Can We Do It

Beginning the year with discussions about my Hopes, Fears and Opportunities really hit home to me about how important having relationships within the industry is. The panic began to set in quite early about contacting agencies and already I was worrying about their reaction before I had even attempted to contact them. 

The HFO form helped me to realise that this was my biggest downfall, whereas I knew I had to advance in my technical skills and gain more experience of varied briefs, this was something which I knew I could learn whereas the personal development side of the course was something which was more about my personality and not technical ability.

Strangely I am quite a confident person in general, I am OK at meeting new people and will scour the earth to find a job, so I couldn't really understand why I froze when it came to contacting agencies.

Then it hit me, it was because I was so afraid of sounding stupid, as ridiculous as it may sound when you are on the other end of a computer, this was my biggest fear and I knew that if I didn't conquer this fear now I had no chance of getting into the industry when I graduated, I had spent two years believing that as I advanced with my practical abilities, the confidence would just come, but this wasn't the case.

I began contacting agency's with the same trepidation as last year, perhaps taking a slightly different angle by commenting on their work, which I did genuinely believe but then I had the same old panic when it came to asking for a portfolio visit, I just couldn't do it, and if I did and didn't receive a reply, this would set me back ten paces.

When the rest of the class were planning their trip to Berlin and appeared to be having more luck with agencies there than we was in Manchester, myself and Stacey Weldon who wasn't going to Berlin decided to have a think about how we was going to get over this hurdle of contacting agencies. Stacey mentioned just knocking on their door and initially I froze, the idea of visiting them in person filled us with fear, but we knew we had to do something to move ourselves forward and gain some confidence as well as contacts.

We discussed it for days, each of us secretly hoping that we wouldn't have to do it but both wanting to do it as well, we knew we had to! Gearing ourselves up all week by emailing each other ideas and agencies we could visit, we were excited and nervous as we met in Manchester bright and early on the Thursday morning. It was cold and raining, a typical Manchester day and as we had both had a restless night, a few coffees later we headed down from the station into the city centre, not knowing what to expect.

We had planned our route meticulously and both headed for the agency which we both wanted to visit, Creative Spark, we hung about trying to get the nerve to buzz the buzzer, planning what to say for what must of been fifteen minutes, then we just took a deep breath and pressed it.