You're working with a team to get promoted in copywriting. What's the first step?

Be proactive when it comes to talking up about wanting a promotion first of all, but when you do you need to bring a clear and objective view on how you stack up in your skills, any improvements you've identified to work on and can discuss with your line manager, as well as knowing where your skillset plays it's role in the wider team. You're also within your rights to seek manager and peer feedback, as this can be really insightful from the people who work closest with you. If your goal is to be promoted and do more/do better in the business, then this can help establish your first steps to making it happen.

Conduct a thorough self-assessment: Identifying strengths and weaknesses: Analyze your individual writing skills, industry knowledge, content strategy expertise, and any other relevant strengths and weaknesses related to copywriting. Examining career goals: Clearly define your personal career aspirations within the copywriting field. What specific area of expertise do you want to develop? Do you want to lead a team, specialize in a specific type of copy, or pursue other opportunities? Reviewing past performance: Reflect on your past projects and performance reviews. This helps identify areas where you excelled and areas needing improvement.

Start by being the go-to collaborator. Show your teammates you're a wordsmith team player, always ready to pitch in. Share ideas, but don't forget to listen and learn from others. Be the glue that sticks ideas together. Meet deadlines like a superhero, because when the team shines, you shine. That can be your ticket to the copywriting promotion spotlight.

SMART goals are a great way to contextualise and bring to life your objectives - and sometimes help refine whether it is the right goal for you to have in the first place. It might lead you to question your decision for a promotion or wanting to pursue a particular skillset. The main thing as an individual in this process is to make consistent progress on the goals and ensure that you're being given adequate time and bandwidth to achieve them. These goals are as much yours as they are for your manager/the business to help you succeed in.

Sometimes when you're seeking advice on getting a promotion, you immediately want to go to someone more senior than you (which undoubtedly can be effective), but you need to consider who is going to be most helpful mentor to you and someone you will be able to ask the unfiltered questions to. This might actually be a peer at the same level as you, or someone who has the particular skill you want to learn. Find this person and agree on the parameters of your mentor-mentee setup, so you don't take up too much of their time but you establish what it is you want to get from this.