Job Order: 4942
Staff Representative: Tim Jadwin
Position: Management Supervisor
Location: California
Company Summary:
Full service healthcare communication agency specializing in pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, diagnostics, and consumer health.
Description:
Job Responsibilities:
- Directs, supervises and leads brand teams
- Acts as key account person on assigned accounts
- Acts as a key client contact, provides a stable base for client relationship, becomes a client’s strategic partner in the agency, as needed
- Understands client’s business and contributes to its success
- Knows the major details of work in progress; clearly communicates the expectations of other member of the account service team for good day-to-day client service
- Oversees the strategic and tactical planning for clients, also oversees marketing communication process
- Works effectively with creative, traffic, production and media departments
- Prioritizes workload of brand team members
- Sets clear objectives, communicates clearly
- Writes creative briefs and teaches others how to write or improve their briefs
- Develops marketing plans, presentations and strategic plans
- Supervises preparation of budgets, estimates, projections
- Shows account team how best to control expenses and billable time
- Produces accurate time sheets and expense reports
- Helps develop and train staff
- Contributes significantly to strategic development of agency
- Helps Director of Client Services to develop and streamline agency interactions
- Assists Director of Client Services in training and counseling account service people
- 8+ years of agency experience with at least 5 in pharmaceuticals
- Excellent strategic skills as well as project management ability
- Launch and FDA experience
- Proven experience in supervising direct reports
- Pharmaceutical experience is required
- Being aware of where in the system all the projects for all of your brands are tracking: you should know the general status of all current jobs pretty much without having to look at a status report. At first, you will need the paperwork in front of you, but several months into working on the brands, it should be in your head.
- Knowing how to prepare all the forms and how to work within the system: project requests, creative briefs, contact reports, change orders, etc. Work with Director of Client Services and other group directors to learn how to select the appropriate information for the forms; these are the basis of all work that will be done, they must be clear, consistent with input taken from client, and executable by the brand team.
- Knowing how to delegate work, how to communicate clearly so the client and your own expectations can be met. Until you know how to do something yourself, don’t pass it on to your direct reports to do. Have daily meetings with teams or selected members to divide the workload. Decide how to delegate: you can share the whole account load or divide by specific projects, but clearly describe what your expectations are.
- Be proactive whenever you can be: ask traffic how things are moving, don’t wait to hear that things aren’t moving. Account people of all levels spend their time pushing people around with their noses, nicely, but persistently. Always be thinking ahead for your brands, plan during quiet times for future needs. In a perfect world, your clients shouldn’t have to ask you to plan for something, you should be there first. POA plans should be done a quarter in advance. Set up regular check-in with clients. Communications and tactical plans should be done 6 months in advance of a fiscal year. We should know a client’s trade show schedule at the beginning of each year. And so on.
- Ask yourself, "Are my brands under control, or am I constantly being surprised?" It’s a matter of running around in front of the cart, rather than being pulled along behind. If you are having problems, talk to the Director of Client Services or your fellow account people to see how they have handled similar issues. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
- Devise training and mentoring programs for your account people: Use your experience on both the agency and client side to come up with tools that you can use to teach and share your wisdom
- Establish management objectives with Director of Client Services: You and the Director of Client Services will assess these objectives on a regular basis. Weekly meetings should be arranged for check-ins and status.
