I’m Kara Stemig, Portfolio Marketer and This is How I Work
Location: Rochester, MN
Current Gig: IT Service Management Portfolio Marketing Manager, IBM Cloud
One word that describes how you work: Driven
What apps/software/tools can’t you live without? Why?
In my role as a marketer, there are many tools I use on a daily basis to help create content and social buzz while also keeping myself organized. The three that I use the most are Canva, the Microsoft Suite and Hootsuite.
Canva is a tool that I use daily to create various marketing content including, banners, social tiles, flyers, social media posts and much more. Additionally, more personal content, such as resumes and business cards, can also be designed with ease. Canva is simple to use as you select the type of content you wish to create, select a template and then use Canva’s many options to update text, color scheme, graphics, etc. Canva offers many templates and photos/graphics that are free to use but also does have upgraded templates and photos which can be purchased when downloading your final product.
Everyone is familiar with the Microsoft Suite of products, specifically Word, PowerPoint and Excel. In my role as a marketer, I create PowerPoint decks almost daily. PowerPoint is the primary form of communication during meetings and specifically when presenting to executives. Because of this, I have become a PowerPoint expert and have become more affluent at the capabilities that PowerPoint has to offer. Additionally, as I have a Finance and Accounting background, I still tend to lean towards using Excel when creating any type of chart that has numbers. I typically prefer to use Excel to create tables in order to use formulas . I will then export these tables from Excel to PowerPoint in order to reduce errors that occur when manually updating tables directly in PowerPoint. In my role, I also am involved in the creation and editing of blog posts which we typically do in Word.
From a social media perspective, one of the most important tools that I use is Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a tool which connects all of your social media handles into one, easy to use platform. From Hootsuite, you can create a message to send out on all of your social channels at the same time. Additionally, you can use Hootsuite to shrink longer links down to shorter links which help to meet some of the character limits of social media channels. Hootsuite also tracks the analytics of the posts that you create so that you have measurable results as to which of your posts are performing the best and have the most interaction and impressions. One last benefit of using Hootsuite is having the ability to schedule social media posts. I am able to spend one chunk of time on Sunday evenings scheduling my social posts throughout the week which helps me to stay engaged throughout the week even if I am too busy to actually log into my various social handles daily. Hootsuite has helped me to create move valuable content while also increasing my social media following.
What’s your best time-saving shortcut/life hack?
As simple as this seems, my biggest time-saving tactic has been the purchase of an Amazon Prime account. As it ties directly to my marketing role, it is probably hard to create a direct correlation on how Prime would save me time however, from an indirect approach, Prime has a significant impact. I am a full-time marketer, married to a husband with a full-time position at the Mayo Clinic, mother of a three year old boy, MBA student, volunteer with the AMA association, part-time blog writer, plus a maintainer of relationships with my friends and family. Having this busy schedule requires me to be organized both inside and outside of my marketing role. Amazon Prime has the benefit of free shipping with low prices. Often times, when it is found that we need household items such as diapers or toilet paper, I pull up Amazon and make a quick purchase which will arrive at my house in two days. Additionally, I purchase things like last-minute birthday presents, Halloween costumes, party supplies, shoes, etc. This helps save me time from having to run to the store every time we need something and helps me stay more organized. Plus, I am keeping shipping companies in business!
What everyday thing are you better at than everyone else? What’s your secret?
In my role as a marketer, I am responsible for managing a lot of very detail-orientated tasks at the same time. Specifically to running events, I have to coordinate sessions, staff booths, organize receptions, create content for promotions, run promotions, create social campaigns, etc. These tasks are done for multiple events that are all in progress at the same time. I thrive in chaos and am able to keep organized even with so many different tasks going on. I do not know exactly how I remember minute details but I typically can remember the most detailed answers to questions without having to go back and dig through my notes or email. This skill has helped save me loads of time in my career. I also thrive at remembering the specifics about events and emails. There are times where someone will ask me a question about something that I had worked on a year ago and I typically can answer or find the answer within a minute or two. I do not believe there is a secret to it. I honestly just think my mind stores more things in long-term memory than the average person which has been a benefit for me so far in my career.
What do you listen to while you work?
I am definitely not a fan of working in silence and I actually believe that I am more productive when I have some sort of background noise, typically music. I am very eclectic when it comes to music selection and I tend to choose a Pandora station that best fits my mood. I have probably 20 or so different channels created on Pandora to match my mood. From classic 80s music to today’s top hits to a Nickelback station to even a Disney station, I have listened to them all at one point or another during my career. I typically trend towards 80s and 90s selections.
What are you currently reading?
For my MBA course, we were asked to select a book to read that was influential in the life of a leader. I chose the book ‘Bossypants’ written by Tina Fey. I chose this selection because I wanted to read a book written by a strong woman. I am a bit of a feminist so reading a book written by a leader who is a woman and had overcome many hardships was important to me. So far, I have really enjoyed the book as it provides advice and examples that have a humorous twist which I have found engaging and easy to keep up with. Additionally, I am also a big fan of James Patterson’s mystery novels and I do like to read those on my downtime.
Are you more of introvert or an extrovert?
I am one hundred percent an extrovert which is actually interesting because I was not always this way. Before starting college, I was always more of an introvert. Through my high school years, I did not have a large group of friends and I was a bit of an outcast. I did have a fun-loving personality and I was outgoing but only after I really go to know the group I was with and became comfortable. When I started college at MSU-Mankato, I made the decision right away to leave my old self behind and to start fresh and let my personality and outgoingness shine which I have done ever since. I consider my extroverted personality to be a strong characteristic to as I find that I can put people at ease and make them smile especially in tense situations. Additionally, this has helped me to further my own career as I have been able to form strong bonds quickly with other colleagues.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
There are two pieces of advice that I have received that I try to live by in my career and life. The first is to never let anyone else define your worth. I picked up this advice from a Twitter motivational handle and it was posted with a social tile that read “If you judge a fish by its’ ability to climb a tree, the fish will always believe it is stupid”. This social tile and quote hit home for me in the last several years is learning all of the different ways that people work and learn and the different styles that come with it. I have always been more a reader and doer and, in the past, it was difficult for me to understand how someone’s style of learning and growing could be so different from my own.
Another piece of advice that I received from one of my longtime mentors is that you will never get to where you want to be without asking for it. This has been a crucial piece of advice for me throughout the last three years of my career. I moved from Finance to Operations within my company because I told my mentor (who was my Operations Manager at the time) that I was interested in pursuing a new role. She helped me move into her role after she moved on with her as my manager. While she was my manager, she helped me create a five year plan which included obtaining my MBA (with financial support from my company) and moving to a marketing role. With her help and because I was vocal with what I was looking for, I achieved both of those goals within two years. I know have a new five year plan which I have shared with my current manager and it gives me great relief to know that I have her support as I continue to learn and grow.
Where do you find inspiration and new ideas?
My inspiration comes from a few places. First, I do tend to watch social media sites for inspiration which includes Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. I like to watch the ideas and topics that are trending and look to those to inspire me in my day to day activities. I also follow several Twitter handles that provide a daily dose of inspiration which I find handy when I am in a rut. Second, I use my current network as a source of inspiration. In my career, I have been lucky enough to bond with a small group of other women marketers around my age and we bounce ideas off of each other when working on new projects. These brainstorming sessions have really helped me to learn and grow as a marketer and their advice have helped lead to the success in many of the projects that I have worked on.
What kind of leader are you?
This question is a bit tough for me to answer as I have not been a direct line manager before and therefore have not received a lot of formal feedback on my leadership skills. Based off of the feedback from the projects I have led, I believe that I am a leader who leads by example. I try to be the first one working and the last one complete. I put in the extra effort to make something as perfect as it can be before considering a task completed. I am goal-oriented and I try to shape a vision of the end result on projects before beginning. One characteristic I try to always encompass is to be acute to what is happening with other team members and offer to lend a hand if help needed. Additionally, I try to connect with team members on a personal level. One thing that I think can be forgotten easily with the demands of careers nowadays is that we are all just people with our own lives and struggles outside of work. I try to connect with people on a more personal level so that I can understand their battles and be more of a mentor/friend than a boss. As I progress to a more true managerial leadership role, I may need to reevaluate my feelings about this as I will need to ensure there are transparent boundaries.
Is there anything else you’d like to add that might be interesting to readers?
When I was 12 years old, my parents purchased a bowling center in St. Cloud, MN. From that day forward, I was blessed (and sometimes cursed) with having a job. Several years later, my parents purchased a second bowling center. I grew up cleaning bathrooms, scrubbing floors, waiting on customers, fixing bowling machines, stocking coolers, scooping ice cream; you name it and I probably did it. Although the jobs were often annoying and trivial at times, I am thankful for the experience as it formed my strong work ethic today. My mother never settled for anything less than perfect and if I had not done a task correctly the first time, I was sent off to do it again. Because of this, I have high expectations for both myself and the people around me and I tend not to settle until a job is done to the absolutely best of my ability. I learned so much from the experience of being involved in a family-owned business and am grateful for all of the blood, sweat and tears that went into those years. My parents no longer own the bowling centers and since have moved on to new careers but I will always treasure the memories we made and the lessons I learned.
