Hone Club Spotlight: Blair Mullally, Field Marketing Manager
At Hone Club, we believe in giving help, getting help, and learning from each other! We use our Hone Club Spotlight as a chance to learn from a fellow community member. This week, we are profiling Blair Mullally, who was most recently the Field Marketing Manager at Envoy. Outside of work, she loves spending time outdoors, ideally exploring the East Bay’s many regional parks with her 10-year old Pitbull mix, Harriet.
If you have a question for Blair and are part of our Hone Club community, simply respond back to our Weekly Update in your inbox or comment below with your questions. We’ll compile everything and share answers the following week (anonymously) in our Weekly Update. If you are not a Hone Club member yet, join us today.
Hone Club: Tell us about what your company does and what you do there.
BM: Though I’m currently looking for my next opportunity, I’m happy to tell you about my most recent company, Envoy. Envoy is a workplace platform with a suite of products, all related to workplace experience. Specifically, these products manage visitor registration, incoming deliveries, and meeting rooms.
In my role as Field Marketing Manager, I owned all field marketing programs from concept to completion. In addition to these programs, I also owned marketing program management initiatives, like rolling out Asana to our 20-person marketing team.
Hone Club: How did you get to where you are today?
BM: I got to where I am today by putting everything I have into my work, every day. Doing this has allowed me to 1) create a proven track record of exemplary work and 2) create a robust professional network that’s happy to advocate for me when I need it.
I have also learned the importance of seizing on the right opportunity whenever it comes about, even if it doesn’t look exactly as you thought it would. Remain flexible and look for the opportunity in every role.
I worked in hospitality until 2016; at this point, I was managing events across multiple properties for a large restaurant group in New York. One of my former colleagues had recently transitioned from hospitality to tech and recommended I apply for a field marketing role at her current company.
When I applied for the role, I didn’t know a ton about the position, the company, or software in general; what I did know is that the role would broaden my experience and increase my knowledge base, and this was enough for me.
After working for this company for almost two years, I was recruited to move to San Francisco to create and launch field marketing programs for Dyspatch. The chance to build these programs from the ground up and move to the epicenter of U.S. software was an opportunity I knew I didn’t want to miss.
After 11 months with the company, our GTM teams were unfortunately laid off due to the company’s financial difficulties. A month after being laid off, I accepted an offer from Envoy.
Hone Club: What do you think were your most transferable skills when you transitioned from the Service industry to Tech?
BM: Putting out fires (figuratively and literally). Companies in the tech space are looking for people who are keen to solve problems and working in hospitality gives you constant opportunities to develop this skill. Working with hundreds of customers every day made me totally unflappable; by the time I got to my first tech job, I wasn’t easily rattled and my leadership team really respected this.
Communication. Hospitality and tech both move really quickly. Because of my background in hospitality, my default was to relay information as soon as I received it, and I have continued to do this. Always err on the side of over communicating.
Hone Club: What were some new skills you had to learn when you initially made the transition?
BM: So many things. I never expected to work in tech because I didn’t think it was an opportunity that would ever be available to me.
When I got in the door, I didn’t know a lot of things I needed to know; however, I was committed to asking for help and learning quickly.
Overnight, I was using dozens of tools I had never used before, using terms I had never heard before, and trying to do both as well as possible. My perspective was, if I get fired, I will have put absolutely everything I have into this job.
One of the most important things I learned was to have a clear perspective and drive the career growth you want for yourself. When I worked in hospitality, my role was very much defined by other people with very limited opportunity for growth. In tech, there’s often a lot more flexibility. If you’ve proven the impact of your work and you make the right case for a transition, there’s generally much more room for change.
Hone Club: What do you love about the Tech Industry? What do you miss about the Service industry?
BM: Throughout my life, it’s been technology that has made my life better — products that improve my awareness, efficiency, and keep me in constant communication with those I care about.
In my experience, the tech space also has a lot more flexibility to empower younger workers, allowing them to have more advanced professional opportunities, as compared with a more traditional business model. In 4 years of working in tech, I’ve been able to own projects that would’ve required significantly more experience at a more traditional company. In short, I’m able to learn more, faster.
However, I do miss the face to face, instant gratification I got while constantly working with customers. Many of my projects are large in scale and require several quarters of planning before the actual execution. Also, for a long time, hospitality was everything I knew! My father’s been in the bar business for 50 years-I’ve spent an incredible amount of time in bars and restaurants and have an immense emotional connection to the business.
Hone Club: What are 1–3 pieces of advice you would give to people who are looking to transition into Tech?
- Rather than focusing on what you don’t know, focus on what you do know and try to leverage this in every way possible. Smart business leaders understand what can and cannot be taught. Do the absolute best job at what you can control — things like commitment, transparency, and work ethic — and your key stakeholders will be happy to invest in teaching you everything you still need to learn.
- Just do it — meaning, if you want something, make it known, do everything in your power to make it happen, and do it now. It’s fine to be scared — feel the fear, and continue to move forward anyway.
- Embrace your accomplishments, learn how to sell yourself, and don’t feel ashamed about asking for assistance along the way. When I’m evaluating new opportunities, I’m completely shameless about requesting intros from former colleagues and it has only benefited me. You will find that most people who have seen the value you bring to an organization are eager to evangelize your strengths.
Hone Club is offering a volunteer-based program to help people who’ve lost their jobs in the Services Industry due to COVID-19 fix their resumes and give them overall advice on transitioning into Tech. If you know anyone who might benefit or who could help as a volunteer, they can sign up here: https://www.thehoneclub.com/join
