Nina Hoedlmayr
Name: Silke English
Twitter: @paistetta
Current City of Operation: Villach, Austria
Hobbies: traveling, music, and spending time with my loved ones
What is your passion at Yodel?
I am the Marketing & Sales Manager at Yodel. My passion is to let people know what Yodel is and how it can help their business. This includes creating valuable content and raising awareness. Being active on social media and different communities, like social media marketing, SaaS, growth hacking, … I can exchange with and learn from others in the same field. I am also talking to potential customers. It is important to me that Yodel stays positively in people’s minds and that we are not only someone who sells a product, but also actually care that their business thrives.
Let’s talk about Yodel. What do you love about the Yodel bot?
I like that you don’t have to have a physical phone on your desktop since I need a lot of space for my creative processes and never have enough space on the desk. I also really like the feature that allows me to see who on my team is on a call, so I know not to contact them and vice versa. Another cool feature that I use a lot is the ‘canned responses’ feature, which enables you to let Yodel read to your caller a pre-written message. My favorite one is: I know why you are calling me, I will call you back.
What do you like best about being part of the Yodel family?
The best part about the Yodel family is that it actually feels like a family, even though I just joined the team a few months ago. I only met Mike (CEO of Yodel) because he had a spare ticket to an expo and ended up giving it to me. However, it really seems like I know all of them since forever. Everyone looks out for each other. We all learn a lot from each other! I also get a lot of space for creativity, which is great to me. When you are enthusiastic about something you can be sure that you will be supported by each and every one.
Back to you Silke. What is your background? What have you done before you joined the Yodel Team?
Well. My story is a pretty unusual one since I haven’t worked in tech or for a startup before I joined the Yodel family. In school, I had to do a mandatory internship and I happened to land it at an international company. They put me through all their departments and that’s where I found my passion for marketing. Frankly, I was really good at what I was doing, so they gave me my own little projects and asked me to come back for a couple of summers. I loved it. After graduating, I took a gap year and traveled to the US. Then I decided to get my bachelor’s degree in Media and Communications at the Alpe-Adria University Klagenfurt. While in school, I worked as a shop assistant for a few mobile phone carriers. This taught me a lot about sales and how to talk to customers. I also had a bunch of other internships and jobs in between from doing promotions to being an executive secretary. Another job that prepared me for this one, was working for an international corporation in the outdoor industry, where I built up their online marketing and started writing their biannual catalog and other publications. That’s where I learned that I was good at content writing.
How did you figure out that, this is the kind of profession you want to work in?
This all somehow happened to find me. I always enjoyed writing stories and touching people through words or compiling information for others to understand more easily. It’s just a great fit for me! I realized this as early as when I was 15 years old and since then this was my dream job. I always work hard but I also was lucky to be in the right places at the right time. For example, I joined the Yodel Team because of a Facebook post me asking my friends to read through my Linkedin resume. Mike saw that post and offered me the job. It’s funny how life plays out sometimes and just puts you in the path you’re meant to be.
If someone who reads this wants to work in the field of marketing and/or sales, what advice would you give that person?
Do as many internships and jobs as you can while being in school. This will help you tremendously in figuring out what you are good at and where your place is in the workforce. What I think my biggest advantage is that I’ve worked in both, Marketing and Sales Departments. This really showed me how people actually sell a product is sometimes completely different from how marketing people expect it to be. What I mean by this is that from a marketing perspective things look differently than from a sales perspective. Due to my background, I can see both perspectives and merge the two into a consistent and working approach.
Can you recommend any websites or tools, that you wouldn’t want to miss?
Well, I am on a lot of social media platforms throughout the day and also need to provide content. So I would say Buffer is a nice tool for me. It helps me manage the social media content I produce during the week. I also love my Slack channels.
Last but not least: What is the most random fact about you?
Dancing to Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop til you get Enough’ with a penguin hat on in the pouring rain at the San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers game at the AT&T Stadium in San Francisco. Here is the proof:
Got another minute? Read up on our other blog posts: The People Behind Yodel
Meet Mario, Co-Founder, and CTO at Yodel
Name: Mario Uher
Twitter: @ream88
Current City of Operation: Linz, Austria
Hobbies: longboarding and being a foodie
Meet Andre, Developer at Yodel
Name: Andre Savic
Twitter: @mcandy007
Current City of Operation:Trausdorf an der Wulka, Austria
Hobbies: Event DJ, Filmmaking
Meet Nina, CCO at Yodel
Name: Nina Hödlmayr
Twitter: @ninayodel
Current City of Operation: San Francisco, CA, USA
Hobbies: exercising, playing the piano, traveling
Meet David, Co-Founder and COO/CFO of Yodel
Name: David Heininger
Twitter: @davidteeh
Current City of Operation: Vienna, Austria
Hobbies: hiking, cooking, theme parties
Meet Mike, Co-Founder & CEO at Yodel
Name: Mike Heininger
Twitter: @mikeseeh
Current City of Operation: Schoenau an der Triesting, Austria
Hobbies: photography, hiking with my family
Meet Sebastian, Head of Development at Yodel
Name: Sebastian Plagemann
Twitter: @sabbbel
Current City of Operation: Vienna, Austria
Hobbies: running, watching TV shows, mountain biking
