Laying the groundwork for my success

My past 3 months at Valentine have been a mixture of new experiences, exciting challenges, and accelerated growth. During this period, I have been embracing my new role as a Senior Account Manager, which is the step up I was eagerly seeking in my new career path. I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring my new responsibilities and contributing from a more strategic perspective.

From the outset I was set up to succeed at Valentine by having a strong team around me that were proactive in answering questions and helping me onboard at pace. Whilst joining the agency at a pivotal time, with a large site launch approaching, these early sessions with the team were fundamental in developing my understanding of live projects and provided me with a solid platform for success.

Applying my technical expertise

The Valentine Digital Team is unique because, in addition to excelling in client service, everyone possesses extensive technical knowledge and expertise. Although I brought technical expertise with me from my  previous roles, I quickly learnt about the high expectations of the agency and knew I had to get up to speed as soon as possible.

Leveraging my experience in delivering digital programs, I was eager to hit the ground running and add value to our client workstreams. My initial challenge was understanding the bespoke CMS utilised to deploy content for our client’s new website. Fortunately, I could lean on my knowledge of the platforms used historically and call on the experience of learning how to deploy content in the backend.

I am now looking forward to building on my technical knowledge, through the generous development provided by Valentine and implementing this knowledge through proposing innovative solutions for our client's workstreams.

Establishing a strong foundation of trust with clients & adding value to projects

Leveraging the confidence I gained from successfully onboarding, it was clear of the importance that Valentine as an agency put on the building of strong relationships with key stakeholders. I actively took the opportunity to connect with them through introductory meetings, collaborative ideation sessions, and weekly progress updates. These opportunities allowed me to better understand our client’s business and desired goals while laying the foundations of a developing relationship.

All the clients I have met with during my time with Valentine, have been a pleasure to work with and incredibly welcoming. I’d like to also thank the Valentine digital team for the level of patience and detailed explanation of the digital products we provide for our clients.

After gaining a strong understanding of client accounts, being introduced to key stakeholders, and participating in live projects, I felt confident contributing my ideas for upcoming deliverables.

Moving onwards and upwards

In all, the past three months at Valentine have been thoroughly enjoyable and a great opportunity for me to learn and grow within my role. Integrating into a strong digital team has been a rewarding experience, allowing me to contribute to a major digital project and produce some of my best work. This work has been equally challenging and creative, requiring me to utilise new and existing skills and tools that have been pivotal to my contribution to client projects.

I have been extremely impressed with Valentine as an agency, due to the level of technical knowledge, professionalism of project delivery and the strength of relationships we have with our clients. My focus now is to develop relationships further, become a strategic partner for our clients and become an integral part of Valentine’s digital team.