Mentor Moments from The Girl Scouts Leadership Conference

Rebecca Dutcher, our president and founder, recently had the opportunity to be a mentor at the Inaugural 2022 Girl Scouts Leadership Conference put on by the Girl Scouts of Michigan Shore to Shore (GMISTS).  Here's a recap of her experience, in her own words.

It was an honor to be asked to participate and share more about my journey with girl scouts from across the state of Michigan.

I was a brownie and a girl scout growing up. Two of my most memorable moments are a huge overnight camp-out in an old army tent in a park when I was about 7 years old. However, I didn’t make it all night—my Mom actually had to come pick me up!

The second was from Camp Anna Behrens—a week-long camp with other Girl Scouts. It was my first week away from home and I was terrified, but I made it. The best memory was that it was horse camp for me—and I got to spend a week with horses.

Fun Fact: For those who may not know my story, I was the first girl to play rocket football in our local league, when I was 8 years old. My number was 66, and that’s where the 66 in our agency name came from. My family and friends fought so I could play. I played for a few years, then my Dad got me into horses to get me out of football.

I reflected on all the questions the girls asked me and other mentors, and wanted to share a few of those answers.

How Much Teamwork Is Involved In Your Job?

We had 5 answer options—mine was Extensive. Our team is what makes this place run. We’re always working to help each other, strategize, review things, and provide feedback.

What’s Your Typical Day Look Like?

Many answers talked about answering emails and being in meetings. I adjusted mine, since we don’t want young girls to think that’s all we do (even though it feels like it most days!).

My day is a mix of writing, reading, answering questions, supporting my team, and lots of thinking. I’ll often proofread things and teach my team how to do something they’re not familiar with. I’ll also update websites, review digital ads and results, then help outline what we need to do to help clients meet their goals going forward.

That’s my typical day. Add in that I also enjoy time at home with my family and my 3 dogs, including one that's three-legged. That got some smiles!

What Skills and Qualities Are Needed For Success?

Certainly understanding marketing is critical to what we do, but I shared more of the things they can focus on as they go through school and life.

• Reading: You need to be able to read and comprehend things.
• Writing and storytelling: We create a lot of content, from writing articles, social media captions, radio scripts, emails, ads, and helping clients tell their stories. These things will never go away.
• Empathy: It's vital to understand someone else’s point of view and communicate with them. Marketing requires a lot of empathy to understand your audience and provide information that resonates with them. Empathy is also important in leading our team.
• Math: One young lady asked me if I had to do math. Yes, I do! There's not a lot of geometry or calculus, though (that seemed to help quell her worries). However, as a business owner, I do need to look at budgets, margins, salary costs, benefits, how much we charge our customers, paying bills and all that fun stuff. (I also shared that there are accountants and others I work with that know a lot more about this math than I do, and that they are very helpful).
• Perseverance: I shared that sometimes things will get hard and you won’t want to keep doing it. But, you have to hang in there and keep going. This is more of a quality, but they seemed to get it.

Why Do You Love Your Job?

I get to work with a lot of great people. This not only includes my team here at RED66, but our clients, our vendors, and subcontractors—many of whom I’ve known for a long, long time. I get to help them solve business problems, grow, and become more efficient.

I also love that sometimes, marketing is like a puzzle where we get to figure out the pieces. What works, what doesn’t, how we get to try something else, to be creative, and to keep testing.

At the end of the day, I have some amazing relationships with exceptional humans from across the country. All of this is because of my job, and that is one of the things I love the most.

What Education Does Your Job Require?

I shared that a 4-year degree is generally required, but a 2-year degree and some great experience can get you in the door to do what I do.

Honestly, a lot of the tools and technology I use today were not around when I  was in college. I graduated in 2000 when there wasn’t Facebook or Twitter. Both Google and Amazon were in their infancy as well.

For perspective: the company I worked for had 1 email address and did most communications via fax from our computers. A few girls even asked what a fax was!

What I did share was that we have several great interns, who are college students nearly finished with their 4-year degree (called a bachelor’s degree, not to be confused with the show The Bachelor). And while you learn a lot about the fundamentals of marketing in college, being open to learning things on your own, putting in extra work to practice new skills, and trying new technology are also very important pieces of education these days.

Technology and tools are always changing. Because of this, there's always something new to learn and they should be open to that. Simply put; they’re never done learning (some didn’t love that so much).

What About You?

What are some of the things you love about your job, or skills you feel are needed for success? My team and I would love to hear from you in the comments!