We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christin Baumgarten a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Christin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s go back in time to when you were an intern or apprentice – what’s an interesting story you can share from that stage of your career?

Before my current role at Mailbird, I did an internship for a very well-known mentor. I was joining his team at one of his entrepreneur’s resorts in Bali.

Quick background info on me. I am originally from Germany. I studied in Ireland and after working for almost 5 years in an advertising agency in Berlin, I felt the strong need to work and live elsewhere again.

I was accepted for a traineeship position in a Branding Agency in New York City. I was very excited because I had been to the city before and loved it. I quit my job, left my apartment, and was ready to start the adventure. However, destiny had different plans and I did not get the visa. We tried twice and my visa was denied without further explanation. I was devastated and in shock. A short time later I decided I wanted to travel and to do an internship in another place as I was not ready to return to my life in Berlin. This place happened to be Bali and that is how I started my internship.

The internship wasn’t a good experience, mainly because of the management style practiced. However, it taught me everything I did not want to be as a manager or leader. From a personal and professional perspective, I felt a lack of empathy, guidance, mentorship, and respect for other team members.
It helped me understand what kind of professional environment I need to be able to thrive. It helped me understand that feedback needs to be present and given to grow and to feel appreciated. Last but not least, it showed me how destructive the lack of proper planning and a holistic overview of the projects can be. I was there only for a few weeks and decided to look for another opportunity. This led me to Mailbird, where I am still working today and have been for the past 10 years.

Christin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a certified Online Business Manager (OBM) and the Operations Manager at Mailbird.
Mailbird is a no-clutter email management tool designed to make users more productive in their email inboxes. It lets you enable or disable features and add-ons depending on whether or not you need them. This keeps the interface distraction-free and makes it easier to focus on what really matters – your emails.

As an Operations Manager, I work behind the scenes to ensure that our team has everything they need to be productive and efficient at their work and in achieving their goals. I am dedicated to creating productive and collaborative work environments, aligning our team with company goals, and managing a wide range of projects from email campaigns to product launches.

Mailbird is a remote-first company. This means we have worked remotely for 12+ years before it became commonplace. I am passionate about flexible work arrangements, sourcing essential tools, and researching options to improve the infrastructure needed for optimal remote productivity.

Setting up the right systems and processes for your team to work productively while working remotely, can be overwhelming. In the future, I hope my Online Business Manager certification will allow me to support other companies to set up or improve their remote or hybrid work model.

Any advice for managing a team?

There are a few things I would advise, especially if you work remotely:
1. People – Set up a hiring process that enables you to find people who are perfect for the role as well as a great cultural fit. Not everyone is suitable for a remote work set, and that is OK.

2. Make sure you make time and effort for work-unrelated meetings. As a remote team, you do not have the water-cooler talks. Or the spontaneous lunch breaks for example. It is entirely up to you to create the space and time for your team to bond and get to know each other. This builds overall team morale and can help prevent team members from feeling isolated. This happens often, especially on a team working in multiple time zones.

3. Strengthen your team culture. Nurture your company culture by focusing on important areas in your business such as feedback, performance reviews, and goal setting. These areas impact strongly on team morale, productivity, and overall satisfaction.

4. Provide and regularly ‘re-evaluate’ the tools and infrastructure to ensure effective and transparent communication. This is more challenging than it may sound. With the variety of tools available nowadays, try to avoid using too many as this will have the opposite effect on your communication, team efficiency as well as overall team morale.

5. Goals, goals, and goals. Make sure to have clear goals that are transparent and understood by everyone. Goals are not just about outcomes. They are also about building trust and motivation. When your team understands the direction and purpose of their work, they’re more likely to be engaged and committed. By setting clear goals, you provide your team with a tangible way to measure their progress. This transparency helps build your trust in them and their confidence, even when working remotely.

6. Last but not least, lead by example. Be present, be responsive, and be a role model.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

For Mailbird it has been SEO as well as offering a free, feature-lighter version, of our product.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://getmailbird.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailbirdemail/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinbaumgarten/

Image Credits

There are my family members and also my team members.