My life is pretty exciting (to say the least). I meet some of the most interesting and profound clients, get to learn about their business, and work with them on figuring out and improving their business and marketing goals. Also, I get to work with some of the most talented designers, developers, sales execs, and managers in the area. Web Advanced would not be where we are without such an amazing team. My job description changes every week. The past two weeks were focused on business development, and here is an example of what my day is like:
Monday, 4/21/08
1. Wake up at 5am, clean up, and get ready for travel day. I head up to San Francisco about once or twice every month. Today, we get to go over design compositions with two clients, and discuss website design project with another.
2. Met Andrew McLendon, our Creative Director, and head to John Wayne Airport. We usually take the first flight out to Oakland, and the last flight back the same night.
3. Flight to Oakland leaves at 7:15am, we arrived at around 6:40am, got into the security line at 6:45am. No problem right? Well, extra security due to heightened alert, the security check was a bit longer than expected. We arrived at our gate about 3 minutes too late. Whoops, Plan B time.
4. Andrew and I was able to get on the standby for Southwest's next flight. Apparently, 10 people didn't show up on time for the sold out flight (possibly due to the same security delay). We got on the 8:40AM flight, and called/emailed all of our clients and made sure that we can push everything back by an hour. Thank you Southwest.
5. Arrived at Oakland at 10AM. First meeting in Redwood City. An amazing technology start up company with a very good team and wonderful product. We met with the CEO and VP of Business Development at 11AM. They were pleased with the composition, and discussed timeframe for the remainder of the project.
6. Met with our next client at around 12:40pm. Went over the comps with them as well. They are a technology company near San Jose, and were thrilled with their new look and feel. One thing that differentiates us from our competition is that we (senior managers at Web Advanced) all take pride in truly learn about and understand our clients' business. Compare the current homepage against the newly designed page and see the difference yourself.
7. We had a break between meeting #2 and meeting #3. Andrew and I got some lunch and hopped on the freeway to drive towards Marin. Yes, San Jose to San Rafael. Thankfully, there were no traffic, as we arrived a few minutes before our meeting.
8. Our last meeting of the day was with an established & successful human resources consulting company in San Rafael. Andrew and I met with the principals of the firm and went over the branding summary, and discussed their website content and look and feel.
9. After the meeting, Andrew and I stopped by the city and had a quick dinner at Taylor's Restaurant in the Ferry Market. Their Ahi tuna burger is to die for. :)
Trip Summary:
Meetings: 3
Flights Missed: 1
Miles Flown: 750
Miles Driven: 140
Bridges Crossed: 4
3 Happy Clients (Priceless!)
Here are some additional photos from our day. Enjoy!
Obligatory Golden Gate Bridge Photo
