Blog – Page 3 – After School

“The reason that I’m happier is that my expectations were really low.”

The following is an excerpt from After School.

When people ask you “What do you do?” what do you say?

I just say I’m a manager and a consultant.

What are your hours like?

On average I’m probably working sixty to seventy-five hours a week. It probably ebbs and flows depending on what we are doing. The summer was probably the worst. From June through July I was working probably sixteen to eighteen hour days for about four to six weeks. I was doing that mostly Monday through Friday; I had maybe a few weekends that I had to work, but I tried to stack it Monday through Friday when I was with my team. I haven’t had a project where I’ve worked eighty plus hours, but that could change. I’ve been pretty lucky in my current position actually. I just got promoted to Manager, so I haven’t had a project formally as a manager. Things could definitely change and increase.

I think other people were hoping they were going to travel to glamorous places and work side-by-side with the CEO on every project. I think I was more realistic that it could happen…it definitely happened on current project…but that wasn’t always going to be the case.

Do you like it?

I like it. It’s tough because I think a part of the reason I like it might have just to do with the luck of the projects I have gotten on and the timing sequence of those projects. None of the projects I’ve been on have been similar to anything that I did before or during Business School. I remember thinking that I was either going to love it or hate it. And I thought at the very least, as long as I’m learning have pretty cool people that I’m working with that I have the minimum I need to be happy.

So when I compare my experience with my classmates and then other people in my class at my company, I think much of the reason that I’m happier is that my expectations were really low…all I wanted were those two things. I think other people were hoping they were going to travel to glamorous places and work side-by-side with the CEO on every project. I think I was more realistic that it could happen…it definitely happened on current project…but that wasn’t always going to be the case.

I think listening to a couple of other folks in my class who are at the firm that are maybe not as happy helped as well. They’re not as happy with the types of projects that they’re getting. I don’t think I did anything different to get those projects; I just think I was open to what I would be willing to do. The only red line I told my staffing folks and my mentor was I just didn’t want to do Government work, because it’s the only thing I knew before business school. They’ve honored that, so that’s probably another reason I’ve been happy.

The pure intelligence enables me to learn from others on a consistent basis.

What’s the best part of the job?

There are two things that are great about the job. One, you get to learn different things over the course of different projects. I’ve had great clients relative to what I was hearing and what I’ve experienced before Business School. Most of our clients are very appreciative that we’re there. They may be stressed out because they don’t know what exactly is going on, or sometimes they’re a little suspicious at first of why we’re there. Most people think it’s like job-cutting but I think we do a really good job of co-creating with our clients. They never feel like they’re out of the loop on what’s going on, which fosters a very trusting relationship. This helps us get our projects to completion.

The second part of the job that’s great is working with the teams within my firm. There are some very smart people that I have worked with that are literally two years out of college. And then my partners have all been really great too; they’ve had twenty-plus years of experience. It’s been nice to have a cross section of people with different backgrounds and different years of experience.

The pure intelligence enables me to learn from others on a consistent basis. It could be something as tactical as “Whoa, your model is amazing. How did you do that?” and having a twenty four year old sit down next to me and show me what his thought process was.

My partners will talk about the experiences they’ve had the last twenty years in the media or what they’ve seen as evolution in consulting. They can almost immediately sense what a client’s issue is and what the extent of support we need to give them is. This is awesome, because I’m obviously not at a point where I feel like I have enough experience under my belt to be able to say “Ok, this type of project is a ten million dollar fees project because we have to have about fifteen to twenty people for the next four months to work on it”.

What’s the worst part of the job?

There is a lot you’ve got to do to get to the interesting parts of the work. It’s hard to get good quality data. Sometimes it’s hard to trust the folks on your team. And it’s not because they’re not trustworthy; There’s a very natural sense of “I can do this myself” so you could potentially overload yourself in the job very easily.

Going it alone, especially if you have other roles and responsibilities, can burn you out. I think a lot of the reason people end up leaving consulting because they unnecessarily overburden themselves. They think that that’s the only way they’re going to be successful in this job and eventually realize they have no work-life balance at all.

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

“I’m just really frustrated. I think this is why people quit.” A Merchandising Consultant’s First Year

The following is an excerpt from After School describing how’s life for a recent grad working as a merchandising consultant.

When people ask you “What do you do?” what do you say?

I’m officially what is called a Merchandising Consultant. What that means in layman’s term is that I am the strategist that figures out what to do with all the things that are sold with PC’s, monitors, microphones, and keyboard. We also sell TV’s, drones, 3D printers, etc. We have a whole retail store and that’s what I manage the strategy for.

I’m not going to spend 80 hours a work week when there are other people sitting on their ass doing nothing getting paid the same.

What are your hours like?

When I started it was like 45 to 50 hours. Now I’m working more like 65 to 80 hours because there are only two of us in this whole office and I really want to fix the business. I could work probably 45 hours, but next year would be a disaster. I have my resume bullet points of what I want to do, and that’s what I’m working towards. Once I’ve checked them off, then that’s it because I’m not going to spend 80 hours a work week when there are other people sitting on their ass doing nothing getting paid the same. Nobody’s going to give me an extra star because I worked 90 hours a week.

What’s the best part of the job?

It’s the learning. If some of my good ideas are executed and they work, I can take credit for it. If my ideas don’t work, somebody will blame me for it not working. My goal is to test things out and see what works – then I can say, “Well, I was able to grow this one category by 20 million dollars.” Five hundred million dollars is a huge number overall. For me to have any part in the strategy and say, “Actually I grew this market with less marketing and less support,” people will look at me and say “Wow, you are really good at managing the business.” That’s what excites me right now.

It’s not about logic or rationale. It’s about people guarding territory.

What’s the worst part of the job?

Yeah, the worst is the amount of “No” that you get. Everybody knows that there are things that are wrong and broken with the company, but there is nobody that will speak up on their own and defend a point or support. Everybody hears from above that we need to be more entrepreneurial and nobody does shit. They just wants to cover their own asses and do the things that worked for them in the past. Because changing things creates risks, it complicates things and makes people do more work. Nobody wants to go that route. It’s not about logic or rationale. It’s about people guarding territory.

I’m just really frustrated. I think this is why people quit. They deal with so much resistance, and in the end you can’t do what you envisioned to change the business. I’d rather spend my energy somewhere else where I can make the business. Ultimately I think the real success is the intersection of what makes you happy and what aligns with the company’s role. If you’re in a company that doesn’t value what you’re good at or one that puts you in a position that doesn’t take advantage of your skills, you both are missing out. Ultimately, the employee doesn’t reach his full potential, right?

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

The Most Important Thing I Learned In School

The following is an excerpt from After School.

Team diversity truly results in a better product and outcome. I think it’s pretty comical that it took business school for me to realize this when I’m a black male in the tech industry. I remember the exact moment it hit me too.

I tackled our second assignment with a well thought out answer that I believed was the spot-on solution to the problem at hand.

We were assigned a group for all of our assignments in our core marketing class. By this time in the year we were fairly familiar with each other as classmates, so there was no fear of hurting feelings if opinions differed. Eager to prove to myself that marketing was something that I could indeed stomach, I tackled our second assignment with a well thought out answer that I believed was the spot-on solution to the problem at hand.

I confidently presented my solution to the rest of the team. One of my partners agreed with my thoughts, but another had different plans. After I was done, she proceeded to thoroughly dismantle all of my points. It was all in a tactful manner, but I can admit that I wasn’t ecstatic about it. How was I so off? How did I miss so many clear holes in my analysis? I had team members who agreed with me; I couldn’t have been that wrong.

That’s when it really hit me: she had a completely different perspective from my own.

That’s when it really hit me: she had a completely different perspective from my own. In an attempt to make my thinking as efficient as possible, it seemed like my brain had blocked out other reasonable solutions, choosing to focus on what I knew. Imagine if my team was completely full of people just like me. We would have all came to the same completely wrong conclusion.

This was when I realized the importance of having a team with diverse backgrounds. You get a mix of people who can check each others’ ideas when they don’t quite measure up. Everyone benefits at the end of the day.

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

“I would just like some logic in our decision making.”

The following is an excerpt from After School. In one of my earliest interviews, I talked to a successful product manager about how work was treating him a year into his first job post-MBA.

When people ask you “What do you do?” what do you say?

I’m a Product Manager for a tech company.

What are your hours like?

Since I’m working at a big company I have a lot of spare time.

I’m happy with it because I wanted to do the product manager role.

Do you like it?

In general, I’m happy with it because I wanted to do the product manager role. But the problems…not problems…the issue I’m facing is that I work as a product manager at a big company. There’s a lot of politics in it, and as a product manager I want to see the market trends outside of my company.. But there’s a lot of politics, internal stuff. I would just like some logic in our decision making. Some people say, “Oh we used to do it this way for like ten years. Let’s stick to it.”

What’s the best part of the job?

As a project manager, I actually make stuff. I mean, I don’t code, but I do design how this project should be. I get to work on an actual tangible product.

With big companies I think there’s a lot of politics.

What’s the worst part of the job?

With big companies I think there’s a lot of politics. Some people left the company, not the team. I valued their work. Their performance was excellent, but they were not getting recognized as much, so they ended up finding a job some other place. I know a guy who had a positive impact; he worked hard. He wanted to get promoted to director, but he didn’t get it so he ended up getting a director role from another company. He came back to my boss saying, “If you match this salary I’ll stay,” but that didn’t happen because he had some conflict with another director. Those kinds of politics.

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

How Did You Find The Time? Prioritizing Life Outside the 9 to 5

While doing interviews for After School, I was often asked, “How did you find time to do this? Aren’t you working?” At this point, I usually quote Cam’ron, one of my favorite rappers: “When it’s reppin’ time, I get on extra grind”

In reality it wasn’t that hard. I just had to set myself up for success. I could have tried to work hard and get it done, but I made life much easier by having a system. Let me quickly go over about my steps:

I made sure to ask everyone I interviewed with how many hours per week they worked while I was recruiting for my full time position. My goal was to work at a job where a 50 hour week was average. I knew I wanted to work on side projects outside of work, so I would need time outside of my 9 to 5.
I found an apartment as close to possible to work. I know this isn’t a possibility for everyone, but it can be incredibly important. They say that you need a $40k increase in salary to take on an extra hour in commute time.
I started thinking in systems instead of goals. Because of this, I had to make sure I allocated sufficient time to get stuff done. And guess what? The previous two points made this allocation easier. Let’s say that you work a lot and you have an hour commute both ways. A side hustle is still possible. There are 168 hours in a week. Subtract 60 work hours, 8 hours of sleep each day, 2 hours of cooking and eating each day, 2 hours of working out 4 days of the week, and 2 hours of travel on weekdays. You’re left with 20 hours. How will you spend these extra hours? Here’s where planning and discipline comes in.
I minimized my party and socializing time. Most weeks I picked one night to go out, either Friday or Saturday. In addition, I took it easy on the alcohol so I could get up early the next day and get to work.
I picked one morning, either Saturday or Sunday to put a solid block of work in.
The rest of the week I’d work maybe an hour or two a night, clearing roadblocks – enough to make that block of work on the weekend efficient.

As far as time allocation, that was it. I continually made time for myself to work, and I followed through with it. This week-in week-out this kind of dedication was difficult. Sometimes I needed inspiration to keep going. Here’s what I did for motivation:

I listened to specific songs on repeat to get me motivated. In a single work session, I’d play the same song over and over again repeatedly to remind me what the goal was.
I took breaks to read books, mostly about business and the success tales of other entrepreneurs.
I listened to business and education podcasts every day. They served 2 purposes: to give me new ideas, and make me jealous of others’ successes. My favorites are The $100 MBA Show, Exponent, and The Tim Ferriss Show.
Finally, I let people know what I was up to. As a result people asked about it all the time. Can’t let them down right?

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

What Was Your Recruiting Process Like? A Consultant’s Story

The following is an excerpt from After School describing an intense job search that eventually lead to consulting.

I think I made it difficult for myself because I was interested in almost everything. It seemed like I interviewed for every single marketing and strategy job there was. I got an internship at a large packaged foods company. They did everything they could for me. It was a really good environment, but the second day I got there I said, ‘Oh, I hate this. This is what I came back to school for? What am I going to do? Oh my gosh I do not want to do this job.’ I saw my life laid out in front of me for the next 20 years: ‘Ok, I’m gonna manage these brands and then I’m going to get more brands.’ Day two I called my mom said, ‘Mom, I hate this! What am I going to do?’ Going into second year, I got an offer from them. I think it helps your confidence if you get an offer from the summer job. You think, ‘Ok, I could get that job, I can get another one.’

I was scared I wouldn’t get something.

It was still scary to turn down that job to go off and interview so I could have more time to decide what I really wanted. I was scared I wouldn’t get something. But then I decided in the long run a few months is not going to kill anything. I ended up interviewing for more Marketing and strategy jobs, Name it and I went on that interview. I did a lot of B2B. I did B2C. Product Marketing, Consulting, I just tried the gamut.

One day I see on my calendar that I have this interview for this company. I thought ‘what is this? I didn’t drop for that, did I? Did I come back after some drinks and drop for companies? Nah, I wouldn’t do that.’ I realized that they had pulled my resume. I did some research on the company. I liked technology. It was my passion.

I didn’t know where it was going to lead, but I thought it sounded interesting so I ended up accepting it.

I just always thought, ‘Oh, I’ve never considered that for a job’. I went on the interview and I thought it went terrible. There was no way I was moving on in this process, but they offered me a job anyway. I didn’t know where it was going to lead, but I thought it sounded interesting so I ended up accepting it.

So far it’s going really well. I didn’t plan to be in this kind of job; it just worked out. I really took the recruiting process as an opportunity to see the inside of companies I might never get to see again. I went on a lot of interviews and I’m glad I did. I learned a lot.

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

“I was working all day until like midnight.” – An Entrepreneur’s Account of How It’s Going

The following is an excerpt from After School discussing the ups and downs of running a startup.

When people ask you “What do you do?” what do you say?

Right now I am in transition. This last week I was interviewing. I’ve basically been involved in a start-up, so you can say that I was kind of sort of an entrepreneur for quite a long time.

I was basically never working because I was having fun.

What are your hours like?

My hours were basically wake up, start doing work at home, do emails maybe at 8am, show up to the office around 10. I was basically never working because I was having fun. I was working all day until like midnight. I didn’t have to sit at a desk and pretend that I was busy. I would do what I needed to do, and then go read or do something else until the next thing happened.

I was very relaxed because it was a slow process of project management. My hours were not very strict; I wasn’t in a rush.

Do you like it?

It was great. I felt that I was accomplishing many things. I had to. I didn’t know anything about much of the tech initially. The Engineers that designed it were gone and the construction people did not know how things worked. They were Spanish speakers so they have some difficulties communicating or understanding my other co-founder, so they just got nowhere.

Because I was the mid-point, the bilingual person and the project manager, I had to learn how to do all of these things that I had no idea about. They were not business – they were engineering and software. I had to figure out things, be on the phone with companies, do a lot of ordering of parts, understand how systems work, and so on.

It was great, I liked the experience. I felt that I was challenged everyday and that I was overcoming these challenges. It made me have a lot of satisfaction in my job. I was working with one other person and we got along great. We had a lot of difficulties in the beginning with our working styles, but we became friends and we became close as you do in a start-up.

I was not making enough money. I was barely living with credit cards and it was very tough financially.

What’s the best part of the job?

The best part of the job was the dream that what you’re doing is gonna be something big and that you’re working towards it – that you’re getting closer every single day.

What’s the worst part of the job?

That you don’t know what’s going to happen with your life. That I was not making enough money. I was barely living with credit cards and it was very tough financially.

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

How I Went From Confused to Self Publishing a Book, Pt. 2

We’re following up last week’s post about how I went from confused to self publishing a book (pt. 1). If you haven’t read that post, go back!

So to continue, here were the steps.

I researched how to produce an eBook. I first wanted to find out how much effort making an eBook would be. Could I sell it for money? What would the potential avenues be? What technology would I need? One of the alums from my school was kind enough to give me advice.
I thought about who my target customer was. Since I had been in all three positions, I quickly realized that those considering business school, those those in business school, and those just out of school would be interested in the subject matter.
I made an initial list of classmates who would be good to interview, keeping them in a detailed spreadsheet.
I set my goal for interviewing 50 people
I started interviewing people. As the interviews went on, I got better at the questions, adding to things that I asked. At the end of every interview, I asked my interviewee whether they had someone they could refer me to.
About 10 interviews in, I started writing. Things were going ok until I realized I had never written anything of this length before. At this point, I became intensely dissatisfied with my work and took a break. I started to read other non-fiction books with the objective of learning how other authors did it. Once I finished one, I got back to interviews.
I worked in spurts where I’d do about 3 interviews then write a little. As I went on, I modified my questions to fill out areas where my book was lacking.
When I got to 30 I realized that the same themes were being repeated, so I decided to call it a day and stop interviewing.
I went through one draft to be somewhat satisfied with it myself, then another so it was decent to send it out to others.
I sent it out to 6 people for an initial peer review. I gave them a month to review and fill out a targeted survey and review.
During this month, I worked hard to figure out how I could get as many people as possible to check it out.
I asked one of my friends from undergrad for advice from her eBook experience.
I searched for what formats I should be publishing in.
I asked whether I should sell on Amazon or exclusively through my website.
I set up my website on WordPress.
I read Guerilla Marketing to give me some ideas about how to get the word out.
I created tracking sheets to keep up with all the marketing avenues I would attempt to utilize.
On these sheets I had 2 months of blog posts, an email campaign, a Facebook ad campaign, a classified ad campaign, business school sites and contacts, target schools, and LinkedIn ads planned.
I wrote a bunch of blog posts.
I created an After School Facebook page.
I created a Mailchimp account to handle my email campaign.
I installed SumoMe apps on my site to collect subscribers.
I set up a Paypal professional account to collect payments.
I registered for Gumroad to put a shopping cart on my site.
I set up Google Analytics to track site traffic for every page on my website.
I got my outstanding graphic designer friend to create a book cover.
I got the feedback back from my test readers and arranged it into themes.
I wrote my second draft based on the feedback.
I submitted this draft to an editor contracted on Upwork.
I put the shopping cart on the purchase page.
I had a soft launch where I just posted the website link to some group chats.
I finally had my official launch the next week.

And that’s it. It honestly didn’t take that long; I just had to focus.

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

How I Went from Confused to Self Publishing a Book, Pt. 1

I came into business school with the thought that I would start my own company or join a startup immediately after. I took a few shots at the founder life while in school, but ultimately when my loans let me know they weren’t going anywhere soon, I caved and got a stable job. Not just any job though. I had specific criteria for my post-MBA job:

It had to be a small company because I was done with bureaucracy..
I had to have a lot of responsibility.
I only wanted to work 40 to 50 hours a week, so I could work on my side projects.

When I graduated I knew that I wanted to do something substantial within my first year. Shortly after I started working, I began brainstorming on what I could do after hours. I began working on a twitter project involving sentiment analysis and in the middle of that, I realized I wanted to make some supplemental income. I purposefully worked for a small company, which meant I was taking a pay cut. As I stated previously, my student loans didn’t care about any of that.

I researched options to make money on the side. I thought about Uber and working on graphic design projects, but I finally decided to pick up tutoring. Around this time, I listened to Tim Ferris’ podcast with Scott Adams and I was enamored with his approach at life. I picked up his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big and immediately changed my focus from being goal oriented to system oriented.

One day while in the shower, I was listening to a Smart Passive Income Podcast about eBooks and whoever they had as a guest said something that hit me.

“If you are an expert at something, you can write a nonfiction book for people who are interested in whatever you excel in.”

That I began to ask myself, “What am I good at?” The answer was resounding: nothing. I did know some very smart people though. For the past 3 years, I received countless requests to spend some time speaking about my MBA experience. I could talk about my experience for days, but that wasn’t going to be appealing to everyone. Why not ask others? That’s when I decided to write a book.

To be continued…

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.

5 Arguments for Focusing Your Attention in Business School

The following is an excerpt from After School answering the question, “What advice would you give yourself looking back at your time in school?”

They knew that I wasn’t really interested in their companies so I was not getting enough offers.

“You need to know what you want to get out of an MBA and what you want to do after it. I didn’t have that picture. I got in and I started interviewing all these different companies…I interviewed for a pharmaceutical company. I interviewed with a credit card company. I interviewed with an oil company. I just interviewed in every different industry because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. They knew that I wasn’t really interested in their companies so I was not getting enough offers. I did some soul searching and thought about what I really wanted to do. I wanted to come back to tech and become product manager again.”

Think about what skills you want to learn while you are in school.

“When you’re there, don’t get distracted by anything. By city, by what the company does…just think about what skills you want to learn while you are in school, your internship, and any other side projects.”

Getting some job where you’ll never see your friends and family, but earn a lot of money that you’ll never have time to spend might not be what’s best for you.

“Not to get caught up in the noise. Everyone is at business school for a different reason. I did a lot of peer coaching; I did a lot of career counseling while I was at school. It was interesting to see people who would come in thinking “Here’s what I want to do”, and then inevitably end up apply for consulting or I-banking because that’s where all the money is.

The one thing I said to people over and over again is, “You need to understand what you’re hoping to get out of this and stick with that. Getting some job where you’ll never see your friends and family, but earn a lot of money that you’ll never have time to spend might not be what’s best for you.” I felt like I did a great job of balancing that out over time, but there were definitely moments in my MBA experience that I lost sight of that a little bit.”

One of the big lessons is learning when to walk away from things.

“I think that one of the big lessons is learning when to walk away from things. When I came into B-school, I felt like I had a lot to prove because I didn’t have a business background. So when I took on a challenge, I felt like I had to hang on to it take it all the way through. There were a couple incidences where things were just not worth the time.”

I think having more of a plan with of what I wanted to do long-term would have helped.

“I guess more planning. A lot of people think of just say, ‘Alright, I’ll get this MBA and then I’ll get this job,’ it just doesn’t work like that. That’s a changing paradigm with us millennials. We thought that you get a college degree, get a good job, and you’re done. I think you have to be more practical and think, ‘Ok, within the first year or so of the MBA, I should have already planned out the kind of the companies that I wanted to work for, or this industry that I wanted to be in.’

I had a soft interest in Health Care, but I didn’t have any tangible leads on how to actually enter that industry. The value of networking helped me out because I was able to talk to people that had their hands in other areas; I could kind of latch on to them and work my way in. But I think having more of a plan with of what I wanted to do long-term would have helped.”

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.