Marketing Happy Hour - BONUS! Open for Hire: Sarah Maingot (prev. Local Restaurant Brand Director)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey Sarah, how are you doing? I'm good. How are y'all? Doing well. This is Marketing Happy Hour after all. We do need to know your go-to happy hour drink. If it's like after work, definitely a glass of rosé. That's just always my go-to. Oh my gosh. Love that so much. And we actually found you, became familiar with you and your work through a local Tampa restaurant where I have had countless glasses of rosé and other sorts of wine. So we totally are aligned on that. But let's just jump right in and talk a little bit about that career path so far. I know that you were working at that restaurant and now you're on a new path so I'd love to hear a little more. Yes so I actually graduated from UT with a degree in advertising and public relations

Starting point is 00:00:55 and have been working in Tampa in marketing for hospitality companies since graduating really and was at a prior restaurant got connected with one of the owners actually we worked together at our previous job and he left to open up his own place brought me along and that's how I got connected with him to open up this new restaurant concept and I was the first employee so kind of really ran across many different of the roles from like operational processes to assisting in like the entire brand development from the very beginning um and led like all digital all content um all creative marketing strategy public relations social media management all of that fun stuff really fell under my department and yeah it was an amazing opportunity learned so much was able

Starting point is 00:01:55 to really like build out this entire department and got to have like that flexibility and had so much fun doing it the restaurant industry is so crazy and fun and collaborative. And it was great. Three years of my life were dedicated to that role. And it was amazing. So Sarah, in your most recent role too, what was a valuable lesson you learned that you'll take with you into the next role

Starting point is 00:02:21 that you'll hold? And really, even if it's more than one, would just love to hear a little bit about that and what you've experienced in the past. Yeah, something that we practiced a lot was radical transparency, unlike open communication, which I think they pretty much go hand in hand. But we found that transparency really helps bring everyone into decision making, which helped improve conflict resolution. And this culture of ownership and really increased productivity, too, because your voice was being heard, essentially. So that really empowered you to stick together as a team and make all these big decisions together for the same end goal. And I think just open communication in general is so essential, like whether it's talking about the good and the bad, like you have to highlight both.

Starting point is 00:03:18 And like a shift that I found was helpful is that conflict isn't bad. Like conflict is the only way that you can resolve and like grow. But when you feel something in your gut, like you should feel empowered enough to speak up and feel like you're actually going to be heard. So that's, I think one of the biggest things I learned at my last role. Oh my gosh. I love that. And that's so important too, to learn early on too. It's like, it's such a valuable skill to be able to present whatever argument that you have in a way that other people understand, and then we'll work collaboratively to resolve whatever issue it is. I think that's something that a lot of people don't learn how to communicate for so long because they're just either doing what they're told or just like sucking it up, bottling it up and just being like, yeah, whatever. Um,

Starting point is 00:04:09 so I love that you bring that up. So that's so interesting. And you and your team did an amazing job too, of just like cultivating a community in Tampa. I feel like that restaurant is just thriving because of the things that you guys put into place and the foundation that you built. So congratulations with that. That is so cool. And we were just so excited to be talking with you today. I feel like there's a lot of things that have happened in your career that people can learn from, but I'd love to just hear what kind of inspired your recent job search, or I know you mentioned that you're doing your own thing now too so we'd just still love to hear a little bit about what's going on just in your career journey right now. Yeah so I as I mentioned I put like a lot of my life like self-identity into this role

Starting point is 00:04:57 and I was very unexpectedly laid off in December 2022 which obviously came as a huge surprise and like I pictured my at least five-year career at this company so I was kind of forced into this period of time that I just had to like process and I decided to just take a couple months off and like really just process my emotions. There are many things tied up into this decision and I just needed to like step away. And I was able to just get a lot of perspective. I think spending time with like families always very helpful for me to help figure out, okay, what my next move should be. And that's exactly what I did so I took a couple months off and then I really dove into like the job hunting journey and I had a couple leads made it to like a couple final round interviews and realized that like

Starting point is 00:05:58 I was molding myself into like these job descriptions rather than it being like something that I really wanted to do just for like having to get a job and I think being at a place in my career now where I can be more intentional with what I want to do something that I've always wanted to do is work for myself and like start my own business and just never had that like strong enough push and urge to do it and this was obviously a clear sign that I needed to do it now um which is what I did I just kind of took it one day at a time and have been taking it one day at a time since about like mid-February um and have been putting 100% of my energy into that. And it's been amazing so far. And I feel so like fulfilled and motivated, way more motivated than like the job hunting process, which is just

Starting point is 00:06:51 crazy in itself. So that's kind of where I'm at. Oh, my goodness. That's so awesome. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And even to just mentioning how you took some time off. I, I think that's so valuable, because we're at this age where we're just going, going, going, we're working all the time. We don't have, you know, summer break, like we did growing up at school or spring break. And so having that time, if you're financially able to just set aside, um, that mental energy to think and reflect and everything. And, um, I also had a friend recently who just got laid off and

Starting point is 00:07:27 her and her husband also had this aspiration of starting businesses one day, but they were kind of propelled into that unintentionally through the layoff process. And it's kind of weird how that just kind of forces you to pursue those dreams a little bit sooner than you would have, but it's hopefully very rewarding. So what, tell us a little bit about the services too, that you're offering and just kind of how you're serving clients right now. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I agree. That's, that's all like kind of where I'm at. But I really want, I, the main piece of what I like doing is like brand strategy. Like I really like the very early stages of creating a brand and what that should look

Starting point is 00:08:12 like, what that should feel like. I'm good at like painting like a bigger picture of something. I'm not a graphic designer, but I can like tell you what kind of look and feel your brand should be. And that's what I really enjoyed at my previous role as well. So I've kind of constructed my services into like brand consulting. I really want to work with small businesses, preferably female owned. And just with brands that I like resonate with myself.

Starting point is 00:08:41 I don't want to get resentful and just have to like work with someone or a company or a brand that I don't believe in their mission um because I'm sure we've all done that before and it's just not fun at all and um social media I I really like content creation there's so many people um locally in Tampa I think now they're that are doing it so well um but like the creative direction side of it um making sure that like a shot looks perfect and your branding is integrated and just like that small attention to detail um is something that I am really good at um so content creation within social media management and then social media management. So like day-to-day managing your profiles, community engagement. I think that's a huge piece of things that

Starting point is 00:09:31 of something with social that people forget is like hugely important. And yeah, that's, those are my like core offerings and focuses right now. I love that. That's so exciting. I feel like a lot of people these days are doing, you know, their own thing. Like we were talking about this whole time and that's actually like a lot of what Cassie and I are doing to kind of like niching down, figuring out what we're really individually good at and going out there and getting those clients. So I love to just hear from whoever is starting their own thing, like what they did in order to like niche down and figure out what those key like areas of success for you are. Did you have some time to like nail those down and really like set, you know, something in motion in terms of that?

Starting point is 00:10:20 Um, yes, I think it's all trial and error right now because I also I'm trying to build my business and build my portfolio. So I think I'm more inclined and likely to say yes to something that in a year and a half I might be like, absolutely not. Yep. So I'm definitely open to like seeing what works, what I enjoy, what is making me money, what's something that's not the best use of time or that I'm not the best at um so kind of like on both ends of that right now like what's going to be worthwhile to like help build my portfolio um versus like getting like a real structure in place where I can work with like five clients a month and that just be it you know yeah know? So I'm honestly taking it one day at a time right now. Yeah. Oh, that's so cool.

Starting point is 00:11:08 And I talk about this every day. I feel like there's such a huge community of people who are doing this and trying to figure it out day by day. I'm like, we should all get together, own our strengths and make this amazing company, amazing network, whatever. Well, we'll talk. We'll talk after this too.

Starting point is 00:11:24 Yeah, honestly, I'm for it. I'm always like collaboration over anything else. amazing company amazing network whatever we'll we'll talk we'll talk after this too yeah honestly I'm for it I'm always like collaboration over anything else like that's the only way you can succeed absolutely love it love it um well we are approaching the end of the conversation here we'd love to just let everyone know where they can find you follow along with what you're up to and keep up with all of your business updates yes you can find me um on instagram uh the handle is the download creative um i'm in the process of finishing up my website um but instagram is where i'll be posting like updates and a contact form an email an email list you can subscribe to um yeah so it's at the download creative awesome fantastic thank you so much for joining us and sharing about where you're at in

Starting point is 00:12:11 your career journey thank you so much for having me this was so good

Marketing Happy Hour - BONUS! Open for Hire: Sarah Maingot (prev. Local Restaurant Brand Director)

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