Hi Marcelo! You recently started your second year as a member of Infraspeak’s Growth Team. How has the experience been so far?
There’s been a lot of ups and downs. Coming to Infraspeak wasn’t just a change in a job but in country, culture, lifestyle… Some adaptation was required. Being away from home, my friends and family (and my dogs!), my favourite places and even temporarily away from my wife, who’s here now. It wasn’t easy!
On the positive side, I’ve found some lovely people at Infraspeak and a very friendly and welcoming atmosphere. I have to highlight the people I work within the Marketing team. As soon as I arrived, I was very well received by Jessica, José and Pedro. Over time, new colleagues arrived and the bonds became tighter. Francisco appeared and one of the greatest rivalries in ping pong history was born! Liliana, Teresa and Inês arrived at the end of 2019 and there was also an immediate connection.
I still have some trouble adapting to the European and Portuguese lifestyles. The work routines, the marketing and market perceptions and many other things are quite different from where I come from. The cultural shock was huge. Nevertheless, it’s been a very interesting journey of learning and new experiences. I feel comfortable while showing my vulnerabilities and not being ashamed of it and today I understand a lot more about Brazil and Brazilian people.
Despite the differences, we have inherited a lot from the Portuguese throughout history.
You have a marketing background and before Infraspeak you ran an automotive YouTube channel. Tell us about that.
I have been working as a marketing professional for 5 years. I started as an expert in planning content marketing strategies and SEO for different types of business, but over the years, I developed into a broader and more generalist role in the area. Today I am able to work in content production, paid media management, strategy planning, support and customer services and I feel confident in starting some sales talk too.
I have a degree in Communication, with emphasis on Journalism. I have always had a passion for the audiovisual. TV, radio, music (it was basically what existed in the 90s 🙃). When I was a kid, I dreamed of being an MTV VJ, hahah! I have worked for a TV station and video producers and even did freelance work for agencies. In addition to TV shows, I’ve produced and written scripts for institutional videos, ads, clips…you name it. I even joke that I was a YouTube in the past!
I wasn’t really an influencer but I founded a project about cars with co-workers while I was working in TV, precisely on an automotive program. We wanted to talk about cars in our own way, with our style and language. That’s when we decided to create the 4por4 channel.
It was an unpretentious idea at a time when YouTube was not as strong and relevant as it is today. But it was really fun and I had some professional and personal lessons that I still carry today.
And how easy (or hard…) was it to adapt to maintenance and facility management with that background?
Going from cars to advertising, then marketing and now maintenance and facility management has never been a problem. I actually quite like to experience these changes.
I still carry with me a journalist’s instinct, so I try to always be able to to talk about any subject. You have to be an “expert in general topics”. Having to cover such different subjects only makes me want to study and dive deeper into these issues in order to have the ownership and credibility required to produce content and deliver quality information.
Maintenance and Facility Management are not really fun subjects to talk about and this is the main challenge here at Infraspeak. We try to make the sector and these areas appear more interesting to the public and to give visibility to professionals who, despite having incredibly impactful jobs for our comfort and well-being, are sometimes invisible.
I believe that the work so far has been done correctly through the podcast, our blog and webinars and many other initiatives.
A lot of the multimedia projects Infraspeak developed, from webinars to podcasts, came from you. Do you have any specific project you’d like to work in one day?
Being a journalist requires me to be a “jack of all trades” and forces me to adapt, understand and be able to communicate on different platforms. Whether it’s audio, video, photo or gif… I feel obliged to understand how the public consumes, manifests and interacts on Youtube, Blogs, Tik Tok or any other communication platform.
I try to keep myself informed and updated all the time about what major audiences have been up to lately and how I can produce content and information in the format they expect. The amount of information that circulates on the internet is enormous and our “points of distraction” are all the same. Capturing people’s attention in only one way is impossible today.
It is necessary to be present in different ways and formats so that people know who we are, what we do and how we can help them. Multimedia is no longer just a trend. It is a must for anyone who wants to do business today.
COVID-19 changed work routines around the world and while remote working was already a reality at Infraspeak, it becomes mandatory at some point. How did you adapt?
As I come from other startups that are also adhering to the remote working model, it was not big news, but I had to adapt to a much higher frequency and intensity while working remotely.
Before, I chose to work at my home office for the sake of convenience. Staying home so I could meet a previous commitment, for example. Nowadays, with the “obligation” of remote work, I mainly miss socialising with my office colleagues and of course, our coffee talks, ping pong matches, discussions with different points of views, you name it.
The lack of contact and no longer being able to meet “eye-to-eye” has been the biggest challenge for me.
Marcelo Leite is a Marketing Manager and this week’s guest of Inside Infraspeak. Thank you, Marcelo!
