The best investment in a crisis is investments in your education and development. Ksenia Belyakova, the founder of the digital marketing agency PPL.EASE.DIGITAL, told what to study now, what professions are in demand and what soft skills are necessary for a person oriented to success.
Ksenia Belyakova
The idea that I wanted to do marketing came to me on my first trip to America. Then I lived in Miami for six months. It was there that I realized that marketing was my destiny to be absolutely successful. After returning to my hometown, I started working in a Balkan restaurant in Tula.
The project started to progress very quickly. It gained its popularity and I gained experience. Six months later, the GINZA PROJECT holding appeared in the city and quickly “hunted” me as a young and bright specialist. It was the year 2016. Two months later, we opened their club-style restaurant. And five months later, at the invitation of the GINZA PROJECT, St. I moved to Petersburg.
And here the first difficulties began – I met a new city, which was neither a friend nor an acquaintance. I was also the youngest of the team and I’m on the line. At first they called me Tula.
I am 22 years old and have three restaurants in my promotion. New Year is on the way: restaurant PR professionals know this is the most difficult period in the annual cycle. I worked really hard and sometimes only slept two or three hours. The days were hot. But now I remember them with warmth because in the end this experience became my foundation!
I have always been motivated by my own achievements. The feeling you get when you realize you can do more. I loved and love finding new integrations. When I first organized the big concerts of Eldzhey and Polina Gagarina, I said, “Wow, I can!” I thought. These are very strong emotions.
And then in 2018 the World Cup happened and a huge amount of work! It was a stronger level and was the next stage of my professional development. Fans from different countries Petersburg and it was all in our restaurants! Flags, banners, great mood. Understanding that you did everything right, and here it is – the result of your work. It’s really motivating.
What should someone who dreams of mastering marketing do? Ideally, get a basic education in this field or, like me, study in management.
The main thing is a constant desire to learn: you can not stand still, you need to develop. All knowledge becomes obsolete with cosmic speed. And the information space consumes your creatives faster than they are seen by a wide variety of users.
Courses, seminars, conferences – try anything. Learn from the press, books, movies, peers’ experiences. It is now more important than ever to be able to adapt quickly: to adapt to the current situation in the country and in the world.
And my advice for business owners is to carefully select marketers for projects. The high demand in this niche unties the hands of so-called specialists. I recently encountered the unscrupulous business behavior of my colleagues. We cooperated with them. But two months later the guys came to our customers and said, “We can do the same thing, but for less.” Essentially stealing our strategies and our customers.
In the conditions of fierce competition, it is very difficult to move forward without well-structured marketing and public relations. Now we can say that these areas run the business. Economist Peter Drucker once said that a business has only two main functions: innovation and marketing. And for a moment he was born at the beginning of the 20th century! But the quote does not lose its relevance and is unlikely to lose. It is the promotion through competent marketing and public relations that creates the results of your company’s activities. If you want good sales, you have to invest. But these investments pay off, trust my experience.
In general, I encountered the wrong and unprofessional attitudes of my colleagues. In my work, I don’t discriminate people by gender. If a person does stupid things, it has nothing to do with gender. Absurd things are done by both men and women.
Now I am just at the beginning of my journey. We can say that this is point “A”. Great achievements are yet to come.
Many regions are facing crisis today. But this doesn’t seem to apply to marketing. In the current conditions, new niches that urgently need to be occupied are being emptied. You can do this if you have a good product and great marketing. People need to somehow learn about your project before purchasing a product or service.
Advertising budgets can indeed be cut during a crisis, but no one completely freezes their marketing activities. Marketers and IT professionals are, in my opinion, the most in-demand professions in the crisis market.
Increasingly, the cool guys in this area are starting to contact us for federal PR. Talented programmers create new sites and platforms for HoReCa: there are reservation, delivery and other services. Western companies have left the market in Russia, so we fill all these gaps with our own platforms. This is a kind of import substitution process. An excellent example of using the crisis as a springboard for growth.
I am now deeply immersed in neuromarketing research. Neuromarketing is at the intersection of marketing, behavioral psychology and brain physiology. As a result, all purchasing decisions are made by your subconscious. At the same time, the decision can be affected if perception channels are used. There are only five of them: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.
I see great business potential in this field. Neuromarketing consulting is one of my most requested consulting products. For example, in the restaurant business this is now a necessity. What you need to apply is a must!
I will open the veil of secrecy about my future. My colleague in restaurant marketing, Daria Mognie Yost, is moving to Dubai. And we are preparing a springboard to open our own agency in the United Arab Emirates. We believe this is one of the best places for business and a goldmine for a marketing agency. I have been to Dubai many times and I can say that marketing there is in its infancy. The only exceptions are Russian restaurants and projects related to Russia. The rest do not use all promotional opportunities. In the next two or three months we will start fully developing the project in Dubai. And now we patent the name and assemble a team.
I constantly ask myself: How can I do everything? I am not only a business woman, but also a mother. My mother helps me a lot with my daughter. He often flies to us in Sochi, and I can safely travel the world and immerse myself in work.
I get my energy from sports, proper nutrition, dance and of course my daughter. I love it very much and it motivates me to progress to some extent.
I have a good team and cool clients who rarely cause trouble. My job is my hobby. Maybe this is the secret of success? I love what I do, so the result of my work is always with a mark of quality.
Source: People Talk
