SYP Says

A Day in the Life of an E-Commerce Manager Video

I kind of fell into the e-commerce business, as did many of my peers. I didn't go to school for it, since degrees in e-commerce didn't exist back then. (Yep, I'm that old. One of my college papers was on "the information superhighway"!) I graduated with an American Culture degree from Vassar...I'm not sure what I thought I would do with that to make money, but I was smart, and good with technology and marketing, so e-commerce ended up being a really good fit. In any case, I started doing online marketing almost twenty years ago, and just never really stopped. Along the way, it turns out that e-commerce brings together things I'm passionate about—customer experience, technology, and building great products and businesses--so I was very lucky.

Over the years, I've held key e-commerce and marketing leadership positions in a variety of industries, at some of the world's leading consumer brands, including Guitar Center and Musician's Friend, A&E Television and The History Channel, and PennySaver. My job at all of those companies, at the end of the day, was to grow revenue. Now, I'm at Oracle, doing something a little different. My role is not to run a business, but to use my many years of client-side experience to help bring the customer point of view into the product strategy and development process for Oracle Commerce, Oracle's enterprise software offering, so that we can build better products. (For those of you in the biz, it's the integrated stack that now includes ATG and Endeca.)

The thought occurred to me that many people actually don't know what it's like to manage an e-commerce business, so I've created a short, 4-minute video called A Day in the Life of an E-Commerce Manager, to give the person watching a sense of what 's involved and to illustrate a few of the key challenges e-commerce managers face. To do this, I focused on a handful of common scenarios I've seen played out over and over in my career.

The video is meant to be entertaining, and not at all critical--heck, I think I've played all of the roles portrayed in the video, for better or worse. And for those of you who are e-commerce managers yourselves, I hope you'll find something to appreciate here. Lastly, because it was a video I was making from scratch, I gave myself license to use zombies. Yes, you heard that right. (At first, I planned to make a stop-motion animation film with music from the movie, Brazil, until I realized just how long that would take. Plus, I figured the legal rights just *might* be an issue. So, zombies were my creative compromise.) :)

The key takeaway concepts from my Day in the Life of an E-Commerce Manager video are:

1. It's all about the numbers. There is a tremendous amount of pressure within organizations to hit numbers every day. Sales is the number one driver and typically trumps everything else—whatever was planned that day, any planning sessions for the future, and sometimes even common sense.
2. It's not just about the website anymore. All marketing activities have to be synced with whatever on-site activities are occurring. The complexity grows as other channels are considered, but grows exponentially as you start to bring in concepts like personalization, real-time recommendations, multi-channel customer segmentation, and a/b testing. All this can become an internal pain point as different groups within an organization are unable to “see” what is happening on their own website and related planning efforts and production times increase substantially.
3. Promotions aren't made in a day...or even in a week. Technology vendors tend to focus on the tool itself -- "It's easy to build this promo (or campaign or email or what have you) and it only takes 5 minutes!" While that may be true, the actual end-to-end process of creating and launching a promotion can take weeks. The promo checklist I came up with has 50+ steps or decision points that need to be figured out or produced to get a promo live (and many of those steps have sub-tasks). Promo planning in an organization is often long, frustrating, and involves many stakeholders. Launching an unplanned promotion is usually even more difficult and can show real gaps in internal processes.

There's a lot more to e-commerce than what's in the video, of course, but I hope it gives a little bit of insight into what can be a high-pressure, complicated job. If you've never been involved with the ins and outs of an e-commerce effort, you may not realize how challenging a job it is, or how stressful it can be. It's also a lot of fun, too, though. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have stuck with it all these years! 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video. I worked hard on it and think it is at least somewhat educational, which is the reason I'm sharing it in the first place. Even if you don't learn anything, my fingers are crossed that you'll have a good laugh. Enjoy the show!

N.B. My friend, e-commerce recruiter, Harry Joiner, recently used the video in one of his new job postings. Let him know if you or anyone you know wants to move to Greensboro, NC and fight the good fight! 

 

 

 

Are you a great client/account manager? Join the stellar STELLAService Team!

A good friend of mine, Keith Pepper, is looking to hire a Client Development Manager at a cool startup called STELLAService. STELLAService is dedicated to creating a world with better customer service. They measure and rate the service quality of online retailers and provide that information to consumers so they can make better decisions, and businesses so they can improve their experience.

The company is headquartered in NYC and has raised $22 million from a number of high-quality investors. They're looking for a Client Development Manager to join their team and growing roster of enterprise clients for their B2B data product, STELLAMetrics. Ideally, you'll have a strong client-facing background in data analysis, account management, and retail operations, as well as maintain a passion for building a dynamic, venture-backed business.

  

 Position Overview:

• Ensure client success by providing ongoing insights to key executives at our enterprise clients
• Manage the renewal of large annual contracts
• Present to the marketing and operational executive teams at major retailers on a regular basis
• Maintain strong relationships through regular and on-going interaction with senior executives
• Address day-to-day product and data-related questions from clients
• Develop and communicate an exceptional understanding of all STELLAService products
• Analyze product usage trends
• Proactively engage with clients to gather feedback and incorporate ideas towards product enhancement 

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor's degree required
• >3 years of experience working in an operational role within the corporate office of a major retailer, consulting large retailers, a client-facing position with retailers, or in a related role
• Must love multi-tasking / managing many initiatives at once
• Must thrive in client-facing position
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills
• Demonstrated experience performing data analysis and managing data sets
• Self-starter and extremely detail-oriented
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint

Compensation & Perks: 

Competitive cash comp; stock options; full health, dental and vision insurance benefits; phone and gym stipend.

How to Apply: 

Submit your resume to jobs @ stellaservice dot com. In your email, please explain why you’re the right person for the job.

STELLAService’s data has been featured in outlets from the Wall Street Journal and The Economist to Glamour and Women’s Wear Daily. Visit http://stellaservice.com/ for more info. Follow STELLAService on Twitter @STELLAService

Online Marketing and Web Tech Jobs at PennySaverUSA

It's true. I'm hiring again. :) PennySaverUSA.com has seven six five open positions in its online marketing and web technology group.

All positions are based out of our Brea, CA office in Orange County.

Find out more about the jobs below. Only fun, smart, hard-working peeps who want to work in Awesometown should apply.

 

 

Consumer Marketing Director: http://linkd.in/hDac7i

Web Technology Director: http://linkd.in/dY5CIW

Product Marketing Manager, Web Deals: http://linkd.in/dGnvId

Online Traffic Coordinator: http://bit.ly/a3vMfW -- FILLED!

Online Copywriter (2): http://bit.ly/h3L6qP  -- BOTH FILLED!

Online Content & Community Manager: http://linkd.in/fQjtOu

We've got other jobs too, in sales, production, and more in different offices throughout California and Florida. Check out all of our open jobs at PennySaverUSA.

 

Lest you think we're just the same 'ol PennySaver you've always known, think again! We're doing lots

of new, cool stuff. Check us out!

YouTube PennySaverUSA.com Channel

PennySaverUSA.com on Facebook

PennySaverUSA.com on Twitter

 

Here we are naming our conference room. The final choice was made by our Facebook fans. :)

What to consider when making a job switch.

A former employee of mine recently contacted me for advice about an opportunity he was considering. Some old contacts of his from a previous job were hiring at a company that isn't profitable. He trusted his former colleagues, but wasn't so sure about the company himself, so he wanted to know how to approach an opportunity where he knew the current overall picture was tough, but (supposedly) getting better, and whether I would leave the comforts of a stable environment to test the waters with a company like this one.

I've been getting this question quite a bit lately. The economy is starting to pick up a little and more people are hiring, so I thought it might be helpful to share the brief email advice I gave him. It's pretty basic stuff, but sometimes you need to hear what you already know from someone other than yourself. :) 

You can also check out My Top 10 Job Search Tips--they were featured in US World News Report Online!

-------

Here was my verbatim email response. Hope it helps those of you considering a job switch right now.

Hi: There are some key questions I would ask and they are basically in two "buckets"--personal and business:

Personal
* What do you gain by making the switch -- what more do you learn, how does it progress your skillset or get you closer to your career goals, does it improve your home/work balance, etc -- regardless of whether or not the company succeeds (meaning these are things you would be able to take with you or at least enjoy if it fails).

* Are you well-prepared (financially, emotionally) for if it fails or you get laid off soon after you are hired? 

* If it succeeds, what is enough upside for you that would balance the risk you are taking in making the move?

* What is really attracting you to this opportunity--is it the opportunity itself or is it just that it is different and you are bored where you are? If the latter, is there something you could do where you are that would make it worth sticking around? And if the answer is no, is this the right opp or just the one you happen to know about? Because if you are really ready to go, it may be in your best interest to look at all available options, not just this one.

* Setting aside the fact that you know some people there and have worked with them, does the company *feel* right to you otherwise in terms of a fit?  Would you be working with people you respect and can learn from or just people you happen to like and know?

Business
* Who is funding the business, for how long, and do the investors have a record of funding successful businesses?

* How old is the business, how often has the business needed funding (ie what is their burn rate) and does their growth rate in head count and in other overhead areas make sense with the revenue and profit increase they are expecting?

* Do you understand why the business isn't profitable and how they plan to get to profitability?

* Does their business strategy make sense to you and do you believe in it?

* Do they have a history of making good choices and of making the numbers and/or goals they have set? When they haven't, do you understand why not?

* How big a market is it and how crowded? What is the competitive space for their offerings and how are they differentiating? Are they gaining customers or losing them? Etc.

Two of the most important things I can recommend overall in making this choice is to:
a) Know yourself and what you are really good at and match that against what you think you are really looking for in your next move. How does this match up? Make sure you are making the switch for the right reasons.

b) Play out the most likely scenarios and at least a few of the least likely ones so that you feel confident you are making a well-informed choice. You can't predict the future, but you can imagine the different ways things might play out and how you might respond in those situations, and then decide how much of a risk you are willing to take.

You know me--I am always up for taking a (smart) risk--but it is a big decision to switch jobs, especially in this economy, and now you have a family to take care of. At the end of the day, you've got to do what I call the smell test, meaning does it smell right to you--another way of saying you need to gut-test it. My own personal smell test involves gauging how excited my brain gets about a business. This means does the business challenge inspire me and trigger my brain to come up with lots of new and different ideas that I want to go and get done? If not, I know that no matter how much someone pays me or how sexy the business is, I will not be at my best. I might still do a great job relatively speaking, but I won't be really engaged like I could...and should be. You've got to find your own equivalent of a smell test and check this against that. Hope this helps. xo SYP

Grist.org seeking new General Manager

My friends at Grist.org are looking for a new General Manager. Grist.org has been called "The Daily Show of the environment" by Newsweek and is the leading nonprofit online media organization focused on reaching the next generation by making environmental issues and the how-tos of building a sustainable future real and interesting (or as they like to say: saving the world and having fun along the way).

The GM position is based in Seattle and they're looking to fill the job ASAP! Only apply if you are whip-smart, have a great sense of humor, and want to help build, expand, and oversee a really cool online operation. You need to be energentic, entrepreneurial, and have exceptional senior-level leadership and management skills and experience.

Send your resume & cover letter to jobs at grist dot org with "General Manager" in the subject line.

Download the full job description here.

Download GMjob_GristFINAL

Online Marketing Jobs at PennySaverUSA in Brea, CA

I've officially been at my new job about 6 months and it's that time again. Time to hire! (For more about who I am, visit my profile on LinkedIn.)

I'm building an online marketing team at PennySaverUSA.com's Brea, CA office and need smart, driven, hard-working, online-savvy people who know how to think out of the box and execute Web and multichannel BtB and BtC strategies. Work with me to expand and reinvent the PennySaverUSA.com Internet brands and business--reposition existing and create new, industry-leading products, increase reach, awareness, and engagement, launch new sites and distribution channels, and grow revenue.

PennySaverUSA.com is focused on connecting buyers and sellers and bringing customers the best value for their money. The print publication has been around for almost fifty years, but the Web unit is fairly new. We have a large online network--two main consumer brand sites, three niche subject verticals, 30+ private label sites, and thousands of small business sites. PennySaverUSA.com is a division of Harte-Hanks Shoppers. (For more about Harte-Hanks (NYSE:HHS), visit the corporate HH site.)

We've got six open positions in the Web division:

1. Product Marketing Manager, PowerSites: Download Product mktg mgr powersites 10.27.09 Position filled!
2. Product Marketing Manager, Consumer Markets: Download Product mktg mgr consumer mkts 10.27.09
   
3. User Interface Designer: Download UI Designer 10.27.09 Position filled!
4. Online Content & Community Specialist: Download Online content community specialist 10.27.09
5. Online Marketing Coordinator: Download Online mktg coordinator 10.27.09 Position filled!
6. Web Project Manager: Download Web project mgr 10.27.09 Position filled!

All of these positions report directly to me, except for the Web Project Manager which reports to our VP of IT for Web.

If you (or anyone you know) is interested in applying, please send cover letters and resumes to us at psusawebjob @ gmail dot com ASAP! Thx.   

To get a sense of our corporate culture, check out PennySaverUSA.com's music video, SAVERTIME!, below. (Don't bother looking for me--I'm thankfully not in it--LOL.)

The Hard Truth About Getting Hired

My job tips made it to the US News & World Report Online! That's twice in one month! (Read the other mention about use of psychologists in interviews here.) Very cool. Big thanks to Liz.  

The Hard Truth About Getting Hired

June 29, 2009 01:38 PM ET | Liz Wolgemuth | Permanent Link | Print

If you're trying to get a handle on what works in today's job search environment—I highly advise you take a look at these top 10 job search tips from online marketing executive So Young Park. The advice is straight from the horse's mouth—Park embarked on a job hunt in the heart of the recession. She had an advantage in that she was employed while she was looking, but anyone who's capable of explaining their own successes for the benefit of others is to be treasured.

I recently chatted with Park for a story on the growing use of psychologists in interviews, and she spoke candidly about the lack of response she received when applying to openings at companies where she lacked a connection. "In this economy ...If I was relying on cold calling and just sending in my resume, I don't know how I would get a job," Park says.

If you suspected that you lacked the web savvy, the personal branding know-how, the interactive online resume, to get a job in these web 2.0 times—clearly there's a good chance that's not the case. As much as it mattered in previous decades—or perhaps even more than it mattered then—your network is still king. Your connections are most likely to solve your job problem.

This is not to say that your application materials aren't important. You'll find a really crucial piece of resume wisdom in today's Outside Voices post from U.S.News contributing blogger Alison Green, who writes that the most important question you need to answer in your resume bullet points is "What did you accomplish in this job that someone else wouldn't have?"

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/the-inside-job/2009/06/29/the-hard-truth-about-getting-hired.html

Job Tips: Why A Psychologist Might Be At Your Next Interview

I was just included in a US News & World Report article!  

Here's the article:

Why a Psychologist Might Be at Your Next Interview

More companies are turning to interviewers with Ph.D.'s to find a candidate who's the right fit

By Liz Wolgemuth

Posted June 17, 2009

It is, no doubt, some job seekers' worst interview nightmare: an hour on the phone answering questions posed not by a hiring manager but by a psychologist. Or, even more frightening, several hours in an office with a psychologist, quietly filling out multiple-choice tests, or even performing workplace simulations with paid actors.Marketing executive So Young Park started scouting for a new job in November, the middle of the worst recession in two-and-a-half decades. Park's search took about four months, and she was asked—by three different companies—to have a talk with a psychologist. "I had never had to do one before," Park says. Indeed, experts suggest that this economy may have created a perfect storm of reasons for companies to embrace psychologists in the hiring process: Employers are struggling to filter the right hire from truckloads of candidates, and the ugly marketplace means good hires are even more critical to a company's success.

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Stuart Sidle, director of the industrial-organizational psychology program at the University of New Haven and a consultant on hiring, says use of psychologists has become more mainstream in recent years, and employers have become more upfront about it. In the recession, while overall business has dipped because hiring has taken a dive, companies have insisted on more comprehensive—and time-consuming—hiring processes when filling positions. A bad hire can create enormous havoc—and financial distress—for an organization, and today's companies are trying to improve their batting averages, says Scott Erker, a senior vice president at Development Dimensions International.

The goal of psychologists in hiring is really to discover the knowledge and skills that would be associated with success in the position they are helping fill—and then to follow a fairly structured format for the assessment. Some executive interview assessments can be costly events involving job simulations that attempt to mimic a tough (even stressful) scenario or meeting that might be encountered on the job. Often, the psychologist will play a role in the simulation, but it's also common to pay trained actors to play the parts of frustrated consumers or aggravated employees. Most of the time, however, the assessments should not be stressful to the candidate. "If stress is not an attribute of the job...you want people to feel calm and to understand what's going on," Sidle says. Whether a psychologist spends a few hours in testing with a possible manager or spends all day assessing a prospective executive, the bottom line is fit. For example, a prudent supervisor who runs a tight ship may be a great manager, but if the client company is looking for an innovator, it won't be the right match.

Personality evaluations are not new to corporate America. William Whyte wrote of personality tests in his 1956 bestseller The Organization Man that "many social scientists have assured me that this bowdlerization of psychology is a contemporary aberration soon to be laughed out of court." (Whyte then offered workers tips on beating the tests, insisting that it's best to offer the most "conventional, run of the mill, pedestrian answer possible" when prompted to offer an individual perspective.) Psychologists may have even been somewhat common interview participants from the 1950s through the 1970s, but they had almost completely disappeared by the 1980s, says Peter Cappelli, a management professor and director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Today, Cappelli's students are being interviewed by psychologists again. "It is making something of a comeback," he says. "I'd say the reason that there's more attention paid to this now . . . is not only is it hard to figure out who's a good person to hire, but it's hard to figure out who will actually fit into the organization."

The psychological examinations of the 1950s are quite different from those being used to filter candidates now. In earlier days, questions could run to the slightly absurd by probing an individual's sexual habits, religious dogmatism, or struggles with depression. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 changed the way companies performed psychological analysis, and severely limited the use of questions that would reveal a medical impairment, like depression. In fact, organizational psychologists today might be the interviewers least likely to form biases. Traditional interviewers tend to make their calls on a candidate within the first three minutes of meeting, Sidle says, often basing their judgment on superficial criteria, such as the college the candidate attended, physical appearance, or interests and activities. The interviewer then spends the rest of the interview trying to confirm that immediate bias, in favor or against the job seeker, Sidle says. Psychologists aren't immune to similar judgments—they are human, after all—but they tend to be able to evaluate their own biases.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/careers/2009/06/17/why-a-psychologist-might-be-at-your-next-interview.html

Check out more job tips.

Artie Scheff, Brand Marketing and Advertising Guru

Recently, I put a note on LinkedIn.com saying that if you were a friend of mine, I'd be happy to post your resume on my blog. I was pleased to hear from Artie who I know from when we were both at A&E and The History Channel. I ran the direct marketing business and he was the head of marketing for The History Channel and then later A&E.

Artie is a marketing, branding, and advertising guru and while he knows TV like the back of his hand, he's excited about extending his skillset and bringing his expertise to a new industry. He has been consulting, but is interested in taking a full-time gig. Check out his resume and web reel below. Connect with Artie directly at [email protected].

Download Artie Resume 2009

View his web reel here

BTW, for some job search advice from yours truly, check out my recent post with top 10 job tips.

My Top 10 Job Search Tips: Advice from a Recent Online Marketing and E-Commerce Job Seeker

Several months ago, I decided I wanted to move back to civilization (i.e. leave rural Southern Oregon). This meant I had to leave my job and find a new one. I had the luxury (especially in this economy) of being able to look while I was still working.

I thought I'd move back to NYC, but it just wasn't in the cards. The majority of the jobs I found were not at the level I wanted, nor in any fields I was really excited to be in, and the few that were interesting didn't seem to be on the same hiring timetable as I was.

I have a large network, an excellent education and very marketable skills, and was open to living in different cities or even abroad. I don't own a house or have kids (my boyfriend and cats are used to going where I go :)), so I'm not really tied down. Still, in my 15 years of working professionally, although I've interviewed hundreds of job candidates, I have had to interview very little. And given the relatively tough market, even for online marketing and e-commerce experts, I was prepared to have a harder than usual time of it.

My own job quest turned out really great--I got several offers and made the right choice--but I know not everyone is so lucky. Nowadays, even the best people are having trouble finding jobs, so I thought sharing some of the tactics that worked for me, might work for you.

My Top 10 Job Search Tips (in no particular order):

1. Work your network and if you don't have one, start building one. This includes utilizing industry organizations and popular tools like LinkedIn.com. It does not, however, include spamming everyone you know. Be strategic (and respectful) about who you contact and why.

In total, I applied for 30 positions. I got at least a phone interview with approx 70% of them, all ones that I found through either my network or recruiters. The other 30% were ones where I didn't have any connection to the company and was basically anonymous. For these, I either submitted my resume through a job board or emailed whatever address was on the posting. I didn't get a single response from these. Zero. Nada. And I have a very good resume that matched the job descriptions.

If you are expecting to get a job purely through resumes sent to [email protected], get ready for a very long wait.

2. Do your homework. There is really no excuse for not being well-prepared for an interview. As someone who has hired many people over the years, there is nothing more annoying than interviewing candidates who didn't even have enough common sense to go to the company's website. 

The more senior the position you're interviewing for, the more research you should do. Read annual reports and press releases and try connecting with current and prior employees and even other job candidates if they're no longer in the running. To prep for in-person interviews, I did a variety of things to make sure I had the background I needed, including creating sample marketing plans and doing SWOT analyses.

Because I'm in the online marketing and e-commerce industry, I wanted to understand what real customers thought of the websites I'd be managing, so I even paid for inexpensive online user testing (I used usertesting.com).

3. Don't post your resume on every job board. Not only does it make you look desperate, but you may undervalue yourself if potential employers and recruiters start seeing your resume everywhere they turn. If you're going to do it, I'd recommend sticking with niche job boards like TheLadders.com or ones for industry organizations like Shop.org or very specific categories within the uber-job sites, so at least if you're there, you don't get overexposed.

4. Speaking of recruiters, use one. There are no doubt hundreds of recruiters that specialize in whatever industry you're in. Their goal is to get the best possible match for the company and for the employee (kind of like a dating service for jobs), so they will have contacts and insights about the prospective opportunity (and about yourself and the other candidates vying for the job) that you most likely will not.

5. Get resume advice and edit, edit, edit. I still think my own resume is too long and I wish I'd spent the money to have it rewritten by a pro.

6. Do the basics. Remember back when you were looking for your first real job? You probably got one of those books on how to interview well and how to write a resume. Well, go back to those days and you'll stand out. Somewhere along the way, sending cover letters, Thank You notes (emails are OK), being on time for interviews (even phoners), and following up, went by the wayside. Don't let this be you. This is not merely politeness for politeness' sake. Every contact is another opportunity to market yourself and remind the employer why s/he should hire you.

7. Be prepared for anything. Not only is the market tough right now, but the companies that are hiring are more nervous than ever of selecting the wrong person. This means that you may have to jump through more hoops than you've had to in the past. You may experience this in the sheer number of internal stakeholders a company asks you to meet with or the number of times they speak with you. I had one hiring company send me to an all-day, private session with a psychiatrist (4-5 hours of tests!) and in total, I had three companies ask me to talk with their corporate psychiatrist and/or leadership evaluator.

8. Know what you want. If you don't know *specifically* what kind of opportunity you want, no one will be able to help you find a job and you won't know how to evaluate when a job is *not* right for you.

9. Ask yourself: Can I provide real value for this organization and how will I do it? If you can't answer this question with real enthusiasm, consider whether it's the right job for you. Getting the job is just the start. You have to live with the work and presumably you want to be excited about it and the mark you'll be able to leave there.

10.  Google yourself. Presume that recruiters, potential employers, and others will look you up on Google to find out more about you. Make sure that you are managing your own online brand presence. If you can, start creating positive press that you control (e.g. start Tweeting or writing your own blog--these are good because they are SEO-friendly).

Hope this helps. :)  Good luck, be patient, and stay positive!

N.B. My Top 10 Job Tips made it into U.S. News & World Report in the article The Hard Truth About Getting Hired.

Want more job tips? Check out my advice on What to Consider When Making a Job Switch.