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OhHello - Sally Bloom - SPECIAL EPISODE
76 Plays2 years ago
Episode 30 is a special one! Our next 'Hello' joins us to talk about the job market, within tech, media, marketing, and advertising, and all things perseverance and staying positive.
Sally Bloom is a digital media leader with 16+ years of progressive experience building and executing strategies yielding optimal returns on investment. Innovative thinker who grows teams to drive performance in emerging automated digital media channels and tactics across start-up, rapidly growing, and established companies.
Sally is so excited to be part of the OhHello.io tribe. She's held senior sales roles at Careerbuilder.com, Centro (now Basis Technologies), and helped build the programmatic offering at Spotify. As an organizer and do'er, she's passionate about developing connections and helping marketers hit their goals.
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Transcript
Introduction of Sally Bloom
00:00:12
Speaker
Oh, hello. Oh, hello. You look so familiar. It's because I'm your wife. Hey, Rumi. Hey, wife. Hey.
Focus on Sally's Career Journey
00:00:24
Speaker
So this is a special episode, everybody. I have the honor, the privilege, and the extraordinary ability to have Sally Bloom on the Oh, hello pod and VOD. Unbelievable.
00:00:42
Speaker
And it is unbelievable. So we're doing this a little bit differently than we typically do. You have watched or listened to most, some of the, Oh, hello pods thus far. Thank you. And those previous ones have been about the different mentors that are going to be on the platform. You're going to be on the platform, but this one, you were, you were one of the first eight or nine people that I asked to be
Career Break and New Opportunities
00:01:10
Speaker
on this platform. Unbelievable.
00:01:12
Speaker
But what's special about this is we are switching up the flow and we're making this more about careers. We're making this more about your journey in a vulnerable, empathetic way of what you are going through.
00:01:28
Speaker
senior digital marketing, digital media executive, trying to get back into the business of where you had spent half of your career. And knowing how many other people in our ecosystem are going through this, we thought it would be really beneficial to tell your story, to provide some guidance, to provide some advice, and ultimately for people to have a better understanding of who you are and what you can,
00:01:58
Speaker
the strengths and benefits that you are going to be able to provide to future employers. Yeah. Cool. What's that? Yeah, I'm ready. So first and foremost, my most important job ever has been the fact that I'm a mom to our two children. I'm obviously a wife and a daughter and a sister and all of those good things. But as you mentioned, I'm additionally, I am a digital media
00:02:28
Speaker
and marketing executive who has spent the majority of my career in that space and took a step back for a season. There was this COVID adventure thing. It happened at our house. It probably didn't happen at everyone's house, but it did happen and it was necessary. There was a season where you and I decided together as a lot of families did,
00:02:55
Speaker
which is something's got to give. There was too much uncertainty and unknown on timing. And we had kids at home who were not at school. So in order to make it work and make the best decision for our family, I took a step back formally.
New Skills and Industry Connection
00:03:12
Speaker
from my role at The Space and started to explore other options. I built upon some skill sets in different ways. I'm a professional organizer. So I organize people's homes and spaces. Probably much to your dismay, I reorganized our kitchen several times where you can't find anything. Several times a month and our closets and our drawers. However, you put Marie Kondo to shame. So with that said,
00:03:40
Speaker
And I've also learned new skills. I am now a real estate agent. So I took the opportunity to say, okay, what are some soft skills I can benefit from? Negotiation, going out and being vulnerable and asking for business. Totally. And kind of getting back to those roots. And with that, I've stayed really in touch with the market and the industry in digital media and marketing.
00:04:02
Speaker
doing things. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, but also something that that you wanted to highlight, which a lot of other working moms have, have gone through you in our relationship in our family, you were the one that decided, Okay, I'm going to be with the kids. When I was leading North America for a division of Adobe,
00:04:25
Speaker
when I was going to a startup, when I was building my own startup. And unfortunately, it's a really compromising position and situation that takes place more so for the moms in this ecosystem. And now- Absolutely. Moms at several times in their career make the decision quicker than men do a lot of times to
00:04:54
Speaker
take the step back in their formal careers to do and serve their children and their family. It's a great thing to be able to do. It's amazing to have the opportunity to do it and the wherewithal to do it, but it does make it difficult when you decide to then say, okay, that season is over. I want to go back and
00:05:19
Speaker
It is important and I have found it extremely important and extremely grateful that I have kept in touch with the industry, with people, with connections. I've done some consulting on go to market strategies for different startups on retail media networks and what that's doing to the space on data partnerships and making sure that you're staying updated in the system or in the industry rather. Love that. Love that.
Career History and Reflections
00:05:45
Speaker
Tell us a little bit more about your career within the digital ecosystem, being in advertising, marketing, sales, where you were, your experiences, and where you aim to be. Definitely. So I, as you said, have been in sales since- Your entire career. Yeah.
00:06:07
Speaker
in some form or another. I really stepped into the digital media side of that in 2010 when I was a career builder as a publisher side of things. Took that experience, realized what it was I loved about it, and went into a role at Centro, which is now called Basis Technologies, as a lot of you might be familiar with.
00:06:29
Speaker
They had bought a demand side platform and they needed to say, how can we get incremental revenue from this demand side platform? How can we go out and get clients we weren't able to get before or dollars from clients we weren't able to get before? And my job was all net new to go start banging on doors and finding and shaking what was loose. And then what I've really learned from that and my most
00:06:57
Speaker
important skill that I think is still one of my strong suits is I learned how to find what was working and replicate it. I learned how to figure out if there was a process that was successful within a certain vertical. How do I make less work for myself and take those case studies and that process and iterate on it and grow business that way?
00:07:19
Speaker
So from there, I said, this ad tech stuff is awesome. Um, specifically, I love the data side of things. I love the partnership side of things. And I went to Spotify to be an inaugural member of their programmatic media team. Very cool opportunity. Yeah. I was fortunate enough to work with some great mentors there and who are they, who are some of those wonderful people, Lee Clark, who is probably one of.
00:07:48
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the best strategists on a business side of things that I've ever seen in real life work. Not only go to market within the product, but also navigating within a large corporation, how to get what she needed, how to get the support, how to get the product there, and how to work with
00:08:09
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client success and sales and make sure everything comes together seamlessly. Um, just an amazing leader. I was also extremely fortunate to work with three other people that I want to make sure I get a shout out to because they are people I've learned from and people who are actually still at Spotify doing great things. James Cowan, Aaron Burpee, who is the knower of all a knowledge base that just cannot be replicated anywhere.
00:08:38
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And Andrea Topping, who's taken the Canadian market and just exponentially blown it up.
00:08:44
Speaker
It's awesome. Well, thank you for shining some light on some amazing folks that you've worked with in the past through your experience at Spotify. Help us, help our viewers, help our listeners understand just how it's been when you decided several months ago to say, you know what? I really miss the camaraderie. I really miss being with people. Jeremy, I don't want to be part of, oh, hello right now. I want to. I'm a advocate.
00:09:11
Speaker
I am a strong, strong advocate with a great vested interest in Oh, hello, the best to your point. I love working with people and I love working with clients. And most importantly, I love solving a problem and selling a solution to the problem. And as you said, we discussed a few months ago, now is the right time. Again, that season was over. This is a new season for me. And there have been
00:09:41
Speaker
some really exciting companies out there. There have been some really exciting roles that I've worked through and discussed with people, but I'm still trying to find that right, perfect fit where I can use my strengths and I can learn and continue to grow in a revenue generating way. That is what I want. I want to help contribute to the bottom line.
00:10:08
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And if that is through partnerships and creating business development opportunities, if that's through internal selling and working with the internal teams to create more structure or flow to their lives, giving them, freeing them up with more time.
00:10:30
Speaker
And most importantly, if that's where we're working with clients directly, working with advertisers, working with agencies, both holding companies and independent agencies, brands directly, finding out what they need and what they're trying to accomplish and creating a solution for that, that is so mutually beneficial. That's what gets me up and excited in the morning. That's awesome. Well, so it's not our kids and it's not me. Definitely.
00:10:58
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our kids and everything else I just said. Thank you. Thank you.
Advice for Job Seekers
00:11:05
Speaker
What kind of advice do you have for other job seekers? Just providing some empathetic feedback and just wherewithal of what you're going through. You've been having some wonderful conversations with great companies, but you've taken a few swings recently.
00:11:23
Speaker
In any other market, you would have crushed it and you have been hired within a week or so. You are passionate, you are organized, you are one of the smartest people I know, one of the hardest working people I know, one of my favorite people.
00:11:38
Speaker
that's all subjective and objective to be clear, but what other advice would you give to people that are going through just career navigation in a murky time when it comes to tech marketing advertising right now? There is so much automation going on in our world, right? Whether it be AI, mixed intelligence, et cetera.
00:12:05
Speaker
but there's still something that you cannot quite AI and that is being able to talk to people, right? Having conversations with people. It is so easy to kind of sit when you're a job seeker and you're looking for the right thing and just start thumbing through companies and roles and applying and applying and applying. And that is one piece of the puzzle that isn't bad. However, my advice is to stop being scared
00:12:35
Speaker
to talk to other people in your network. It doesn't have to be your husband. You don't have to know them that well, although he's a great resource. It also can be the person who was your client, the person who you worked with once, the person you met at a conference six years ago, 10 years ago, who you became LinkedIn with, you guys kind of follow each other, see what each other are up to and reach out and ask what they're up to. You have to have
00:13:02
Speaker
the ability to be vulnerable and ask people for help to get help. Everyone has best interests at heart and wanting to help people. But when you go and you ask for it and seek it out, people really do want to help. And giving them that opportunity is huge. So relationships matter. Relationships greatly matter.
00:13:28
Speaker
I'm looking for the next role in my career and my relationships with everything I've done thus far in every facet of my life, whether it be through careers, home, kids, et cetera, make a huge difference. Sally, we're excited as the Oh Hello community to be part of your journey for you to
00:13:54
Speaker
Tell us about the journey in another episode.
Conclusion and Future Outlook
00:13:57
Speaker
To those watching, to those viewing, Sally Bloom is on the market. I will be her referral. Oh, so great. In all seriousness, thank you. I would love to have conversations with people. It's one of my absolute favorite things.
00:14:11
Speaker
Awesome. And we're excited to have you on the Oh Hello Platform, obviously. Absolutely. Can't wait. Sally, thank you very much. Thank you everyone for watching, listening. Thanks. Appreciate everybody. Take care. Sally, see you in a few minutes. Okay.