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FEMALE SPEAKER: Hi everyone, and welcome to
another Hangout on Air.
This time we are talking with our SMB Services team.
And we will give you an overview of this organization.
Amanita and I work on the staffing team.
With me today are my colleagues from SMB Services
team and Elaine who is our Business
Associate Program manager.
I will let everyone introduce themselves.
Jane, do you want to start?
JANE: Hi.
My name is Jane, and I work as a manager in the SMB Services
Emerging and Growing Cluster.
And I've been at Google for just over eight years now.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Great.
Sandro?
SANDRO: Sure.
My name is Sandro.
I'm at Google for almost two years now, and I'm working for
Ukrainian SMB Services team.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
Alberto?
ALBERTO: Thanks.
My name is Alberto.
I've been at Google for nearly nine months now.
And I am working for the SMB Services market at [INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE SPEAKER: Great.
And Elaine?
ELAINE: Hi, everyone.
I'm Elaine, and I've been at Google almost seven years.
And I manage the Business Associate Program, which I'm
sure I'll talk about later.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you, guys.
And let's start with an overview of the
SMB Services team.
So Jane, could you please give us an overview of the SMB
Services team and what is the value of this organization to
Google overall?
JANE: Sure.
The SMB Services team is a really big team.
We have just under 2,000 people globally.
And what we do is we work with small- and medium-sized
businesses who advertise with Google.
And really, what we do with those advertisers is we help
them to get the most out of their advertising campaigns,
working with them through channels such as email, phone
support, chat support, and then some new and exciting
kind of one-to-many methods like Google Hangouts.
And in terms of the value of Google or value to Google, I
suppose what we bring, number one, is the
scale at which we work.
So we really work with a huge customer base.
And in order to help all of those customers get the most
out of their advertising, we need to be able to work
efficiently and very flexibly with them.
We also drive a really significant portion of
Google's advertising revenue.
And probably most importantly, I suppose,
would be the people.
So we hire really smart people who have big ideas, and they
want to change things and make things better.
FEMALE SPEAKER: OK.
Great.
Thank you.
And Alberto, do you want to tell us what impact SMB
Services team has on clients you support and maybe with
what type of clients do you work on a daily basis?
ALBERTO: Sure.
My pleasure.
The kind of customers we work, as you mentioned earlier, is
the small and medium businesses.
And one way to describe it is a very, very diverse business
models that we'll have to encounter every day.
We can be talking to the family business who has been
in the family for three generations.
We can be talking with the just recently graduated
entrepreneurs who are just starting their new business.
So the kind of impact we have is very tangible.
We can measure it really easily simply because every
single penny our customers invest, they just want to make
the most of it.
This means that for us it is a very satisfying experience.
You can encounter a customer at an early stage when perhaps
they didn't know much about AdWords or how we actually
improve their business.
So we dive into this whole process, we teach them how to
use the tool.
And perhaps they reach back to you in a few months saying,
oh, well, I've done basically everything what you've done.
You can actually see the impact that you've created in
their business, and they're just moving on, on something
more advanced.
So definitely these kinds of things is the most rewarding
to our job.
And all SMB customers tend to be really, really grateful.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Great.
Thank you, Sandro--
Alberto, sorry.
And Sandro, could you tell us more about the benefits of
working for SMB Services team and what type of skills can
you develop?
SANDRO: Sure.
First of all, I think it's basically working for SMB
Services team is basically a university for online
marketing, because you see so many business models and so
many different advertisers working with the two.
Also, you get, obviously, a great amount of product
knowledge on AdWords specifically, but also on a
lot of other Google products that we
offer to our customers.
And you get to learn all of them and learn how to apply
them to develop your customer's business, as
Alberto has said.
Apart from that, you get to try a lot of different roles
and projects that don't require too long of a time
commitment, so to speak, for years and years.
And you get to experiment with them.
You get to work with them on a short-term basis and develop
all the different skills that you might need to work for
years and years in some other places.
Like, for instance, you gain people skills,
communication skills.
Like along people skills, like communication skills, feedback
delivery, coaching, mentoring.
It can be presentation skills and public speaking.
It can be data analysis and more like hard
skills, so to speak.
And I think the one main thing that you learn
is adapting to change.
Because as the whole online industry, Google is also a
very fast-changing organization.
And you really need to be up to speed
with all those changes.
And you really learn that in your first months in their
organization.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Great.
Thank you.
And Jane, what about career opportunities?
Is there any specific career path?
Or what type of supports are people
getting to grow a career?
JANE: There's no one, single career path really.
I mean, you've heard Alberto talk about all the different
types of people and businesses that people in
our team work with.
And Sandro mentioned all the diverse types of skills that
people can build up.
And that really means that you can really go anywhere from a
role in SMB Services.
In the past, we've seen people move into management and
senior management roles within the SMB Services organization.
We've had people go on to data analyst roles, onto marketing
roles all over the world, public policy, working with
products like YouTube and Gmail.
So really, the sky is the limit.
And in terms of the support, there's a ton
of support out there.
What we really say is that it's up to each individual to
manage their own career and to map out their own plans and
drive their own careers forward.
But what we will do is we'll give you the tools to support
you with that.
So some of those would include things like we have a lot of
training, and we have mentoring programs where
people can get involved with senior managers or
peer-to-peer mentoring.
We also have regular career road shows where people can
learn about the different types of teams that are out
there and the different types of roles that are on offer
within the company.
We also have career panels where we might have a group of
people who used to work in the SMB Services organization will
come, and they will talk to the people currently in the
organization about what they did, what their own individual
career paths were like, and how they moved from steps A, B
to C.
And finally, and again, most importantly, I suppose, a key
player in any career path is a person's manager.
So you can have as many career related conversations with
your manager as you like.
But typically, everyone would have at least one
career-focused discussion with their manager every three to
six months.
FEMALE SPEAKER: OK.
Thank you.
And speaking of different tools and resources, last year
we implemented the Business Associate Program.
And Elaine, could you please give us an overview of the
Business Associate Program?
ELAINE: Sure, absolutely.
So basically, the Business Associate Program, or B.A.
Program, is Google's investment in developing our
early career business associates during their first
two years at Google.
So it's a cohort program.
So that means that you go through the two-year program
with the same group of people, which is really great, because
you get to build a really strong network with those who
are in SMB Services and also those who are in
SMB Sales as well.
So what happens then is every quarter you have one full day
of training.
And that will either be on-site, or we do have some
off-site experiences for you as well.
And the trainings really vary.
It depends.
And the topics can be anything from presentation skills to
personal branding to creative skills and innovation.
There's a really wide variety within the training.
And it takes approximately 10% of your time.
I guess the three main kind of goals with the program are to
make sure that you have some trainings which will
complement your core role.
And we're helping you to gain deep product knowledge and to
develop your business acumen.
But we also want to make sure that you have transferable
skills that are going to help you throughout the two years
and then later on as well as you
progress within your career.
We also want to really provide a structured platform for you,
and we want to introduce some career development tools that
you can use throughout your career as well.
So we're getting you thinking about developing and owning
your career from the get-go.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Great.
Thank you.
ELAINE: Sure.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So thank you so much, guys, for
participating in this Hangout.
And thank you for watching us.
If you are interested in the SMB Services team, just visit
our Google job site and apply today.
Thank you.
Bye bye.