Managing Director at Look Fabulous Forever and experienced Marketing Leader, Janis Thomas, shares the importance of investing in your soft skills fo...
Managing Director at Look Fabulous Forever and experienced Marketing Leader, Janis Thomas, shares the importance of investing in your soft skills for career progression. This interview took place at our Women in Marketing event on January 16th, 2025.
For a long time, I really concentrated on hard skills. I think working in ecommerce and marketing, there are always new things that you want to learn. One day, my boss said to me, "you need to work on your communication skills." And I was absolutely outraged by this, because I’m an experienced public speaker, I trained as a copywriter, so I can write clearly and persuasively and so I couldn't see what the problem was. Fortunately, I respected her, I listened to her and I started to work on it.
I appreciated what I was great at was 'broadcast' and what I needed to get better at was being able to have a conversation and understand what the impact I was having on the other person. It's not what you say, it's how it's received by that person. So, that led me on a journey to spend more and more time on soft skills, learn about communication, develop my emotional intelligence, how to build relationships and all of those things. That has really paid huge dividence in my career to the extent I now spend an hour a day on my personal development because it really gives me so much value.
Currently the Managing Director at Look Fabulous Forever, Janis Thomas has had an impressive career across a range of high-growth, global brands. Her digital marketing experience is extensive, ranging from performance marketing, acquisition, retention, ecommerce, brand and events marketing.
