Rejecting rejection and building real resilience

Charley Brennand (00:00)
I would fundamentally disagree with you on saying that it’s harder for some than others because soft skills are available to everybody. If you choose to open your mind and open your attitude to learning,

we’re so into that generation and era of instant gratification, people just go, this is my problem, tell me the solution. Well it’s not, it’s not that simple. What is simple though is like little actions that you can take

Dave Heywood (00:37)
This is Marketing Careers Uncovered and I’m Dave Heywood Learning how to do marketing properly isn’t always straightforward. There’s theory everywhere, but when you actually want to get really good at something, getting a sense of the practicalities you need to master can feel a little bit harder than perhaps it should.

Today’s guest, Charley Brennand, knows that all too well. She started off outside the industry, ran into, safe to say, a fair bit of gatekeeping along the way, and ended up building something of her own in response to help others learn the less hard way. Charley, do you want to say a quick hello and share a little bit of what you’re doing with yourself?

Charley Brennand (01:13)
So hello everybody, I’m Charley. I am an active PPC practitioner. So for anybody that doesn’t know what PPC actually is, which maybe there’s a ton of people that’s just like, why is she screaming acronyms at me? PPC is pay-per-click and essentially we are the fun people that put the ads in front of you on the internet. So if you’ve ever picked up your phone and thought, my God, I was literally just talking about that. Why is it on my phone? Yeah.

That’s people like us doing that for fun and spending lots of big brands money to do it. So that’s my day job. I do that. work with a lot of big brands, household names that you will have heard of. And outside of that, I also run two different communities. So a community for other people that do the same job I do, free meetups in and around Manchester. And as of this year, I am now officially a conference founder.

That is also super exciting. So I can’t wait for us to dig into it.

Dave Heywood (02:09)
Lovely. So the first thing I want to get into is you didn’t exactly follow the classic marketing route. What were you doing before PPC and how did you end up getting curious about this wonderful world?

Charley Brennand (02:19)
It’s very funny you should ask that, know, because I posted something on LinkedIn this week that was incredibly triggering for me because I actually had done over a decade in sales before ever finding out that I was any good or potentially interested in marketing. I left school when I was 18 and basically just went straight into sales. So call centers, door to door.

passing out flyers ahead of nightclubs. I think I actually, at one point before finding marketing was working in a nightclub in the evening and during the day was like caring for the elderly. So a very, very weird mishmash of sales. Yes. Yes. Although, you know, a lot of the time there’s a lot of overlapping skills in sales and marketing and…

Dave Heywood (02:59)
Opposite worlds,

Charley Brennand (03:08)
That was kind of the post that I had put out and linked in this week because I’d seen somebody go in on door-to-door salespeople. They were like, what are these people doing with their lives? It’s so humiliating. How dare they knock on my door, yada yada yada. And I was like, it’s actually super interesting that you feel that way as a marketer because what we do as marketers is actually quite intrusive. know, our jobs really is to put products and services in front of people.

sometimes before they even know that they want them. So it’s super interesting people’s perception of the difference between sales and marketing. And actually for me, somebody that’s done both, I’m like, there’s so many transferable skills, but even more interesting, a lot of people that find themselves in sales jobs, which is actually a lot of the younger generation, because you come out of school, you come out of uni, and like, don’t know what to do. Sales jobs, hospitality jobs.

Those are like the industries that a lot of people end up in because they don’t actually require you to have a ton of experience to go and start doing those jobs. They just require you to have a good attitude to learning.

I feel like conscription, but within sales and hospitality should be a thing for the entire human race. Because unless you’ve had somebody screaming at you down the phone or shouting at you because they, you know, their food’s not hot enough or whatever, you’ve really not dealt with the arse end of the human race.

Dave Heywood (04:31)
No, you certainly do learn quite a lot of resilience. So how do you end up at PPC then, from there?

Charley Brennand (04:39)
Yeah, yeah, how do you end up? So doing lots of different sales jobs. And I remember being sad, I was working for a telecoms company and I was Googling, if I have this skill and that skill, what jobs can I do? Which literally, you know, I don’t think it gets more basic than that because when you’re somebody in sales, you also don’t think, you don’t think you’ve got any skills because you’ve not got a degree in, you know, a doctorate. You’re not.

done an engineering degree, you’ve not done a teaching degree. So it feels like you don’t have any skills. So I was Googling like, I’m good with people. I’m kind of good at organizing events and I’m fun and I’m quite outgoing. Like what can I do? And like one of the top things was either like play worker. So playing with other people’s kids, solid no, I can barely stand play with my own. No, that’s a joke I can. Or recruitment consultant. So I was like, fuck it. I’ll go and be a recruitment consultant.

Dave Heywood (05:24)
You

Charley Brennand (05:29)
⁓ found a job in recruitment in Manchester. was living in Lancaster at the time where I’m from. I am not, you know, a stranger to moving away for things just on a whim. So I was like, fuck it. I’ll go move to Manchester and be a recruiter. How hard can it be? I’ve done every sales job possible. So this can’t really be any different. When ended recruitment and the long story short is I ended up being a digital marketing recruiter.

So I would be interviewing marketers and that, one of the questions is like, tell me about your job. What do you do on a daily basis? And yeah, I’d listen to them and I’d just be like, I could do that with my eyes shut. Very naive and very pompous in your mid twenties where you’re just like, you know, God, all you can do is like, you’re good at Excel and you’re good with numbers. Like I’m good with Excel and I’m good with numbers. So I could probably do your job. And at the time, you know, not earning like the way that a lot of sales roles work, recruitment included is you have

pretty shitty base salary and all of your money’s made in commission. So you’re looking and chatting to people all of the time that are on, you know, astronomical salaries. And I’m sat there thinking I can do their job with my eyes shut, being crazy, crazy naive. But I feel like sometimes that naivety through my life has really been a positive more than a negative, but there we go.

Dave Heywood (06:43)
So when you go from there, is it as simple and straightforward as reading few bits and bobs, turning up to some events? How did you go about starting to take a step into this world?

Charley Brennand (06:53)
Yeah, so I was actually recruiting PPC roles, SEO manager roles, and I guess out of all of the different digital marketing people I would speak to, the PPC people were like the most interesting. So I knew that I had to learn about it.

So I actually started this interview series on LinkedIn, where I’d go and interview like senior candidates. And obviously then they’re like, woo.

egos going they’re like ⁓ I want to be interviewed because Charley thinks I’m amazing and all the while I’m literally like poking and prodding and pulling information out about how do I get into this industry

So just being quite clever in how you’re extracting that information. Cause obviously I still got bills to pay, so no one wants to get sacked. And I realized very quickly sales will do this to you is network is so valuable.

Eventually went and just networked and went to these events where people were some with more success than others and I wanted people to recognize that I’m there, I’m interested in the industry. So then when roles came up, they already knew who I was. They already knew what type of person I was. They already knew that I was an eager beaver showing up with no experience, but lapping all of the information up. Even if I didn’t understand what they were saying, I was like, I want to be part of this. I want to be part of this.

Dave Heywood (08:08)
But you weren’t always met with open arms at these events, were you? There was quite a bit of gatekeeping involved. That’s one thing when we first met, we talked quite a bit about that. Can you share a little bit of your experiences there with some of the slightly colder shoulders that you might have got?

Charley Brennand (08:15)
to

Um, back in the day when I was in recruiter, so that’s like maybe like 10 years ago or whatever. Um, there was a platform called Manchester Digital, which had a lot of digital events listed on it. It’s still going now.

I’d find events on there and I’d be like, okay, I’m going to try and go to this event. So I buy a ticket and then sometimes I get my ticket refunded and an email get back that says, we don’t allow recruiters to these events. And I guess my initial response to that was…

They don’t want me there. Like they are looking at me and thinking, you’re not one of us. Like we don’t want you here. And the general feedback was like, ⁓ well recruiters will come and they’ll sell to people and they’ll make people feel uncomfortable, which is wild because I have actually never had that happen to me. I’ve never seen that happen. So where has that even come from? But okay. So I had tickets refunded, emails back saying like, we just simply don’t allow people to attend that don’t have.

the job title, sometimes I’d turn up and they’d be like, what agency do you work for? I’d like, I don’t work for an agency, I work for, they were like, oh, is that a digital marketing agency? And I’d be like, no. They’re like, oh, what is it that you do? And I’m like, oh, I’m a digital marketing recruiter. And they’re like, yeah, I know this isn’t, like I’d literally be turned away at the door, at the door, which is crazy, cause you’re just like.

Dave Heywood (09:38)
Wow.

Charley Brennand (09:41)
what do you think I’m gonna do? Like what do you actually think I’m gonna do? So yeah, wasn’t met with open arms by any stretch of the imagination. And I think the only ones that I managed to get into were like kind of conferencing type events where they’re organized by events companies. So I think one that I went to was like a…

can’t even remember the name of it because it doesn’t exist anymore but it was like a mini event series run by I think the same company that does SMX which is like a huge huge conference that still runs for marketing.

Dave Heywood (10:11)
Yeah, so it all felt a little bit harder than it really should have for you to be able to really dip yourself in that world and go, look, this is something I really want to do. I want to learn as much as I can, can about it.

Charley Brennand (10:22)
Well, you imagine, you imagine

saying to your partner, your friend, your mum, you’re like, I want to get better at cooking. What would they say to you?

Dave Heywood (10:29)
Also get in the kitchen and start trying or go to and go to a cooking course or whatever, wouldn’t they?

Charley Brennand (10:33)
Go to a course,

take a cooking class, like take a cooking class, go to a cooking course, like maybe don’t do it in your own kitchen because you might set everything on fire if you’re not that good of a cook. But go and learn, go and be around people that do know how to do it right. So why is it any different in marketing? Like if you want to learn a skillset and you want to learn a little bit more about an industry and a job, why would it be any different?

Like, why would you not want to then go and be around people that do the job, that know how to do the job, to learn from people? So that was where my head was at, like, with it all, because I was like, how on earth am I supposed to learn, or even know if I want to do this job, if they won’t even let me through the front door to find out about it? Like, it’s crazy.

Dave Heywood (11:14)
Yeah, and it was that experience of being turned away and rejected. Ultimately, one of the prompts that led you to build the PPC Academy.

Charley Brennand (11:21)
It was, and do you know what? think had I not had over 10 years of experience in sales, like the sheer soul crushing sadness of having doors slammed in your face or phone slammed down on you or people telling you to f off because no, they don’t want a new BT phone line. You know, if I’d not had that and built up like quite a thick skin, I think that would have been enough.

for me to just completely turn away from the industry as a whole, right? But because I didn’t have an issue with being told no, it did kind of set the fire a little bit. I didn’t really at that point know, I want to set up a community, but I’ve got this like quite strong moral compass. And I think I’ve really clung onto that experience for quite a number of years after it had happened. Like I was like, that isn’t normal, surely.

I’m somebody that’s quite, you know, tenacious. So imagine somebody that doesn’t have some of the personality traits that I have being told, no, like, no, thank you. You’re not what we’re looking for. Before they even know what you’re capable of is wild. It did expand a little bit further. So that first role that I actually got into, I was sacked after three months. And I remember, honestly,

vividly, pixel by pixel, how that morning panned out because it had been my birthday the week before, so they’d bought me a birthday cake, everything was fine and dandy. And I remember the CTO walked me into the kitchen over these creaky wooden floorboards, erm, because it was in like a little office in Ramsbottom,

⁓ And we sat down and he was like, yeah, it’s not a good conversation. Basically like we’re letting you go. And I just remember being like,

Dave Heywood (12:51)
Yeah, that or foosball.

Charley Brennand (13:02)
I felt like at that moment, I felt like someone had literally just run me over like it tears streaming. I’m a crier. I’m a crier, Dave, honestly. So I started, I wear my heart on my sleeve. It’s probably what makes me good and bad at what I do. but I remember crying and I remember saying to him, like, is it, is it that you don’t have time to train me? Because bearing in mind these people had took me on.

with no experience. So they knew what I had experience in, they also knew what I didn’t have experience in. So they knew I had no PPC experience prior to this role. So the expectation was always that they were gonna train me, right? So I asked, is it that you don’t think you have time to train me or is it that you don’t think I can do the job? Which I think is a super, super important clarification, right?

I look back on it now and I’m like, can’t even believe that I had the audacity to ask that question because I didn’t think I was that person then, but I clearly was. And I remember him telling me, so this is a guy with two degrees, a master’s in maths, quite often told everyone how intelligent he was, a proper dick to be honest, just…

He just turned to me, he was like, if I thought you were ever going to be good at this job, Charley, I wouldn’t be having this conversation.

the story as it goes is I went to Lancaster, had a day crying and feeling really sad. And I thought there’s absolutely no way I’m going to have somebody like you tell me what I can and cannot do. So I rang a guy that I used to do recruitment for. So when I was in recruitment, I used to do a bit of recruitment for JD Sports. And I had a contact who was like a talent acquisition person there. I rang him and I was like, Chris.

Do remember ages ago when you told me that you would never consider anyone until they had three months experience? I was like, well, I’ve got three months experience and I want to come work for you now. He knew me because he dealt with me as a recruiter. I knew that they wouldn’t consider anyone with three months, like with less than three months experience. So I literally called him out on the information he’s already given me, right? And this is probably the thing that has been consistent throughout my entire career, no matter what job I’ve done.

You ask the right questions. You are then able, you are equipped with information to then use that as you please moving forward. ⁓ Even if it’s six, exactly. And he was like, let me go and speak to the managers. I think we are hiring. And I had an interview within 24 hours for JD Sports, which I interviewed for on the Friday. I think this happened on a Wednesday.

Dave Heywood (15:11)
Even if that’s six, twelve months down the line, it doesn’t matter is it? You bank it, don’t you, for later?

Charley Brennand (15:28)
Interview confirmed on the Thursday, interviewed on the Friday, got the job on the Friday. So really from feeling like I am the pits, I can’t do this job. Everything’s awful. Everything I ever worked for has gone to shit on the Wednesday to I am about to start a job with the world’s biggest multi-channel retailer on Monday. Like insane. Talk about highs and lows.

I think as well what’s really interesting is if you look at some of the skill set predictors for like the next two, three, four years, really, you know, on any of the big business insider Forbes, whatever, where they’re predicting like what are gonna be the most in demand skill sets. Super interestingly, it’s things like communication, critical thinking, problem solving, like all of the skills that I would personally…

classes, soft skills, not, you know, data analysis, not system building, not web development, not project management, not this, not that, that are, you know, quite closely tied to an end point job, but actually soft skills that are applicable to every part of a business, every part of a job. So that’s really interesting that big, big business organizations are saying,

this is what’s going to be in demand because it almost by default insinuates that it’s lacking, that it’s not where it needs to be now.

Dave Heywood (16:48)
How do you go about learning that? I’ve talked about this probably in 80, 90 % of episodes and we somewhat get similar answers I think…

It’s easier if you come from certain backgrounds where you’re exposed to people who may already have some of soft skills and you can practice that a little more. how do you actually go about developing those soft skills, which we really need to find a better word for them because they’re not sounding so soft anymore.

Charley Brennand (17:19)
No, they’re not sounding so soft, are they? I would, ooh, this is gonna be controversial,

I would fundamentally disagree with you on saying that it’s harder for some than others because soft skills are available to everybody. If you choose to open your mind and open your attitude to learning, if I had a really difficult discussion with you now, and we didn’t resolve it,

That’s still building my soft skills. So just because you didn’t get a really pleasant resolution doesn’t mean you’re not building your soft skills.

I’m from a council estate. The people that I grow up,

Debating with I can tell you now don’t have university degrees. So my soft skills haven’t been because I’m from a higher social socioeconomic background You know, I wasn’t I wasn’t good enough to get into critical thinking debate club in school but you know, I I’m

negotiating with people every single day all of the time because I’m spending their money so I have to justify it but yeah to your point of like is it harder for some people I would say probably personality types it’s probably harder for some people more than others if you’re more outgoing it’s probably easier to build those soft skills but if you know that you do not have really strong soft skills you know that communication is something that you really struggle with

The same as cooking, like, practice it. Practice it. You can’t sit there. ⁓

Dave Heywood (18:39)
Yeah, get out there. It’s a mindset, it’s a mindset is what you’re saying, isn’t it? Rather

than I’m a product of a particular environment, which means I’ve not been exposed to that in a particular way, actually. Put that to one side and…

Charley Brennand (18:53)
Like, yeah,

absolutely.

So I would kind of challenge anybody that listens to this podcast. If you feel like, you know, you are a little bit weaker on the soft skill side, ask somebody’s name in your coffee shop that serves you every week or speak to somebody be like, Oh, do you have a nice weekend? Or like, it’s terrifying when you don’t have those skills, it is terrifying to do that. But you’re flexing the muscle. Do you what happens when you go to the gym day in day out?

You build the muscle. That’s all you’re doing with the soft skills. You’re building the muscle. You don’t use the muscle. What happens? Muscle wastage. It goes. So if you’re not flexing that communication muscle, if you’re not flexing that, you know, soft skills muscle, whatever it might be, problem solving, critical thinking, if you’re not putting yourself in positions that allow you to do that.

situations you can absolutely be sure you’ll never get good at it.

Dave Heywood (19:47)
Listening to you today, it’s really clear that you do not lack any confidence or your ability to speak up and your opinion.

How have you built that confidence in your ability to call out shit when you see it?

Charley Brennand (20:05)
Do you know what? I think there’s a, there’s maybe three things there, right? Like, I definitely don’t believe in fake it till you make it. I definitely don’t believe in that. because, because people can spot fake confidence a mile away and really what fake confidence is, is fake confidence is the inability to ask for help. Inability to ask for help. So if you’re, if you’re not confident about something and you’re pretending you are,

Dave Heywood (20:16)
One up.

Charley Brennand (20:29)
Okay, well why are you not confident? And why do you feel like you need to pretend to be confident about something that you’re really not confident about? Because if you’re not confident, there’s a good chance that maybe you’ve made a mistake or you don’t understand the reason behind something. So surely a better marketer or better person in any job will go, okay, cool. Like I don’t fully understand this. I’m going to own the fact that I don’t understand it and I’m going to try and understand it. I’m going to raise it. I’m going to say, look,

I actually don’t understand fully yet, but I’m gonna look into it, I’m gonna delve into it. So I definitely don’t believe in fake it till you make it. I believe that a term has been banded around by a couple of marketers that I’m connected with is show up until you glow up. Right? Show up till you glow up. Why do they have to rhyme? And do you know what I love about that is showing up is fucking hard. It’s hard.

Dave Heywood (21:11)
Why do we always have to rhyme?

Charley Brennand (21:19)
Because you show up on your good days, but you show up on your shit days as well. You show up on your worst days. But that’s what makes you better. That’s what makes you better. Being a marketer on a good day is actually pretty easy. But being a marketer on a shit day is really hard. Really, really hard. So for you to then show up the next day and still do the job with the same level of ⁓ attention, the same level of tenacity.

that says a lot about you, that says a lot about you. know, confidence isn’t something that comes naturally. Confidence is something that you build after consistently showing yourself that the world doesn’t end. The world does not end. Every time you fuck up, the world does not end. So when you’re, you know,

you’ve heard the term feel the fear do it anyway it’s another it’s a book right there’s a there’s a book i think it’s called feel the fear and do it anyway but it’s quite a common saying right it’s you do not get confident from standing still you get confident from going okay i’m gonna do this this is probably gonna happen but i’m gonna do it and i’ll face the consequences you do it realize the consequences are probably not as bad as you have made out them to be anyway you go okay cool ⁓ my god the whole world didn’t end

Dave Heywood (22:06)
Thanks.

Charley Brennand (22:29)
Okay. Maybe next time that that situation happens, I can handle it a little bit better. So confidence doesn’t come because you either are confident or you’re not. Like, obviously people are a little bit more outgoing than others. And that’s like a personality trait, but I still have moments where I feel not confident. October didn’t feel confident. felt very, very shit. I considered closing down the Performance Academy. I didn’t really know, you know, if Performance Manchester in 2026 was going to be something that…

everybody wanted it to be. I didn’t even know if I was going to get hired, I was in between contracts. So I’m sat there questioning, can I even do my job anymore? Do people just now think I’m shit? The next day, guess what? Land a contract. And all of a sudden the confidence comes back and it comes back to that resilience. It comes back to showing up even on the hard days and understanding that most of the things that you’re doing, especially if we’re talking about marketing careers here.

almost everything that you experience in your working world will contribute to character building, good and bad. And most of the time, the things that are most influential to you as a marketer is the bad. The times that you showed up when it’s been a bit shit and you’ve you’ve done it anyway. So yeah, I don’t think confidence is a state. I think confidence is an action.

Dave Heywood (23:44)
Brilliant, well thank you so much and thanks to you as well for listening. If you enjoyed today’s conversation don’t forget to subscribe for future episodes, leave a review or share with your friends and colleagues. See you next time.