How to establish yourself in Growth Marketing: Chelsea Grosvenor-Hargeaves
In this episode, we sit down with the brilliant Chelsea Grosvenor-Hargreaves, a marketing expert and current Head of Growth at Epetōme, to chat through all things direct to consumer and marketing careers.
From starting her career in banking at Lloyd’s Banking Group to pivoting to marketing working at brands including Harry’s, Typology and The Modern Milkman. Chelsea talks through the differences between performance and growth marketing and launching a brand. Chelsea deep dives into the wonderful world of marketing, and the highs and lows that come with it.
How to establish yourself in Growth & Performance Marketing
Claudia:
Welcome to the Waddyado Podcast, where I sit down and speak with professionals, having honest conversations about their careers, how they got into them and advice for those looking to follow a similar path. But most of all, telling you the listeners what it's really like to do that job.
In this episode, we sit down with Chelsea Grosvenor-Hargreaves, a marketing expert and current head of growth at Epitome, to chat through all things direct-to-consumer, B2C marketing, and marketing careers. From starting her career in banking, to pivoting to marketing, the differences between performance and growth marketing, and also launching a brand. This one's a good one, I hope you enjoy!
Okay, Chelsea, welcome to the Waddyado podcast. It is an absolute pleasure to have you today.
Chelsea: Thank you very much and my pleasure to be here.
Chelsea's Journey to Becoming Head of Growth at Epitome
Claudia: Awesome. Well, a little bit of background here. Chelsea and I have actually been friends for quite a long time. I'd probably say close to seven or eight years or something. And so I've watched her career blossom. So it's an absolute delight to have you on the podcast today. Okay, so just to get us going, did you want to just give us a little bit of insight into Chelsea, your career, and I guess, firstly, how you would describe what you do for a living to someone who isn't in your field or industry, perhaps a grandparent who is totally not in the know?
Chelsea: I'll use my mother as inspiration then. Yeah, so I am head of growth for a new brand called Epitome. And I've been around the houses with different startup and scale up businesses. And what does that actually mean? It means in an online setting, when you go to someone's website and you want to buy some stuff on a Sunday evening that you didn't necessarily want or need. I'm the girl that made that happen. So, yeah, it's a really fun job where you essentially you're selling things, but in a digital environment. So it requires a little bit more of technical expertise than if you were selling something in a physical store.
Claudia: So what were the first things that influenced you to choose the path of like, well, I guess ultimately head of growth, but marketing? Can you talk us maybe from the beginning of your career and how it's led to where you are today?
Chelsea: Yeah, of course. It's been a wild ride, a few different things. My first proper job, if you like, I was in a college doing event coordination and I really enjoyed the creativity of it, but I was earning no money. It was for a college, so it was more public owned. So I woke up one day and thought, what do I like? I like money. Banks have money.
So on New Year's Day, gosh, it must have been about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I think, I applied for an apprenticeship scheme at Lloyds Banking Group, and it was actually in project management. So I did go off piece of marketing at some point in my career, and I can touch on that at some point too. And I applied for a higher apprenticeship scheme because I was doing a degree in my spare time at the time, so I couldn't do any grad schemes or things like that. And I was one of only 10 of the first higher apprenticeship scheme that Lloyds Banking Group ever did. But then when you quickly find yourself on the Global Transaction Banking Transformation Program in commercial banking, You wonder what happens when you're used to ordering icicles for fun, beautiful events and do marketing for your events, et cetera. And I just found myself in a really dry environment. And actually, it was quite a low point in my career. And I thought, marketing is creative. I'm working at a FTSE 100 business. I don't have a marketing degree. therefore I should probably use this as an opportunity to get into marketing and I got myself a mentor.
Shout out to Deb, absolute angel honestly, she saved me in a lot of ways and so it took me about six or eight months to get my first marketing job but it was marketing communications, it was very project led so you look back on reflection and realize that a lot of the things, decisions that you made when you were younger that felt like they didn't have much focus for, I think, for a lot of people. I didn't wake up one day and decide I was going to be a surgeon and that was my path. I didn't really know. I just went with the opportunities I was produced with at the time, but then I got into that.
Transitioning from banking to marketing
Claudia: Yeah, go on. How did you get about getting that marketing and making that shift? I think probably quite a lot of people would be really keen to understand how you actually actioned that and made that into fruition.
Chelsea: Yeah, it was a little bit of luck and a lot of work. So I have always been really big on networking. Whatever you're doing, make sure you're good to people because business is people. It's not product, for example. So your life is a lot easier when you know a lot of people. So I made sure that I applied to a lot of different jobs, which you can do quite easily when you're an internal person at a big company. And at the time, there was quite a few marketing jobs that came up. anyone that was there as the recruiter, so I guess internal moves and external do have that cross-contamination in that if you see a job ad and you know what the company is, try and figure out who the person is that's asking for that hire. and contact them. It's a very un-British thing to do but it's big in Europe and especially in the US.
So if you just reach out to people, 90% of people are really friendly and that goes a long way. So every job I applied for, and I applied for a lot within Lloyds at that point, I asked them like why didn't I get a chance, like I really want this job, I've got all of these skills, I'm really keen to learn, I'm doing all of these things but it's just not working for me. So I spoke to a lot of different people and there were two I remember they took me to Bishop's Gate Circle and we had a drink and they literally scribbled all over my CV. Am I allowed to swear?
Claudia: Absolutely.
Chelsea: They said it was shit. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, you're right, it is. And so, yeah, they really helped me kind of re-harness my CV.
That then led to me keeping on applying to jobs, but then they were thinking about me. So then they talked to someone in the department. I think she'd be a great candidate. So that's why it took six or eight months.
And then one job that I applied for, and it was, it was a low moment in my career, I have to say, but I applied for this one job and it was in wealth management marketing and it was Deb. who was the hiring manager. She absolutely loved me. And I think she'll say on reflection, it was a bit of a mistake. She told me that after two rounds of interviews, I'd done so well that she couldn't see a reason why the job wasn't mine. And I had a third and final interview that was very strangely with a marketing director, which was quite unusual for quite a, it was an assistant manager position. It wasn't a huge one. And I sat on this sofa and he said, what experience have you got in this? What experience have you got in that? What about your experience in this? And I was like, well, I don't have any. I don't have any. I don't have any. And I thought, something's gone wrong here.
And Deb took me over to the photocopier and she just said, I'm so sorry. They've decided that given wealth management is where it's like people with 200k plus income or in their bank account, I think it was at the time, like we really need someone with experience. So again, she helped me and she was like, because of what I've done and because I think you're so fabulous, I will find you a job here. So that's why it took so long.
And I was, yeah, I remember that day I was standing in Global Transaction Banking Transformation Program. in a fire corridor and just burst into tears because I really thought that was my get out from what was quite a horrible environment. But yeah, it was just a lot of tenacity really. I think if you want something enough, I really do believe in manifesting, I think we call it now. I didn't really have that term coined at the time but If you want something enough, you will have it. So I just had to keep on going because I knew it's what I needed to do. And yes, three great women that I didn't even know that well. that really helped me to get that position and that was the start of the rest that was to come really.
The importance of building advocates and networking to enhance your career
Claudia: Great. So the moral of the story here is find some advocates within the business in order to get internal transfers because they're going to help you on the ladder and that's brilliant. Thank you so much for that story. So from there, obviously you managed to secure a role in marketing at Lloyds. So how did you manage that in the end?
Chelsea: I mean, again, I believe in fate. My mum's name is Marie and my dad's name is Martin. And Marie Martin interviewed me for a role in what was the marketing communications team, I believe it was called. And it was very project-based. It was very data-led. So any kind of service agreement that you get from Lloyds, where it's an 80-page booklet about changes to times and conditions, Someone has to write those, someone has to proof those, someone has to print those and they have to go out as a legal requirement on time to budget etc. So it was very project led so that was a real great way into marketing that wasn't they'd kill me for saying it, but wasn't necessarily marketing in the sense that I see it now. It was marketing, communications, service, communication. So it was quite dry, but the people were really lovely. And it was a great gateway with transferable experience. So that's what I think of now, if it was to give advice to me then. Think of a role where it's relevant, not necessarily your dream, but can be a springboard. And that was what that role was.
Claudia: Fabulous, awesome. So then talk us through how you then transitioned into a different industry in terms of marketing and you moved on to Harry's.
Chelsea: Yeah, that's definitely a bit of luck, I have to say. So, at Lloyds, I'd been doing a lot of offline marketing. So, as I mentioned, terms and conditions booklets, and then I moved around different teams doing different parts, but it was a lot of direct mail because that was our biggest channel. And so I was so bored. My mum said, how could you leave a bank when I had such good benefits? But I was, what, 24? I don't care about the bloody pension scheme at that point. I just want to have fun, mum. And I was on LinkedIn just thinking, what am I going to do? I've been at Lloyds for five years. I've only got two and a bit years or three years of marketing experience, some of which probably isn't relevant outside of Lloyds. I really have no idea. And a lady messaged me on LinkedIn and said, hi, I'm working for this brand that you may have heard of. It's called Harry's. And I thought, Harry's? Never heard of them. But the more I thought about it, there was a tube campaign that they'd done in that July. And I remember staring at it and going, Harry's Other Guys. Shaving Other Guys. Shaving Other Guys? I don't understand it. And that's the only thing that made me realise this brand just spent some money on marketing. Otherwise, no one had heard of them at this point. And I just thought, you know what? I'm bored. I'm going to say yes. My mum lost her mind. Yeah, honestly, I think I was close to being disowned. And I just thought, you know what, I'm going to go for it. And it was a three or four stage process. I didn't have a clue what was going on. But the reason that they wanted to speak to me was because it was offline marketing that this role was going to be, which traditionally, if I'm allowed to say it, like traditionally, I'd say it's more old school. So it comes with a more old school mentality, old school kind of way of working, which that kind of persona doesn't fit well in a startup.
Understanding the differences between offline and online marketing
Claudia: So just for context, for people who aren't necessarily marketeers or what have you, what is the definition of offline marketing?
Chelsea: Yeah, so in a traditional sense, if you think of anything that's not online, so direct mail, which is letters through the post, where it often it can have your name on it even, and then you open it up to realise it's an ad. Inserts, which are flyers in boxes, like in a subscription box that you might get, like a HelloFresh, they have loads of leaflets.
Podcasts, we classed as offline, but that's a bit of a middle ground. And then anything like billboard ads, things like that. So it's anything that's more tangible, newspaper ads, things like that. So traditionally, a lot of it was very old school.
So they were looking for someone that understood a startup mentality and had that tenacity and ability to test, learn, optimize, etc. and sometimes that doesn't come with the typical person that would have 10 years of direct male marketing experience, for example. So it was just, I'd found myself by accidentally through that journey having offline experience, which was quite rare for someone of my age. So yeah, that was the little weird way in and nuanced way into Harry's and having the having that risk-taking mentality, a brand that I've never heard of that doesn't exist in the UK. What's the worst that can happen? Let's give it a go and I think sometimes that holds people back, probably especially women where it sounds like a high risk role, but risks can pay off and you can have fun along the way.
What is the role of a Performance Marketing Manager and day-to-day tasks?
Claudia: Absolutely. So as a performance marketing manager, can you just outline exactly what that looked like? So on a day-to-day basis, what is your day job and what are you doing in terms of the tasks as a performance marketing manager?
Chelsea: Yeah, so performance marketing, it's definitely changing as all of the different platforms change. So I'd say traditionally it is very data led. But since iOS 14 updates, things like that, where consumers have a bit more understanding of their personal data being shared and Google and Meta who own Facebook and Instagram. bringing that back and controlling that narrative a bit more, it has become a little bit different. So I'll give past context and potential future context, if that's OK. So up until very recently, it was very data nerdy. So you can look at someone online, everything that they do, and use that information, essentially, to deduce whether they're going to be the right customer for you, whether they're likely to buy. And therefore, what you're doing is we bring it back to a human level. You're essentially selling products to people. But the way in which you do that online is through clever marketing. And that's everything from the ad itself and the copies of the little bit of text that goes along with the ad. And then it's the landing page experience. Everything on your website is really important. And it's a simple, Behavioural economics is what I would say to look up. It's really interesting. The psychology behind why I click on this ad and I don't click on this one blows my mind. And it can be as simple as where the price is on the little ad or the colour of a button, etc. And that is your role to do loads of testing over the space of a month of like, I'm going to try loads of different ad concepts. So if I take Harry's as an example, is it going to be the quality of the shave? Is it going to be the cost of the trial set? Is it going to be that I get free product? Is it that I see that it's a normal guy that looks just like me on the ad? All of these different ideas that you have, you can test and you can test quite low scale. And then over time, you learn, OK, normal guys work. with price of trial, so with a free post shave balm always. And when you get onto the landing page, it's one that looks like an article and people are likely to read it. They stay on the website for longer. They're learning about how to shave better. They're more likely to buy. And if they're more likely to buy, I make more money and I can carry on doing it again. So it's all about the return on your ad spend. ROAS is an industry acronym of which there are thousands in this industry. But essentially it's, how do I make sure I make profit of whatever I'm doing? So that's the day-to-day of performance marketing. It used to be very data-led. So it used to be like segmenting audiences into like, a hobby's customer likes football but not rugby and they like cricket and they buy from this place and they engage with this Instagram account and you can really segment everything off into these tiny little buckets but over time actually that's all gone now because of the data piece I mentioned. So now it's really going 360 and it's becoming a really creative role again. So you'll see creative strategists coming up a lot more over the next year, I'd say. And that's because it's back to your ad and your landing page, what you write on here and what you look like here. That is what's important now. So I think it's really interesting. It's definitely like for performance marketing now, don't be scared about platforms. If you're creative and you can write well, you can be a performance marketer in 2024 and beyond.
Claudia: Fabulous. Thank you so much for that. That's such an interesting insight. Um, okay, great. So obviously from, from Harry's you moved on to the modern milkman. Can you just give everyone a little bit of insight into what the modern milkman is and what your role entailed there?
Chelsea: Yeah, so Modern Milkman. Intentionally, that brand name exists so that people understand the concept of receiving a food and drink delivery overnight, that when you wake up, it arrives on your doorstep. The downside to that brand name is that everyone thought it was just milk. So that was quite a blocker, but at least it meant that the concept was there. So yeah, it was essentially groceries on demand-ish. but overnight deliveries and then that was where I got experience of in-app marketing as well as on a website because that's a whole different ballgame again.
Claudia: And so within that role, how did it differ to, for example, Harry's on the day to day?
Unique Challenges in Food and Beverage Industry Marketing
Chelsea: It was such a beast. It blows my mind, the food and drink industry, just how much money is in it. And it was like feeding a beast, like the budgets were insane. I obviously can't share too much detail, but Yeah, it's kind of like, even though it was mainly a northern brand, it was competing with the likes of Tesco for these smaller everyday purchases. You milk your bread, your juices, your eggs, et cetera. And it really differed because of that in-app experience. So instead of thinking about how can I get someone to purchase, if someone can spend three pounds a time, you're having to get them to purchase three, four days a week. How do you get someone to realise that they need to buy from you three, four days a week just to stay profitable? And it was, yeah, the postcode level marketing as well was, if I'm honest, like it was beyond my little brain. So if you think about for Harry's, you can just target the whole of the UK and buy a DPT or every now and have you can just send it anywhere. For a milk round to be profitable, you have to have at least four customers on one little street. And so then those customers on that one little street is so important, otherwise the fuel and the cost of the delivery driver wasn't worth it. And so they had this huge data model of every single postcode in the UK, the density of that postcode, because postcodes are really complicated. So my village is a great example. Everyone has the same postcode, but my neighbor is, I don't know, 300 meters up the road and there's no houses around me. So actually, you need to know, is that postcode worth going to? Because if there's only one house there, no. So yeah, it was a huge data piece where, as I just mentioned, performance marketing being quite creative, if we didn't have that data right, there was just no point. So it was very different to Harry's and quite confusing, actually, for me.
Claudia: So within that particular role, what skills did you need to, I guess, finely tune or upskill on?
Chelsea: Yeah, the position that they were in, because they were so focused on this data modeling and they called it the postcode density and had all these very specific metrics to their business. they'd forgotten the marketing. So actually me coming in and being like, guys, you've been using the same direct mail piece. That was huge for them. Door to door marketing and direct mail, huge. They'd forgotten that they could test these things and actually drive an uplifting conversion rate. And what we mean by that is a all of the people that you send that letter to, how many of them buy from you and how many people stay is also important in that business. So I really just came in and accelerated their testing and brought back that life of if we keep testing different creative it will mean that people stay for longer that they actually do buy from us. So it was it was largely for me similar skill set just on a much bigger scale in a way, but in a more confusing dynamic.
Claudia: So from there, obviously you shifted into some head of growth positions. So what's the difference between a senior performance marketer to a head of growth?
Chelsea: Yeah, it's so funny. There's so much on LinkedIn. Performance marketing or growth marketing and what's the difference? And it is quite a nuanced topic for a lot of people. I'd say for growth, it's anything, like the name suggests, it's anything that drives growth and revenue for your business. Whereas performance is typically more in that digital landscape of Meta, Google, TikTok now, etc. Whereas growth is thinking a lot broader. So essentially it's almost like running the UK business. So if I take typology as an example. running for the UK, so everything from like physical product projects of how can we improve the cost of goods sold, our COGS, so how much we pay for something, is there things that we can reduce there to increase our profit margin, so that ultimately when we look at and balance our sheets at the end of the day, that we've made more money We take home more cash, I should say, at the end of a working day. So it's like everything. So you've got your email marketing and you've got your website is obviously huge as your online store and how you can improve things there. your physical product, gosh, what don't I do, customer services, all of the things that go into someone deciding whether you are a brand worth buying from and being loyal to. So it's a lot broader in the way that you would think and how you would run the business and result in revenue.
Launching a marketing strategy for a start
Claudia: Let's go on to your current role and talk about the pre-launch phase of launching your existing startup. It's such an interesting journey that you've been on in the past sort of few months. Can you give us a bit of the lay of the land, talk about what you're currently doing, how you went into the pre-launch of everything and then obviously through to launch?
Chelsea: Yeah, it's been a really wild ride, this one. So it was another bit of a whim in my career, thinking I was applying for one job, going for another, saying sod it, let's do it anyway. And I've never, ever been first employee at a brand. I've always come in when other countries are doing well and it's time to open up the UK market, say. So I've always had infrastructure to lean back on. And this was, we kind of have a product. It's almost finished. We don't have a brand name. We don't have a brand. All we can tell you is it's from Emily English, who, dare I admit it, I didn't know at the time. And it's basically like a probiotic supplement.
Claudia: Fine, okay. For context, for everyone listening as well, there's the nutritionist, and she's a bit of an influencer as a nutritionist, isn't she, on good old Instagram, et cetera. So yeah, talk us through how, from there, how that started.
Chelsea: Yeah, so it's been six months. So it's gone from, like I said, nothing to my first thing was, okay, When the three stakeholders think about this business, who are they targeting? What do they perceive the brand to be? What's its tone of voice? It was really going back to sort of the bare bones of what I learned at Lloyds really of marketing fundamentals and building a brand. I'd never done it before but it was fun. So really just deciding with their guidance of like really teasing out of them like what do they want this brand to stand for, what do they want it to be, what are the goals of the business and through that I went on a bit of a journey myself sitting in a as you can see quite dark room just thinking really about how to build this brand out and make something that what we wanted was to break the taboo of gut health, because gut health often means talking about poo. And British people, when you say poop, poo, stools, et cetera, they literally go, oh. So how do we make poo sexy? That was essentially my goal. Wow, I love that. Because it really is a topic that is more prevalent in the UK now than ever before, because stress is on the rise because we do these insane jobs and don't have time to eat properly, sleep properly, look after ourselves, breathe properly, even for some people. And all of these things have an impact on our gut. So how do we make it a topic that people are happy to talk about? And Emily English, she's a really good example of how to do that by just talking about it, talking about it in a polite way and building something that you can be proud to talk about as well. So in the branding it was, we want to go slightly luxury and high-end so that people are like, oh that's so pretty, what is that? And then that starts the conversation. So that was really important for me. So building the brand, first of all, was essential. And then, obviously, making sure we had some product.
So that's been really new for me, being involved in new product development and taking over the reins of, it's crazy to me. So this is another job area linked to growth, but sits within that wider team of the operations side and new product development. Really cool areas that I think I certainly didn't know about. When I was younger, you would receive a product on Amazon. Now it's amazing, isn't it? You just go, oh, it came. That's it, the end. And actually, every single component, so the ingredients within the capsule, the capsule itself, the jars, the desiccant packs, which are the little packs that keep it away from moisture, the boxes, et cetera, all have to come from somewhere. They all have to be put together. And then they all have to go to your warehouse. So making sure that that happened on time and to budget, et cetera. and then building the website, gosh that was definitely a dark hole moment for me of just like okay so we've got an idea, we've got a project, we kind of have a colour scheme, now I have to think about every single part of every single page of the website. That was literally just old school pen and paper, I'm an offline gal. So obviously it's just scribbling out ideas for the weeks and then going into that build phase. So everything to get to this point was what's our launch day plan? What's the website look like? What do we want from month one? And just making it happen really, it's just been an absolute whirlwind.
Claudia: Fabulous. And it sounds like it's gone pretty well from what you said to me.
Chelsea: Yeah, it's been really eye-opening because I think for anything where you're putting something in your body, you're going to have a lot of questions. And like I mentioned very briefly on customer services, I'm really in the day-to-day replying to DMs and emails at the moment because as a marketer that is so valuable in the early days to know exactly what your customers need, want, how they're feeling, etc. And we're getting a lot of very personal questions and queries. So that's really shaping the direction we're going to go in as a brand, I think, longer term. But yeah, it's just been an absolute wild ride. And it's such a complex product that, oh, I don't know, I think it might be in the next two weeks that we're kind of in panic stations of what to do next. So yeah, it's been a really fun journey so far. And we've learned a lot. Um, I think it's going to be an amazing brand for the future.
Claudia: Awesome. Well, I wish you all the best of luck with the continued success. So moving forward onto the nitty gritty of like performance master growth roles, you know, what are the best parts of your job?
Best parts of the job being in Growth Marketing
Chelsea: Ooh, best parts of my job. I think it's the breadth for me in this one right now. I've really come into my own and I've seen that journey of like all of the little jobs that I did where I was like, don't want to do that and that's really boring and actually it's all coming together into one and being first employee where I'm doing everything from replying to dms to setting the five-year strategy and everything in between the breadth of that for me it's very entrepreneurial and I've always said I'd love to own my own business, I just don't have an idea and this is as close as I've ever got to it being mine. So yeah, just the breadth of it really. It's so much fun to just have an idea and run with it and see people respond to it. It's really rewarding, you can see you can see it in daily revenue and the amount of DMs that you get and the follower count increasing, like all of these little things are mini rewards for me and it's really satisfying.
Claudia: Brilliant, love that. And what would you say are or have been the biggest challenges or worst parts of your role?
Chelsea: Of my role or just in general for
Claudia: in general for growth marketing.
Chelsea: I think it's really interesting and I know we can't get over it, COVID was a while ago, but I love that as an example of the extremes of what can happen. They can be mega highs and mega lows and what happens when, especially if there's venture capitalists investment from a business say, if you've got investors in a business, they see the highs, you made X amount in month six or what have you, and then they start to expect that as the new baseline. So they never expect to see growth that goes like this. They don't want the instability that can come from everyday life. they see that month, the next month has to be better. So it's like you hit a goal and then the goalpost changes. That can be really hard on some people because we always want more. We always want to be the best gut health brand, the leading FMCG brand it was for Harry's. So yeah, it's the goalpost always changes and you have to celebrate the mini wins because the big wins will almost never come because it will always be changing and they'll always want more. And it's having that tenacity to always think of new ideas and respond well and shift to change. When COVID happened, it was unprecedented highs for e-com businesses and online businesses. because no one could go into retail. So how do you respond to that opportunity? And I literally, like, I barely brushed my hair in that period because I was like, oh, my God, this is working so well. Get more, get more, get more. But then the next year and everyone's like, oh, my God, I'm exhausted by this whole thing. They still want more. So I think that's that's the really hard part of always striving for more and always making sure you hit your targets. It's rewarding. It can be exhausting.
What are the salaries in Performance and Growth Marketing?
Claudia: What are the salaries like going up in the ladder in your career? So from like junior level to head of like, can you just give us some salary bandings within performance and growth marketing?
Chelsea: Yeah, I would caveat it with saying it's very industry dependent. So if you say like a fintech firm, for example, if you love money, go for fintech and then you've got food and drink category I'd say is probably on the lower end. So it really does depend on the product. Apologies if you can hear my dog, by the way.
Claudia: It adds a bit of character.
Chelsea: And now for delivery. I really do get sucked into my own marketing. So yeah, I would say starting salary is really, it is industry dependent, but what I've seen across my own experiences, I'd say it's probably around 25 to 30. It may change with inflation, but certainly about a year ago that was around where you would expect at a junior exec level and it also depends on like I'm talking London so if you're outside of London that may change again and then it can it wouldn't really climb I think that's what again why it's so rewarding in that there are a lot of levels as you climb the ranks and there can be many so it's like exec like junior exec exec senior exec manager senior manager head of director senior director and then above like there's a lot of different roles that are needed because it can just get so big when you're in a multi-geography, multi-brand environment, for example. So I have heard wind of, in some industries, kind of senior directors going up to like 180k to 120k and beyond.
Claudia: And would that be in a more of a corporate environment rather than a startup?
Chelsea: Uh, no, it really does depend. I'd say it's more in scale up. So absolute startup environment where it's say less than 10 employees, it really depends on the setting. Um, because at that point it might be literally founder investment only. So they just put their own money into the business and they're counting the pennies and waiting for growth. But if actually it's their third business, and they've already got venture capitalists behind them, and they want growth by any means necessary, then they might have the budgets to go after the best talent in market, or the rising stars, et cetera. So it really does do your homework. Is this someone working out of their kitchen? Or is it someone that's got five brands already, if you really need the money? Because if you go for the person working out of the kitchen, you get a lot more freedom, I would say. in a lot of ways, and there could be opportunity to scale in the future. But yeah, no, I'd say more scale-up businesses. And what I mean by that is they're at the point where they're probably about 60 to 100 employees plus, and they're maybe in like five different countries plus, et cetera, at that point where they're really trying to accelerate their growth so that they can sell to one of the big dogs. PNG and the likes, for example. Or maybe they've just been acquired. That's a great time to join as well if you don't want that rocky beginning with smaller salaries but bigger bonuses. And I can touch on that as well. Then going for that more like scale up has just been acquired can give you a healthy salary I would say in comparison to kind of early doors.
3 actionable steps for someone looking to get into performance and growth marketing
Claudia: Okay, great. Thank you so much for those insights. What three actionable steps would you recommend to those looking to get into your industry?
Chelsea: I'd say start with, because I do believe that there's a way in if you've got a degree or if you haven't got a degree, but again, just thinking about your relevant experience. I'm a bit of a different case in that I do believe in going after people from a bigger breadth of background, but a lot of them do say a marketing degree is a must. So if you're watching this and you're thinking super early doors, think about whether you want to go to uni or you can do marketing apprenticeships as well, hire apprenticeships now. So I'd definitely consider doing that first. If you've already got that, then again, just anything relevant, I think anything in kind of data, creative, generalist marketing, all is really useful. But if you want to be in a startup specifically, I think looking for those soft skills of can they turn their hand to anything? Are they afraid to take risks? You've got to be a bit of a risk taker, but you've got to know how to take that risk and start small and scale up. So really thinking entrepreneurially is really important. And if you've got examples, like some of the best entry-level candidates I had at Harry's, the people that got the roles were those that Oh, bless them, I love them so much. One of them had her own jewellery brand, for example, that she'd done alongside her entry-level job because she wanted to show that she'd got those skills in e-commerce. Yeah, so that was really incredible. And another girl was helping out, it was during lockdown, and she was helping out a Meals on Wheels service for the NHS and doing marketing for them. So I'd say, like, Think of ways that you can get experience that doesn't necessarily have to mean like, oh, I've got to go and get a job to get a job, because that always used to really frustrate me when I was trying to get in without experience. But think of the softer things that you can do in your local community to show that you've got those skills. And you can do so many free courses as well, like meta advertising, for example. There's loads of courses that you can do that are free. So go on to Meta courses, go on to Google Ads courses. There's so much that you can do now that shows that you can add those to your LinkedIn profile and that will also go down very well.
Resources to follow for Performance & Growth Marketing
Claudia: Brilliant, love that and I was about to say what three resources would you recommend? So like podcasts maybe but you've already mentioned some resources there so maybe can you recommend like any industry podcasts or sort of like news outlets that you think would be really beneficial to learn from?
Chelsea: Yeah, there's one called the DTC newsletter. It is more industry news, but I think it gives you an idea of like how marketers think and things that they look out for.
Claudia: And that's direct to consumer for like the acronym, right?
Chelsea: Yeah, yeah, sorry. I told you there's a million. I think I said that at the beginning. I'm trying to think. I could send some over afterwards if it's useful. I'm trying to think off the top of my head. I'm on so many, but I can't remember the names of any right now, which is typical. That's okay.
Claudia: No problem. So we'll share further resources in the show notes for everyone to have a look at. Perfect. And just one final question, you know, from a mentor, what is the best advice that you've ever received in your career?
Chelsea: Oh, gosh. I think it would be… I know this is probably more of a personal one, but maybe not. I don't know. I think believing in yourself is so important. There's been so many people in my career, even only like two years ago, that have said to me, like, why do you lack confidence? So I've really been on a personal journey and I've called it my Kanye year. i've decided to inflate i've decided this year or taking this job that i was going to inflate my own ego because honestly I've really, I've really lacked it and I think it comes from like you're so exposed with the numbers like every single day you're seeing numbers and you start to see it as a true reflection on yourself but often I've never been more engrossed in the news than in this industry because everything in the news impacts the cost of goods sold, it impacts marketing, it impacts the way consumers think so if you were to go on the radio now and tell everyone we're in a recession they will stop buying. So I put so much on myself when actually sometimes it isn't you. So yeah, I think the advice I've been given is know that you know your stuff and, like, believe in yourself and go for it. And I think it's really easy to forget that sometimes. I mean, I was so… Is tenacious the right word? In my early career, as I've said, like, dog with a bone, give me a job, give me a job, give me a job. But over time, it can get a bit exhausting to keep doing that. So I think it's just that reminder of, if you're having a bit of a low period, just look in the mirror, be more like Kanye, and say, I am. It works. Believe in your singing.
Claudia: I've heard that, you know, even just talking to yourself in the mirror and giving yourself affirmations is actually proven to really sort of help with confidence and things like that. So, there you go. Before you start your day, everyone, give yourself a pep talk in the mirror and be your own cheerleader. So, boom, love that. 100%. Awesome. Well, Chelsea, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on today. And I hope everyone found it really insightful. I certainly did. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening to the Waddyado podcast. Whether you're looking for a job or ready to find your latest inspired hire, head over to waddyado.com/jobs or click the link in the description. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and share with anyone you think would love this episode.