Hello, TEN7 Blog Readership! I’m Megan Glover, TEN7’s new Director of Growth. And I’m actually not a total stranger: I’ve had the pleasure of partnering with TEN7 for the last five years on a number of projects as the Director of Marketing for a local real estate development firm.
My former company was – and still is, in many ways – a small company. But I know a thing or two about growth because I helped guide and direct an immense period of it, working to successfully grow our company portfolio and revenues at scale. It was exciting, awkward, challenging, and fun. We made mistakes but we learned from them.
Then came lockdown. All of sudden, after nearly seven years at my workplace, I began to question why I was doing what I was doing. I felt more compelled than ever to participate openly in our social discourse, to take a stand, and to “put my money where my mouth was.”
Was real estate development the right place for me?
The stillness of lockdown – and the simple practice of taking pen to paper each morning – revealed that I had more questions than answers. What do I want out of my work, out of an employer? What, exactly, are my values? Is it possible to gain alignment on these two? How many licks does it take to reach the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop™?
I couldn’t stop thinking and writing about the workplace values topic and so I made the decision to at least get out there and give it a go. To *cough, cough* network. To willfully submit to the uncomfortable (for me, at least) process of emailing other humans to ask them questions about business opportunities over caffeinated beverages.
TEN7 CEO Ivan Stegic appeared on my “coffee radar” earlier this summer after reading the latest iteration of the TEN7 Newsletter, which coincidentally spoke to TEN7’s newly-codified mission statement: Make Things That Matter. “This resonates,” I thought. “This could be my values fit.”
But were they hiring? My marketing intuition said yes, but I had doubts over the serendipitous nature of it all.
When Ivan and I met in June, we discussed what a marketing position at TEN7 might look like, but it soon became clear that the timing was off. Ivan was looking for a sales director first. Which was fine. I didn’t have a timeline – just one full Moleskine notebook of thoughts and ideas. But our conversation was lovely, and it seemed like the start of something promising. I jokingly reminded him that prior to marketing, I had spent quite a bit of time in sales. Wink, wink!
Two months later, I heard from Ivan again. His thoughts on the position had shifted. TEN7 was officially hiring a Director of Growth – one fully integrated position, focused on driving strategic growth sustainably through new sales and marketing initiatives – and I was invited to interview.
Fast forward to now. Having just completed my first week as an employee of TEN7, what do I envision bringing to my new company? Empathy first, curiosity second, business acumen third. Is that the right order? Maybe not for everyone. But it’s right for a values-driven company culture. It’s right for TEN7, and I have a hunch that’s why I ended up here.
