Soon, I will turn 1. Well, not literally, but soon it will be my 1 yr anniversary in the agency space. Saying that, I did work as a freelancer for a year and a half before joining dgm and boy working in an agency has been an eye opening experience. I have learned a lot of things over the past year and I have also contributed a lot and it's been really satisfying to see some good results.
Below are a few tips that I want to share with you that have helped me grow in my career:
* Learn from your mistakes – We all make mistakes and I am the first one to admit that I make mistakes every now and then. The key for me was to learn from my mistakes and improve myself whether it was in my communication skills or presenting skills or technical skills. Never be ashamed of making mistakes. Your manager will be more impressed that you bounced back from your mistake so keep improving yourself.
* Be proactive - Try to always be a step ahead at your work place. Always offer your services and grab the opportunity with both hands if it arrives in things that you are keen to take part in. Be perceived as a “can-do” person. It’s important that you make sure that you are always informed of what is going on in your company and any opportunities that may arise.
* Never stop learning – I feel this is one of the most important factors of growing your career. I have made a conscious decision to never stop learning. Some of the things that I do to continue learning are to read books or listen to podcasts during my travels to and from work. Coming from an IT background and entering digital marketing, I had to learn very quickly about marketing and sales so I started reading books on those topics. I started following the influencers in that market on twitter and started reading their blogs to learn from them. If you are keen to get ahead, always keep on learning.
* Sharing is caring – Share your ideas and thoughts with your team and never feel shy to say what’s on your mind. Something I love to do at work is to share things that I have read online that I think are useful for work. I can never been on top of everything that is going around in the digital marketing space so therefore it’s important to share ideas and content that you have read with your team and for the people in the team to share it with you. You can only win-win from sharing useful work related things with the team you work with.
* Communicate, Communicate, Communicate - Keeping the lines of communication open between you and your manager can only benefit you. The more you communicate with him or her, the more they will keep you posted on current events in your office. I have learnt to never “assume” anything, and it is always important to know where my manager stands on all work-related issues. So, it’s a really important that you continue on communicating with your manager.
* Attend Networking Events – One of the best things dgm could do was to be part of the ngen community. If your company has not joined it yet, well I would recommend you speak to your manager about it and get them to speak to ngen. As part of the community we get access to networking with people from different agencies. We also get access to attend conferences in which you can learn new ideas and get access to resources to help improve yourself and the organization you work in.
Hope the above tips help you grow at your work place. I would love to hear your feedback below and you can always connect with me on twitter or Google +
Aman Talwar
DGM