Conversations and Revelations With Amy

So, I have always done well in school, sung all my life, write well and have done this in prose, marketing pieces and music lyrics. I am a real natural at creating bonds and building relationships. I am the one you awkwardly start to talk to at a party or a business meeting and suddenly will be laughing with and swapping business cards. My friends affectionately call me “The Interrogator” because I really love to know about you and will know more about you at the end of out time together than most. Maybe it is the same thing that drew me to a psychology degree in University. I love human behavior and to know what makes people love what they love and what makes them dislike what they dislike. I like to know what has made up an individual and what drives them in their personal life and their business world. Sound scary? Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing and you will actually enjoy our time together. This natural curiosity has served me well as it ends up creating an instant rapport. There is nothing false about it. I swear. I like being able to get to know other people, at least the ones open to sharing and learning about others. I do run across the people who give you the shut down. That is ok…either they are not worth it or they will come around eventually. I am not tooting my own horn here. I just really can read people and love finding a connection, whether it be in a short elevator conversation with a stranger or working with coworkers and customers.

I also have a great deal of working experience as a buyer, project manager and an exposure to in-depth knowledge of business and marketing. My brilliant husband has always been the ultimate entrepreneur since we met at the tender age of me at 18 and him at 21. He always had ideas and would predict new trends in business. He never saw anything as an obstacle. I had never been exposed to that. Business and Marketing are his loves, his hobbies and his job. I have always envied him loving something that was a career as well. He keeps files and files of research on new interests and old. He teaches himself all the new web applications and always has his finger on the pulse of internet marketing and connectedness through the web. How cool is that?

So what I am meaning to tell you is, that through this journey with him, as you can imagine, our conversations are heavily about business and marketing. I have been a part of many business strategy and marketing planning sessions. We are always analyzing target markets and possible campaigns for whatever he is working on. We both worked for a start up in the late 90’s where his CEO/business partner asked me to leave my job and join them. The CEO was impressed with my accumulated knowledge of business and marketing. He wanted me to come on as a catch all. I could do purchasing, hiring, representation of the company for Venture Capital presentations, client building and the liaison for the web content/site creation. So my job as wife to an entrepreneur and marketing genius has given me my own private education. I only hope to be able to express that into real experience in whatever my next step is.

So here lies the problem. When I got out of school with a psych degree, no one wanted me with just an undergrad degree. Most jobs out there wanted someone who could type fast. My hopes started to dwindle. My first job out of school was Applied Materials. They wanted me! They wanted to pay me well. They wanted to train me to be a planner/buyer.  A happy time in my life. I was making money, I was young and I did not have to do homework anymore. Sign me up! Well, from one job to the next building my experience as a pro in purchasing was great until I realized that the Tech industry was a cruel mistress. She wanted you and then she wanted to lay you off. Repeatedly. It was hard to keep excelling when companies were closing or when Tech companies were only offering 1 year contracts. My husband begged me to get out of high tech due to the instability. The career I was building was not building anymore because of all of this. Hey wait no fair!

So I found a company that promised to be the mentor I had always dreamed of and push me to great international heights. I became a buyer for international clients and well known domestic aerospace clients. I took a pay cut for the experience it promised and let us not forget, the stability. Glory, Glory.

Soon things revealed themselves as not what was promised. The manager that promised me mentoring and riches left and a new management came in. I will be honest as I am told not to be. Etiquette here says to be PC talking about employers. The whole place changed and finding employees for the lowest dollar was key.  Raises were almost non existent. The realization set in that not only had I taken a lower salary for this but that there was nowhere left to go.

I started seeing this as an opportunity to really analyze what I might want to do next. Purchasing was not what made me up or defined me but had left me with great experience. My talent at writing, working and building relationships could translate. What is next? Ah, indecision settled down on me like a nesting mother bird. Would other companies see my potential in a new position that was not purchasing?

I became very interested in Internet Marketing and companies that were building communities and reaching out to clients to help foster business in this way. I already knew a great deal from my internship to my husband’s many marketing/business endeavors. I had a knack for it, combined with my ability in the psychology of human behavior and relationships. I took an 8 week certification course on Landing Page Optimization. I took to it right away, learning the formulas for successful sites. I aced the certification exam. I was empowered. Would this be enough?

So my struggle now is to stay in the right mindset, ignore indecision of what to do next ,just jump, and prove that all of this experience adds up to an excellent find for any company. Market myself. Show all of this goodness and shed the indecisive pansy. I am ready to take the leap and whoever catches me will be amazed at what I can bring to the table.