BROOKLYN, NY: Let’s just jump right in here. This role is complex and exciting. It’s also a bit stressful and chaotic. So, we know it’s not for everyone. (S)he who wears the Strategist’s crown sleeps in thunder. It’s gritty. It’s real. It’s a nail-biting thrill with an ENORMOUS amount of growth potential, as well as money-making potential. And, you’ll get to have a big ol’ feather in your cap plus year-long bragging rights when you’re the one influencing multi-million dollar marketing budgets for brands that you use every day!

But, yeah… if you’re wondering if it’s a good fit for you, it’s probably not. It’s a difficult role.

Not saying all of this to scare anyone off… I’m super introverted myself and literally cringe when I have to engage in weather-related small talk. Haha. But if you’re whip-smart and you like talking to people, this just might be your dream role.

Now, the Brand Partnership role doesn’t require specific experience per se… but it does require a very particular set of skills. So, let me officially switch from this lengthy disclaimer to recruiting mode and kick this thing off by running through the two most important qualities. Then we can switch gears and run through the more standard job-posty-style things.

At a high level, you should be non-stop, always-on #strategic. (duh, right?). Hence, the job title.

If you’re coming into this role in a more senior capacity, we’d want you to have a super deep understanding of the influencer marketing space. (And by “super deep”, I’m not talking about people who follow a bunch of influencers on Instagram, or people who are influencers themselves… yes, both of those are nice to have for that role, but we need more… you should be able to seamlessly recommend campaign structures, influencer types, whitelisting budgets, themes, and path-to-purchase-related strategies.)

If you’re joining in more of a junior role, you need to be a sponge when it comes to learning. Someone who’s able to quickly learn and absorb a ton of info… and then incorporate all of that info into meaningful conversations. It’s one thing to be able to regurgitate a bunch of random facts, but we’re looking for you to be a dot connector. Someone who can learn a bunch of random facts, and then inject those into conversations based on what the client is talking about in terms of pain points, past experience, goals, etc.

At the end of the day, we like for our calls with potential clients to sound more like strategy sessions rather than another boring, pushy sales pitch. So you need to be an expert!

You should love talking to people. You should be the master of small-talk. You should be comfortable talking to anyone…

Since you’ll pretty much be the one handling communications with these new business connections, you have to be fanatically organized in order to maintain effective communication.

You should also be a bit of a wizard when it comes to writing compelling emails that keep people engaged. You know… chatting them up, keeping them warm, that sorta thing.

We’re looking for a charismatic social butterfly who is organized, eloquent, and smart.

Here are some quick bullet points that outline our process:

• First and foremost, we do NOT make you do cold-calling. Whoohoo! Time for parties. (Not having to cold-call is sort of unusual for this type of role.)

• When a potential client expresses interest in learning more, you’ll research their brand and figure out your game plan for the call.

• Then, you’ll get on the call and explain what we do. As I mentioned, these calls will be less salesy and more like customized strategy sessions.

• After the call, you’ll send a thoughtful (and cool-sounding) follow-up. (We are looking for people who know how to write an email that sounds warm and personal, not like it was sent by a used-car salesman.)

• You’ll keep notes and info about each person who you talk to within a big database so that you can reference that later.

• You’ll present proposals to these clients based on the needs and goals that they described on your intro calls. (These calls are a lot of fun. We’re good at coming up with ideas that knock off socks.

• Once all the presenting is done, you’ll do a lot of emailing, and question answering. Quick calls here and there. Until eventually they want to sign on the dotted line!

• Then we all celebrate. Lots of corny gifs are involved.

So, as you can see, the steps involved are not all that crazy. Sales experience is always nice, if you have it, but all of this is learnable. The two qualities that are described above however are less learnable, and those are what we’ll be evaluating during the interview process.

 👀 OK, from here down, the info is partially copy-pasted across job posts, so if you’ve read other posts on our site, you can probably stop reading 👀

We’re a team of 20.

We’re growing.

We just got a fun, new office.

We have an office pug who’s the sitting President of the Welcoming Committee (as long as you’re not looking for a welcome and you see chill mode as open arms).

About half of us are really funny.

We’re currently working with some pretty amazing brands (eos, Famous Footwear, Pepsi, Neutrogena, Evenflo, a big chain of malls (I don’t think I’m allowed to say who), a big toilet brand (again… I don’t think I’m allowed to say who, but you probably sit on this brand every morning), Natori, Diamond Producers Association, Hickory Farms, Moosejaw… just to name a few).

• We provide the usual benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision. (The Medical Insurance is through Aetna, which is really pretty good.)

• We’re located in Brooklyn, so if you’re local (and wind up working with us), we typically work from home 2 days a week to save on commute time. Yay!

• You’ll be working closely with the founders. Both are super cool. (One of them wrote this job description.) (She’s modest too.) (She also sometimes refers to herself in the third person for a little bit of fun.) (And enjoys friendly tangents.)

• People who perform well advance quickly.

• We’re dog-friendly. And, as I mentioned above, we have our tiny office pug!! So if you like dogs, you’ll love him… if you don’t like dogs, he’ll most likely ignore you… he’s very adept at picking up on whether people want anything to do with him. If you don’t, he’ll cold-shoulder you indefinitely.)

• There is also the potential to get stock options (if you prove to be amazing).

We’re a pretty down-to-earth bunch, so if you’re interested in applying, in lieu of an elaborate cover letter, you can email me at [email protected], and include bullet points with the following info:

• The job you are applying for

• A link to your Linkedin profile

• What job site sent you our way

• Your location

• Your phone number

• A rundown on how experienced you are with the influencer marketing space… have you worked with them? Have you done client work in the influencer space? Stuff like that.

• A rundown on why you feel like you’d be good for that role.

• Please let me know what sort of salary you have in mind. I’d hate to waste your time if you’re wanting a salary that’s beyond the realm of possibility for us. (Salaries for this position vary depending on experience.)

Tips on how to get your application noticed (assuming that’s what you’re shooting for):

• Applications that are submitted using a job site (instead of emailed to the above email address) will not be considered.

• I kick out applications that are poorly written and/or have typos. (I’m serious about that.) The rationale for this is… if you can’t take the time to proofread a job application, you most likely won’t be diligent with client emails. (#FunLittleTip: Install Grammarly. It’s a game changer.)

• Try to sound cool. We write in a colloquial, one-with-the-people-while-still-being-basically-grammatically-correct style. And while this style of writing is not a requirement, keep in mind that I receive a decent number of applicants every day, and 90% of the applications are boring AF. The ones that have a fun “voice” and quirky writing style immediately catch my attention. In a good way.

• Lastly, put yourself in the shoes of the person in charge of interviewing… what do you think that person would want to hear?

👀 Keeeeep going 👀

Generally speaking, a lot of people will probably find this job post in line with their skill set, and I bet a lot of people would have the skills necessary to perform the requirements of this role. But… the characteristics that define your work style might not be in line with what we need. So, below I’m listing out a bunch of qualities that we’ve decided we really need a person to have based on the various people we’ve worked with over the last 6 years.

1. Our company has a very fast-paced environment. It might feel disorganized from time to time because we’re also a small company. We need each employee to be the type of person who can go with the flow. Who can adjust quickly. Who is able to embrace chaos with open arms when it decides to waltz through the door.

2. Due to the aforementioned fast-paced environment, you should be the type of person who is able to execute quickly… within time constraints. WHILE still maintaining a quality of work. We don’t ask for the impossible. But what we don’t want to see are projects that are slapped together and riddled with issues. Instead, we’d like to see people make adjustments and figure out how to make it work so that everything is high-quality and completed within the time constraints. That looks a little weird all typed out. I guess we’re looking for resourceful people who approach projects with that there’s-more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat attitude.

3. I’ve never interviewed anyone who has said that they have bad work ethic… but there’s a big difference between people who show up and do what gets assigned to them and those who load projects onto their own plates as soon as they have a free moment… Those people who take pride in their projects and who go above and beyond because they have that drive for personal achievement and growth. We don’t want to micro-manage. We want to work with self-motivated people who are neurotic about quality.

4. People who don’t proofread drive me nuts!

5. While I feel like I should not have to mention this, we’ve worked with people in the past who ran around like a bunch of crazed loose cannons… yelling at coworkers, constantly complaining, deploying the cold-shoulder on a regular basis. So if you’re not a nice person… that won’t really work for us.

6. You need to be receptive to feedback. This is a quality that we find candidates have trouble self-assessing. But try hard. Because we give feedback when needed. We’re too small of a company to just let people do whatever they want to do. (Side-note… no one loves feedback. That’s fine. I don’t either really. But will you take it nicely? Will you incorporate it? Are you going to be passive aggressive while doing it? Have you been told not to “cut off your nose to spite your face” recently? These are questions you should ask to do said self-assessment.)

7. Influencer marketing is constantly changing, so we’re looking for people who are curious. This is another quality that’s hard to self-assess… so try to think back to any recent things you’ve learned. For example… if a client were to mention in passing that they are doing white-labeled boosting on Instagram… let’s assume you don’t know what that means. Would you be the type of person to jot a note down about that and then look it up so that you know what it is whenever it comes up again (even though they were not specifically asking you to do any white-listed boosting for them)?

8. Are you ambitious? (Not a requirement, but if you are… there’s lots of room for career growth because we’ll let you take on whatever you can handle. Plus, we like to hire our managers from within the team, so there is a very clear path to the next level (if it’s of interest).

9. If you’re working remotely, you need to actually be working. No one likes a freeloader.

I could honestly go on and on about what we’re looking for, but I’m going to stop here. The point is, you gotta have the chops AND play well with others. And if you’re giddy already, feeling like this job description is just so dead-on-b*lls accurate for you, say something. (Also, if that’s the case, please message me asap!) If you’re lagging on something, feel free to mention it in your cover letter. We’re a small company who’s big into personal growth and supporting up-and-coming go-getters!

Oh, one last thing… Please add the word Toggle to your subject line when applying so that I know that you read this entire post. 😉

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