances don’t treat me like I don’t know how to do my job. We can’t share the final recommendation with you so you don’t know the big picture. You can’t see how your piece fits into the over arching strategy so don’t jump to conclusions and try to tell me how to do my job.

Please know that while I’ve had this one no good very bad experience, this should not in anyway deter from all the wonderful publisher relationships I do have.  I work with some truly smart talented individuals who make my work enjoyable and easy.  To them I owe such gratitude.

Believe to succeed,

|{erry

1. Is display advertising attracting brand dollars today?  Where do you see this going?
2. An Explosion of content for connected TVs had made it so that the TV’s of the future will be powered by the Internet.  Is this at the forefront of discussions yet with clients?

Before I dive in to the lessons I learned in my first video interview, do you agree with our answers? Let me know in the comments below.

Top five things I’ll do differently if every interviewed on video again:

1. Hold eyes steady on the person asking the questions
2. Don’t talk with hands as people can’t see them anyway and causes your whole body to move around
3. Practice answers more so you don’t have to think so much once under so much lighting and in front of an audience
4. When interviewed by a brand, be sure to mention the brand in the answers
5. Make sure hair, make up, and jewelry is positioned right before sitting down

Believe to succeed,

|{erry

• 4 Dresses
• 1 Pair of Jeans
• 2 Pairs of Shorts
• 3 Shirts
• enough under garments for 7 days
• 2 Bathing Suits
• Toothbrush & Toothpaste
• Razor
• Lip gloss
• Face lotion for both moisturizing & sun protection
• iPad
• Wallet

I managed to stuff all that and a few souvenirs into one standard laptop backpack as seen in the picture. My bag rarely felt heavy. My legs wore out more often then my back. We walked all over the different cities from Montpellier to Carcassonne to Toulouse to Barcelona to Valencia, so on and so forth, with just a single back pack. I didn’t even carry a purse.

Just this weekend my husband and I came up from San Jose to Seattle to visit our old stomping ground and get some work done. I have one meeting tomorrow afternoon and hours of work to complete between today and tomorrow. I had to pack more for the last four days then I did for my two week trip to Europe.

Work is heavy and weighs you down. Luckily we don’t need to cart our luggage with us everywhere we go this trip, but it still is inconvenient and my back is not super happy with me. Doesn’t help that I don’t believe in roll bags. They just slow you down as you try and get through crowds. It’s time to simplify. Next time, one outfit for work meetings and one outfit for play. Plus makeup, my laptop, and a small purse.  I overpacked and it does nothing but slows me down.

Believe to succeed,

|{erry

• Drive
• Stubbornness
• Winning is Everything
• Second best = Last place

These also drive me to get out of bed and continue to find ways in generating new business, but I would also add passion. We both truly believe in the service we’re selling and the clients’ products we help advertise. That’s importnat right? Believing that you have something that’s different and better, because if you don’t believe it how are you going to convince anyone else?

Believe to succeed,

|{erry

Now we’re adults, we have a full time jobs, and we’re told to be in at 9 and leave at 6. We’re told which accounts we’ll work on, exactly how presentations will be put together (bullet points and all), when the work should be completed, etc.

Wow, elementary school all over again. Remember those days when mom told you to do your reading? The arguments? Kicking and screaming? We’re adults now so we’ll leave the foot stomping to a minimum, but do you also remember the quality of the reading? Do you remember how you didn’t understand the story or missed important parts because you were just trying to get it done? Well I do. My reading quality was terrible.

Work is the same. When put into constraints and told exactly how to do your job you waste your precious time, you wont’ learn or grow in your field, and the work you produce will be sub par.

Working 9 – 6 exactly to put in the hours regardless of whether I had enough work was a waste of time. I’d get my work done early in the day then fill the rest with “research” (i.e. Facebook). I could have been at home, running errands, or just sitting in Central Park reading a good book. My work would have been done, I could have reached me on my cell phone, and I would have been spending my time as I saw fit.

Doing presentations exactly as my boss wanted them required little thought, became repetitious, I learned little and grew less.  These type of situations cause people to get confortable and not know how to think for themselves which ensures long term laziness and sub par work. Get challenged. Get up in the morning and have no idea what’s going to happen. Get out of your comfort zone and come home feeling accomplished.

If my teacher said to read a book each week, which ever book you want in a week, I may have enjoyed reading.  She’s still providing timing parameters, but there’s more freedom. I could pick any book I wanted and read it all in one night if I wanted to get it out of the way, or a little each night, or skip a night and make up for it the following day. I would have enjoyed it, retained it, and became a better reader earlier then later.

Same with work, once I was given freedom to run an account as I saw fit, I learned quicker, completed work way before deadlines, and most importantly, enjoyed it.

I’ve been using my iPhone in the interim, but after being on Google+ and looking at all these insane street photographers I realized that the iPhone doesn’t cut it and I really do need to get it together.

In the meantime I’ve searched through my archives and found some of my favorites, but didn’t know how to categorize them until now.  Here is my street photography all the way from New York, South of France, Valencia, Seattle, and San Francisco.

We then took a train over to Narbonne where we coffee shop hopped and people watched for most of the late morning/early afternoon. From there we took a 20 minute cab ride through the vineyards to a tiny hotel that sat smack dab in the middle of vineyard after vineyard. We took a quick hop in the pool to cool off then retreated to our little room for a nice nap. When we woke up we walked the grounds and took tons of pictures before dinner.  Dinner was interesting, mostly because we couldn’t read a single word on the menu, but thanks to Google translator we were able to each find something we could eat. Mine was soooooo good. It was smoked salmon interlaced with beats. I’m not a beat person, but the combination was mouth watering. For desert, I had a soufflé. Yummy!

The next day we took a train up to Carcasonne where we spent a few hours admiring this 2,000 year old work of architecture. It was incredible to just be standing in something so old!

From there we went up to Toulouse where we grabbed a small dinner and indulged in a delicious desert of fresh ice cream. We walked around for a little, but ultimately headed to bed early. We knew the next day of travel was going to be a doozie.

We woke early and headed right to the train station where we caught a train up to Tour-de-Carol, a little town up top the Pyrenees Mountains. It was a gorgeous trip with SunFlower and Wheat Fields for miles. From there we transfered to a Spanish train that took us down to Barcelona. If you ever decide to take this way, make sure to have cash on you as you’ll have to pay on the train from Tour-de-Carol to Barcelona. Also note that this was eight hours of travel, but full of breathtaking views which makes it completely worth it.

My husband surprised me that night in Barcelona with a hotel suite right in the center of town. It was lovely! The pool was on the roof!  We were able to walk around the whole top and take pictures at sunset. Truly wonderful.

The next day we took a first class ride (because it was all that was left) from Barcelona to Valencia. Don’t be fooled. First class only means more leg room and Damien and I didn’t even get to sit together as the seats were one in front of the other. It was a nice trip along the coast though. Really beautiful.

My best friend, Mara, and her boyfriend, Borja, met us at the train station and took us back to their apartment. It was so cute and she was the hostest with the mostest. We went and grabbed lunch at a little place on the corner where we drank shandy’s and caught up. We then walked over and grabbed two movies from the local movie rental store – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Avatar. We had a wonderful night of good food, great entertainment, and the best company ever.

The next day we piled into two cars and drove to the beach, Xeraco. Mara’s family vacations here every year and her dad somehow convinced my parents to come for two weeks. We got there the night before our parents were to arrive so we went food shopping and set the place up. Damien and I were able to do laundry for the first time so we were so excited!

The next day our parents arrived and we had a huge feast and sat around the table talking and catching up until the whee ours of the night. We all slept happy and full.

We stayed in Xeraco for a week, traveling back up to Valencia for a day and to Mara’s mom’s parent’s house in a small town called Manuel for an afternoon. There we had home-made traditional Paella. What a trip!

From Valencia we had to get back to Paris in three days so we took the shorter route then the way we came, staying one night in Barcelona again, busing it up to Perpignan where we spent a night, to finally training it back to Montpellier where we caught a flight up to Paris. We had one night in Paris and one night only.  You probably can’t even call it a night – it was more like 9 hours, six for sleeping, the rest for running through town and taking pictures while we found public transportation back to the airport. I got a few shots of Notre Dame at 7AM when there were no people around. It was worth ever minute!

There are tons of stories to tell and great moments that happened, but I’m going to wrap it up here and save it for the novel I’ll probably never write. Enjoy the pictures though and feel free to write if you are taking a similar trip and need any suggestions!

~Kerry

Fall means, big chunky sweaters, toasty warm UGG boots, jackets (even though I wear those all year round) and finally Trenchcoats.

According to Wikipedia, a trench coat or trenchcoat is a raincoat made of waterproof heavy-duty cotton drill or poplin, wool gabardine, or leather. It generally has a removable insulated lining; and it is usually knee-length.

Funny enough I prefer wearing this coat when it’s not raining.  It doesn’t have a hood and I’m not a fan of umbrellas so this baby only shows herself in the sunshine, and lucky for me I just moved to the sunniest place ever. So, while it intends to cool down it will still be a bright sunshine week and I will be out dressed in my finest Juicy Couture Raincoat.

~Kerry

They’re a great accent piece on their own. Especially if they carry their own accents of buttons or zippers. This way accessories aren’t necessary, and less is more. On my more simple jackets I have added accessories, such as a thin belt around the waist.

I’m a big believer in keeping it simple overall, but do realize that there needs to be a focus piece. This could be something as small as a pair of earrings to a rockin’ pair of high heels to a jacket of shiny zippers and extra fabric.

Know what the accent is, the “definitely going to get complements” piece, and frame it with similar, simpler versions, to let it stand out and draw attention.

Re-messaging is a tricky business and rarely executed well.

Another example is Netflix who messages “Try Netflix today” while signed in to my account. By  dropping a cookie after the sign-in page Netflix will know who already owns an account and that ad wouldn’t have to be delivered to that user. They should deploy a new message to maintain retention demonstrating a new feature or showing movies that were released on Watch Instantly. I’d click-through to update my queue if there’s a movie I’ve been waiting to watch.

Rules of Re-messaging

1. Have a strategy: Work people through the conversion funnel. If they download a trial, then follow up with a, “Thanks for trying here’s a discount on your purchase”.
2. Never follow up with the message they originally saw as it’s wasting your precious impressions: Keep the content fresh as chances are if they clicked and didn’t convert the first time they won’t click and convert a second time.
3. Make it a conversation:  If users come to the site and do not convert, re-message asking them to comment on your blog or Facebook page to tell you what could make them interested.
4. Don’t re-message for the sake of re-messaging:  If you’re messaging, “Sign-up today” and don’t have anything else for users to take action on then don’t waste the money re-messaging with the same message. Put that $5,000+ towards finding new users.