Her Story
About Megan
My career in marketing started almost by accident. I began at a print agency working on projects like business cards and other print materials, but everything changed when a marketing project manager went on vacation without communicating with his clients. A large client was upset about a missed deadline, so they pulled me in to take over that account. From that moment, my managers recognized that my strengths were really in marketing, and I transitioned into campaign and project management on the marketing side. I spent about 4 to 5 years working at various agencies, gaining experience with different clients and learning the ins and outs of the industry. About 5 years ago, my very first manager, the one who had originally put me into marketing, called me up and recruited me to join Omaha Steaks as a project manager on their internal marketing team. It was a full-circle moment that I'm incredibly grateful for. I've been with Omaha Steaks for 5 years now, and about 3 months ago, I achieved a major milestone when I was promoted to Senior Campaign Project Manager. That promotion came shortly after I earned my PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from the Project Management Institute last October, something I had wanted to do for a long time but had put off because I'd been out of school for so long. The certification process was challenging - I failed on my first attempt, which most people do, but I spent an insane amount of time studying and passed on my second try. That achievement has really informed how I work and was key to getting my promotion. In my current role, I manage a lot of omni-channel campaigns and work closely with our marketing team, creative team, and various directors. Right now, I'm heading several initiatives as our company restructures different ways of working. Most of my days are spent in meetings and working in spreadsheets, staying organized and keeping projects on track. With nearly 10 years of experience in account, project, and campaign management, I've learned the importance of speaking up in meetings, accepting help from others, and communicating clearly with my manager about what fills my bucket so I can spend more time on projects I truly enjoy.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Megan
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've received has come from my female mentors throughout my career, and it's really shaped how I view myself and my work. One piece of advice that stands out is when my mentors told me to stop calling myself annoying. I used to say things like 'you can count on me to annoy you to get you to do that thing' or 'I'm gonna be annoying to get you to meet your deadlines,' and my female mentors told me, you know, don't call yourself annoying, don't belittle yourself like that. You are competent, you're getting the job done. That really changed how I talk about myself and my work. Another powerful piece of advice I've gotten throughout all my mentors is to let other people see you fail. I used to take my own mistakes really personally and try to fix them before anyone noticed, but at the end of the day, everybody fails sometimes. When others see you fail, it makes you seem less perfect and it humanizes you. It makes you seem more approachable. There's kind of a stigma that you have to work harder as a woman in these industries and not fail, be perfect, but at the end of the day, that's what humanizes you, that's what makes you approachable, and gets people to want to work with you and trust you.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I have a lot of advice, but I'll stick to the main points. First, don't be afraid to speak up, even if you don't feel like you're the most qualified person in the room or maybe not the person that knows the most in the room. You're in the room because you deserve to be in the room, so just make sure you act like it. Make sure you have that confidence. I could have saved myself a lot of stress and heartache if somebody had given me this advice at my first job in the industry. There were a lot of situations where I was in meetings with higher-up people in the company and high-scale clients where I just didn't feel like I could speak up, and that burned me and caused me so much stress. Now I make sure that if I'm in the room, I deserve to be there, so I'm gonna speak up and make sure that if I have an opinion, it's heard. Second, allow others to help you. I always used to think that I want to be able to help everybody else, but it's a weakness if I need help from somebody else. But if somebody offers to help you, 9 times out of 10, they really want to, so don't deprive yourself of the help or them of being able to help you. I really find joy when I help others, and so I'm depriving others of that joy when they want to help me and I tell them no. My life changed when I realized that. And lastly, don't be afraid to communicate clearly and often with your mentor and manager about what fills your bucket. There's so many types of projects that I do not enjoy working on, and I'm finally at a place in my career where I've communicated this with my manager, and we've worked it out so that I'm spending the most time on stuff that I really enjoy working on.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I like to view all challenges as opportunities, so I don't label them as specifically challenges. Right now, in this industry and a lot of others, there's a lot of uncertainty with the economic climate, layoffs, and AI. A lot of companies are doing big redirects to try and overcompensate for all of that. Honestly, I think the biggest opportunity here for me specifically is I've just been having to really let things go. I'm a big worrier, I need to know exactly what's happening next, and so I've kind of had to let that go and focus on what I can control. I feel like that's really key in this industry - that's the opportunity, is really focus on what you can control and throw yourself into what you do know versus spending all of your energy stressing out about all this uncertainty. The work is gonna get done, it's going to need someone to get it done, you might as well throw yourself into it versus letting it run you over.
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