Name: Angela Bond
Title: Independent Print Producer
LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/angelabond
Did you choose print or did print choose you?
Print chose me. I was born into it. My Dad was an illustrator and designer and owned an agency. I grew up working there, but never saw a path for myself there since I was not a designer or writer and account service was not the gig to drop out of grad school for…but it turns out production manager was exactly that gig, and I never looked back.
How do you establish credibility with customers, colleagues and bosses?
Listening, knowledge and working the problem; solutions establish credibility. I really have not had many struggles with this other than the occasional “humor the crazy lady” press operator who thinks I don’t need to be there, but since I did come I should have just signed the first sheet because it was fine. But some of them even seem to be fine with the final OK sheet.
What advice can you offer regarding negotiating salary raises/addressing fair pay issues?
My view on this is filtered through my background in agency operations creating estimates and conducting job cost audits; I see highly billable roles and less billable roles, so that is the way I address it. While there are certainly fairness issues, production managers may be seen as a cost more than a fully billable service and less integral to what the agency is selling than creative, or to what a company is selling. We are where execution beyond the screen happens and are integral to the success of programs, projects, clients and creatives, and when we are truly allowed to do our job, we generate savings and minimize risk as only expertise can. Leveraging tools and keeping track of spending and savings are also effective in your job and in discussions.
What advice did you receive early in your career that you wished you had followed?
I was lucky to be in a family business to learn this trade because they could not afford to let me fail so I had many great folks to learn from. My Dad told me that experience was the best teacher. I did not fully understand it at the time and did think I was listening. I had thought having a Plan B was the answer, but this job is a hard teacher and it took years for me to begin to fully understand how true that was, how much he meant that near disasters and surprises are the best teachers, and to develop some foresight – and Plans C & D!
