I was lucky enough to make it on a train with air conditioning, so I'm currently appreciating the cool breeze.
Train: Q Train, Commute: Evening commute home, Current Song: 8Teen by Khalid
Today I've been thinking a lot about success. Not personal success as much as brand success and the importance of setting goals. When working in Advertising as an Assistant Media Planner, I first understood the importance of goals.
Setting goals means your team knows what they are working towards. It gives the work you are doing purpose. It's the only way you can measure success. Without goals you cannot measure how your preforming, because you don't know what your meant to measure. Sure you got 10,000 views on your video, but do you know why? What were you trying to accomplish? Brand recognition? Were you showing off a new product? If so did you have it drive to a product page? And if you did, please tell me you had it tagged correctly - so you can understand if that video actually drove people to purchase. Without goals you will miss out on valuable data and insights that could uncover a problem with what your doing or even validate all your hard work.
While goals are so important I've found that on many of the projects I've worked on there isn't any clear defined goals. Why? I don't have a good answer. I believe it has to do with a variety of things.
1. I've worked on a lot of smaller projects where brands are just starting out and figuring out what it is they are exactly trying to accomplish. The thing is - those brands should still have a goal. May it be a goal for their first campaign or overall brand.
2. The person in charge has forgotten or doesn’t know that goals are important. They are clouded by other things and have lost sight of what they are actually hoping to accomplish.
3. The brand has never had a proper goal, so no one working on the brand has seen the value of testing, analyzing, and optimizing.
4. Someone in charge manages to convince everyone below them that the brand has goals, but there really isn't any.
So what's my approach to working with brands or companies that don't have a goal? Well I'll be the first to say, it's hard. It's hard to do mundane tasks when you don't understand how they fit into the overall goal your brand or company is trying to accomplish. If you don't have a goal you can't do your best. Knowledge is power. And knowing what your working towards allows you to better explore all the different avenues to get there.
So if you're ever working somewhere and you are wondering what is your trying to accomplish, don't just keep working. Don't just be. Do. Ask questions to better understand what your business does and how you fit into the equation. Once you can establish a goal or many goals, you will be able to find so much more satisfaction in what your doing. Or maybe you won't. Maybe you'll realize your doing the wrong things and working for the wrong company.
When I was working as an Assistant Media Planner and I discovered we didn't have a Creative Department anymore, I started to question. At the end of the day what is my company trying to accomplish? And do I want to do that? I didn't. So...what did I want to do? I wanted to write, direct, and produce content. So I quit that path and took a production internship. Less than three years later I am a Producer - I'm still hustling, but I am moving in the right direction. Question everything, so you can make educated decisions and kill it at life and business.
Well.. I guess this did end up being about personal goals. The point is you and your company should always have goals. It allows you to have direction, create purpose, increase understanding, and do the best job possible.
You can't play soccer without goals. That's all.
- This was written by Me: Cassie Lavo, a content creator and producer living in NYC. I am always writing on the train. Sometimes it is rapping over a beat and other times it is just about the random thoughts I have running around in my head.
Let me know if you have any questions. I would love to hear from you.
Other Reads on Goals: