Agata is a growth mentor and a marketing leader with +10 years of experience in developing and executing growth strategies at companies like Google, Groove, and Piktochart. Currently, as a VP of Growth at Piktochart, she is leading a 100% remote marketing, sales, and product team. Together with her team, Agata is on the mission of empowering people to tell great visual stories that stick.

Questions:

• Lessons she learned from her 7 years working at Google.
• Why is it hard to become an SEO expert?
• What is one of the hardest parts of managing a 100% remote team? How can managers measure the performance of their remote teammates?
• What should a content marketer focus on first—finding the right channels or discovering the right content format?
• What is an often overlooked metric that content marketers need to pay more attention to?
• What makes for a great Instagram ad in 2021?
• Should social media marketers have some sort of experience using Google Analytics?
• What does Agata look for when she is hiring new team members?
• Why is Product Hunt important? For any businesses launching on Product Hunt, what advice would she give them?
• Why are mentors essential to a marketer’s career growth?

Full Episode Transcript:

 

Kenny Soto  0:05  

Hey there, folks, and welcome to the people of digital marketing with your host, Kenny Soto, and today’s guest, Agatha. Hi, Agatha. How are you?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  0:40  

Hi, I’m good. Thanks for having me here today.

 

Kenny Soto  0:43  

So before we started recording, I was telling you a little bit about the listeners of this podcast. And as always, I like to give them more context about the guests that I have on. So my first question for you is very straightforward. I would like to know what got you into digital marketing.

 

Agata Krzysztofik  1:03  

Um, I was like she always interested in marketing, also during my studies, but I didn’t initially, then the marketing as such, I actually went through a journey through other teams as well within customer support first. So I started actually, my first full time job was at Google. 

 

And I was working on the customer support team there and moved later on to more social media spaces and online communities. And when I was there, I realized already that like, I really want to do digital marketing. But I think what helped me why it was like actually, more like digital marketing versus traditional marketing was, you know, Google is also a very digital company. 

 

So that helped me a lot as well to immediately specialize more in this area and see that actually, the main potential is actually in digital marketing nowadays. 

 

And that’s the most growing area as well. And I think it was like a bit random, like, you know, I had to go through this journey of different departments as well, working also a bit with product management. But I do think that it is helpful, because in my opinion, in digital marketing, it is very important to be able to understand how different departments within a company work with each other. 

 

And if you want to be a good digital marketer, you have to have a bit of an understanding of other teams that you’re collaborating with, like, sales products, and customer support, as well. And this way, you can actually become a better marketer as well.

 

Kenny Soto  2:35  

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you worked at Google for just about seven years, correct? Yeah, that’s correct. Now, tying back to what you just said, what did you learn from your experience working there?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  2:51  

A lot, even though it’s a big company does still operate a bit like a startup. And so the positive thing is that, even though you might be like, you know, in a specific role, let’s say, I don’t know, you are in this on the support team, or you’re a community manager, you still have space to work on additional projects. 

 

And if there is an area you’re interested in, the company kind of enables you to do it, as you can even do some 20% projects and help other teams out there. And I think that was very helpful for me, because when I finished my studies, you know, I wasn’t fully clear, what would be the area that I would be the most interested in. I was always interested in marketing, but I wasn’t like fully sure. 

 

You know, if this is something I would want to do long term. And I think this ability to try out things and see what is interesting, and being on different teams as well helped me realize, you know, what are the areas where I want to grow? And what I find the most interesting as well, that’s, that’s one way how I found out as well that, for example, SEO is very interesting for me, because I was working on one of the projects that were actually related to SEO back during my time at Google as well.

 

Kenny Soto  4:11  

Why specifically, SEO?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  4:15  

I think it’s an area that is changing a lot, you know, everyone tries to be an SEO expert and it’s very difficult to be because whenever I think like people think that they know everything, the algorithm changes, and then you have to refresh your knowledge you have to adapt to the changes while so actually Google by updating the algorithm and you know, the rules in which search engine works. 

 

And they actually are also challenging people to become better and continue learning. Like if you are in this role, you never stop learning. And I find this very interesting that it’s kind of like solving a puzzle. And I think it’s just part of this that like, you know, during my childhood I always lost so Big problems, I ever had this period that I wanted to be a private detective and that like, you know, I felt that that’s going to be my career path. 

 

So I think it has a bit of like some elements of this as well as to that there are things that you have to solve. And it’s continuous digging data, trying to find clues and like, you know, what could be the thing that is working, which is not working, and so on.

 

Kenny Soto  5:22  

For the entry level marketer who wants to learn more about SEO, what would be your number one tip, to get them started and to get them on the right career path, if they wanted to specialize in SEO?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  5:38  

I think that’s now another thing that SEO continues to change, but also it does require you to be quite good in different areas. And nowadays, we know that content is very important for SEO as well. So I think trying to improve your copywriting skills can help as well.

 

Obviously, like, you know, if you want to be all around SEO expert like it would be good as well to have knowledge in copywriting. There are some people who are working in SEO, and they’re like, just technical SEO. And I mean, they’re obviously you have to have a bit more technical knowledge. But it’s maybe something where you do not have to have soft skills, like maybe concentrating and things like that. 

 

And you could, you know, just learn the technical parts. But I think one of the first steps like I would really find mentors, it doesn’t mean specifically that you need to, you know, hire a mentor or something like that you could find someone like basically, that is good in this space and ask them as well for maybe having mentoring calls. But another option is just to find people who are very good at SEO and are sharing their knowledge. 

 

One such example is Brian Dean from Backlinko. And he shares really detailed best practices around SEO and just reading his content, like, you know, going through his content, his best practices, step by steps, and trying to reapply them, like maybe just, you know, learning by doing, you can already learn a lot.

 

Kenny Soto  7:12  

Yeah, and it’s good is a good thing. You mentioned him because I was following him around last year or the year before looking at his YouTube channel. And he definitely knows what he’s talking about. And he uses Backlinko, and the marketing strategies for Backlinko as examples when he is describing marketing strategy, so I’m really glad you mentioned him as a resource.

 

Agata Krzysztofik  7:34  

Yeah, exactly. I actually very recently, because, you know, I was an expert in the video marketing, and like, just basic using videos for SEO, I actually followed his guide around, you know how to do video SEO and really had good success. Like I went through basically his step by step description of how he did it for Backlinko. Because he, he also quite recently, you know, started posting more on YouTube.

 

And he basically shows there, how he grew his channel. And I found it super interesting that it’s so detailed and very practical. And you can literally do, you know, just go through the steps that he lists there and reapply it to your own YouTube channel as well.

 

Kenny Soto  8:15  

My next question does apply to the listener, but it also applies to anyone working in tech at the current moment. What is one of the hardest parts of managing 100%? remote team?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  8:32  

Yeah, good question. And I think one aspect is that there are cases where you are working with people whom you have never met in person. And I actually had these cases for the few people on my team, I never got a chance to meet with them in person. And that was also because of Corona. Like, obviously, the company would have organized some meetups. If this wasn’t for the current circumstances, obviously. 

 

Anyways, it is a bit strange. But on the other hand, Zoom gives you this option that, like you know, you’re on the call with the person and it does give you a feeling that after a while I started forgetting about it, like did I actually meet this person live? Or do I only know them through zoom so it blurs a bit I think it is quite challenging because it’s a different type of relationship that you can develop if you can actually be in the room with someone and at least get a chance like you know, to be outside of the official meeting and get to know them.

 

What our company tries to do is to organize also things that are not that official like you know, Team buildings, which can be done through zoom, and this does help as well or we try to incorporate icebreakers into every single team meeting, just to give a chance to everyone on the team to get to know other team members a bit on the personal level as well. 

 

But I do find this the most challenging Jean, I know that a lot of managers say that what is challenged for them is measuring performance, you know, and it comes down to trust that that’s at least a question that I very often get from other managers like, who basically can from normal office setup to the Remote Setup, they often ask me like, okay, so how do you manage performance? How do you ensure that actually people do their job? Whenever I hire someone, I always start with trust. 

 

So I actually do trust people that they do their job, I don’t need to check on them, right? Like, I also don’t have expectations, that person will be sitting eight hours straight at their desk, as long as they do their tasks. And what I always recommend, other leaders are like, you know, CEOs of other companies that want to go remote. I always say, just implement a framework that will help people to be more gold driven, and see how their job impacts the overall company. 

 

And I actually work with a framework called OKRs. objectives and key results is a framework that is used as well at Google. And that helps us a lot like you know, to basically make sure that no one knows what they are working on, there is no need to check on people as well, because it’s very easy to see, like, we have goals set up for the beginning of the quarter. 

 

Everyone knows, like what is their own. And it’s very easy to see, like, you know, if the things have been done, and delivered, and you know how, in which time if you’re gonna do it in the evening or during the day, like, that’s not the most important thing, as long as it’s done. And like, you know, everyone knows what they want, as well.

 

Kenny Soto  11:43  

Perfect. Before asking my next question, I just want to let the listener know that if you are interested in learning more about OKRs, I did a deep dive about it with Sarah bond in episode 56. And I’ll put that in the show notes of this episode as well. For my next question, what should a content marketer focus on first finding the right channels, or discovering the right content format?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  12:15  

I think finding the right channels because the content format is kind of part of it, I would say. Plus, also if it might be that actually, let’s say organic traffic will be your main channel, right like that majority of the users will be coming from organic search, then the formats may differ, right? Like it might not be enough that you’re gonna focus only on text content or on blogging, you might need to explore other areas like video, for example, video is becoming very big in SEO, I mentioned this before as well. 

 

You might explore other things like, I don’t know, infographics or visual formats that are also helping with SEO and so on. So I do feel that the channel question is the more important one. Plus, it helps you find this one niche where you should be able to scale as well and grow. And for many companies, at least, like b2b SaaS, it is usually organic traffic. 

 

But there are also many companies where they basically grew with social media more than they did with organic traffic, like for example, buffer, you know, a lot of their growth was through social media as well, which makes sense because of what the product does. 

 

But actually discovering this one channel and trying to scale it is probably the best bet. Because you will know where to put the majority of the resources like most of your time and then for the other channels, you still can grow them but that’s not going to be your priority. So this way you can find the priorities and your goals easier as well. 

 

And then you can think about it like Okay, should I just focus on one format like the content format? Or should I invest in different content formats, or maybe this quarter you’re gonna do just blogging, text blogging next quarter, you’re gonna add videos, once you have enough content on the blog and you got to like the hold of it as you know, you put a process in place as well. So I think channel I will go first with this.

 

Kenny Soto  14:24  

In terms of metrics, what is one often overlooked metric content marketers should be focused on?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  14:35  

Good question. I actually don’t know what is overlooked because the pay depends as well on the company and what they measure. But I think very often companies focus only on traffic, right? How many visits your specific content piece is getting and is it driving traffic? They are very focused on this, and they often overlooked Another important metric, which is actually conversions, because you might be driving a lot of traffic, and a lot of people are coming to your website. 

 

But at the end of the day, that’s not the right audience for the product, the goal of the content is to basically attract the audience so that they can discover your product as well, through search, right? But then, if that’s the wrong audience, because I don’t know you decided to write about some hot topic that is recently talked about, but actually is completely not relevant to this, what your product is about or what your company is doing. 

 

So people are going to come to your content, but at the end of the day, they might not be converting, and I think conversion rates from the content. That’s a very important metric, and which I would recommend measuring and looking into because it might be that actually some of the blog posts, let’s say, half a bit less traffic, are actually converting better. 

 

And you might decide to focus, you know, on optimizing existing content, instead of like continuously posting new ones. So actually gives you additional direction as for things that you should be focusing on?

 

Kenny Soto  16:12  

What makes for a great Instagram ad ask this knowing that that’s a very general question. But what would be the best practices when creating an Instagram ad,

 

Agata Krzysztofik  16:23  

I actually wrote a blog post about this as well, I was talking, I think, two years ago at a conference and I developed this formula called cuteness formula, where they’re like these different aspects that you should pay attention to when you are creating your Instagram ad. 

 

And I basically did it based on an analysis of really successful Instagram ads, which you can also find, actually, when you search for it, like Instagram has customer stories, or like, you know, their success stories, and you can see the results from different Instagram ad campaigns for serve as a very good inspiration. So I actually analyze those and developed this formula.

 

It covers several aspects such as, basically, obviously, engagement as well. Like basically this that, you know, the art has to be also interactive, that the image has to attract the audience as well. And what are the different aspects to focus on? So if you want to learn more about it, I would recommend that you can find this blog post as well, like, you know, do a Google search. It’s called cuteness, the Instagram ad formula.

 

Kenny Soto  17:40  

I’ll put that in the show notes. For anyone who’s interested in diving in even more. My next question is something that I’ve been considering. So your answer will definitely help me out personally. Should social media marketers have some sort of experience using Google Analytics? And how might a social media marketer leverage Google Analytics?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  18:06  

I definitely think that they should know now, nowadays, as well, if even if someone asks you to run social media channels, or even do social media paid campaigns, as well, like, you know, basically PPC, through social media as well, you need to be aware how you’re going to measure the success of this.

 

And many of the social media platforms offer some sort of tracking code that you can implement to the website, which will allow you to measure conversions from specific ad campaigns done through social media platforms. So you actually have to understand how you’re going to, later on, check the performance of specific social media campaigns in Google Analytics, and you know, you can do it through campaigns and basic, you’ll be able to see the results. 

 

So Google Analytics will give you a full overview of every single platform in one without you needing to go to each of the social media platforms one by one as well. So that’s one of the aspects second aspect is that there’s still a bit of a problem with social media management as a, as a role that it’s a bit harder to show the impact of the role and I saw it in many of my companies that usually like when I wanted to hire for this role on the team and was saying that this is a really important role. 

 

It was very difficult for me to justify a full time you know, full time employment for a person like that. And it was always coming down to this like, you know, how you’re gonna, how is this going to impact our company? And I think for a person that has a good understanding of how to measure things like you know, how they are growing, for example, traffic from specific social media channels, how they are growing conversions from these channels, and so on and being able to prove it and show it as well, which can definitely be done with Google Analytics as a platform just makes them way more competitive on the job market than someone who only focuses on having like, you know, creative content posted. 

 

Because at the end of the day, the person that is going to hire you, or the CEO of the company, they will be interested in the results, like, you know, how is this helping us? There are many different things, how you can measure it, there are a few things that maybe cannot be directly measured with Google Analytics, like, for example, brand mentions, that could be impacted as well by, you know, driving a lot of engagement and conversations on social media channels as well. So you might need another tool for this. But I think in general, being data driven is very crucial in this role.

 

Kenny Soto  20:48  

This is a new type of question that I’m going to ask. And I think it’s appropriate because you are the VP of growth at your company, Pictou chart. So my next question is when you interview people who want to be marketers in your team, what do you look for?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  21:08  

I’m happy you asked this question. Because I just recently was discussing this as well with, with our CEO. And one, it’s maybe not that much about the question itself. But there’s this one specific thing that I look in, every I look for in every candidate. And that’s kind of the ability to learn. 

 

So having a growth mindset, or you know, basically being open to learning. And I have this one example, actually, with a person that I used to work with at my previous company, and I actually rehired her when I joined Pictou chart because she was really good. And back then, when she was joining the previous company, she was actually she just had like one year of internship, she recently finished her studies didn’t have much work experience, there were other candidates were probably more experienced in different areas. 

 

But I really remember this interview, because there were a few areas we wanted her to take on, was still a startup. And, you know, basically, in this role, she had to learn about email marketing, and manage email marketing and PPC, like many different channels, basically. And when I was going through the interview, I was asking her like, you know, do you have experience in XYZ, let’s say email marketing, some engineer, she would say, No, I don’t, but I will learn it, you know, give it to me. And in one week, I will learn it. 

 

And I was so impressed by this actually ended high hiring ended up hiring her. And it was a really good choice. Because she is a perfect example of this growth mindset. A person that is like, you know, open to learning, and if you give her a problem, she’s going to solve it. So it’s something in between, like, you know, open to learning, exploring new areas, if someone gives you a challenge, instead of saying, like, I don’t know how to do it, you’ll be like, Okay, I’m gonna learn it, or figure out how to do it. 

 

So being a problem solver. And I look for this specific skill, it’s kind of like a soft skill, right? Like something that you have, you can also learn it as well, and just be open. I always look at look for this in every single candidate, because from experience now, like, you know, managing people for over eight years now, I noticed that this is the best indicator that the person will be able to grow in the role. 

 

And they will have a lot of potentials as well. And all the other things sometimes like, you know, maybe you don’t know how to do one thing like maybe you are not 100%, perfect fit for the requirements in the role. But if you have this as a soft skill, I believe that you will be able to become better in this role, and maybe even someone who has four years of expertise in a specific topic, but during the interview, if I asked him a challenging question, he let’s say responded, like, I don’t know, that’s not something I specialized in, like, you know, that’s a red flag for me.

 

Kenny Soto  24:10  

I’m glad that you have that kind of input because I’m sure in that it’s going to help a tremendous amount of my listeners. Now. Three more questions. And this next one is kind of in two parts. The first part is Why is Product Hunt important? And the second part is for any businesses launching on Product Hunt, what advice would you give them to succeed?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  24:35  

Okay, yeah, yeah, good one. Product Hunt. It’s like you know, a lot of people think that if they Lounge on product hand, it will mean that immediately they will attract a lot of new users and it will help them to exponentially grow their product. That’s not really the case. I think it’s important as well to understand what product hand is and what it isn’t and it definitely does not like you know, A growth platform or something like or one thing that can solve all of your problems. 

 

And what is good about Product Hunt is that it has a community of early adopters, right? So the audience that is there is really great at giving feedback. So if you want to improve the product, if you want to get some sort of early adopters who give you feedback, who give you additional ideas as well, that’s a perfect place to be in. 

 

There is also this additional aspect that does help is that obviously, if you reach like, you know, number 123, on Product Hunt for the product of the day, it definitely does help with credibility, because you can add the badge that you got from Product Hunt to your website, and you know, people who are new and gonna land on your product website, they will see like, oh, okay, they got into spot number two on product hand, it must be a very good product that is like, you know, that got a lot of positive feedback and was voted by other users as well. 

 

So it kind of gives sincerely means, that you’re gonna get like 1000s of signups only because you got into the number of one to three spot on product. And it’s a lot about credibility, and branding, more than like maybe using it as a growth hack. And definitely about feedback, you know, you can get a lot of super helpful ideas, how you could add some quick fixes easy improvements, who would be the right audience as well for your product, it can give you some additional direction. 

 

So that’s, you know, about Product Hunt. And this, the second question was, about how to lounge on Product Hunt and how to prepare for this. So often, people think like, oh, okay, I’ll just, you know, person, visuals, and material, and we’re gonna Lounge on this specific day. That’s how I thought about the product. And I thought that like, okay, it’s easy, but it’s actually not, you actually should prepare for the launch on Product Hunt a few months in advance, and be a bit flexible in terms of your launch date on production, and why you actually do not want to launch on Product Hunt, when there is another really big product launching on the day. 

 

So let’s say Google is launching some new app or a new tool. On the given day, if you notice that they launched it, usually everyone launches their product, you know, at midnight, Pacific Time, or like around one 1 am. If you notice that some big brand is lounging something another day, you probably should move your lounge state to the next day, because it’s gonna be very difficult to compete, and you most certainly do not have a chance to get to the top, because you’re just competing against a very big brand already, right. 

 

So that’s why I have a bit of flexibility in terms of the launch date, then the second thing, it’s very helpful to get to know Hunter. So basically someone who already has a lot of followers on Product Hunt, and who could help you hand your product. And the reason why it helps is that basically all the followers from this person, the moment he follows your product, they’re gonna get a notification that he has entered a new product. 

 

So you automatically already get some traffic from his followers to your product, which already sets you ahead of other companies, you know, that are on product hard these days.

 

And you already have like a bit of a win over them. So that’s the second thing that I would recommend. The first thing is also really plan everything, what are you going to do like you know, the content that you’re going to post their description, prepare a welcome message from the founder in advance that the moment is your product is hunted, you can post it there as well be on Product Hunt throughout the day to respond to any comments and questions because they actually do count as well to how your product is going to perform in the given day. 

 

And also involve your existing users. So basically, you cannot ask people to avoid you directly. But you can involve your existing users, know your fans, and ask them as you know, guys help add any feedback or maybe like you have some comments regarding the product. You know, we are on Product Hunt today. And best practice that has helped us was adding a top banner on our website where we just basically notified our users and told them like we are live on Product Hunt, like you know, leave your comments or share your feedback.

 

And this way we were able to drive additional comments and additional engagement on our product’s can’t post page.

 

Kenny Soto  29:55  

Perfect. This is exactly the kind of advice and strikes Jeez, that I love to hear. And this is exactly why I love doing this podcast. You mentioned earlier, soft skills, one of them is having a growth mindset. I would like to know more about both the hard and soft skills you have specifically leveraged throughout your entire career.

 

Agata Krzysztofik  30:22  

So I do think as well that I have this growth mindset this fall, like, you know, I am, I always was a problem solver. So I actually love it when people throw a problem at me that comes down to solving puzzles, which I mentioned before, you know, I actually like I noticed that I’m more interested and engaged if there is actually a specific problem, rather than like doing something that I already know, well how to do, because I find it a bit more boring. 

 

And he did actually help me like, you know, I’m gonna dig into a solution and answer until I find it, so I don’t give up that easily. So I think that helped me a lot. But I think one thing that helped me the most is not giving up. And I like to bring this up as an example. However, whenever I do mentoring, as well with people who are a bit more junior, and often they are like, Okay, I’m never gonna grow in the career doesn’t seem like there are any opportunities, and so on. I always tell them that, you know, everything is possible. 

 

And it is really true. And I had, actually exactly this case is when I joined Google, I really wanted to move into a specific role like in community management. I remember my first year at Google, when I joined, I went to this presentation, and I saw that there is something like community management, and I found it so interesting because you could work with the users, it was a bit new space as well, at Google. So it had a lot of growth potential. But you know, there were no open roles. 

 

So I immediately told my manager that I’m interested in it, I did my research and check, like, Okay, who was working on it, I set up meetings with them and told them that I would love to be in this role, everyone told me there is no role. And finally, there was an opening for it, I applied, and I didn’t get it, and someone else got it. And the feedback was that you know, you are still too new, and other people were more experienced that were more tenured than you. So you’re not gonna get the role. 

 

But I didn’t give up, I could have given up right and say, like, okay, whatever, like, I’m not gonna get it, I didn’t give up and I basically went to the person that got the role. And I said, like, listen, I can help you out, you know, I will just do it. After hours, I’m going to help you out. Because I just want to learn about it. So if you have any redundant tasks that you don’t want to do, just give them to me, and I’ll help you. 

 

And actually, that was a really good choice, because sooner or later, actually a few months after one person left from the role, and it opened, and you know, they didn’t even have to open it. Because everyone knew that this is what I want to do. So it was an easy choice to actually made my case as well. But by, you know, being very motivated, interested showing that I’m interested in showing that I’m motivated, I got a chance to do what I wanted. 

 

And I always like to tell the story, because I think it’s a perfect example that you know, often you might give up and think like, Okay, I have no chance at doing this, like maybe you dream about becoming a product marketing manager or something, but you don’t have much experience at it. 

 

But how can you solve it like by gaining some experience, right, like find other people who are product marketing managers, if there is none at your company, maybe you know, reach out to people from other companies and ask them like, if they could be your mentor, maybe there is something to help them out with, even if it’s like writing some copywriting or something like that. And basically this way you can gain the experience and learn about it on your own and show your motivation. 

 

And I think that’s going to help you so I always say everything is possible as well. So I think that has helped me a lot throughout my career. I think it is a soft skill, it’s just basically not giving up in terms of more hard skills, I think what helped me is basically being exposed to working in different departments. And I do see that this helps me at becoming an all round marketer. 

 

So there are many people in digital marketing space who specialize in only one area. Obviously, it can be good because then in this one area, you have a lot of room to become an expert, which is a bit more complicated if you specialize in many different things like maybe you will not be an expert in every single thing but at least you have a very good idea about different areas. 

 

But I do see more potential, especially like if you want to be successful At least in b2b SaaS in startups, it’s more helpful to be this round marketer than a specialist. And the reason for this is that in startups, things change. Very often startups at the beginning don’t know which channel is the right for them, you know, which areas should they be scaling and focusing on and someone who knows a bit about various different topics within the digital marketing space has the potential to adapt, basically. 

 

And if the company sees, okay, actually, we were focusing on PPC, but it seems we need to focus now on SEO, a person who, you know, has knowledge in every single area will be able to quickly adapt and say, okay, you know, I know a bit about SEO, so I can basically grow in this area and become better as well. 

 

So I think that definitely helps and being exposed to different departments and understanding how various departments work, and what they need, is very helpful. So even someone who works currently in customer support, I think can become a very good digital marketer, as well. So it doesn’t have to be that from the beginning of your career, you have to be in digital marketing, and you cannot come from any other area of the business.

 

Kenny Soto  36:15  

My last question is hypothetical because time machines don’t exist. But if they did, and you can go back 10 years into the past, knowing everything you know, right now, how would you get to where you are today? Just faster? Hmm.

 

Agata Krzysztofik  36:33  

I’m not sure if I want that. To get faster, because I do feel that every single thing that I went through, actually helps me every single day in my day to day work and has become a stepping stone to my career. So I’m just feeling that if I would speed up things, I would have to remove some of the elements because there would not be enough time for them. And they do help me. 

 

And, but I definitely would invest in mentors more, because I did get some mentors. Throughout like half of my career, I remember but at the beginning, I didn’t know I had this weird concept that if I get a mentor, then it’s like admitting that I don’t know something. And you know, when you’re young, you always feel that you know everything. It’s just like changes with time that later on when you get older, you think like, oh, actually, I don’t know that much. 

 

And then once I finally realized that I did find a few mentors, like, also, during my time at Google, I had a mentor as well, who helped me develop in the career. I’m also now myself, one of the mentors and I always ask other mentors on the growth mentor platform for advice in the areas where like, no, maybe I’m not that strong in and I find it extremely helpful, like sometime, a call with a mentor, just one hour call with a mentor, it just completely opens new doors for you and gives you so many ideas about things that you have never thought about that, you would probably have to spend hours reading online to come to the same conclusion then, after just having 30 or 30 minutes or one hour call with a mentor. 

 

So really find mentors, I think that that would be my recommendation. I think that if I would have done this earlier and more on a regular basis, I probably could have, you know, really sped up my career a lot faster, because I would just basically learn based on their mistakes as well.

 

Kenny Soto  38:43  

For anyone who wanted to say hello and find you online, where could they go?

 

Agata Krzysztofik  38:48  

I think LinkedIn I’m most active on LinkedIn. I am on Twitter, but I’m not super active there. But yeah, definitely. You can find me there or, if not, there. I’m also like one of the mentors on growth mentors. So if you want to check out this platform, and you will be interested in getting a mentor, I highly recommend checking it out as well because it might be something good that could help you in your career.

 

Kenny Soto  39:13  

Perfect. You have just listened to another episode of the people of digital marketing with your host Kenny Soto. Thank you Agata for your time. And thank you to the listener, I really appreciate the fact that you’ve listened to almost 60 episodes, if not more than 60 episodes by the time of this recording of this podcast, and I’m truly grateful for all of your time and attention. And as always, I hope you have a great week. 

 

Bye.