Building authentic corporate relations with Kerry Brooker
New Head of Client and Charity Relations, Kerry Brooker, shares the importance of listening when it comes to reaching new levels for her clients.
A family of teachers, a keen interest in team culture and an appreciation for gut instinct. To be honest, Kerry isn’t what I’m expecting from an executive in corporate sales.
A high flyer in London’s publishing houses, Kerry was responsible for exceeding sales targets for over eight years. She brought together a team of account managers to oversee media sales for law firms, accountancy practices and other large companies across the United Kingdom. With her last team being nominated as Sales Team of the year, Kerry’s not shy to say that they “smashed targets” across sales.
The sheer accomplishment of this is later put in perspective as Kerry offhandedly recalls the challenge of selling recruitment ads in a post-GFC climate while redundancies were being handed out by the dozen. Kerry hit 30 and after a nine-year slog in London, she took a punt on Sydney.
Listening to head, and heart.
“I was mostly worried about leaving my family and missing my nephew grow up,” she says. “My Granddad, who’s particularly important and an inspirational leader to me, was also worried about me throwing away the good career I had built in London.”
But ultimately, the sands of Sydney called. “I listen a lot to not just my head, but what my heart’s telling me. And yes, it also helped that my older sister encouraged me not to be silly and promised that I could still be “the cool aunt” living in Australia.”
With some leading experience in digital media from the London publishing industry, Kerry quickly arranged interviews in Sydney with employers from Facebook, LinkedIn and large companies keen to grow in a digital environment evolving at lightning speed. But to be fair, I think the heart may have also pulled the strings when choosing her next workplace.
“A relatively small digital agency approached me. It was a curve ball at the time and the CEO said ‘I don’t care that you have no local networks or even knew what SEO stood for prior to this meeting. But I’m hiring you for your personality’. I had a good feeling about the culture and what the company could achieve, and wanted a workplace that I’d be happy in for number of years.”
Achieving client outcomes
Starting by selling digital marketing services, it wasn’t long before Kerry was leading a diverse team of account and business development managers through periods of significant organisational growth and change.
When I ask how she managed this, she acknowledges the need to consult subject experts at all times and the importance of working hard to understand the need in the market. But ultimately, it doesn’t take long before she’s back to emphasising the importance of team engagement.
“I had to work with very different personalities and it was imperative for me to get the most out of them – for both the business but more importantly for their own personal and professional development. I refined an adaptive leadership style and put a bit of my heart and soul into building the team as we went.”
Leading by listening
“I’m definitely more of a listener than a talker, and in that I wholeheartedly listened to my team’s concerns to learn what made us tick and what would make us successful as individuals and as a team. You’ve got to build connection and culture. And while that often comes from the top, it needs to be cultivated in our teams as well.”
She goes on to say this is no different to her personal success in reaching sales targets. “I’m really excited to work with Good2Give. Primarily I’m wanting to support the team to continue to build authentic and meaningful relationships with our clients, and to be seen as a genuine long-term partner of choice.
“Being a conduit between the charity and corporate worlds is incredibly special. It’s great to be working in an area where I know that the more client outcomes we achieve the greater community impact we’re having.”
Up at five, boxing at 6am, smoothie for breakfast, then at her desk with a smile – I have no doubt Kerry’s a Sydneysider at heart and ready to get her sunrays, business outcomes and community impact in the schedule all at once.
