When I started working at McGaw.io in July, I joined with an ambitious mission to take my career to the next level. As a long time practitioner, I was looking for the chance to flex my leadership skills, work with top brands and enjoy the benefits of a better work-life balance with a remote role. In addition to tough criteria, I was looking for a team culture that focuses on excellence, transparency and could exceed my own expectations for the type of quality I deliver every single day.
Today, I have the opportunity to reflect on what this time has meant to me and give you a candid look into what you can expect when you join this company. It’s been a while since I have felt this way about the professional work I do and it feels engaging, rewarding, and positive feedback from clients who experience high impact results is a key motivator for me.
This is the hardest I have ever worked — and today I want to explain what I mean and why it’s important to me.
The Realities of Remote Work
When I applied to work at McGaw.io, I was actively seeking the opportunity to work remotely. Like many folks who seek out work at a distributed company, I was excited about the prospect of working from different locations — in my case, my family and I frequently travel between Washington, Wyoming, and Vermont. There was an element of freedom that I knew would fit well with my family’s lifestyle. It’s true, changes in latitudes bring changes in attitudes — and keep the mind fresh.
Working remotely has additional benefits like being able to make every meeting or interaction impactful and avoiding the drama, politics, and water cooler banter that can distract you and suck up all your time. In previous roles, I spent 8–12 weeks per year working remotely. Based on this experience, I knew that full-time remote work would be more fast-paced and that the level of accountability would ramp up. So I wasn’t surprised by the level of granularity required to track time, projects, and outputs. But, due to time zones, it can be tough to make sure you’re communicating enough information to everyone when you can’t just drop by their desk or set up a meeting to explain everything.
For me, it’s about building trust. It takes focus and discipline to be on top of the things that build trust in a remote environment. Every day we need to take time to make sure our projects are up to date, our thoughts are being communicated, our time is being tracked, and our coworkers are aware of our focuses and needs. Working remotely has helped me build this invaluable muscle.
Without this type of granularity, we would fail. With it, we have the data and documentation that we need to constantly improve. On a personal level, I feel that my communication skills have tripled in capacity and I learn new more effective ways to communicate every single day. This process of learning, growing and relentless self-improvement has been incredible.
Spinning Up Quickly And Driving Impact for Clients at McGaw.io
Whenever you join a new company, the onboarding process is always different. McGaw.io was no exception to this rule. McGaw.io expected me to make an impact early and often. At a marketing technology and analytics agency like this, everyone wears multiple hats so there is a very strong sense of ownership – including new employees. Every hire is incredibly important and ultimately needs to be prepared to hit the ground running. Being an owner in everything you do is what will make the difference in your first weeks at McGaw.io. From my experience, I felt supported and driven from Day 1. This trust gave me a sense of purpose and helped me focus.
Some places hold your hand and guide you slowly into the work. This is not that place.
Mentorship comes in the form of rapid, direct feedback. I also get the support I need to accomplish both company and personal goals. My hard work has been applauded, and my mistakes have been pointed out.
In my new role, I am building out the SMB practice at McGaw.io. I have been given the autonomy and resources to solve problems and grow businesses by building world-class marketing technology solutions. My ambitious mission is to focus on solving the unique challenges that SMBs have with creating delightful customer journeys, scaling their company and achieving all of this with a well-orchestrated high-performance marketing and analytics stack to fuel their success.
This exciting opportunity is made possible by a team that recognizes the leadership and potential in me. One of the key points about servant leadership is to hire the best people and then to get out of their way. This motto is very much a daily practice at McGaw.io and the internal support in helping me get results has been there every step of the way.
There’s no better way to learn than to start doing, and McGaw.io has given me the opportunity to do that. Here, goals can only be achieved by being open to the feedback that will turn your hard work into success. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes getting feedback is not fun, but it is the most important part of your work. It doesn’t matter what you do or what industry you’re in – feedback is how leaders are made.
I’ve had the unique opportunity to work with Dan McGaw, a seasoned industry veteran, and his insights into the work and data have helped uplevel my skills and processes. The feedback he provides and the hands-on aspects of my work implementing high-performance marketing tech stacks has helped me raise the bar in a very short period of time.
However, hard work alone does not equal success. I have thought that in the past — but not anymore. Hard work, instead, enables success. You have to know how to use your hard work to take feedback, stay organized, and make consistent improvements.
The Opportunity To Work With Top Brands at McGaw.io
One thing that always keeps work fresh for me is when no two days are the same. At some in-house roles and even some agencies, there is a big risk for monotony and boredom. I am not the type of person who wants to push pixels day in and day out. In previous roles at other agencies, I kept work fresh by digging into client-facing work. The challenge of making sure clients are receiving the best service, support and – most importantly – results, helped me unlock my leadership skills.
When I joined McGaw.io, there was an opportunity for me to become a key contributor to client happiness — and I went after it. I made it clear that I wanted to interface with our clients and be responsible for providing service at the standard we hold ourselves to around here. I was happy to see that when I went after this type of responsibility, I was supported and not impeded.
Driving results for clients is one of the most important aspects of my work and I get to do it every day at McGaw.io. If you’re interested in what that means, you can read up on a few of our case studies that explain more about the type of projects we’re working on.
And that is another reason that this is the hardest I have ever worked. McGaw.io gives you the opportunity to be entrepreneurial, and when you start going after something, you are encouraged and supported. When I recognized that, it made me want to progress that much more. So I put in extra time getting to know the clients, their problems, their past, their future goals, and more.
Yes, there are late nights. There are some early mornings, and there are some fires to put out, too. But how you handle those challenges is recognized and respected, not expected.
Diving Into The Marketing Tech Stack
In addition to working directly with clients, McGaw.io pushes me to a deeper level with the Marketing Tech stack. In a normal 9-5 you work with the marketing technology stack of choice and those are the tools you become exceptional at. Due to the increasing diversity of our client base, I can focus less on specific tools and dive deep into what will drive revenue and solve complex marketing technology issues.
By being able to investigate the “why” behind specific tools, it’s like poetry in motion. I get a sneak peek into the minds of business owners, practitioners and operators that are building the future of their respective industries. Additionally, I get the chance to research and get hands-on with the implementation of these solutions. Building solutions that get results is not the same as implementing “just another tool”. It challenges you to think in a more comprehensive way and this experience has led to a massive amount of professional growth for me in a very short period of time.
For example, I have maximized my experience using tools like Autopilot, Amplitude, and Pipedrive while reinforcing my foundational experience with stack taxonomy. If you’re not familiar with stack taxonomy and how magical it is, then you’re missing out. If you are familiar with it, then you already know that it’s complex.
I continue to “learn by doing” and, for me, solving real-world complex issues for companies is one of the best ways to truly understand core business issues.
Now, I am able to solve major revenue tracking problems and help re-factor behavioral marketing campaigns to become more real-time and influential across clients.
Real results, real growth – for me, the clients and McGaw.io.
Never Settle – The McGaw.io Way
This job has challenged me to become more accountable than ever. It has challenged me to become more disciplined than ever. It has challenged me to consider whether or not the work I am doing is world-class, and that saying “no” to that question drives me to dig deeper. All of this is to say that the unique culture at McGaw.io has helped me feel like I truly belong to an organization that is doing amazing work, and it has provided me like-minded teammates that are all pushing, together, for the same thing.
In exchange for those kinds of rewards and challenges, those of us who work here pledge to “Never Settle.” Never settling is more than just a part of the company DNA, it’s something each of us embraces with every client, project or the smallest task.
This culture creates operational excellence for the company and delivers the results our clients have come to rely on to grow their businesses.
I invite you to consider joining us if this type of approach sounds interesting to you. We’re hiring and now’s your chance to join me in helping to build what’s next at McGaw.io.
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