By Kelsey Miner

When you bring someone new into a company or team, they face a lot of anticipation; who is this person and what are they going to do here? How are they going to help our business grow? Will they stand out enough; can they make an impact? A lot of these questions are fielded during the interview phase, but the real answers tend to come later down the line...

I began working as the Marketing Coordinator at Hill & Partners in November, and it quickly became evident that the role I played was not black and white. In previous years, the marketing role was comprised sometimes of one person, and sometimes of many. The title of the person who oversaw efforts shifted from content creationist to part marketing, part sales, media and design, and several others.

There were a lot of hands in the pot and, I’ll admit, it was an intimidating idea to get used to. The title of coordinator is standalone, but there are about 5-7 people who make up the marketing committee, and understanding everyone’s role was my biggest learning curve. That’s a lot of thoughts and ideas to organize, opinions to consider, and a few extra hoops to jump through. But what I initially saw as a challenge turned out to be the biggest benefit.

Our CEO often uses the saying “What’s the 30,000 ft view?” to help refocus the group energy when it seems like ideas are starting to grow. As I sat and listened to everyone talk about what they wanted and needed from the company, in their own language from their own points of view, that 30,000 ft view came into perspective. Rather than getting weighed down by the details and thinking, “what problems can I solve?” I asked myself, “Who is H&P and how am I going to tell its story?”

After 30 days in this role, I can confidently say I understand my task at hand. Marketing at its core is simple; tell the story in a way that makes other want to listen. The hard part takes form in learning to speak in H&P’s voice rather than my own. The impact I make in this role won’t come from the number of blogs I post or an increased amount of clicks, but from the way I tell our story and how it affects those who listen.

We know who we are and what we stand for; do you?