Alyssa Alsheimer: Have I been the leader that I wanted to have?

Time Out with…
Aug 8, 2017 · 9 min read

Time Out with… is the interview series for inspiring leaders throughout Dentsu Aegis Network. In this edition, we spoke with Alyssa Alsheimer, Group Account Director at iProspect, who was interviewed by Katie Getz Bifano, Associate Director, Marketing, iProspect.

Give us the Reader’s Digest version of your background, where are you from, and how’d you get here.

Alright, it’s a bit of an extended Reader’s Digest edition… maybe a couple of pages! I am from New Jersey originally. I went to Ithaca College and I studied integrated marketing communications and after I graduated I moved to Texas to work at The Women’s Museum, as a marketing assistant. I had always loved history — I worked at a museum all through college — and wanted to work at non-profit museums for my entire career. While I was there, social media was really up and coming so I really found my way less on the traditional side and more on the digital side. I knew I wanted to work in digital media for the rest of my career. From there, I left and went to the agency side, something I swore I’d never do. I started a social media team at a direct mail agency who had sold social media to one of their clients, built up the team there, got to about eight clients before I left and moved over to Weber Shandwick where I worked on a digital and content strategy team for several years for the U.S. Army and RadioShack. For the past two and a half years, I’ve been at iProspect on the client services team, and absolutely adore working in digital performance media

What would you say is one career defining moment from your life, and what makes it stand out?

The day that I took the leap from non-profit to the agency world. An agency took a chance on me and put me in this role to run the social media team. The first day I walked in, I had an intern who had already started working for me, and my boss just asked, “Okay, we have this client, they’re expecting us to deliver social media programs for them. How do we approach it?” That was a very eye opening moment in my life when I was really like “This is what I’m doing now and this is my career.”

Can you share an example of challenges you had at work and how you’ve dealt with them?

Absolutely, I think within the digital space, we all face a lot of challenges where maybe we’re not taken as seriously as we should be, whether that’s because of our age, or gender, or experience. I think there have definitely been some situations where I’ve walked into meetings and been perceived as someone who may not be there to actually run the show or run the meeting. This reminds me of when we went to a former client’s headquarters and were directed to intern orientation instead of to the digital marketing meeting that we were supposed to be coordinating. I think that that really set the stage for how those meetings that day went, but it’s important to know regardless of your experience, or age, or gender, that you do know your stuff and to bring that confidence into the room. So whatever predispositions people might have against you, you can prove them wrong.

Oh that’s funny. What is people’s biggest misconception about client services?

I think that people perceive client services as an old school telephone operator who is just there to connect A to B, to connect the client to the products and services team that’s going to be executing the campaign. I think client services can provide a lot of value in translating what a client needs to a deliverable our team can provide, and always making sure we have that cross channel holistic strategic approach that our clients are really looking for. We need to be advocating for our client or our internal team day in and day out. I think that there are a lot of instances where a request may come through where it doesn’t exactly line up to something our team is used to doing. As client services, we should have that relationship and understanding to take the business challenge and translate it to something that digital performance media can solve.

Working with B2B clients is really your bread and butter here at iProspect. What helped you build those successes?

B2B has really been an interesting area for me to sink my teeth into. I started in fast casual restaurants and retail and really made this change over to B2B over the past couple of years. I think a couple of things have enabled me to be successful, like understanding long purchase cycles. When you’re dealing with a retail or a consumer-focused customer you’re very frequently talking about a very short purchase cycle, one decision maker or maybe two. When you look at business, you’re looking at those multiple stakeholders. I think the other element that’s played to my advantage is really taking a cross channel approach. If you’re talking about a long period of time or multiple stakeholders, you have multiple touchpoints where you need to influence people.

Do you miss working on the retail side or do you like B2B now?

I love working on B2B, I really enjoy exploring these very deep seated business challenges and solving them with media. I think that a lot of the challenges that are facing B2B today, such as lack of awareness or lack of consumer interest, can be solved with media and that’s really a great opportunity for an agency like iProspect to come in and prove ourselves. With millennials coming up within the workforce, you have digital media playing such a big role in these B2B decisions. It’s a really great opportunity for an agency to come in and use display, use paid search, use our channels to push their business forward.

What do you think makes you a good leader?

I’m transparent and approachable and at the end of the day, I always ask myself “Have I been the leader that I wanted to have?” I’ve had some fantastic managers throughout my career, but I’ve also had some not so great managers and holding on to each of those experiences is an opportunity to learn about what type of leader I should be. For me, that’s someone that I can approach with a question, and that’s transparent in giving the information that I need to do my job well. I think those are really the two keys to my success. I like to say that at the core of leadership is the idea of empowering people; that I, myself, am empowered to empower the people around me.

How do you continue to stay engaged at work?

How can you not stay engaged at work with how quickly things happen? I think there are so many tools out there that enable us to stay engaged with our clients, with each other, with our marketplace. So always using tools like Lync, email and Microsoft Teams to make sure that we’re staying in touch with my internal teams and even if I’m traveling making sure that I’m just checking in and saying hi.

Do you have any regrets of things that you’ve done in your career that you would potentially do over?

Yes. So I think one of the biggest regrets in my career is not advocating for myself. In your career there will be plenty of people who will support you, who will empower you and advocate for you but at the end of the day the only person truly looking out for you is yourself, and it took me a while to learn that lesson. You really need to take on the responsibility of advocating for yourself, whether that is looking for a new opportunity within your current organization, understanding what other opportunities are out there and what the space is transitioning to. Digital media changes so quickly that a job that was around five years ago isn’t around anymore and it’s your responsibility to understand what that marketplace is like.

What’s one thing your coworkers would be surprised to hear about you?

I am a huge fan of naps. I’m kind of go, go, go and people perceive me as this Energizer bunny who has a lot of non-stop energy and it makes my family laugh because on weekends I truly recharge. We are talking long stretches of sleep on weekend nights and naps pretty much every weekend afternoon. So the Energizer bunny does stop going at a certain point. It’s around 2 pm on Saturday afternoons.

How do you help foster a culture of creativity at iProspect?

By offering opportunities for creativity to come out in day to day work. I think brainstorms are great. We can always go into a room and put Post It notes on a wall or whiteboard something, but I think really the true creative breakthroughs come across in just day to day conversations. Getting up from your desk, going to talk to a colleague, pulling a team together for a casual discussion over lunch, that’s really when those opportunities for creativity to come out.

How do you keep the creative spark alive?

I think the way you keep the creative spark alive is by always learning, whether that’s reading blog posts, talking to other people about their clients, listening to podcasts, listening to music. I think we have such a consumption oriented culture that a lot of people talk about like it’s a bad thing. I think it’s actually a good thing where if you’re consuming a lot of media, you never know when a bright idea might hit you.

So besides your naps, what does a typical weekend look like for you?

A typical weekend for me is pretty much filled with travel. I have a lot of family all up and down the east coast, so we’re typically visiting them, like my sister who lives up in Portland, ME. If not, we’re taking a weekend trip away. I love exploring new places. So any opportunity that I can get to visit a different city that I haven’t been to before is something I like to take advantage of.

What’s your most favorite recent place that you’ve been?

Not a weekend trip, but Cambodia was probably my favorite place that I’ve ever been to and I can’t wait to go back there. It was just an amazing place to visit and I’m really looking forward to our next trip.

How would you rate your work-life balance?

I know that there are a certain number of hours where I’m going to be really productive and bringing my best game to the table. There are times when you need to go home or you need to take a break and you need to recharge. I think we all need to understand where those limitations are, because at x number of hours the work you’re putting out really isn’t worth it anymore, you need to take that time to stop and refresh.

Do you have any superstitions or good luck charms when something major’s coming down the road?

Yes. I am a big believer in karma so I believe that what you put out to the universe returns itself to you. So when something big is coming up, you will see me tip a lot more, and be even more outwardly positive. Really just making sure that you’re only putting positive vibes out into the universe, so you get them back to you.

Alright. If your life had a motto, what would it be?

I really think a motto that I live by and it was my 2017 New Year’s resolution motto is “Empowered and empowering.” Making sure I’m in a position to be empowered to do what I need to do for my team and my clients and to ensure that I’m passing that along and empowering the people around me.

Winning in the Digital Economy

Dentsu Aegis Network is innovating the way brands are built through best-in-class expertise and capabilities in media, digital and creative services.

Time Out with…

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The interview series for inspiring leaders throughout Dentsu Aegis Network. Nominate who you think should be showcased at us.communications (at) dentsuaegis.com

Winning in the Digital Economy

Dentsu Aegis Network is innovating the way brands are built through best-in-class expertise and capabilities in media, digital and creative services.

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