My name is Rob and I’m one of Fluid’s most recent hires – as a new Senior Account Manager and Ecommerce Growth Strategist. It’s been a month since I started at Fluid Digital, an ecommerce digital agency based in Manchester. The North West has become a hub for creative, forward-thinking, internationally recognised ecommerce digital agencies and something I’m now proud to be a part of.
I’ve worked retail and client-side the whole of my career and always fancied moving over to the other side. I wanted to share my knowledge, experience, and hopefully drive change from a client thinking mentality.
I was absolutely buzzing (yes, I’m a Mancunian) to land this role with Fluid Digital. Adam and Carl who interviewed me really gave me a good feeling about the agency. Their level-headed, growth-driven approach to ecommerce builds and great customer service gave me confidence that this was the job, and more importantly, the company for me.
Starting a new role in a completely different dynamic can be daunting. Starting a new role in a different dynamic in the middle of a lockdown pandemic can really make things interesting. I’ve always been an office person rather than working from home. To find most of the business is now set up virtually, working from home has been a small challenge in all honesty. I’ve had a few ‘one to one’s with the majority of team members and feel like I’ve built a decent working relationship with most.
I’ve been commuting into the office most of the time and the majority of it has been me, in the office, on my own. I think this has made things more ‘normal’ from a working aspect and helped me settle in.
So, how does working on the agency side of things feel, you say?
I worked with a chap in my last role who said “you must be mad going on the agency side”.
In all honesty, I’m loving it. The diversity of the projects I’ve been working on is why I wanted to change over. Getting your hands on different software is something else that I’ve always been interested in and gives me an even broader range of using it for the future to help clients grow their business.
Morning standup with the devs is always interesting and really shows to me how dedicated and technical people are in this company. Some work through the evening and even weekends to push tasks and projects through. Having devs at the tips of my fingers to ask questions is something I’ve always wanted to have and work with.
I’ve spent a lot of time with Nick Handley, Head Of Performance Marketing who has been coming into the office quite regularly. His knowledge of paid advertising across Google and Amazon has blown my mind, to be honest. His department is doing some amazing things for many online businesses and has seen really strong growth for the business from the start of the year and during the pandemic.
Carl, the Account Director, has been showing me the ropes from day one whilst launching a huge project with one of our clients. His knowledge and guidance have really helped me just kick on, and get stuck in with the clients I’m working with.
I’ve also been working on a few things with Adam, Managing Director. His future vision for the business has once again made me think this was the right choice. His openness to employees makes the working environment a calm and relaxed one whilst maintaining a ‘we get the job done and on time’ attitude really helps motivate people.
Cablecraft is one of the clients I’ve been working with over the past month. I feel I’ve helped the client with growth opportunities through development and ecommerce consultancy whilst also running day to day tasks and any bug fixes for them. Looking forward to really growing their business and keeping a strong relationship with them for years to come.
I’m genuinely really happy to work for a company that puts employee’s safety first and has the openness to listen to everyone. On Friday we do a show and tell which is all about finishing the week on a positive note. Something I’ve never experienced before with previous roles and does make working conditions really great!
Hopefully, this article will make other people realise that change is good. Don’t ever be afraid of pushing yourself into a different role.
Thanks for reading and if you want to get in touch and talk about the client to agency role change, ecommerce, or bikes, message me on LinkedIn.