Muse and Metrics S5 EP7 — Overcome Self-Doubt with Montserrat Cano [Guest Bio, Summary, Audio and Transcript]

Guest Bio

Montserrat Cano is an established international SEO expert and digital marketer based in Spain. With a career spanning various sectors in the UK and internationally, she has worked both in-house and as a consultant. Bilingual in English and Spanish, Montserrat’s expertise is not only in her professional endeavors but also in her role as a mentor and educator. She serves as a University Associate Professor and actively participates in the digital marketing community.

As a co-author, Montserrat has contributed to the recent book “SEO in 2023” and is working on an upcoming book in the same field. Her recent appointment as an ambassador for the Google Women Techmakers program highlights her commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in technology. Montserrat’s approach is centered on solving complex issues to optimize business results, and she is known for her project management skills in international SEO and digital strategy. Her work, particularly in e-commerce, technology, publishing, and other sectors, reflects her ability to navigate and connect diverse market landscapes effectively.

Summary

Key highlights:

1. Montserrat Cano’s Journey in Digital Marketing and Tech:

• Renowned international SEO expert and digital marketer, proficient in both English and Spanish.
• Utilizes her expertise as a University Associate Professor and mentor in the digital marketing community.
• Recently appointed ambassador for Google’s Women Techmakers program, demonstrating her commitment to diversity and inclusion.

2. Role as an Educator and Author:

• Actively involved in academia, shaping the next generation of digital marketers.
• Co-author of “SEO in 2023” and working on an upcoming book, contributing to the body of knowledge in her field.

3. Advocacy for Women in Technology:

• Emphasizes the importance of increasing the presence of women and other underrepresented groups in technology.
• Highlights her experiences in tech, often finding women in non-technical roles and advocating for change.

4. Addressing Stereotypes and Career Challenges:

• Discusses the stereotypes and misconceptions faced by women in tech.
• Shares her journey of overcoming environments where women’s contributions were often undervalued.

5. Self-Awareness and Boundary Setting in the Workplace:

• Stresses the significance of self-awareness and the ability to set boundaries professionally.
• Advocates for the importance of saying ‘no’ and effectively managing work expectations.

6. Strategies for Overcoming Self-Doubt:

• Tackles the issue of overthinking and its impact on performance.
• Promotes self-confidence and the recognition of one’s own achievements as critical to success.

7. Insights on Team Management and Skill Development:

• Underlines understanding team dynamics and leveraging individual strengths and weaknesses.
• Encourages continuous skill development, particularly in the rapidly evolving field of digital marketing.

Conclusion:

Montserrat Cano’s episode on Muse and Metrics illuminates her path as a leader in digital marketing and technology. Her story serves as inspiration for continuous growth, empowerment, and breaking barriers in the tech industry. As a Women Techmakers Ambassador, she underscores the need for diversity and overcoming challenges, both professionally and personally.

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Transcript

(This is a raw transcript — there may be errors)

00;00;06;24–00;00;18;24
Philippa Burgess
Hello and welcome to Muse and Metrics. This is your host Philippa Burgess. This is season five episode seven. And today’s topic is overcoming self-doubt.

00;00;18;26–00;00;26;07
Montserrat Cano
My name is Montserrat Cano. I am new to the Women Techmakers Ambassador program.

00;00;26;09–00;00;55;08
Philippa Burgess
you’re brand new to the program. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. It is something that I will honestly say has been transformative for me. I’ve been in the room for coming up on a year now and I refer to it as being mentored by. So as women tech makers, we are ambassadors, we speak people because we come with expertise and we are at a certain level in our careers and our technical expertise.

00;00;55;10–00;01;02;05
Philippa Burgess
But at the same time, the program is designed to take us to the next level and the next level.

00;01;02;07–00;01;26;18
Montserrat Cano
And at that sounds so sacred a actually, so somebody mentioned this, someone within my network. She mentioned this on Twitter, and I thought maybe I could ask her and she said, What, You should be an ambassador, aren’t you? Is that what it’s all about? She said, just just fill this out and it will get in touch with you and say, whoa, okay.

00;01;26;20–00;02;02;22
Montserrat Cano
It turns out it was her application forum. Obviously, they take it very, very seriously. They asked me all sorts of questions about my experience, about what I do for a living, but also what other things I do on the side, things to do with organizing events or speaking of dance or having on development, etc., etc.. And suddenly I thought, Wow, all those things that I’ve been doing, all these things have I used to do before I was a marketer, even because I used to be a teacher.

00;02;02;24–00;02;36;05
Montserrat Cano
Although since I am 13, that’s something I can apply here. So I’m here. I’m very, very excited because what happens with this set of women in tech, a CEO, one doesn’t groups is that they exist because for a reason this is serious because we need we need to keep talking about a course in this case women in tech, because unfortunately we are underrepresented and our voice is not really as clear and as loud as men’s.

00;02;36;07–00;03;21;15
Montserrat Cano
And it has. It has always been like this. I mean, I’ve worked in the technology sector and I remember being about the only woman around and I was hello, doing marketing. And most of us, most of us ladies in technology were marketers and most of us were actually making pdaf some things like that. This is, was our idea as to what we did or we did and you is according to them, just looking at the money or looking at the numbers sales numbers has taken, etc. etc. within the understand audience like wow, yeah, I mean, I’ve never made a PDF in my life and I’ve been doing marketing and SEO and digital for a number

00;03;21;15–00;03;43;07
Montserrat Cano
of years. So when they said these to then I said this, I remember saying this at the interview, I said, Well, I am not a designer, so I can’t design that. But I can give you my idea. I can be a designer that’s different, but I can’t design. Is that why not? I think Photoshop should be very easy.

00;03;43;14–00;04;05;22
Montserrat Cano
I was like, okay, do you do you do you know how to use Photoshop? Have you ever used it? And I replied, Well, no, no, because I don’t do that. It’s like, Well, I don’t do it either. So if this role literature with spec and PDFs, I make things pretty, as you said, Have you had the conversation part of the conversation then?

00;04;05;22–00;04;26;15
Montserrat Cano
This is another role for me. So I eventually got it and I’m not sure how it was another talk, but like I said before, just just a few just a handful of of us ladies in there. And I thought, well, this needs to change. So many women in my network, in my professional circle, are doing what I’m doing.

00;04;26;18–00;04;59;10
Montserrat Cano
Why is it that there are not any more ladies in here doing what I am supposed to be doing here? Why are there not any more ladies in the C-suite making decisions, etc., etc.? I just I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. And they kept they kept telling me about this pdaf And eventually it turns out that they wanted emails and they wanted me to decide on emails that yes, the same with Pdaf.

00;04;59;10–00;05;08;08
Montserrat Cano
I can’t tell a designer how I need this to work, but I am not a designer.

00;05;08;10–00;05;13;00
Philippa Burgess
But I, I really appreciate your sort of boundaries of like I don’t do that.

00;05;13;03–00;05;35;21
Montserrat Cano
Boundaries just by saying yes to everything at the very beginning. I’m getting very frustrated, very burnt out, even because I had to. I mean, I was not in the habit of saying no because I was brought up to actually do things this mile. Just do this, just do that, Just just do it and smile. Do it. And they won’t ask you again.

00;05;35;21–00;06;08;15
Montserrat Cano
But this is not fair. They kept asking and I mean, if I was in one of those roles where I needed to, definitely do all those things, you know, run around doing the Reverend Cetera, a VA or something similar, then fine. But I was not. And it got me very frustrated until I made that mistake, which I could fix easily.

00;06;08;18–00;06;34;08
Montserrat Cano
But then I thought, Well, I am not going to let this happen again. I am not going to let this happen because I think it was something about the photocopier. I hate photocopiers. I mean, I love technology, but I hate technology that that type of technology photocopiers and scanners, I cannot get on with them at all. So I made a mistake there, but I said I could fix that.

00;06;34;10–00;07;04;08
Montserrat Cano
But I, I just I wasn’t not going to have that again. And it wasn’t very interesting some time when I got into certain roles where I was supposed to be sitting at certain meetings, setting high level meetings. But at the same time I was not supposed to say anything like, Wow, the person who does that part of the job is myself, the person who does make those decisions is my myself.

00;07;04;10–00;07;39;00
Montserrat Cano
So if I am sitting there, it’s because I need to actually tell everybody else what I’ve been doing, what how the company has been going on so far. Anything could be anything from rankings to any data, any other type of data, transactional data that would see what I was not supposed to say anything is like, how come it’s not possible that this is not even possible as and sometimes it even came from women.

00;07;39;02–00;08;17;23
Montserrat Cano
I remember this role I had in a very backward type of industry, but situations not always come from men. Yeah, or misconceptions about the role of marketing or marketing in general. It does not always come from men. Yeah, they all they also come from women. So for example, I was at this fashion company a few years ago and I needed to recruit into my team and we were so stretched.

00;08;17;28–00;08;43;13
Montserrat Cano
We were so, so thinly spread. It was very difficult for us to work. I was supposed to be the director in there and I was also doing some tactical work, which I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all because I don’t like being far away from that, is that I was too much into it, so much I just couldn’t see the strategic play.

00;08;43;13–00;09;18;00
Montserrat Cano
I was so much down the rabbit hole. I just couldn’t think about about things. So that took about our we needed to cheer next and why when it’s all reports and everything. So I just my boss for somebody to to come to my to my team particularly because one of my team members left so we needed at least one or two others and I really wanted to have my team, somebody who actually deserved it.

00;09;18;02–00;09;44;29
Montserrat Cano
It doesn’t really matter. It didn’t really bother the time whether it was a man or a woman. But they were very excited that because it was a fashion company, it had to be a woman and a woman doing marketing was marketing was very natural, according to the my boss, who was the founder of the company and to the service director was like, Well, I don’t need that.

00;09;44;29–00;10;11;27
Montserrat Cano
I need somebody who knows about SEO. I need somebody who knows about data. I need somebody who knows how to write properly, who can support other people in the team. I could ideally teach while on the job to other people so that other people get upskilled. And the know what mostly focus on people who are wearing your Ashley as dresses and things like that.

00;10;11;27–00;10;41;00
Montserrat Cano
I thought, why we don’t need that? But yeah, that was that was a situation I went into to watch how much we need to watch out. I mean, I’m all about equality as men and women and we all need to be there. We deserve it. But if we don’t deserve it, we don’t need to be there. So the way I started in digital brought digitally some just by mistake, basically.

00;10;41;02–00;11;20;21
Montserrat Cano
well, there’s different ways of saying this, but I was at the right place at the right time and that was amazing. I keep very fond memories for that time because of everything that I learned, everything that I achieved, but also this report that I received. And I was so surprised. So this was that the UK Department for Work and Pensions, I never did think being a Spaniard, I was going to get in there and manage some of their communications, revamping one of their websites, promoting it and doing that, a variety of other things.

00;11;20;21–00;11;45;03
Montserrat Cano
I was just like, Whoa, I don’t I am not an engineer. I did linguistics with English and French and at university and I go there with my teaching and customer service experience. I never did think I was going to get anywhere. And so to me, that opportunity, that was absolutely awesome. So I thought I might just see what it takes me.

00;11;45;06–00;12;15;18
Montserrat Cano
So what I did essentially was project management. That’s what it is. So while managing the project, I also learned about CFS and BHP and also content writing content creation for the web, which is rather different than writing a book or I don’t know, creating other pieces of content is very, very different and I needed to kind of adapt.

00;12;15;20–00;12;46;20
Montserrat Cano
Is easily and quickly to all that situation. The reason my manager explained to me later the mission why this is because they saw in me a great organizer, somebody who actually liked organizing things and also liked making sense of them all. And that’s essentially what project management is just making sense of things just to achieve something, something which is valuable.

00;12;46;23–00;13;25;06
Montserrat Cano
And that was absolutely amazing. And I always thought that people actually work very well if you actually give them a chance, because that’s exactly what happened to me. So when I have managed teams, even directly or indirectly, does it matter? Because some people used to come to me for advice, even when I was not their manager, I was not supposed to be giving any advice to them about their managers didn’t mind most of the time, but it was not my it wasn’t my remit.

00;13;25;06–00;13;55;10
Montserrat Cano
Right? And so I always sought to try and give them as many chances or get them to find as many chances, as many possibilities as possible. And sometimes they are hiding, sometimes they are absolutely hidden. I, I, I was talking to my manager back in the day and I was saying to him, I’m not sure if I can do this, if I have no idea what I can’t do this.

00;13;55;13–00;14;19;10
Montserrat Cano
I mean, it’s all very exciting, but I am not sure what you are expecting me to because I am not even an operational researcher. You see, I was I was working with operational researchers who at the same time were trying to define what I did from my professional perspective, similar to what we associate actual work, kind of a new profession.

00;14;19;12–00;14;47;11
Montserrat Cano
And he said, I think you should stop thinking you over think, right? It’s like, Yeah, that’s actually true. That’s what that’s what I do. And he actually coached me as much as he could because obviously managers kind of coach. It’s not. It’s normally people outside the management who actually do that. They also sent me to one of these courses.

00;14;47;14–00;15;19;13
Montserrat Cano
I could choose the courses that I wanted to do, but he actually specifically said, You need to go to this course. It was for self awareness and to become more self aware, but also to stop overthinking, to let things go. And it actually worked is actually what I mean. Still overthink things at level best. Yeah. Is something that is very much in me.

00;15;19;16–00;15;41;03
Montserrat Cano
But I learned there the techniques to stop thinking and overthink. And this is how the project was a success, because there were times when I thought, my God, I can’t do this. What the heck is BHP? What is these people came to me and talked to me. Nerdy language. It’s like, yeah, very keen to learn and everything thought, What is this?

00;15;41;05–00;16;07;17
Montserrat Cano
So I think they gave me this, this opportunity. They could have given it to anybody else in there. They gave it to me and I am always willing to give opportunities to people in my team who actually work for them. To be honest, I think if think about hard work, but also about attitudes and if they have the right one, I am very, very keen on giving it to them, particularly if they are women.

00;16;07;23–00;16;43;23
Montserrat Cano
Whenever I have managed women teams of women, I’ve always made sure that they were perfectly aware of what the industry is. So for example, I managed a team of four people very different and very difficult people in very difficult circumstances at that time for them and for the organization at that time. And one of the things that the stroked mes, they didn’t know what they were doing.

00;16;43;25–00;17;07;22
Montserrat Cano
So this was a it was a team who were look after and look after. The website is a huge, huge website right. And the world are doing a bad job of all is just the work not being aware of what they were doing. There was just uploading content and making it pretty and say, No, no, you’re not doing that.

00;17;07;22–00;17;47;06
Montserrat Cano
I mean, I can’t believe you are saying that. Of course you have to make content appealing on the pictures and everything, but have you thought about have four to in years, have you thought about optimizing pictures, compressing them, perhaps? Have you thought about all that? why? What for the blog just fine. Just like. Yeah, but then you go to different devices and you can’t definitely download a lot of the website properly and fast enough.

00;17;47;09–00;18;16;22
Montserrat Cano
And this is partly partly because of the pictures that you are uploading, which most of the most of the times are not even what quality the work of high risk. Have you thought about the myriad, the myriad of URLs that you were creating that at the same time you are creating a little bit of confusion to you because you can’t find the content.

00;18;16;25–00;18;42;14
Montserrat Cano
And if you can’t find it and this is it, this is real, this is totally true. They couldn’t find that content simply because of the title structure and other bits and pieces. Right? This this, this actually got very complicated. The type, if I can find it, then users cannot find it either. And so the whole project will actually collapse.

00;18;42;21–00;19;31;09
Montserrat Cano
The project was about migrating customers. This is how they actually got it them at the time. Customer migration from phones to WAP. And they started thinking about all this. It’s like, I have no idea. I have, I had no idea about all this or about keywords of, about this and that. And it’s like, okay. So I made sure they were perfectly aware of all that they sent them to courses to bring them Come with me to Brighton, the SEO and other conferences, other courses, other meetups as well, meeting other people who did exactly what they were doing, exactly what they wanted you to do, content writing, analytics, all that they needed to be very

00;19;31;09–00;20;05;23
Montserrat Cano
aware of and in my mind it was an opportunity. I have to say it didn’t work out very well in the short term because of the situation that they were at the time and because they were feeling so under whelmed and appreciated that they were creating all this situation. This kind of Catch 22 over reacting or maybe not reacting in the right way.

00;20;05;26–00;20;33;12
Montserrat Cano
So, yeah, it didn’t work out well. Later on when they when we actually met at different events as well, it’s like, it’s great that you are here. Some of them had already been promoted to using the techniques and the knowledge that they got from me and from the time I was managing them. Think all of them thanking me, previous colleagues saying, What did you do with this and monitor?

00;20;33;12–00;20;52;29
Montserrat Cano
They are now more motivated than they were when you were here. It’s like, okay, that’s that’s that’s really good. But I believe it’s all about the opportunity because what they were doing, like I said, was just uploading content rather than thinking about what they were doing grading.

00;20;53;01–00;21;27;19
Philippa Burgess
Well, and that’s I want to kind of bring this back to clarify this question about what is overthinking, because sometimes we do need to think strategically and operationally and in all of these other ways that we whether it’s leading or being part of a team. And I would I was very fortunate. I had one of the best managers loved loved all of my managers because he knew me and appreciated me because we were quite different in this way, in that I would often take the long way around.

00;21;27;21–00;21;50;15
Philippa Burgess
I was very thorough and very professional and had a very high standard for quality, and he knew that if he let me run with something, I could take a long time to get there and it would be really well done. And he knew that he had a lot of tasks that he came out of meetings that just needed to like tick the box.

00;21;50;15–00;22;10;14
Philippa Burgess
And they were simple. And he was very good at coaching me to say, this is a simple task. This should not take you more than 15 minutes. This should not take you more than an hour and time boxing me to say, you know, I just need you to hit, you know, just like let’s just punch it out versus things.

00;22;10;14–00;22;24;24
Philippa Burgess
And he said, you can run with it. Go be creative. Go figure. You know, just go. It’s okay to take the long way round. As long as I met my deadlines, he would let me. Or sometimes I’d push back and say, Hey, I think we go deeper on this. I think there’s more to explore here. I think there’s more to figure out.

00;22;24;26–00;22;53;08
Philippa Burgess
And I very often pitched him solutions to things that they just never considered, and he would be like, wow, that’s a great idea. Let’s let’s do that. So we worked really well together because the overthinking part of myself was because I really wanted and sought high quality and I was not afraid of just taking the longer route to explore content explorer, explore and pull it all together and sift through it and then kind of pull things out.

00;22;53;10–00;23;11;15
Philippa Burgess
And yet he, as a manager, knew kind of what the deadlines were, what he had been to the meeting with for last week that he needed to show up at the meeting this week and say, dun dun dun dun dun. And so yeah, can you elaborate on overthinking? Because I think there are two things came up. One, you kind of said, Hey, self-awareness is key.

00;23;11;15–00;23;33;09
Philippa Burgess
And I do think that my manager brought me more self-awareness because I do think I would have approached every task with that expansiveness. And he was saying, No, not all tasks deserve that expansiveness. There really don’t make them more complicated than they keep them simple because they are simple. And so I think a sense of self-awareness is key.

00;23;33;09–00;24;00;08
Philippa Burgess
But then you also talked about when you’re on a team really being thoughtful enough to understand what’s the right way to do it, that we’re not just blindly uploading and that there there should be more strategy going into what we’re doing, more technique going into what we’re doing. So can you just elaborate on sort of the concept of overthinking and these different ways in which it can be interpreted.

00;24;00;10–00;24;36;10
Montserrat Cano
Overthinking is is a concept that we need to be very much aware of because it can actually, you bet on us if we overthink something for some people because everyone is different. Right. And I’ll come back to this later, especially when it comes to when it comes to managing a team. But it’s more, it’s more the fact that I believe that difference between thinking and overthinking and then thinking things through.

00;24;36;13–00;25;11;09
Montserrat Cano
It’s more about perception. A lot of the times this as professionals, we always want to think through things so that everything comes out perfect, perfect, perfect. It’s not a word. It used to be the word for me. And this is how I thought things through one time, two times, three times, five times a million times. Right? It’s as we all want to achieve what we are set off, set out to achieve.

00;25;11;16–00;25;46;17
Montserrat Cano
And this is and this is how it is, right. And sometimes circumstances just make us just make us overthink something which is all perfectly right. And then we start thinking, wow, this is not the right way of doing things. Maybe it was, but there was in What if I told you? What if we start thinking about different scenarios in our head, which are not that necessarily because people are not even thinking about it?

00;25;46;20–00;26;15;27
Montserrat Cano
In my experience, were they when other people see you overthinking things, they don’t see you in a positive manner, in a positive light. And we have to be we have to think very carefully. We have to be very careful about what we do in this respect. Thinking things through is is fine, is it’s just taking the time to to check different scenarios, different data, to different ways of communicating all that to the different people.

00;26;15;27–00;26;31;27
Montserrat Cano
We tend to forget about all of it. Really. We shouldn’t because it’s not the same communicating to the C-suite. The CEO. Sometimes it’s you you reporting too. Sorry, sorry.

00;26;31;29–00;26;53;12
Philippa Burgess
I think the mental image that’s coming to my mind is knitting where you’re knitting something and you’re putting it together. That’s thinking and the overthinking is when you start to unravel it. You take apart what you’ve done, you pull the thread, you’re pulling up the threads too much, and now you’ve just kind of unraveled all the good progress and the good work that you’ve done.

00;26;53;15–00;27;00;09
Philippa Burgess
So you’ve got me thinking in terms of knitting, which is, like I said, you’re creating something or you’re unraveling it.

00;27;00;12–00;27;39;20
Montserrat Cano
Yeah, maybe that’s what it is, really. I am not a very good lexicographer. Lexicographer? Well, these are what they to you is basically defining works, defining concepts. I was never very good at that. But I think you’re right. I think the kneading aspect is a it’s a key aspect in terms of thinking that comes through and everything you need to you need to to achieve something in the the way you have set out to to do it, as simple as that, to achieve that, when you have achieved a solution to something, I think you start to question it.

00;27;39;22–00;28;07;28
Montserrat Cano
And in my experience when you question that is when it’s when you have been questioned or you feel you are failing in a situation, you feel you are in a situation where you are going to be questioned or you have been questioned, perhaps none of these things have happened and I’ve been in situations where I was never questioned by certain bits and pieces, but I thought maybe I was.

00;28;08;00–00;29;01;10
Montserrat Cano
Yeah, and I’m just trying to think about that example. Another website project that I had a few years ago, I wasn’t given the chance to do this. It was a project and really no one really believed in. I was like, thank you very much. And I realized this after I started in there. But the reason why they wanted somebody in that position is because a committee, one of the committees that basically were part of the association of a very big, very important legal association that was working with at the time they did somebody there because they had these projects, this fantastic website project.

00;29;01;13–00;29;26;25
Montserrat Cano
It was many years ago. No one really believed in websites, but this was something totally different. Yeah, the project was a success and everybody was really happy and started to look at me in a different light. They started to give me other projects as well, mostly international, just like this one, etcetera, etcetera. But I really wanted to do things right.

00;29;26;28–00;29;56;05
Montserrat Cano
I really wanted to think I was already doing things right. But the problem is that I just couldn’t see it. I needed to deliver a part of the website where many other associations and very big companies as well would actually give us their content so that we could upload it as well. Very, very important reports, actually, very interesting ones to you, and I want them to be very happy.

00;29;56;07–00;30;20;14
Montserrat Cano
And the minute my manager noticed that things were flowing, she started to look into things a bit more closely because she had been very hands off, which is how I worked best. And she came over to me and said, What are you doing? Are you okay? That yeah, it’s just that this and that. And I talked to her and say, sorry.

00;30;20;14–00;30;51;03
Montserrat Cano
I’m sure. I’m sure what you are saying. I what is the problem? So what? There’s nothing wrong here, as far as I can tell. But what if. Yeah. Is that relate to what if this scenario what is this scenario? What is this other stuff? It’s like, stop. We need to be more practical about this. And this is how I stopped worrying because I had to.

00;30;51;05–00;31;23;27
Montserrat Cano
And it was it was a very good thing, actually, because. Because otherwise I would have got stuck in the project. And that that part was actually an important one at the time. So, yeah, this is thinking, thinking things through properly so that everybody is happy, communicate with everyone, getting everything that I need you done, getting things done physically, and then creating a problem by myself for myself.

00;31;23;29–00;32;01;26
Montserrat Cano
That’s I think the probably the main the main difference. I really think I really believe it’s is also depends on the situation. If you feel pressurized, if you feel pressurized, you will think about things not in a carefully, systematic, methodical way, which is how we should do it. Basically, that’s that’s not my thing. It’s particularly when we work in digital.

00;32;01;28–00;32;33;21
Montserrat Cano
Digital is not glamor is it’s mess ups, it’s many different bits of business and it should be very carefully tactical. What if, for one reason, if you start thinking and thinking, well, if what if, then that is overthinking too much. Yeah. In those situations what I do whenever possible to test and see how it works, it’s not always possible to do a test.

00;32;33;23–00;33;13;02
Montserrat Cano
Or maybe I ask somebody, maybe I touch someone because a self doubt is something that self doubt is something that is is there is that all the time? And during these past two years, when I started my consultancy, I’ve been I’ve been so I’ve been so overwhelmed and it has been it’s it has been tough. It has been tough and self-doubt has to be there at all times.

00;33;13;02–00;33;34;17
Montserrat Cano
But I also think if you it has a positive aspect to it. So if you don’t about something, maybe it’s because there is a very good up of it. But think about whether you have already achieved what you have set out to do because if you have already done it, then that’s it. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

00;33;34;21–00;34;19;17
Montserrat Cano
I mean, in different situations this could change and maybe you could actually change that according to the situations. But then don’t overthink it. That’s that’s that’s that’s what it is sometimes is positive. When it’s positive, one may be something is very complicated. It’s for example, line management is complicated. And I think we were talking about this earlier when we’re talking about how your line manager and yourself worked together very well because he he saw he knew that you were overthinking perhaps.

00;34;19;23–00;34;45;06
Montserrat Cano
And it all comes down to the fact that people are very different and we need to know how to manage them properly. So if we actually see I mean, I’ve had people who have had lots of self-doubt and they are self doubt came from the fact that they have been bullied. This is something I really wanted to find out.

00;34;45;08–00;35;14;29
Montserrat Cano
I preferred finding out about something else, whatever they had broken up with their boyfriend or whatever, but that was not. It was about pudding, it was about bullying. And it was a terrible situation because if they have been bullying, have been, it means that the quality of their work might actually get affected as it was. Yeah, and it’s not because they were not doing a pretty good job that the opposite.

00;35;15;02–00;36;04;02
Montserrat Cano
They were doing an excellent job but their quality actually were down simply because they had been bullied above it. And I could compare pieces of work months afterwards with the first piece of work that I had previously seen, and there was a difference. So I would say, first of all, if you have somebody in your team who’s I don’t know who’s a who’s self doubt in themselves to try and find out why they are devoting themselves, because sometimes it’s just something very silly and very stupid, just making them aware that, well, perhaps this should stop thinking and just do it.

00;36;04;05–00;37;00;12
Montserrat Cano
Yeah. Because they are perfectly capable of doing it. Yeah. Or perhaps because of something else in terms of a skill set, skill sets can actually alter the perception of lack of a skill set can actually cause self doubt as well. And it happens all the time. Yeah. This is one of the reasons why I always say that if you have a project or a task in front of you and you are thinking, my God, this is too big for me, etc., etc., you just kind of stop and think optimistically about it, about that and make sure that you create a project out of the test or just, you know, just you might make sure

00;37;00;12–00;37;27;25
Montserrat Cano
that the project has been set up correctly with the different stages and you break things down into different chunks of work. And this is a very good way to achieve your your objective. And because a lot of the times I repeat, it’s because we don’t know how to do things is because we set our skill set as being lower than they actually are.

00;37;28;03–00;38;25;03
Montserrat Cano
And sometimes it’s because of the environment where we are and sometimes is because simply we need a few hours sleep. It’s just that I’ve been in all of these situations and I wanted to say about the skill sets that working in digital, one of the biggest drawbacks, I think, is the fact that you always feel that your skill set is never enough and that that what I’m talking about, about how men get promoted or get a managerial role a lot more frequently than women, and that a lot of the times it seems to be a cliche, but it’s actually true because I’ve seen it.

00;38;25;03–00;38;51;25
Montserrat Cano
I love also being there. Women tend to think and think about the job description, whereas men just going on to talk and it’ll go correctly, They talk nicely and they get on well with the interviewer. They may, they may get it. Whereas women do different apply. Yeah, and partly this is because we see on this long list of skill set and we think, we don’t have this, we don’t have that.

00;38;51;25–00;39;14;16
Montserrat Cano
And it’s like, come on, we are in this role, in this position, we are working, we are doing this and we are doing it because we know how to do it. So if we actually need to know a little bit more about technical SEO, a skill, a skill yourself, a little bit more on say, I don’t know, just to learn more about this sort of thing.

00;39;14;18–00;39;55;29
Montserrat Cano
So I’ll just get something technical. But I mean, it’s just no shame to just go and create a blog post, ask somebody, give them a course. There are courses out there. It’s no shame. I mean, no one knows absolutely everything. So as a manager, recognizing all these bits and pieces and taking them into account when managing a team is rather important and we need to help others achieve their objectives to succeed, which is what I am trying to do.

00;39;56;02–00;40;33;26
Montserrat Cano
Well, I will be trying to do after my onboarding. On the women makers as an ambassador are just trying to make sure that people understand what they are as people. Women in this case, they understand that they got the skill set enough to actually progress. And if they don’t have 100% of the skills that are being asked, you know, the job description or for a promotion or something, that’s a mother, because it means that if you are working at the position, it means that you already know what to do.

00;40;33;26–00;41;03;00
Montserrat Cano
You just just go have your help or maybe just help what you are on the job. Because as a manager, as a hiring manager, what I want you to see or what I have wanted to see is attitude, attitude, attitude and skill set. Obviously, because I need somebody who actually knew how to write. I don’t care whether you actually know a lot about designers like Laura, Ashley, etcetera, etcetera.

00;41;03;00–00;41;37;11
Montserrat Cano
I don’t care. I need to you write properly. I need to you to know about this. You know, that’s what I need you to do. But if you don’t know everything to worry, as long as you actually know the basics or whatever it is for that, what is required for that position. And you have the right attitude. I mean, your read your end, because if you’ve got the right attitude towards your own learning, it means that you will have had a right to properly means that you will have the right attitude towards your own colleagues.

00;41;37;14–00;42;19;25
Montserrat Cano
That is the team just think about this. To me, this is very, very important. Coming back very briefly to overthink being a failure, all these big failure concepts that can happen and we need to be very realistic. It can happen. We are working on a project to make sure that such websites ranks position number one in Google for which of our key works.

00;42;19;27–00;42;44;20
Montserrat Cano
And this is a very silly one because I mean, we don’t always look at keywords and rankings and everything, but we are also trying to train for them to for this one obsessed wreck. Sometimes it will not work out. It will not work like next month. It might actually take longer and why is that? Because there are things beyond our control.

00;42;44;22–00;43;19;19
Montserrat Cano
I like to think about historic, the stoic philosophy of always worrying about what is in your hand, things that are beyond our hands is certainly not something that you should worry about. I mean, you should you should think about them. You should actually back them in mind. In mind, for example, things like the fact that your competition but actually get stronger, stronger than you.

00;43;19;22–00;43;44;06
Montserrat Cano
Yeah, that is something that must be under our control because we don’t work there. We work for our brand and that’s, that’s that. I’m thinking like there might be an emergency. So to say, Hey, 2020 happened, right? It’s not in our hands. We need to deal with it. And we did it the best we could. And that’s the that’s that.

00;43;44;06–00;44;06;08
Montserrat Cano
But that that’s all. That’s what we need to happen. So failure can happen or not failure. I mean, I didn’t I didn’t mean that in the websites of your I mean, what I’m saying is that perhaps not ranking it today, particularly if you have just started working on it, it’s not a failure, but it could happen. It can happen that things actually move slowly.

00;44;06;09–00;44;44;16
Montserrat Cano
Are then you think that you’re sort of yeah, yeah. Is the best way to keep positive thinking that things will actually be positive. But there is a possibility that things may not be positive. And then what do you do in this case is that you prepare, it allows you to better prepare for that. So what will happen if somebody from this it comes to you and asks you about this ranking for this keyword?

00;44;44;18–00;45;22;08
Montserrat Cano
How are you going to explain it to them that you will then be able to rank this like, well, you have to be prepared for that. You kind of built up your list of possible reasons or possible aspects to look to look at, because maybe you have to you have to look into it. A more complex example, increasing the transactions from an e-commerce website, which is mostly which is a more realistic SEO and digital objectified.

00;45;22;10–00;45;49;08
Montserrat Cano
There are so many things involved in an e-commerce. Never mind if this international is an international website. So, so many things, so many aspects. Not all of them are charged with SEO. Some of them are charges. Many of them are to do with how the the company is organized because we have to you know, a part of this calls for a conquest law, which I didn’t know.

00;45;49;08–00;46;29;01
Montserrat Cano
There’s a website normally is the reflection of the kind of organization that’s behind it. So in other words it will flow a bit better. It people will be better structured, probably better content, more targeted, etc., etc.. Right? All these things will actually happen if there is somebody if is a and that actually working well together that knows that failure can happen, that they are very well prepared for that.

00;46;29;04–00;46;58;19
Montserrat Cano
Whereas there is a team that is just working because they have been asked to do it because they have a contract, but they are not working well together, they are not happy working together and they feel overwhelmed and not appreciated, etc.. Such a stunt. Besides the website is not going to be looking it, or maybe with 23 t with all those colors, but then maybe it’s relevant to the Europeans.

00;46;58;21–00;47;30;25
Montserrat Cano
So transactions will come. they may not come as quickly as the company would actually expect them to come. Well, it starts with mindset and this is probably one of the many reasons why people leave jobs because they look for a place where they can obviously get enough to pay their bills and save up a little bit, but also where they can actually brief and they feel happy.

00;47;30;27–00;48;07;15
Montserrat Cano
I am it is about looking after your customer in the first place. Customer comes first. The thing all this is very good. I mean, you have to be aligned with your customers, the stations, you have to even exceed them, etcetera, etcetera. But then at the same time, the people who the people who need to do all that, the people who need to do all that is your are your own employees.

00;48;07;18–00;48;45;12
Montserrat Cano
So treat them well in the first place. So this is something I have always tried to do in the first is trying to treat my my colleagues and people who work for me, but also other other other employers. Are there are other other colleagues in our departments. Well, simply because it’s more satisfying in the first place, why would you want to actually up one day and treat people like like a piece off, you know, you know what what what follows what works for them?

00;48;45;12–00;49;03;02
Montserrat Cano
So you don’t want to do them badly. Why it actually impacts on you. It could have conspired to is that karma? So that’s one reason. And secondly, everybody will work well together and that will also reflect back on you.

00;49;03;05–00;49;27;21
Philippa Burgess
That and there’s a quote I’m not sure who made the quote, but just something that landed with me, which was always treat your employees better than you treat your customers, because if you treat your customers, your employees well, they’ll go out of your their way to help your customers. And that joy and satisfaction and loyalty that they have to your company will naturally be communicated to your customers.

00;49;27;23–00;49;56;02
Philippa Burgess
And. Whereas if you do it the opposite, where the customer is more important than the employee, that resentment just again, back to that sense of authenticity. People can’t hide it if they’re having a bad day, if they’re annoyed, if they don’t get to get along with their colleagues, they can pretend to hide it for a bit. But then that trigger point is going to happen when that customer that needs extraordinary attention, where they’re just basically going to say, I’m not paid enough to do that.

00;49;56;05–00;50;03;02
Philippa Burgess
And I’m just I’m not willing because I’m not treated well. Why would I why would I go out of my way to treat you? Well.

00;50;03;05–00;50;37;14
Montserrat Cano
Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is not just one or two or three of your employees. This is all of your employees, regardless of gender, regardless of age, etcetera, etcetera. Something that I have noticed, I, I didn’t I didn’t even notice this before, but I think it comes with what is the fact that the industry is getting younger but is only getting younger because we are getting older and it’s as simple as that.

00;50;37;14–00;51;05;29
Montserrat Cano
I mean when I started, when I started older, first I was I was very young and at that point in time there were a few older people who were called geeks or nerds or something like that. But yeah, they also saw me starting as well. You know, I was so in my teens, early twenties, and I doubt this is what I’m saying.

00;51;06;01–00;51;38;15
Montserrat Cano
And the needs of all this group ages are very different. You can’t offer for example, you can’t offer you can you can offer employee perks, Right. This this kind of benefits when you sign up a contract. So I think tailoring your expectations as well of all those people might actually be important, and that is to do with training, with the skill as well.

00;51;38;18–00;52;05;09
Montserrat Cano
Somebody who is I know every 20 say might already know about Python if it is necessary for the obviously, but that doesn’t mean that somebody who’s older may not want to actually love that because they want to start doing more python work or because maybe they can use it for their own role at a moment in time, or they can use it to skill up and to maybe move forward or move up with the company.

00;52;05;14–00;52;34;24
Montserrat Cano
Why not doing that? Can you believe it’s h.R. Asked me in one interview whether i wanted to buy a house where i don’t currently located. I thought, what does it have to do? What is it that i think to do with anything? Really? I thought, what is the right answer to this? Or of course I want to buy a house.

00;52;34;27–00;53;05;10
Montserrat Cano
So you see, the situation was that I had just put back home. That’s how I used to live. I used to live in the UK. I lived there for nearly 20 years and then I moved back right in time with 2020 and everything was that job and everything. But then the situation that that that that company was not in a position to continue to cover it and everything.

00;53;05;10–00;53;27;29
Montserrat Cano
So what happened is that I started to look for work and see how I could actually fitted into this market. So I did a bunch of interviews and one of these guys, the one, oddly enough, the one that actually looked more serious, asked me this question. It’s like I yeah, of course I want to buy a house in this situation.

00;53;27;29–00;53;52;21
Montserrat Cano
I want to definitely buy a house where I am living because this is what I live for the moment, this is where I am from, etc., etc. But I didn’t know how to answer the question. And the thing is that to me, the fact that an employee lives right next to the door or a 100 kilometers away doesn’t matter because we’ve got Internet and the Internet is the watch work anyway.

00;53;52;24–00;54;18;24
Montserrat Cano
And through the Internet you can have some calls, you can have Google being it’s calls you can have. Yeah. Or just any given time. You just just need to agree a it with your employee and with your colleagues and that’s it. That’s all it takes. And I know this for a fact because I have managed to attend remotely.

00;54;18;26–00;54;48;15
Montserrat Cano
I know how it works. And so I know it works very well. It’s just that a lot of the times, many companies just don’t realize the opportunities that these remote working hut think we are. We are going back to square one. We are not quite there yet, but I can see I can feel that we are going there.

00;54;48;17–00;54;59;10
Montserrat Cano
Many companies are actually calling back their employees to their offices. I think Amazon was one of them or Google. Some others were proposing like Metta.

00;54;59;10–00;55;01;19
Philippa Burgess
Metta, just.

00;55;01;22–00;55;04;26
Montserrat Cano
Like for days work but with actual salary.

00;55;04;28–00;55;07;21
Philippa Burgess

00;55;07;23–00;55;39;05
Montserrat Cano
And it’s just, it, you just have to be better as a manager, definitely more compassionate. I think compassion will actually go a long way in any organization. Compassion, collaboration and collaboration is something that I am. I keep preaching to clients. So previous previous employment as well to to call it as well. It’s just it just goes it just goes on a way and you can collaborate in different ways.

00;55;39;08–00;56;05;00
Montserrat Cano
Sometimes if you are sitting down in an office, it’s a lot more difficult to collaborate. It’s because there are so many interruptions, there are so many meetings, the phone rings, something happens, whatever is happened, it’s just it’s too much. It’s sometimes since the release, too much, don’t get anything done. I remember going back to the office because this was was this hybrid role.

00;56;05;06–00;56;30;03
Montserrat Cano
I was managing a team mostly remotely, but then I had to go back to the office from time to time, and I was trapped in those days because I had so much on my plate and I never got anything done with the office simply because the office was used to say hello to people. And I think this is how office structured work.

00;56;30;03–00;56;53;04
Montserrat Cano
It was mostly to actually meet with people and be sociable rather than just doing business, because I feel that I am doing a lot more, getting more things done more flexibly while working remotely than when I was at the office. It’s not because I didn’t work when I was at the office or didn’t see staff. I didn’t get anything done.

00;56;53;09–00;57;40;25
Montserrat Cano
It’s because now I am doing a lot more than I used to. Well, this piece of advice would actually go for anyone, not just women, but particularly women, because As we mentioned earlier in the conversation, we tend to overthink. So just get there just because they’re still up with everything that you can look at, everything you can see that you are able to filter out, to understand how everything works and filter out any noise that anything that is not working for you, anything which you think, okay, because you might actually come in thinking, wow, see, I was great and everything, but then you come in and feel, What is this stuff about?

00;57;40;27–00;58;16;21
Montserrat Cano
Maybe content is your thing, but you don’t know until you actually get there. So don’t think twice. Just try and skill up. Try and create as much as you can. Create and talk to other people and do it. Do it and. Secondly, and secondly, get them into I mean, I cannot stress enough the importance of having a mentor.

00;58;16;23–00;58;41;19
Montserrat Cano
I really think if I had had a mentor earlier on, things would have been different for me. I would have been able to come out of situations like we all have had, that maybe there were not very big situations for very negative but felt super negative to me. Maybe somebody would have talked to me about all those things.

00;58;41;21–00;59;11;04
Montserrat Cano
I would have seen them in a different way. I would have perhaps turned the tables, as we say, just basically turn everything to our own advantage. This is something we need to understand. So first piece of advice, keep learning all the time. I mean, don’t see And because you are very young or very old or anything, that you don’t have to learn because that is not true, right?

00;59;11;05–00;59;40;01
Montserrat Cano
Just learn to filter out the noise and find your place. And secondly, find a mentor as soon as possible, to be honest, as soon as possible is get. It really is great. Adventure is not somebody who’s actually going to tell you what to do is somebody who is going to help you find the best solution or the best way out of a situation or the best way out.

00;59;40;07–00;59;47;15
Montserrat Cano
The first way to advance in your career perhaps, or something like that. I just consider all of those things.