Lead(H)er - Sandra Rand, VP of Marketing at OrionCKB
- Updated on: 2017-10-05
- Read original article here
“I worked my butt off to be where I am right now and I never expected anything. Every promotion that I ever got was sort of a surprise to me because all I wanted to do was be really good at my current position,” said Sandra Rand, VP of Marketing at OrionCKB.
Growing up in New Hampshire, Sandra had a dream of being a fancy PR person in New York City, constantly rubbing elbows with the media and always in the know.
To put her plan in motion, she went to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY about an hour and a half north of the city - a school well-known for their communications program. However, she realized her dream might not be all it was cracked up to be.
“I realized that I’m definitely not suited for living in NYC. I spent extended amounts of time there in college and it gave me the taste of what it would be like to live there. It just wasn’t for me. I decided I wanted to move home after graduation and go into some sort of corporate communications job.”
Shortly after graduation, Sandra accepted her first PR job at PAN Communications as an intern.
“I had to start as an intern because when I interned in college, I was interested in event planning so I did two internships in that field. I then realized that I hated event planning. So I thought, back to square one,” Sandra laughed.
When her internship ended at PAN, they hired Sandra full time and she ended up staying for about five years, going from Junior Associate to Associate to Senior Associate.
“I was definitely a media relations engine; contacting reporters and editors, trying to figure out their deadlines and how I could put my clients into their stories. It was tough and wasn’t sure it was what I wanted to do long-term. I thought, ‘How else can I expand my skillset?’”
During her time at PAN, Sandra had the opportunity to be on the PR account for a conference series called Search Engine Strategies. Three times a year, she attended the conference to check members of the press into the media room.
“In 2005, online marketing was still new and people were figuring it out. Getting ranked high in Google search results was everybody’s first and foremost priority. Marketing on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin was not available at that point. I wanted to expand my skill set beyond PR, so I would go to the sessions and learn all about online advertising and search engine optimization.”
After catching the digital marketing bug, Sandra started to teach herself HTML. She made (and broke) countless WordPress websites and spent all of her free time on professional development.
When clients at PAN started to become interested in social media, Sandra offered to take the reigns and help with their strategy. She also pushed her colleagues to see the power and potential social media and SEO had for PR people.
“I knew I was onto something and at the time; there were few who understood the correlation of all these different things.”
She went on to be the Community Manager at an education company in Woburn, MA called Avenue100.
“I was on the organic marketing team; we were responsible for all social media, PR, and link building activity across their different entities. It was all about lead generation. My team was very small and we focused on testing things organically. My boss Scott and I worked really well together. I respected him as a leader and manager because he would get his hands dirty too. He eventually left for another opportunity and soon after, I had gotten married and was interested in freelancing.”
With help from her network, Sandra was able to establish relationships with three clients, leave her job and freelance full-time. She freelanced for about six years and constantly brought in new business through referrals.
“A lot of people say in terms of freelance work, it’s either feast or famine. For me, it was always feast and I’m so grateful for this. The one thing I believe is that, when you do great work, your network will not hesitate to refer people to you or feel burdened if you reach out for a referral. I never really had to look for a bunch of new business. It’s tough, it’s very competitive. But I think if you’re really good at nurturing your network, you’re good at establishing relationships and you do great work, these types of things make it easier to have success.”
Sandra’s time eventually became taxed after having two children, maintaining her freelance work as well as dealing with the administrative tasks that took away time from the business. She had previously done some contracting work for the founders of OrionCKB, a Facebook advertising agency, and reached out to them about a full-time position.
“Right from the beginning, they were working with really important and interesting clients. This small company was working with cool eCommerce companies like BaubleBar and Revolve Clothing, plus a bunch of different colleges and universities. I was really interested in what they were doing and they were growing really quickly.”
Sandra was offered a full-time position running OrionCKB’s internal marketing, which is where she currently works today.
She is responsible for all demand generation activity, including overseeing all content marketing, SEO, PR efforts, email marketing, and collaboration with sales for the necessary content and collateral. For the first two years, Sandra was the only one in her department but she recently brought on a small team to work with her.
“It’s been amazing to see this company grow and do such great things with a small headcount. It’s pretty exciting. Since Walpole is an hour and a half away from me, I come into the office twice a week. I have Monday, Wednesday, Friday in my home office and I come in two days a week to meet with my team—they’re rock stars. Being a virtual worker is very, very important to me and it’s my platform for this point in my career. It’s perfect for people that are in my place, such as director/VP level and who are struggling to balance family, work, commitments and a life. Allowing me this flexibility is a huge differentiator for Orion and that’s the mentality that I adopt for my team. They know that my motto is to ‘get it done’ - the when/where/how is less important.”
BS: How do you manage stress?
SR: In the last year, I’ve committed myself to prioritizing self-care. Between my kids, work, my dedication to my family and so on, I’ve put myself last on the list so stress has been very prominent in my life. I have to say I’ve been a bit selfish in establishing guidelines for work and family around building “me time.” Even if it’s like a half-hour workout, taking some time to get out of work early to have a leisurely Target run with an iced coffee, or getting a pedicure, just building time for me is really important for balance.
BS: How many cups of coffee do you typically drink in a day?
SR: Between two and four.
BS: What do you like to do in your free time?
SR: I love marketing and I love my job, so I truly enjoy spending free time working on my professional development - learning as much as I can about new marketing tactics and strategies, as well as leadership and productivity topics.
I have also come around to enjoying working out. I hated working out all through my twenties but now that I have kids, not only is it a stress reliever but I actually love being a healthy role model for my kids too. I see it as, ‘Wow I still have the capacity at 34 to be athletic and to reach goals physically,’ when I was never an athlete growing up. When my 2- and 4-year old ask if they can exercise with me, that definitely makes it more fun!
BS: Where is your favorite spot in Boston?
SR: The Seaport is great. It’s also within walking distance of the Children’s Museum, which our kids love. I love that whole area for my kids and the restaurants in that area are just so fun for dinner and drinks with friends.
BS: If you had to choose one thing, what would you say is your greatest accomplishment?
SR: Obviously I’m super proud of my children and the life my husband and I have built. That should totally be a caveat. But professionally, I would say my first real foray into managing a full team was a challenging experience - I went from zero to three people but I think I’ve really gotten a handle on it and think I’ve done pretty well. We’ve had to navigate some challenging things, some growing pains, and some transitions, and I’m actually pretty proud of that.
BS: Ten years ago, is this where you would have seen yourself?
SR: No. Ten years ago, I still wanted to be this big important media relations person in Boston. I wanted to be wearing power suits and having lunches with the media. I never knew I’d be working at a startup in the tech industry. Facebook was this fairly new site; my college was one of the first that was open to Facebook so I was sort of in on the ground floor. I never ever would have expected to call this my work at all. Now you can’t catch me dead in heels or a pencil skirt. I’m in flip-flops and jeans every day.
BS: What one piece of advice would you give to a recent college graduate?
SR: Work your butt off but be humble about it. The people that are valuable to me are the people that are focused on doing great work and have a serious expectation about what their contribution is to the company. If I see high-performing people and they’re unassuming about it, that’s something I value. They’re just really focused on doing their job exceptionally well, and we celebrate them for that.
Personally, I worked my butt off to be where I am right now, but I never expected anything and was always open-minded about how my role or skillset could evolve. Every promotion that I got was sort of a surprise to me because all I was focused on was being really good at the job that I had at that time. Even as a freelancer, a lot of the opportunities I pursued weren’t necessarily money based; they were based on whether or not I liked what I was doing and the team I was working with. I knew that passion for the product and company would translate to a job well done. When you’re focused and reliable and deliver great work consistently, good things will come to you.
Brianne Shelley is a Contributor to VentureFizz and an Account Representative at BlueGrace Logistics. Follow Brianne on Twitter: @MuddleandMix. Images courtesy of OrionCKB.
