‘Find a different way, it’s how we grow’

By

Sabinder Sandhu Avamore Capital

At Will Robots Take My Job dot com those with a fetish for (even more) dystopian futures can find out how dispensable they soon may become. Luckily for Avamore Capital’s Sabinder Sandhu, marketing managers face only a 1.4% risk of losing their job to a Transformer.

When the bridging lender’s head of marketing names the parts of her job she thrives in, it looks like the secret to staving off automation is a desire to create things differently.

“I enjoy most the freedom to implement my own ideas and strategies,” she says, “I’m lucky I have a lot of autonomy in my role which has meant I can grow the marketing output”.

Sandhu joined Avamore in April 2018 having previously worked for the business via a marketing agency. Of all her clients as an external marketer, Avamore caught her attention for being uninterested in robotic answers.

“I worked closely with Avamore for around 8 months, by far my favourite client at the time,” she says, “I liked that the Principals gave me the freedom to try new things and do what I thought worked best.”

A year after she had moved on from BEE Marketing, Avamore headhunted Sandhu for the in-house role she wanted, despite, as she admits, development and bridging finance being fairly unfamiliar to her at the time.

Potential, not the present, interested Sandhu: “I could tell it was an industry where there was a lot of opportunity to make an impact,” she says. Her success speaks for itself  – Sandhu’s work at Avamore has already seen her named in the Bridging & Commercial Top 35 Under 35 in February 2020.

Our ability to adapt keeps us future-proofed and AI at bay. “Adaptability may be your most essential skill in the Covid-19 world”, as the Washington Post reported in May. Pivoting from lifelong planner to project firefighter, Sandhu has put theory into practice.

“Like everyone we had a strategy in place but after the outbreak of Covid it was really like going back to square one,” she says.

“I’ve always been a planner so having to take a more reactive approach over a long period of time was a new experience,  while being sensitive that people could be going through really hard times, personally and professionally.”

‘Present with empathy and transparency’ is the number one lesson brand marketers should apply throughout the coronavirus crisis, according to the Harvard Business Review. It is an approach Sandhu is already taking.

She says: “It’s really about being as authentic as possible. More than ever trust and teamwork are important, that we really are all in it together and reflecting that in our approach.”

Sandhu’s role crosses into sales and operations so this message has the opportunity to be made part of Avamore’s DNA, rather than just ‘something marketing does’.

Apt then that break out of your box – and don’t be afraid to fail while doing it – is the advice she gives to anyone looking to join the bridging world.

“Be dynamic – at times I was unsure about putting forward an idea because we’ve not done it before or it felt outside the normal parameters of B2B marketing (and a relatively conservative industry),” she says.

“We’ve tried new approaches and they haven’t worked or had to be scaled back.

“But finding a different way to deliver a message is how we can grow, and learn from one another.” 

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