Join HLM's Lauren Anderson as she sits down to chat with HLM's Chief Production Officer Michelle Nieset, all about her time here at HLM. They cover topics such as what a typical day looks like for a CPO, career advice, and more!
Be sure to view the entire video on our YouTube Channel!
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Hey Michelle! Can You Tell Us How You Got Started At HLM?
Lauren Anderson
Well, let's kick off on the professional side first and then we'll go from there. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey at HLM, how it was that you came to join us, and to where you are now as chief production officer?
Michelle Nieset
Yes, absolutely. So I'm going to throw you back about a decade ago in 2015. I was working at just a local digital marketing agency here in Nashville, Tennessee, where I live, and I was working as a senior account manager when I was approached by Scott Bell. And basically he offered a position to me to come and support building out the account management function for, at the time, Bell Media, which as you fast forward, years later, we became high level marketing.
And so my first couple of years was really working on the account management side, helping support that infrastructure, build that infrastructure for our account management, servicing our customers, working with customers day to day, and helping support some of the operational side of the business. Since then, I've worn a lot of different hats, as you can relate. I've done a lot of different things, carried a lot of different roles in various leadership aspects of the company.
And then that brings us here today, where I currently sit on the production and operations side, overseeing the team that really fulfills the products and make sure we deliver the best quality service that we can.
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What Does A Typical Day As HLM's Chief Production Officer Look Like?
Lauren Anderson
We'd love to learn a little bit more about what the day-to-day looks like for you now. What are your responsibilities as chief production officer? Sounds like you wear a heavy hat!
Michelle Nieset
Yeah. Well, I tell you what, it changes on the regular! My day never goes as planned, which is one of the things I love about working here and working in an agency group. No day is ever the same. I mean, I jump between working with people and meeting with some of our internal team members and leaders regularly to building out processes and helping make sure some of the things that we're doing drive efficiency in the work.
I spend time with our executive team meeting regularly and making decisions on the business and strategizing ways to help us grow. I deal a lot with budget management and, you know, having to support p&l's for the department, which is heavy on my mind on, on a regular basis. I do a lot of training and I help develop new products and roll out new products that we can then get to the market.
All that to say, I'm in a lot of meetings now!
Lauren Anderson
It sounds like it!
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If You Had To Pick Just One Part Of Your Job, What Would Your Favorite Part Be?
Lauren Anderson
Is there something specific, one part of your job that's just like, your absolute favorite? If you can pick anything to work on, this is where you'd have your time focused?
Michelle Nieset
Yeah, that's a tough one to pick. But I love people, so it's like really fun to get to work with all of the talented folks, especially across production, who I work most closely with. But I also love supporting other team members that are client facing. So that's probably my one of my favorites is just the people side of it. But I love a good process and I get teased often for, you know, using a Google Sheet or knowing how to pretty up an Excel sheet.
So that's probably another little of my, you know, things that I enjoy is, is really helping support, making processes and helping folks do their work better.
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Who Doesn't Love a Good Checklist or Spreadsheet?!?
Lauren Anderson
Yeah, I find it a little therapeutic to just, like, be able to put it all down on paper and then look back at it and be like, look at all this, look at this beautiful checklist!
Michelle Nieset
You know, we are very similar in that way. I definitely carry that through to my personal world too, but it's definitely of part of my job.
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What's One Piece Of Career Advice You'd Give Your Younger Self?
Lauren Anderson
Well, taking a couple steps back here - looking back on your career, if you could tell your younger self some things out of all the things you know now, what is a piece of advice you would give yourself?
Michelle Nieset
Wow, that's a good question. I think reflecting back on my years of experience, I think one of the things that I have discovered is so important is building connections and keeping those connections. You know, we often lose sight of what networking can accomplish. And as I've grown into various leadership positions, I have found myself tapping into my network to find, you know, the right people to come and work for us, or folks that can come do business with us.
So I think that, you know, as a leader and really in, you know, an early career setting, establishing your network, building that network, investing time and growing it and keeping it is such an important part of your career and I think I took some of it for granted throughout my tenure.
Lauren Anderson
Yeah, I think I can relate to that too, even just like thinking about like ten years back when people talk networking, networking and this and that, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that it's important for relationships. But it's so beneficial to keep those relationships, to curate them over time, because you never know when you have that right person that maybe you met 5 or 10 years ago, and what that can do now.
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