Do you want to show up more creatively for your clients and your colleagues, your family, and your friends?
Do you want to default to thinking about opportunity versus focusing just on problems?
Discovering Hope is full of proactive steps you can take right now, to achieve a more positive mindset or to help maintain the positivity you already have
Getting Positive reveals that more optimism is close at hand
Stuart Parkin
Preparing to Freelance
You’ve decided to leave your current job
Growth – On some level you’ve stopped growing so you need to move but, you’re unsure where to work next
Work (and so your life) is out of control – Freelance is the preferred path where you chose what, where and when you will work – This feels like the break and transition you need.
Prepare for Freelance Realities
You don’t always get the work you seek although by definition, if you’re running your own business, this will make you grow! And in terms of control, whilst you chose what you work on, when you do freelance work, this can become all-consuming.
Key Freelance Challenges
Getting Work – In Spring 2022 getting freelance work is not a big challenge/there is plenty of demand. But, with the war in Ukraine, rapidly rising inflation, pandemic uncertainties etcetera, all of these things are bad for business confidence, and with it, there’s the threat that the torrent of freelance now could become a trickle by summer. Before you leave your current job for freelance, consider the following:
Cashflow – Take the pressure off yourself by ensuring you have six months salary in the bank so you have cash flow, so you can enter the freelance world not feeling like you have to have work immediately/be forced to accept work you’d rather not do.
Connections – Getting your first freelance work can feel scary without the safety blanket of existing income. Work your connections/networks so that ideally there is a specific need/freelance to work on already lined up.
Reputation – Those that become long-term freelancers do so for one of two reasons and often both. First, they have a reputation for great work and being straightforward to work with (I can talk at length about this!). Second, those that love the hustle of new opportunities and better, working on pitches, exponentially increase their marketability.
Feeling Excluded – If you haven’t worked for yourself before, this is a common reason why strategists don’t remain freelancing for very long. As a consultant, you are empowered to choose what you work on and are often better paid/per hour. On the flip side, your work is often in isolation, the type of work is often discrete projects which see no obvious output; And be prepared to be treated at arms-length by in-house teams. Key to consider – Know why you’re freelancing! Have a clear sense of what you gain by working for yourself (too often this isn’t thought through) and this will empower you for the inevitable trade-offs that freelancing requires. I’m happy to talk through.
What one piece of advice would you give to those considering freelance?
All the best,
Stuart
Job Opportunities 04/22
If you know of anyone looking for full-time or part-time work, some of the below opportunities are full-time and some temp to perm.
1. Director Strategy – SF-based creative agency, Salary >190K
2. VP Strategy – NY-based healthcare agency, 180-200K
3. .Freelance – Director level – London creative agency
Past Newsletters
A Great Strategist Is…
As we approach March 2022, the marketplace for great strategists has never been better, if you’re a strategist!
Buyers Market – The shortage of great strategists, (due to a lack of agency investment in training over the last decade/agency models increasingly focused on project-based work/plus many strategists post-covid deciding to hold back from full-time roles) means this really is a buyers’ market
How to be in demand in a tough job market?
Part of the stress on demand in this jobs market is that not enough strategists have the core skills that are in demand. The key for being in demand at all times (not just this market) is to focus on core habits and skills that make for success, year in year out.
Effective Strategists? – What do those that have achieved long-term success believe makes a strategist effective? We’ve been asking your peers. Some suggested critical thinking, others persistence, a sense of humor, new business expertise. Also highlighted, ensuring that strategy was owned not by the strategist but by the team. Four key themes emerged.
Learning- a desire both to develop your skills and to have the curiosity/belief and love of fresh perspective deeply instilled. (B.Thomas/Meta)
Exciting the audience – However good the perspective, effective communication will always be key. (J.Daly/Droga)
Great EQ – Do you understand and manage your emotions in an optimal way when interacting with others? Real empathy is an elusive ability. (D.Giannantonio/Wunderman Thompson)
Empty your cup – Whatever your understanding or experience, knowing that there is always more to learn allows you to show up as one of your peers suggested, with a ‘radically open mind,’ or ‘Don’t let expert instincts overshadow creative instincts’ (A.Raig/ Saatchi)
What do you think is key for career success as a strategist?
For now,
Stuart
Job Opportunities 02/22
If you know of anyone looking for full-time or part-time work, some of the below opportunities are full-time and some temp to perm.
- Director Strategy – SF-based creative agency, Salary >190K
- Director Strategy – SF-based BTOB agency, Salary >200K
- SVP Strategy – NY-based creative agency, 300K
- SVP Strategy – NY based healthcare agency, Salary, 250K
Past Newsletters
Finding an optimal place in 2022
Adaptability
Who is completely sure what’s going to happen in 2022 and, how whatever it is, it will impact you? This fact alone is a big reason why so many strategists are freelancing, waiting to see how things play out in the business. For reasons of potential mental or physical stress (they often go together) caused by work factors beyond your control, or perhaps because you realise you need a complete professional pivot, be prepared to learn anew, to re-tool both your skills and your mindset. One way to do this is to constantly test yourself/get out of your comfort zone so that you’re better able to cope and adapt when change comes. Another way to be able to more easily pivot. Plan ahead.
Envisioning (your ideal work scenario)
From my experience, what most of strategists routinely do for clients, they don’t do so well for themselves. ‘Ideal’ work scenarios might not be envisaged because of a lack of belief in attainability; Perhaps it takes too much time to go through a process? (SPARKIN has a simple methodology we can share) The challenge for you is that if you don’t have a clear outline of the optimal working/non working setup, you are very unlikely to achieve it, exception being if you have someone that knows you very well, that is constantly looking out for you.
Purposeful
“He did that on purpose!!” How often did you hear that as a kid. Point being, the accusation your brother or sister was making, you did what you did intentionally. Doing things with purpose is not only more satisfying in the moment, but you’re more likely to achieve what you set out to achieve. Obvious? So, be lucid with yourself (and so with others) about the impact you wish to have, be it focused on impacting people, business results, your growth, whatever. Clarity of purpose might make a poor working situation tolerable, but that’s because you are completely aware of what you need. Key, clarity of purpose is about ‘optimal use of your valuable time.’.
Finally, adapting, envisioning and purpose ought to be about ensuring as much as possible, that you have fun/gain pleasure from your work as well as an income. If any of the above is of interest, feel free to contact me. My promise is always to ensure you are heard.
Cheers, Stuart
Articles
- Adaptability: The must have skillset for Normal 2.0
- Adaptability: Your most essential workplace skill
- Creating a career vision for your life
- Why it’s important to have a career plan
- How a purpose-driven workplace impacts the employee experience
- Finding a job with purpose amid the COVID-19 crisis
Job Opportunities 08/16
If you know of anyone looking for full time or part time work, some of the below opportunities are full time and some temp to perm.
- SVP Research – NY based healthcare agency.
- EVP Strategy – NY based creative agency
- VP Strategy – NY based PR agency
Past Newsletters
The Great Agency Talent Crunch
The great agency talent crunch – It’s happening for two reasons:
1. Changed mindset of employees – As the attached article states, the events of the last 18 months have lead to ‘permanantly altered lifestyle changes.’ ie) In what I’ll call ‘the great awakening,’ many of us previously who had no time to contemplate our navels have had a chance to get life in to perspective and become clear about what we don’t want/what we can no longer tolerate, be it the commute or the lack of meritocracy, lack of diversity, or just the incessant meetings and pitching of new business.
2. Meaningful work/Positive use of time – Many of those that have left the agency world have left the business altogether but more have decided to freelance, they are waiting to see if the business will change/keeping their options open. They are waiting to see whether the agency world can become more sensitive to the needs of staff and their desire for personal growth and to have a positive daily experience versus being treated as expendible automatons in entities fixated on short term profit; They are hoping there will be more flexibility in working arrangements, more inclusive working environments, and hoping to find places that walk the talk of new business pitches, where the oft talked words, ‘our employees are our culture, are our business,’ are words that are lived and breathed. Time will tell.
bit.ly/3wsTZRj
#Talentcrunch #Awakening #Greaplacestowork
The number one reason strategists are leaving agencies
One key reason why employees are resigning in numbers is poor management, but what a difficult time to manage! And what truly exacerbates great managament is two agency dynamics that are putting strain on even the best leaders:
https://lnkd.in/d4tNMCKK
Agencies are financially too short term focused – Not just public owned agencies but many private ones too, that copy the public approach – there has not been enough reinvestment into the business. The employee experience has become way too transactional.
Agencies are pitching too much new business – Incessant new business pitching at agencies is a key reason why agencies lose so much business, which in turn needs to be replaced, versus focus on consistently bringing the best ideas to existing clients. This is bad for clients and overworked employees, whose jobs then become vulnerable. Constant uncertainty does not make for a great place to work and it makes it very difficult to make the investments that would help to
create an amazing place that individuals want to work in.
Many strategists, in the ‘great resignation,’ have through COVID 19, simply woken up with a clearer sense of what they will tolerate. And because of this, agencies have been hemorrhaging people.
Strategists deciding whether to work full time. Focus on two key things and you can have a decent experience:
Go to work for an agency that truly values what you do – Strategy
Go to an agency that has five quality people including a great: client, creative team, account lead and manager. If you have
those (whichever the agency) you can still have a good experience.
#strategyplanning #Careersuccess #Manager
Shepley Parkin Award / Kings College London
Congratulations to Nikki Kerderagi Small, the inaugural winner of the Shepley Parkin Award,
for second year medical students at Kings College Hospital London.
For the last several years we at SPARKIN have focused on promoting empathetic ability
in the media business but understanding the perspective of others is key for all areas of society,
one key example, medicine. To that end, we’re excited to announce a ten year commitment of
a thousand pounds per annum to promote the importance of empathy, by rewarding a medical
student that has proven themselves not simply to be bright but truly effective when it comes to
hearing/understanding others, so crucial for effective patient care. Read about the award and
recipient Nikki here.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/kings-student-wins-shepley-parkin-empathy-award