Emily Trenouth is a Client Partner at TRIBE, a self-serve marketplace connecting social media influencers with leading brands, where she currently leads partnerships with brands & agencies.

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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?

My career actually started out in Financial Services, working in investment sales for a big insurance company. I was young and lacking experience and qualifications, but I was super hungry. So they gave me the opportunity to learn and develop the core business and client service skills that I still carry with me today.

A couple of years in, I was introduced to the Women of the Future Network and shortlisted to the final 5 candidates for the Women of the Future Awards in the ‘Rising Star’ category. This inspired me to launch a blog, where I could share all of the insights I was learning from the incredible women I was fortunate enough to spend time with.

My blog quickly became my passion and I fell in love with building and developing my website, writing blog posts and building my social media profile through content. I quickly discovered that bloggers & influencers were making full-time careers by collaborating for UGC and WOM recommendations at scale.

In 2016 I stumbled across a platform that connected influencers to brands to generate WOM recommendations and branded content at scale, and they were looking to scale their team with a salesperson that had a keen interest in the space. I quickly took the jump and turned my passion into my career – entering the Influencer Marketing industry in it’s very early stages.

A year later, with the launch of TRIBE UK, I joined TRIBE to initiate partnerships with brands & agencies and have since worked with hundreds of brands including Diageo, PepsiCo, Jaguar Land Rover & LEGO.

I’ve since taken my experience to spearhead TRIBE’s US launch, where I’m now leading partnerships with the likes of Unilever, P&G, Bacardi, WPP, IPG and many more.

2) What does a typical day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

I love that my role has so much variability that no two days are the same. About 70% of my time is spent client-facing, which is what I love and get a real buzz from.

When I’m client-facing I’m either in clients offices meeting with their teams, catching up over coffee, or speaking at advertising and tech events. I’m a real people person and love the ability to meet and connect with so many different types of people every single day.

Here’s what yesterday looked like for me;

• 7:00 am: 30min gym session (I follow workouts from Nike Training Club to maximise my time)
• 9:00am: coffee catchup with a potential client that I met at an event last week
• 11:00am: quick visit to General Assembly’s NYC HQ to checkout event space for an event we’re co-hosting together on ‘How to measure ROI in Influencer Marketing’
• 3pm: meeting with an agency we’re working with to discuss a brief for one of their clients and potential strategies for how we can support their needs
• 4pm: dialled into a huddle with our US team, to share our weekly initiatives, key wins, challenges and what we’re looking forward to in the next week
• 5pm: brainstorm with my colleagues on some new initiatives we’re planning for US events in Q4
• 6pm: head home to do some admin and follow-up from my meetings that day

3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?

Absolutely, in the day I’ve just listed, I worked from cafes and clients offices all day and I find that working remotely enables me to focus and get into a groove for ‘deep work’.

We’re pretty flexible as a business, and having offices in London, NYC, Melbourne & Sydney, we’re able to work from any other office if we’re visiting. We’re also WeWork members, which is great – especially if I’m travelling around Europe or the US and need to be online.

I currently don’t have children, so it’s more a lifestyle benefit than a necessity for me, however I find it difficult to stay in an office at a desk all day as I get distracted around a team quite easily, so having the autonomy to work from anywhere, but the ability to still come into the office and work amongst the buzz of the team is a great balance.

4) Do you have any tips, tricks or shortcuts to help you manage your workload and schedule?

It’s definitely taken a while for me to figure out what works best for me to keep on-top of things. I have a super busy work and social life, and I try to travel frequently so it’s important I stay organised.

A few things that work for me:

I diarize everything in one place – for me, Google Calendar is my go-to and I love the fact it automatically sends me notifications so I’m always reminded of where I need to be.

I recently discovered the concept of ‘Deep Work’ and blocking out time in your diary to focus on the really important things and get them done. For this, I like to switch off all notifications, plug into a good Spotify playlist (Deep House Relax is my fave for getting into a really good headspace), and usually take myself away from the office to avoid all distractions.

Google Keep is a great way to curate to-do lists for different projects, and you can pin your high priority lists so they don’t go unmissed. You can also invite others into these lists for consistency in collaboration and ongoing agendas.

I note everything digitally (both personal and work-related notes) in my apple notes app. This makes it easy for me to reference back and quickly search for previous notes (it’s also much better for the environment!).

However, I’m learning that in order to optimise your productivity you really need to invest the time and effort to learn about and try new methods and see which work best for you personally – this is so unique to each individual and will be ever changing so it really is an ongoing investment to yourself.

5) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?

For me, work-life balance to me is about having the combination of being highly productive, having positive energy around me and space for myself and my loved ones consistently – not burning out and then taking time out to recover (which I used to be massively guilty of).

Some things that have helped me:

Taking care of my physical and mental health – I work out 3-4 times a week and try to eat a relatively clean diet most days of the week. Meditation, especially sleep meditation, has completely changed my life over the last year and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.

I use the meditation app Calm, which has great ‘Sleep Stories’ for adults and different sleep meditations that send me into a great quality sleep every time. I also use a sleep app to monitor the quality of my sleep each night.

Allocating regular ’me time’ – ideally without technology. Whether that’s going for a run or walk, going to the movies by myself, having a massage or facial, or even just having a lazy morning with a coffee and a book in bed. Being around people so often, it’s important I take time to myself to unwind regularly – I try and do this every 2 weeks.

Being self aware and recognising what works for me and what doesn’t, and having the courage to say no to what doesn’t serve me. For example, I’ve massively cut back on my alcohol consumption over the past couple of years as my body just can’t function well after a boozy night anymore. I’d love to go fully sober one day, but I’m working up towards that.

I use the Downtime feature on my iPhone, meaning from 10pm to 7am I’m only able to use specific apps and the rest are all snoozed. I’ve purposely set this so all notifications are snoozed during these times, getting myself mentally prepared to switch off and relax before bed.

6) What do you think are some of the best habits you’ve developed over the years to help you strive for success and balance?

Ever since my early career I’ve always put myself out there and never been afraid to connect with people and ask for help or advice and that’s something I’ve carried with me throughout. Networking can have a negative connotation where people think it’s about events with name badges and awkward conversations, but you’ll be surprised that you can network absolutely anywhere.

Over the years I’ve developed a really strong network through so many different mediums – online through LinkedIn, Bumble Bizz (and even dating apps when I was single!), in the coffee shop, at my gym. I’m always chatting to people and find myself building my network in a really organic way.

Some early advice I received was to build your network before you need it and that’s so true – you never know when you might need to call on someone and people are always more willing to help people they know.

7) Are there any books that have helped you improve over the years?

I don’t read so much anymore, but some of my favourites:

• Little Black Book by Otegha Uwagba – such a great, easy read that will give you so many insights about how to navigate your way through the business world
• Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg – this book taught me about resilience in work and life, and how to adapt to the ‘unforeseen’ circumstances that life will occasionally throw at us.
• The Circadian Code by Dr Satchin Panda taught me a lot about how your sleep, diet and movement affects your day-to-day performance and overall health – would really recommend if you’re looking to improve in any of those areas.

8) What is the number one thing you do to make sure you get the most out of your day?

I have a really solid nighttime routine that sets me up for the next morning, and if I don’t do it I’m completely off-whack. This consists of checking my diary & packing my things for the next day, switching off all notifications, a thorough skincare routine, setting my alarms and putting on a sleep meditation to gently drift off into a deep sleep.

9) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?

Experiment as much as you can, be open-minded to trying out new methods, and always prioritize your mental health over anything.

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