Marketing Director for Law Firm
She found that teaching and business development share a common thread: practicing the art of persuasion.
KS was born in suburban Philadelphia, the only daughter following two older brothers. Her father was an FBI Special Agent; her mother was a homemaker.
EARLY CAREER IDEA NOT BINDING
On many afternoons following her attendance in real elementary school, KS enjoyed playing the role of “Teacher” in a play school she conducted for a younger girlfriend. Through her high school years, KS assumed that her eventual career path would be within the world of teaching.
DECIDED TO UNDECIDED
When choosing a college, KS had many choices due to her high academic achievement and test scores. By then, she was less focused on becoming a teacher but more on obtaining a broad, liberal arts education within a mid-sized university located within or near a city to provide some exposure to urban vibrancy.
INTERNSHIPS
Still undecided on a career path, KS used two summer internship experiences to begin to learn about the world of business and where her interests might find a match. Her two different summer experiences provided an interesting contrast. For the American Red Cross, KS helped write radio “spots” to persuade adults to donate blood; this was essentially an entry level experience in advertising. During a second summer, KS performed some of the duties of a law firm paralegal, including preparation of summaries of court decisions and witness depositions. In retrospect, KS found she enjoyed the art of persuasive writing, which could equally translate into the business worlds of advertising or law.
KS has concluded that internships – if a student can afford to be underpaid for a few months rather than having to work to fund education expenses – provide several advantages: (1) insight into how some businesses operate; (2) experience an interesting line of work to be pursued or an uninteresting line of work to be avoided going forward; (3) build a resume to demonstrate to potential future employers that you took initiative to keep busy and expand your knowledge base; and (4) hopefully impress a mentor who could either offer a job or at least a recommendation based on hard work during the internship.
FIRST JOB DOESN’T LOCK IN A CAREER
A first job is often the most difficult to find, assuming the prospective employee is not blood related to the business owner. In a very broad sense, the world of “sales” was close to KS’ broad interest in the world of psychology since it involved working with different people and their communication styles. Accordingly, KS found an opportunity to work with a company involved in selling business consulting services. She was assigned to work with an experienced salesperson for whom KS was to “cold call” company representatives who were targeted by their job titles as possibly interested in such consulting services, to persuade that individual to meet with her company’s salesperson. The advantages of this first job, in addition to a regular paycheck, included learning business technology basics: setting up an email signature, calendar invitations and other administrative record keeping. But after a year of “cold calls” without the opportunity for deeper involvement in the sales process, KS decided that she did not wish to undertake any of the other jobs within the company, each involving too much time business traveling and too little time developing deeper business relationships.
FINDING JOB SATISFACTION
While still employed, KS searched job posting sites online and discovered an employment opportunity within a marketing agency of about a dozen employees, where she could work as part of a small team to help companies create their business development strategy, including their brand, advertising, website, print materials and digital presence.
Between a job with one responsibility (cold calls to arrange meetings for another person) and working as part of a team to develop comprehensive strategies to increase sales, it was easy to find much more job satisfaction within the broader experience. KS worked well within the team and her continuing, dedicated efforts enabled her to survive a business crisis – unrelated to her personal job performance – within her company, related to the 2008 national, financial crisis (within the banking and investment worlds which ultimately affected most businesses and many individuals). In essence, KS’ company went slowly out of business but by then, KS had earned the respect and appreciation of her manager, to the extent that the manager recommended to a law firm client of the soon to close consulting business that while that law firm had no experience working with KS, the law firm should definitely hire KS based upon her track record of dedicated, creative work in developing business marketing strategies.
EARNING MENTOR’S RESPECT
Based upon her former manager’s recommendation, the client law firm hired KS to work as part of a team supporting several law practice areas within their DC office. KS dedicated herself to each assigned task and was soon asked to serve on committees within the firm, which broadened her exposure to other practice areas and the exposure of other managers to the critical, creative thinking of KS. One brief occasion which would later prove significant, KS was asked to develop a marketing pitch for an attorney within the firm’s headquarter office in New York City; she performed the task promptly and creatively, leaving a lasting good impression with that attorney.
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Meanwhile, KS was self-motivated to expand her knowledge of how to develop business for a large group. She took a risk – stretching her time and energy too thin? – by enrolling in graduate school on a part-time, evening basis (at her own expense) to permit continuing to work full time at her law firm – taking courses involving strategies to develop corporate business. Even before attaining her post-graduate degree, KS was able to adopt many of her studies to real-world issues within her law firm.
A side benefit of continuing education is adding to one’s resume. Can it be denied that an employer must be impressed by an employee’s initiative to invest her personal time and expense to improve job performance?
DEDICATED, CREATIVE WORK BUILDS BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS
During another national economic downturn, while businesses including law firms nationwide were experiencing declining revenues, KS’ law firm employer decided to concentrate on expanding their law business, which led to assessing the need to better coordinate the law firm’s overall approach to business development. Was there anyone in-house, among all the firm’s 8 offices across the country, who had shown dedication to every responsibility assigned plus creative thinking, understanding the politics and culture of the law firm and who worked well within a team concept? One name rose to the top of management’s list: KS, who was asked to move to the firm’s New York headquarters’ office and take charge of the law firm’s entire business development operation involving all 8 offices, overseeing multiple group practice managers who would report to her.
KS accepted her new job position with its related increase in financial compensation, job title (Director of Business Development) and membership on the highest level of the management committee for the law firm. She humbly attributes her success to working hard and creatively at every task assigned while initially learning the specific business of her employer and then developing personal business relationships to assist others who would eventually be motivated to assist her career path.
