Speaker: Courtney Bode, Publisher & Market President, Baltimore (Former Account Executive)
What qualities drove your success as a Business Journal Account Executive?
Courtney Bode: Outside of some of the qualities that I think great account executives possess, like being persistent and being a great listener, I think those who have worked with me would tell you that I am politely aggressive. You know, I was never afraid to ask for the budget. I was never afraid to ask for next steps and I was definitely not a afraid to ask for their business. I think, you know, sometimes account executives get hesitant to continue doing the follow ups and ask for things. But it's your job at the end of the day, you're trying to help them grow their business. So if you're not staying in front of them and being more aggressive and asking for the business, you're never going to be the first call and they're, not going to call you back unless you stay on top of them.
William Martinez: I'd say that there were kind of three qualities that drove my success early on in the business journals. I think the first thing is just being inquisitive, wanting to know more, being able to digest information from a number of number of different places and, and being open to learn. So I think that that would be the first one, the second one would be hard work. It sounds a little cliche, but I think if you put the work in, things are going to go your way in the end. I always tell my team that, you know, if you put in 40 hours a week of good hard work and you give everything you've got then that's, that's all we can ask for as a company. And, and I think that the more work you're able to put in and the, the smarter you are about how you're, you're going about that work, the better off you're going to be. And lastly, I'd say, I think kind of the biggest holistic thing is just being good to everybody. whether that's internally or externally, the better you are to people the more they know that you care about them genuinely. And then it's not a facade. It's a real thing. I think that it's just going to lend to a ton of success. So I think those three things being inquisitive, being hard working and lastly just being good to everybody. If you're able to kind of accomplish those three things, I think you're going to be destined for success.
