Erik Henry is the Senior Account Manager at Google, where he is responsible for the management, education and relationship building at scale across SMB’s throughout Australia, New Zealand, United States and Canada.
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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your background and career?
I grew up in Colorado, the youngest of three boys. I became obsessed with flying at an early age and throughout high school and university I studied aviation to achieve three licences, including my commercial pilots licence.
I funded school and flying through various jobs, including a tree removal business a friend of mine and I started and operated for ~3 years. During university, I also played division one football and managed to study International Economics in the Czech Republic on exchange.
Upon graduating, I came straight to Google and have since worked to support businesses ranging from garage start-ups to large enterprises to build and improve their marketing strategies. Three years ago I made the move to Australia for a change of pace and haven’t looked back since.
2) What is your current role and what does it entail on a day to day basis?
I am a Senior Account Manager working with our largest travel clients across Australia & New Zealand.
What does this really mean? Simply put, I help our clients improve their marketing returns and support in positioning them for long-term growth.
3) What does a typical day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?
On a typical day, roughly half my time is spent meeting with clients and the other half building solutions for the challenges that come from those meetings.
At the end of the day, if my clients are able to improve their business and drive progress towards achieving their goals, I’ve had a good day.
4) Do you have any tips, tricks or shortcuts to help you prioritise your workload?
Own your schedule, be accountable, and make sure everything you do has a purpose. To enable this, I find it’s imperative to plan and prioritise on both a weekly and daily basis as well as get your direct teammates and manager to agree with these priorities.
Sit down at the end of each day to reflect on what you achieved; what went well? How could you improve tomorrow? And lastly, what is important for tomorrow and why? From here, build a plan and keep yourself accountable to it.
5) In between your job, life and all your other responsibilities, how do you ensure you find some sort of balance in your life?
Each year I sit down to reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and then I make a plan and write down my goals for the year ahead. After this, I share this with friends, family, and colleagues. This process along with the sharing does three things:
- It helps me understand where I need to make changes to improve
- It allows the people around me to understand where I get my energy and where I don’t, and
- It keeps me accountable to drive progress towards what I care about most.
6) What are some of the things you do to take time out and recharge?
Everyone has at least one thing that really gets them energized and for me this is flying. My long-term goal is to start an adventure flight company and I recognise to do so I need to continue to build experience and skills in aviation, outside of my current career.
For me, taking this time to myself before work ~once per week to take friends on a flight over Sydney allows me the ability to develop myself outside of Google.
7) What do you think are some of the best habits you’ve developed over the years to help you strive for success and balance?
A few things I do to help stay ahead of the chaos are to get up early in order to own my day, keep myself accountable for what I planned, and exercise.
8) Are there any books you’ve read that have helped you with work-life balance?
- 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
9) What is the number one thing you do to make sure you get the most out of your day?
Get up early and ahead of my day.
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