It all starts with Mark McCormack, the founder and pioneer of what we call ‘sports marketing’ today. Thanks to a handshake on the golf course with Arnold Palmer, marking IMG’s first major client, the company was later acquired by William Morris Endeavor (WME) in 2013 and now provides services to over 7,000 talent, celebrities and corporate brands across entertainment, sports, fashion, music, film, culinary and many other industries. Before I started my dream job at WME | IMG, I put in my notice at the company I was already working for and was surprised to hear that several senior executives had been trying to work at IMG for the past decades and they were shocked to hear I even was able to land an interview! The CEO told me, although very bummed I was leaving, it was thanks to Mark McCormack any of the sports and entertainment world existed and his #1 recommendation to me was to read What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. If you’re interested in working for another agency like WME | IMG, Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency is another insightful one.

(Source: Taylor’s Photo of IMG Office in San Francisco)

Fast forward, my first 1:1 meeting with WME | IMG’s Head of West Coast, it was reassuring to hear that getting a job at the company in their perspective was like winning a lottery ticket. I would soon learn why. I told the Head of West Coast I read Mark McCormack’s What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School & the updated What They STILL Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School books from end to end and was grateful and excited for the opportunity! I joined the client marketing team, working for WME | IMG's largest corporate consulting client, Visa. As their new agency of record, my role was to lead strategic planning, marketing campaigns, sponsorship activation and MROI with the banks, airlines and hotels for their co-branded Visa Signature (Affluent) and Visa Infinite (HNW) loyalty and rewards programs, driving growth and revenue for their cardholder portfolios on a global scale.

(Source: Sports Business Journal, IMG Consulting Lands Visa’s Sports Marketing Account)

Within Visa's sponsorship portfolio they had 4 overarching pillars at the time and the first and biggest was within sports and had partnerships with Olympics, FIFA, NFL, San Francisco Giants, Pebble Beach Resorts etc. The 2nd pillar was within entertainment where we hosted advance movie screenings with all the big movie studios and worked with Cirque du Soleil as well. The 3rd pillar was within culinary where we partnered with the James Beard Foundation, Charlie Palmer Group and Sonoma County Vintners, hosting multi course winemaker dinners with celebrity chefs. The 4th and final pillar was within travel, working with properties such as the Luxury Hotel Collection, a global portfolio of over 700+ properties worldwide.

(Source: Taylor in Corporate Suite at Copa America - USA vs. Colombia)

Depending on the clients objectives and where their cardholders were based, I would basically be the glue in ensuring we were executing what assets, hospitality and marketing opportunities we sold in with the various properties. If you think about the 80/20 rule, we would invite the top cardholders to the events and activations, they go, have a good time, associate the good time with the card and end up spending more money (and yes, I would attend as well as a host of the client executives on all expenses, paid campaigns from Alaska to New York). We would also invite celebrity athletes and influencers to plus-up the activations and extend the reach of the event from a physical in person format to digital across social media. What is the point of sponsorship for a company like Visa or any bank, energy, insurance company etc.? Well it's hard to sell direct to consumer on topics that are for many considered boring… so when you align with a passion pillar that speaks to your target audience or general population you can use that platform or athletes to get your message across.

(Source: Taylor w/ NFL Greg Olsen, San Francisco Giants Legends, PGA Tour Fred Funk)

As you would probably expect, I hit the ground running, especially given I was coming from working in the research industry sitting in excel spreadsheets all day and I literally felt like I was living and working in a dream. When Mondays came around and everyone dreaded going to work, I literally could not wait to get into the office. 5 months go by and I'm crushing it, I took the lead on revamping the whole client marketing ROI tracker / dashboard and implemented advanced formulas that streamlined the data in real time (by 95% compared to where it was previously). Also at this time, social media for companies was still relatively new and I had read one of the first books from a gentleman named Eric Harr who was based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

(Source: Eric Harr: ‘The Real Truth About Social Media’)

I noticed he was on the ferry on my commute to work and I could tell he was busy and I was very nervous to talk to him but I went over to introduce myself and asked him if he had any advice for me considering all of his success. He told me he was actually on his way (casually) to meet the CEO of Twitter at the time, Jack Dorsey for coffee and after sharing a bit as to what I was doing he mentioned that it sounds like on my current career path, I'm going like this (see graph below), finger gradually rising above a straight line, and his #1 advice would be to go to whoever is the head of the office and tell that person you admire their work and would welcome the opportunity to become mentored and that you will do whatever it takes with whatever projects they assign to you.

(Source: Taylor’s Career Trajectory Mentorship Learning)

Interestingly enough, just a couple days later, the Head of the West Coast, without going to him yet to ask him to mentor me, posted a new position to work for him as an Account Executive. At the time, I was an Account Executive already so was unsure if it made sense to make a lateral move, plus I would have to commute down to Foster City a couple days a week which would be a brutal 1.5 hour commute each way. 50% of my time would be reporting to the Head of West Coast at WME | IMG, the other 50% to the Head of Olympics and FIFA at Visa. As you can recall, I already felt like I was in a dream and I didn't want that dream to end. And so, I couldn't imagine there being another job that could be better than what I was already currently doing.

I then ended up having lunch with the Head of my Client Marketing department (s/o Kevin Doidge), he had practically gone out of his way to set up a lunch meeting with me recognizing my unique background in research and data and thought this could be an amazing opportunity. During the lunch, Kevin told me he had worked with the Head of the West Coast for the past decade and said, Taylor, “these opportunities do not come up often and this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.” After hearing that on a Friday and having the weekend to think about it, I sent my resume along towards the end of the weekend and at this point a couple days had gone by. I sent the email directly to the Head of the West Coast and let him know that I'd like to apply and learn more.

The following week we had a lunch interview and towards the end I was still a bit hesitant and asked him, “if you were in my shoes, is this something you'd go after?” And this person said, Taylor what you're currently doing now - “you're going like this, and he used his finger to show this gradual increase of a straight line. And he said, Taylor, if you work for me, you will go like this,” and he showed this direct, vertical shot up (exactly the same as illustrated in the graphic above). At that point, I was like, Holy Crap! This is exactly what Eric Harr had just told me a week ago. So at that point, I thought to myself, this is it. This is even more of a dream job I never could have imagined. The stars were completely aligned and there’s a thing called the ‘Confirmation Bias’ where your mind, once you make a decision, prioritizes its attention consciously and subconsciously to life occurrences that reinstate and confirm your beliefs and that’s exactly what started to happen with the signs that were showing up.

(Source: Taylor At Sonoma Wine Country Weekend On Behalf Of Visa Signature)

And so, I ended up interviewing with the Head of Olympics and FIFA at Visa next and obviously now that my mind was set on this new role, I was prepared and crushed the interview, absolutely smashed it! I didn’t think it could’ve gone any better. Unfortunately, though, because of my hesitation with the Head of West Coast at WME | IMG, they ended up deciding to go with someone who at the time was below me a Senior Account Coordinator, who did have a similar background, but more on the digital side, within research and data. And so it just made more sense and easier for them to go with that person, especially considering that it would shake up a lot of things in the client marketing team that I was on - they would have to assign someone new to all my accounts and I had only just started about 5 months prior.

As you can imagine, this absolutely crushed me as now I felt like the work I was currently doing was meaningless. I was going on this, you know, straight line path instead of this vertical path haha. And to make things worse, I was sitting right next to the guy who got the job and all the opportunities were going to him and anytime someone new came into the office, or there's a big meeting, this person was in it and I wasn’t. He was taking notes, he was learning and I would just sit there on my own, regretting every moment. I went from I can't wait to go to the office on Monday to lying on the ground on Saturdays and Sundays in my apartment thinking like, holy crap, I failed, I made a massive mistake. So, I had to make a decision, do I continue to focus on my regret or step outside of that mentality and prove them wrong?

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games... I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan

For the several months that followed, I crushed it. I was responding to RFPs and closing new business but as time went on, this person that got the job just continued to get all the opportunities. So, there were some lessons I learned, first, in addition to finding the right mentor, success leaves clues, and you start to imitate the people you work with and especially for those that are 'operating on another level', it's the small little details you’ll notice that you pick up from that person which clearly separates them from the rest. The second lesson is from the Head of the West Coast perspective, he had just sold his house in what might have been a million dollar house in Florida to move to the San Francisco Bay Area just for this job and this account. The candidate that got the job had moved from New York was already living in San Francisco proper so they weren’t hesitant about commuting down to Foster City as it's just another 45 minutes or so and from that perspective the lesson is ultimately you got to be willing to do whatever it takes and as one of my previous professors mentioned:

“You have to be willing to risk it all if you want to attain success in life and even become a millionaire.” - Gil Harrell

In a follow up conversation I had with the Head of the West Coast he also mentioned, the other candidate had applied for it right away and from his perspective, it showed that they were more ready, prepared and wanted it more. And so, that was that, a year and a half had gone by, and that candidate had accumulated all this amazing experience and contacts in networking, and ended up moving on and getting another job. And so here, this same opportunity had come up a second time and this time around I applied for it right away. Unfortunately, the Head of the West Coast had ended up going outside of the company to bring someone in that was recommended to them. And there's a quote that goes along the lines of:

“You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression.”

And so, I ended up leaving WME | IMG shortly after as clearly there was no path forward. I still accumulated an incredible amount of experience and I’m forever grateful to those who took a chance on me! Another (probably the biggest learning) I took away is relationships. I’ve learned that the people you work with in the following years move on to other companies and they become the new wave of decision makers and if you left a good impression this will help your ability to do business with them. I also learned that people tend to go from agency (where you learn the foundation of business from the bottom up) to the brand side and after working, for example at WME | IMG, they would try to land a job at Visa as there is more stability, less hours and higher pay.

The agency does a lot of the heavy lifting and whenever something goes wrong who gets blamed? The agency. On the other hand, it's good for the agency when employees get jobs on the brand side as they're more likely to be an advocate for the agency. On a final note, while working at WME | IMG, I was tasked by the Head of Olympics (& also FIFA) to go above and beyond my normal scope of work and help put together a partnership valuation, renewal and negotiation strategy presentations. I worked really late nights and what I produced (several 100+ slide presentations) was amazing so when I left WME | IMG, I caught up with the Head of the Olympics over lunch.

(Source: Sports Business Journal, Visa Extends Longtime Partnership With IOC Through ‘32 Games)

She told me she had just been hired on as the Chief Operating Officer at the Oakland Roots, which was a new purpose driven pro soccer team and she was the first full time employee. She wanted to get me into the fold, because of the work I did for her at WME | IMG and this led me to my next role (blog post coming soon on what it’s like to work on the property side). In the meantime, if you'd like to level up your career, increase the chances of landing your dream job and prevent years worth of making the same mistakes as me, I would encourage you to apply for our new accelerator below👇🏽