Linda Thomas Email & Phone Number

Sydney And Newcastle

With my experience in public relations and a desire to further develop my business skills in an industry i had a keen interest in, I gained qualification as a personal trainer.>>Key achievement<< I reached 40 paid client sessions per week (i.e. a full roster) at George St and Kotara within my first three months of work. As a self-employed professional, I generated recurring revenue, managed costs (i.e. Fitness First rent, professional development) and developed dependable businesses by generating and converting all of my own leads.>>This is how I did it<<- Effective marketing initiatives: my most effective way to sign new clients was through face to face contact on the gym floor where I was able to translate previously unknown cold leads to warm leads or signed clients with effective communication and emotional intelligence. In addition, I designed and implemented health and fitness seminars to businesses which led to small group training subsidised by those businesses (Sydney). I also designed, marketed and implemented education seminars for lead generation and business promotion (Sydney and Newcastle). - Sound business operations: as a self-employed service provider working irregular hours and no professional support, I developed excellent time management and personal financial management skills. I balanced the time I needed to spend in the gym in order to earn revenue with business operations such as bookkeeping, lead generation and conversion, servicing current clients and business planning.- Leadership and representative roles: received the Australian Institute of Personal Training Fitness First scholarship in my graduating class. As part of lead generation, I was selected to represent Fitness First to corporate audiences through several external initiatives including fitness assessments at some of Sydney’s largest corporates and as a lead trainer for registrants in the 2011 Blackmores Sydney Running Festival.

Sydney, Australia

I applied to work at this agency because I was attracted to its high calibre of clients, opportunity to learn from senior management and its exceptional culture.>>Key achievements and responsibilities<<- Communication skills: planned, budgeted, wrote and executed an internal newsletter for one of the world’s largest technology companies. I also wrote a range of published materials including a monthly customer newsletter, advertising copy, customer case studies and web copy.- Innovative thinking: developed strong relationships with media and created story ideas to place positive editorial stories in strategic publications that addressed clients’ communication plans and wider business objectives. For example, I led the proactive idea generation for one client to achieve 15 interviews and 26 pieces of media coverage in target publications over a 12 month period, despite very little hard news. Another creative idea was to engage with social media to source positive customer case studies for another major client, which resulted in a substantial Daily Telegraph news story.- Project management: designed, implemented and managed projects with defined budget and objectives to completion including several significant client business strategy and product launches. In one such launch, I managed an event featuring a Federal Government minister, several special interest groups, corporate partners and members of the public.- Leadership and people management: managed staff members directly with biannual reviews, professional objectives and day-to-day advice as needed. I also led project and retainer-based client teams to achieve objectives. - Client satisfaction: achieved monthly/quarterly KPIs based on results and outputs (such as media coverage, media and analyst interviews and customer case studies).- Account management: managed accounts and formed excellent relationships with clients, providing strategic direction, creative concepts and budget management.

Sydney, Australia

Responsibilities and achievements:- Development of marketing collateral materials: Implemented customer advocacy programs for clients covering internal stakeholder management, developing relationships with key members of the sales teams and media. writing customer case studies, securing media coverage and assisting in the development of customer presentations for client events.- Leadership and people development: Developed the concepts for and implemented several internal initiatives including a communication program for staff to achieve more efficient collaboration; identifying and building a strategy for co-workers to develop relationships with media and working with a team to organise and manage the company’s annual client and media event. - Project management:Designed the creative ideas for the launch of two products, secured additional budget, acted as the main client contact throughout the duration of the projects including reporting and achieved several pieces of significant media coverage.- Day to day, acted as the main client contact for 10+ accounts covering admin, reporting and KPIs.