I had coffee this morning with the L in L/N the Livengood in Livengood and Company so I figured this was a good omen for restarting (and finishing) the work series.
When we left off we were leaving Colorado Springs and heading back to Portland. Brent was transferred before the school year was over so C and I had stayed behind to sell the house and finish the school year while Brent found a new place to settle in that would be ready to go when we got here. Once he found the house we had a small hiccup with the VA Loan. They did not want to do trailing spouse income and to afford the loan we needed my income. Hmmm...what to do? So I sent an email to Jack and Scott asking if they would do me a huge favor and say they would hire me back. They didn't have to, they could "fire" me as soon as I set foot in Oregon, but I just needed something that said I would have income.
Jack sent me a return email saying..."Well actually..." as fate would have it the day that my email hit Portland Jack and Scott had been discussing some staff changes they needed to make. Seems that the person handling the Account Management for KFC was just not working out. Since I had been handling all of the financial tracking and sales information for KFC before I left for Colorado how hard would it be to have me step in to a new role and actually come back to the agency? After some negotiations about what exactly my new role would entail I agreed to come back and they agreed to send a letter to the bank.
So I came back to what was now L/N (formerly Livengood and Company) and started round two. The original idea was that I would start with handling KFC and once I had that under my belt I could possibly take back over the bookkeeping duties, all while working in the office only the hours that C was in school. Jack is a master at figuring out how to get the most bang for his hiring buck. Scott wasn't really keen on the idea of me taking over the bookkeeping again if I was going to be an account manager as well. I decided it didn't really matter to me and I would work where they put me. Turns out that handling the account management for KFC wasn't quite enough, but adding in Perfect Look and some random projects was plenty and taking back the bookkeeping would be just too much.
So what did I learn? What didn't I learn is more like it! I stepped into a completely new field for me. One that I had watched from the outside, but not from the client management side. And it was a challenge. Jack was in the process of leaving the agency and handing the reigns over to Scott and as soon as I was settled he found the door. Brent kept telling me to take it as a vote of confidence but I was in a dead panic my first 6 months on the job and for as many years as I did it, I never really got over that feeling of uncertainty. And I honestly believe that that feeling is probably what made me do a better job. You wonder why? Well I will tell you...
When you feel like you know everything and are the expert you don't ask many questions. When you are sure that you know it all, you don't ask any questions. When you are pretty sure you are the slowest one in the room, you ask a lot of questions. And you listen intently to the answers. Account management in the advertising world is people management. KFC worked on a co-op system so I was managing the advertising co-op of all of the owners in our area as well as Bend/Redmond and Eugene. Now each one of these owners is the head of their company and has worked very hard to get where they are, and each one is an expert in their own field. And not a single one of them was okay with being told what to do ever. So here I came the person who was now going to help them with the advertising needs and the first thing I did was ask a lot of questions. What do you want? What can we do for you? What piece do you think is missing? And I listened. From Jack I learned that the last thing you ever said to a client on a phone call was "Is there anything I can do for you?" You would be surprised how far this went.
Not only did the group feel like I really did want to help them and their business but they felt like I was really listening, and that I really needed their help as well. They took me on tours of their restaurants, introduced me to their crews, let me sit in on new product training, invited me to conferences and did everything they could to make me the best ad person I could possibly be. And I am forever grateful for their patience and their friendships.
When I started Gevan Reid was the president of the co-op and that man could talk. It was amazing. He would tell these long long stories that went in a million directions but they always came full circle and ended up where he started. I was amazed. But by listening to him talk (on plane trips, in meetings, on the phone) I learned about the history of his company and of KFC in the region and I also learned how hard it was being a single store operator in the middle of a group of multi-store owners. So I learned his concerns. Next up was Sam Sibert (and later his son Brett took over) he was the big player in the group and I learned from him what the responsibilities of a national player in the KFCC organization were along with the unique responsibilities of someone who owned the lion's share of the stores in our market.
The Stewarts taught me what it was like to own pockets of stores all across the country and what it meant doing business with family when you didn't always agree with each other. I also knew that if I had a number off in a presentation Todd would find it so I better be dialed in, and I knew that if things were just too stressful in a meeting all I had to do was look for Justin and he would smile and tell a joke and the whole room would lighten up. Jeff Gray taught me about golf (very important in the business world, actually!) and that a simple phone call just to see how someone is doing goes a long way. Don Herber was the operator that everyone turned to to see how he was doing it. So he was my operations guy. If I had a question on how a campaign would affect the stores he could tell me. He also was my coupon king. He knew his numbers, what worked, what didn't and why. Scott Dickinson was my go to guy. He was the operator that was closest to the agency so he ended up being the eyes and ears for the co-op most often. And his help was invaluable through the years. He let me sit in on (and run a few) employee meetings. He let me train in his restaurant how to make products when they first came out. When he was president of the co-op he would preview the presentations and let me know what was wrong with them.
Scott was also a big national player with KFCC, second generation owner and very well known in that arena so he opened a lot of doors for me nationally that the agency didn't have access to before. I got to meet with people on the corporate side, owners from other parts of the country and their agencies. This was incredible information for me. I got a chance to see what was coming from corporate and hear not only what my operators thought about it but what other parts of the country thought, and what their agencies thought. And that was a lot of help as well. I will circle back to this in another job blog.
My co-op members were incredible to work with and as I talked about in the leaving advertising blog series they really were the reason I stayed so long. One of the things I learned from them as a group was not to take it personally. After a long day of meetings starting with operations then a KFCC presentation then an advertising presentation you would think the last thing they would want to do is spend time together. Especially because meetings could get heated. They had stores in different areas with different needs and they were all trying to come to a consensus as a group. But when the meeting was done 90% of the time they would all head out to a nearby bar for a drink. And I always got to go as well. This time together was not about sales (though they did talk about business) it was about friendships. How are the kids? How was that vacation? When are you breaking ground for the new store? I learned as much if not more from the after meetings than I did in the actual meetings. No matter how angry they got with each other they set it aside for the good of the business and they set it aside to remain friendly. Not always an easy thing to do. And as I got a chance to visit with other co-ops and agencies I discovered that this was the exception not the rule.
I also had the lesson of who do you trust? This was for my first co-op meeting. I had been back at the agency for one week when the first co-op meeting came. I was going in with information that the person I replaced put together and my head was spinning with trying to absorb it all. The day before in the office when Jack picked up his meeting book and went over his presentation with me he said, "Just be yourself. You just have to listen in this meeting, ask questions if you aren't following something and just be you. You will be fine." and then he left for the day. Then as I was getting ready to leave, packing up my books and the presentation materials for the next day Scott came to my desk and said, "So tomorrow, maybe don't talk at all. Be a little less...well...you. You know I like you, and I am used to your sense of humor and how brazen you are and I think you're very funny, but these guys are different. So maybe just be less." And I had to laugh. I had Jack saying, "Just be you" and Scott saying, "Just don't be you" so what do you do? Well...during a break in the meeting the guys were talking about a trip to Vegas they had just gone on and Sam was talking about the Shadow Bar in Caesars. Now I had just been there on a boxing trip and knew the place very well and had a theory about it. So my first dilemma was do I listen to Jack and tell my theory or do I listen to Scott and sit quietly? Well those of you that know me know it wasn't much of a choice at all. So I told Sam, "I have a theory about that place. I think it's for the dancers who have the great bodies but have a...well... a face that is better seen in the dark." Don spit his drink out laughing, Sam about fell over in his chair and I knew I was in. From that point on they knew that they could be themselves around me without worry and that I would be myself around them as well. Trust the person that tells you to be yourself, because you are going to be that eventually anyway.
So really to break it down I learned to be myself and that if you don't know something ask. You will find that people generally want to help you. They want you to succeed and if they can help you succeed then they get to feel pretty good about it as well. Eventually I did become the expert in my area. I found that I knew more than I didn't know, but I never lost the art of the well placed question. Even if I knew the answer. Or at least thought I did. Because sometimes when you think you know...you find out you don't know at all.
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