Meet Anthony Konarski

Tell us more about your role?

As a marketing technology consultant, my role is to understand and guide our clients to improve their marketing processes and utilise all the tools at their disposal. For some clients, this may take the form of mentoring and training to help them become more self-sufficient. For others, it may be to execute plans and strategies that they cannot achieve due to capacity or insufficient expertise.My approach is to listen and learn as much as I can about the client, their team dynamics, and the myriad of setups and processes that make up their sales and marketing function. Using this information my goal is to turn their plans into reality through technical execution and strategy while keeping the client on board through the journey.

What attracted you to work at WoolfHodson?

I have previously worked for in-house teams as well as the agency side from a full-service marketing agency. While these have been fulfilling, I have found myself drawn more to the marketing automation and technology side and the further down the rabbit hole I’ve ventured the more I’ve felt like this was the right path for me.

Woolfhodson specialises in marketing automation and technology and I felt like the time was right to move to a business that has a strong, undiluted focus on this sector of the marketing industry. They just get it, and that’s who I want to work for and who I want to work with.

Why is Martech a good industry to work in?

Martech is constantly changing and evolving, you can have years working on the platform and still learn new things. Every client and every project is different, there’s always something new or a new way of doing things. Ultimately, it’s about enjoying a challenge, this isn’t an industry you can coast in, you need to be a problem solver, a diplomat, and an engineer all in one go.

What skills do you need to work in Martech? And in particular, at WoolfHodson?

You need to be inquisitive and get that itch when a problem presents itself that you just need to find a solution. Sometimes you must be tough and push back, as a consultant, you’re the expert so can’t be afraid to challenge and always be asking ‘why’? Every day is a learning opportunity so if there is a new piece of tech or a new process you need to be willing to dive in, but also not be afraid to ask for help.

Ultimately every problem that is presented has probably happened to someone before and you need to be willing to trust and ask your colleagues if they’ve ever encountered the same thing, it saves time and there is no shame in asking for opinions.

What is your one tip on how to get ahead in the Martech industry?

Be confident in your abilities but humble enough to seek out help if you’re unsure and get the second pair of eyes, no one is infallible and it’s best to double and triple check rather than make a mistake. Also never stop learning and always ask questions, technology moves at such a pace you can’t afford to rest on your laurels.

What’s your career highlight?

For me it was taking to a client with no automation at all, that was using spreadsheets and manual entry, all the way to a fully integrated process connected to their CRM. It was a huge project and involved everything from technical setup, strategy, and training. It was a chance to put all those little projects and experiences all into one overarching solution.

I learned while doing it and the client was over the moon with the process. Ultimately it was the realisation that I really knew my stuff and could deliver for a client that was at the beginning of their marketing automation journey.

What’s the biggest Martech challenge you’ve worked on?

My biggest challenge was working with a client that had custom-built all their Martech and making that work with an off-the-shelf solution. I had to quickly learn the deeper workings of APIs, find workarounds for limitations, and carefully navigate the interactions with the non-technical team that sat between us and the developers. Politics can be just as complex as technology sometimes and finding amicable solutions was a real challenge.

What are your top tips for keeping things simple when you tackle complex Martech projects?

Sometimes you must break things down into cost/benefit, a complex process might work for 100% of records but require so much work it becomes unviable to achieve. Whereas a simpler process may work for 99% but be easily achievable within budget. For some clients this risk is acceptable, for others, it may not be, but keeping things simple often reduces the points of failure in a project.

Something may work perfectly but is so complex that a slight delay or error somewhere down the line can break the entire thing. My approach is to plan for every eventuality and then take steps away until you’re left with the simplest process possible that still achieves the objective. For those outlier scenarios, you can build separate safeguards and ensure that nothing falls through the net. You have to be pragmatic and decide whether the effort to account for increasingly obscure processes is worth it to the business overall.

What’s your biggest career or life lesson?

Not being afraid to ask questions, whether of clients, colleagues, or vendors. Sometimes you may uncover an interesting answer that changes the perspective of the whole project. Other times you find that actually no one has an answer, or it’s never been asked before. This can be really useful in driving change, if everyone does things in a set way without ever questioning why then it’s impossible to see if there’s a better way.

If you are looking for your next career move and would like to explore opportunities in our growing team, please see the available roles on our website.