In 2018, Sterling Shortall made a bold decision.
In the middle of a successful career in radio advertising with Cox Media Group in her home state of Florida, Sterling had an opportunity to transfer to California to start a new career within media sales at Cox, helping local businesses build awareness and attract customers.
Sterling – age 25 at the time – didn’t know anyone in California. She had little experience in TV advertising, which would be the primary focus of her new job. But she was ready to strike out on a new adventure. So she accepted the new job as a media consultant at Cox Media and started packing.
“I moved to San Diego without ever visiting before,” Sterling said. “The team was really encouraging. I didn’t know anybody out here, so the Cox Media team is my California family.”
Sterling settled into California life, moving into a home about a block from the beach and exploring southern California. In her new job, she began learning the world of TV and digital advertising and building her book of clients from scratch. She called on local businesses, introduced herself, explained what Cox could offer and ultimately helped them reach their goals – and soon discovered that this line of work was perfect for her.
“I love working with small businesses,” Sterling said. “I love learning about the business owners. It’s really motivating working with people who started their own companies; how much they’re invested in their business.”
Sterling is one of Cox’s most successful media consultants. She was part of Cox’s prestigious Winner’s Circle in 2019 and at the time of this story far exceeded her goals for 2021.
“Cox arms me with the resources to succeed,” Sterling said. “There are great mentors and management, and everyone wants you to do well. The sky is the limit – if you have motivation and drive to succeed, you will.”
Sterling does have that drive – as well as an outgoing personality that helps her build trust with her clients. She especially loves working with clients in the medspa, hospitality and restaurant categories but also enjoys her partnerships with home services businesses, experiences, car dealerships and more.
“With every business, I find something unique,” she said. “It makes me happy to help them grow and exceed their goals.”
Part of Sterling’s job is helping local business owners understand the importance of marketing in the first place.
“The main challenge is usually speaking with companies who have never advertised before – informing them of what advertising is and how it can help their business,” she said. “Small businesses have to pay their employees and keep their lights on, and advertising is an added expense. When you invest in your company to reach your ideal customer, you get a great return on investment. I always learn what exactly drives my client’s bottom line, and I create a marketing strategy based on that. I utilize our research, digital, and production team to brainstorm and create the best marketing strategies for each specific business.”
Sterling, who is very much a “people person,” is looking forward to a return to in-person normalcy so she can see her clients face-to-face.
“There are clients I haven’t met in-person yet because I couldn’t stop in and see them during COVID; that’s something I really miss,” she said, adding that phone calls and virtual meetings have been her source of connection with customers during the pandemic.
In the long term, Sterling’s goal is to stay in San Diego and grow in her current role.
“I love the team I’m with and I love being here,” she said. “I see myself continuing to help clients achieve their goals. I’m heavily involved in the digital advertising space, so I’d love to continue to put more emphasis on that and help more small businesses across the country with their digital marketing strategies. The fact that Cox takes such good care of their employees is special to me. We’re a family – we’re all there for each other.”
Interested in a sales career at Cox? We’re hiring! Click here to start exploring.
For Jordan Knope – an advertising account executive early in his career at Cox – putting the pieces together for clients is all in a day’s work. Keep reading to learn how.
First job, first pandemic
It’s natural to be a bit nervous about your first job after college. And starting your career during a pandemic adds another layer of apprehension to the process.
Jordan Knope experienced this firsthand.
He started working at Cox Media – a Cox Communications company – in the summer of 2020. This is his first full-time job since receiving his undergraduate degree in marketing from the University of Arizona.
“It’s been a little bit weird because I’ve only set foot in the office twice now,” said Jordan, who lives and works in his hometown of Tucson, AZ. “It’s been a double learning curve.”
But Jordan has navigated the learning curve well, receiving a promotion from sales associate to advertising account executive within six months of his employment at Cox.
“The opportunities to grow and advance have been really solid,” said Jordan. “I’ve received a lot of training around perfecting my sales process. I had some familiarity with B2B sales before this, but actually implementing it and seeing it in the real world as opposed to the classroom has been great.”
Jordan has also been surprised by the amount of flexibility his sales job provides.
“One thing that I really like about this role, especially in the past eight months, is that I really do set my own schedule,” Jordan said. “My manager and my team are there to set expectations, but I don’t ever feel like I have to be at a certain place at a certain time. I feel like there’s a lot of flexibility and that’s been nice to have this year.”
The marketing puzzle
Jordan is passionate about piecing together solutions to support clients. His job is all about building bespoke advertising campaigns for regional businesses. This kind of problem-solving is appealing to Jordan, who likened his work environment to the agile, fun environment of an agency.
“To me, marketing is a big puzzle,” he said. “There’s sales and there’s psychology and there’s technology and it all wraps together into accomplishing a specific goal.”
One of his favorite puzzles to solve came in the form of a local motorcycle gear shop. Jordan himself is an avid motorcyclist and recognized an opportunity to help this business. He recommended a geofencing marketing strategy to identify devices in the area. Essentially, every time a customer would walk into a local motorcycle dealership, they would be pinged with an ad for the gear shop.
This kind of real-world experience has been rewarding for Jordan, whose love for marketing shines in his creative solutions for clients.
“I really like working in media,” Jordan said. “That’s where my passion lies.”
Driven to win…and to work together
Like any good salesperson, Jordan has a competitive streak.
“I really like to win,” he said. “I like to be the best at my job. Anywhere I go, that’s the goal.”
And while Cox’s culture is sales-friendly, it’s anything but cutthroat. Rather, it’s collaborative. Jordan enjoys partnering with colleagues in similar client-facing roles, as well as people in creative, production, editing and more.
“The people that I interact with are friendly,” Jordan said. “Even the people who have very busy schedules and have a lot of clients are always willing to answer questions and help me out with things.”
Interested in exploring a sales career at Cox? We’re hiring! Explore here: Sales Jobs at Cox Media
This month, we’re spotlighting the people who work Behind the Code at Cox. Read below to learn how our technology employees are building a better tomorrow.
Zeddikia Chisholm vividly remembers his unconventional experience of learning to swim.
On a trip to Guadalupe River in Texas, Zeddikia jumped from a swinging rope and plunged into the water below before making his way back to shore. After many more similar jumps, he was swimming with ease.
Zeddikia’s approach to learning new things at Cox Communications is very similar.
“That’s how I learn new skills: jump into the deep end and figure it out,” he said. “From the moment I started as an intern at Cox, I would challenge myself with projects that required new proficiencies. My skills with R, Python, JavaScript and Tableau are all skills that I developed by stretching myself at Cox.”
Zeddikia is now an Atlanta-based Network Engineer on Cox’s Systems Engineering team. He previously held roles on Cox’s Network Planning Automation (NPA) and Customer Premise Engineering teams.
“I’m an explorer at heart, so the opportunity to learn about different departments, leaders, places and people was priceless,” Zeddikia said. “Anything that gives me opportunities to learn or experience something new is a win in my book.”
This explorer at heart is currently learning SysML, a modeling language that supports the specification, analysis, design, verification and validation of a broad range of systems and systems-of-systems.
“It’s a new thing for us, and I get to help lay the foundation of its implementation here at Cox,” Zeddikia said. “I believe that my work on this current team shows that Cox is open to change and trying new ways of doing things.”
COVID-19 – aka “the vid” or “-rona,” as he calls it – has impacted Zeddikia’s work life in a number of ways. The most obvious, of course, is the fact that he has been working remotely for almost a year.
“Working from home has been a great time-saver and energy-saver, as I no longer waste my energy in Atlanta traffic before coming to work. The peace of mind that I can keep my family safe, and still do my job is great. I have an incredible amount of flexibility with the current environment and it has been a lifesaver as far as stress levels go.”
But Zeddikia also felt empowered by the opportunity to participate in an important coronavirus project for Cox.
“Since the pandemic started, I’ve been working on the Executive COVID-19 Impact Report,” he shared. “In short, we are looking at the effects of COVID-19 on our network. The increase in work-from-home, distance learning and other factors had initially strained our networks quite a bit. The congestion levels in many of our markets had risen to crazy high levels.”
Zeddikia said that he was proud of the insights his team was able to provide because it helped the company respond proactively to the situation before it impacted customers.
“With our work on the Node Congestion Relief Analytics Team, we were recognized and awarded a Synergy Award. I was happy to receive my first award as a full-time employee and put it on the fireplace since I don’t have an office desk these days!”
Zeddikia explained that his team’s inherent love of engineering and data analytics has created a culture that is very relaxed and focused on the end results.
“If I looked in my team members’ closets, I would guess the first shirt I would see would say ‘I Love Engineering’ or ‘Show me the Data,’ Jerry Maguire,” Zeddikia said. “I like that my team brings their passion to their work. It makes me happy to see this.”
Zeddikia loves that the culture of Cox encourages technology employees to bring their full selves to work.
“The backgrounds of people in engineering alone are incredibly diverse,” he said. “In engineering, I know people that have a background in music, psychology and other fields you wouldn’t normally expect in a hardcore engineering environment. It is this diversity that has led to a lot of the fun I have talking with different people.”
Zeddikia is among the employees with a cool assortment of hobbies and talents outside of work.
“I spend a lot of my free time creating websites, building things and designing things on my laser cutter,” he said. “I spent 2020 learning construction skills because I’ve always wanted to, and I plan to continue in 2021. I also enjoy staying active. Just last week I signed up for my first Spartan Beast, a 21- kilometer 60-obstacle course race through the Nevada desert in November. I’ve done Spartan Supers (10 km, 25 obstacles) before, but this Beast is on another level. What could be more fun!”
Interested in learning more about the people who make innovation happen at Cox? Check out the rest of our Behind the Code series and follow along on social using #BehindTheCode.
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