Our Account Management team is essential to our success. The Sales team brings in some amazing clients and then our Account Managers take over to create even more amazing campaigns. Creativity, organization and follow through are the keys to success in this position. This month, we wanted to feature an Account Manager who demonstrates these qualities and then some – Meet Annie Kabourek, Senior Account Manager.
Unorphaned Annie
Annie has been a part of the IZEA family for five years. Before joining us, Annie was a Middle School teacher. She taught Social Studies and English. Though she loved being in the classroom, the parents proved to be a bit of a headache. Looking for a change, she responded to our ad for someone with good grammar that could type over 40 WPM.
She started at IZEA as a temp, reviewing blogs. Soon she Daddy Warbucks’ed her way up to a full-time position in the Customer Love department. After a few years, Annie moved over to Account Management and has been thriving there ever since.
Still a teacher at heart, Annie loves mentoring the new Sales team members and watching them flourish. She likes to see the moment they “get it,” then spread their wings and fly.
Annie’s AM Adventures
Annie is the Account Manager (AM) for four different sales people in various IZEA offices around the country. As an AM, Annie’s role is to construct proposals for the creative ideas of the campaign. Once the campaign details are agreed upon, she is then in charge of execution. This includes the initial setup and coordination with the Fulfillment team to get offers to bloggers and sending any product samples for the campaign. Annie also provides weekly reports and updates to the advertisers and sends performance recaps at the end of the campaign.
One of the challenges of her job is balancing her workload to make sure each client and salesperson is getting the attention they deserve. But Annie’s a pro and meets this challenge head on! The most vital aspect of Account Management is campaign execution – making it a success from start to finish. She aims to ensure the client is happy throughout the whole process and wants to come back and work with us again.
The best part of Annie’s job is the chance to be creative. Most of our clients don’t come with an idea ready in mind. Annie gets to think up a fun and original way in which bloggers can engage with the product. Instead of just saying this product is good, bloggers get to use it and experience it. Then they can truly vouch for the product.
Advice from Annie
- First and foremost, do whatever it takes to make the client happy
- When answering a client, address the question or the problem and not the tone of the email.
- When delivering bad news, use the “compliment sandwich” – Start with a compliment (you’ve got a great product offering). Then hit ‘em with the bad (but this thingamajig isn’t going to work and we suggest going in a different direction). Finally, add another compliment (By the way, your logo is darling). Disclaimer: Please follow the steps in order otherwise the compliment sandwich may not have the desired effect.
For those advertisers that work with Annie, next time you talk to her make her recite scenes from the original Beverly Hills, 90210. She claims she knows every line of dialogue from every episode in the first three seasons. Pick an episode and let’s try to stump her!
