Jonathan Aufray is originally from France and now lives in Taiwan. Besides France and Taiwan, he also lived in the US, the UK, Ireland, Spain and Australia.
Jonathan has a large international experience as he did business with companies from 90+ countries. He loves meeting new people and discovering new cultures.
How did you start out as a marketer?
I have worked in marketing almost since the start of my career as I was studying international business and marketing.
My first job as a marketer was back in 2005.
How did you get your first client back then, and what kind of service did you do for them?
The first marketing client I signed for Growth Hackers was found through LinkedIn.
At the time, I just updated my LinkedIn profile and it allowed me to sign this client because I was already well connected on the platform and at the time LinkedIn wasn’t as broadly used as now.
We did SEO services for them and it was a struggle to show results. Why? Because SEO is a long-term strategy and it takes months to get ranked on Google for relevant, targeted and searched keywords.
A lot of SEO experts out there say they can rank websites for any keywords in a few days or weeks.
Don’t get fooled by them. From my experience, it’s close to impossible to achieve these kinds of results.
SEO is really a long-term strategy and to show results to your clients, you want to couple SEO with other channels such as advertising or email marketing.
What do you find most rewarding about what you do?
I love to do what I do because it keeps evolving.
You need to constantly learn new things, new behaviors, new technologies, new innovations, etc.
This can be challenging but I can tell you one thing: you won’t be bored! Many of the things you’ll learn today in marketing might be obsolete in 5 years.
We have a lot of readers who are bent on becoming freelancers, aside from freelancing how else can someone earn online, and what is your advise?
Freelancing is definitely a great way to start online but you can do other things such as:
– e-Commerce
– Dropshipping
– Becoming an influencer and leverage influencer marketing
– Affiliate marketing
– Craft products and sell your art online
If you were given the chance to build your career all over again what would you do differently so that you will achieve your dreams faster?
I would not do many things differently because I like how my career was structured and the different experiences I had forged my skills and personality.
Indeed, even if I started working in marketing 15 years ago, I have had many diverse experiences such as waiter, bartender, tractor driver, cleaner, forklift driver, etc.
How is your typical work day structured?
A lot of entrepreneurs tell you to start your day early morning (5-6am) with meditation, workout or something.
I think differently. I believe having a good night sleep is essential for productivity and this is why I don’t have an alarm clock in the morning.
Depending on the days, I will wake up anywhere between 7.30am and 10am. When the day starts, I will do easy tasks such as checking social media (Twitter / LinkedIn) and answering emails that are easy to answer.
Then, it’s time for a coffee and after that I will check with my team to make sure everything is on track and I will also answer the emails that need more attention.
After that, I will make a to-do list for the day and try to do everything on the list.
Some days, work will finish at 5pm, sometimes at 11pm or even later.
But, usually, I don’t do any stressful tasks in the evening as I don’t want to be stressed before going to sleep.
It’s also important to spend time with friends and family to get your mind off work, rest and relax.
Can you tell us about a time where you had to put in significant effort up front and then wait a long time for success?
SEO. We started the Growth Hackers’ blog in September 2016 but it took almost 6 months to start showing traction.
Which one book/blog post would you recommend every Marketer should read?
Traction – How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth is definitely the book any marketer should read, no matter whether they work in a startup or not.
What advice would you share with other Marketer’s who want to become more productive?
– Make a daily to-do list every morning and a weekly to-do list every Monday.
– Don’t multitask. Try to divide your tasks along the day. For example, 1 hour for emails, 1 hour for social media, 1 hour for content creation, etc.
– Focus on what you’re good at and master it. Delegate the rest.
– Get enough sleep, drink water and coffee.