Meet the team
In this series we introduce our team to you one by one. What is their role within QS solutions? Who are they as a person? Why are they a match with the organization? And what do they actually do in their spare time? This will give you, as a customer, business partner or new colleague, an idea of the people behind our logo!
In today’s spotlight:
Enes Kartal – marketing manager, creator, and proud dad
Trying hard to find an Online Marketer
Enes’ job title is ‘Marketing Manager’, but unfortunately the missing factor at the moment is a team. A team he is desperately looking for, because there are so many fun things to do in the field of marketing! New initiatives in an international work area, especially when it comes to online marketing. Initiatives he simply hasn’t got around to yet because he’s still on his own, but he does what he can!
“Work-life balance”
Fortunately, he can – and is allowed to – fill in the hours that are part of his full-time job at his own discretion. That means working from home when it suits him and avoiding traffic jams on office days. This gives him time to pick up his son from school or take his daughter to playgroup. He loves to spend time with them, and the work-life balance he has found since working at QS solutions has definitely helped him do exactly that. “Experiences and memories with the kids are more important to me than a flashy career with ditto work pressure.”
Grateful to the Leerdam glass factory
Enes was born and raised in Leerdam. His grandfather moved there in 1969 to temporarily work at the glass factory, with the intent of returning to Turkey after a while. But granddad stayed and brought his family – including Enes’ mother – to Leerdam, something for which Enes is still very grateful.
As a token of his gratitude to Leerdam and the glass factory, he did a six-month internship at the National Glass Museum during his studies in a bid to increase the number of young people visiting the museum. The mission succeeded, partly thanks to Enes’ initiative to develop a collaboration with the local youth center!
Reluctant Sales Expert
After completing a bachelor’s degree in Advanced Business Creation, Enes first ended up in various sales roles. He would have preferred a position in marketing, but those were few and far between at the time. His first experience in Sales was in one word, awful, but the following job position went remarkably better. In fact, he turned out to be very good at it, helped by his great empathic ability!
“Meeting with the Commercial Director in less than a week”
And yet it continued to nag at him. A job in marketing was simply where his ambition lay, so when he got the chance to start as an Online Marketer elsewhere, he jumped at it. With the experience he gained there, he ended up working for a large IT consultancy company, where he singlehandedly built up the marketing activities from scratch. The visibility that came with this earned him his current job at QS solutions a year or two ago. He was approached by a recruiter, and less than a week later he sat down – virtually, because of COVID – with the Commercial Director and one of the sales colleagues. “The rest”, they say, “is history…”
CrossFit-fanatic and creator
When he’s not working, Enes is an avid CrossFit fan. He works out at least four times a week, because, he laughs, “if you go less frequently, you’ll only suffer more muscle ache!” He sees CrossFit as a reflection of real life, for example when you must do a lot of low-weight repetitions under time pressure. Then it’s about motivating yourself to keep going. And when you do heavy-weight training, you need to stop thinking, concentrate on your strength and keep going. “And fail! There’s no success without failure.”
“What I like about marketing is the simplification of complex things, especially in IT!”
In the evenings, you’ll often find Enes designing visuals for his label Enkavisuals. Illustrations with a meaning to explain complex things. He got into this via Twitter and Instagram, and now has 5,000 and 40,000 followers on these channels respectively. The feedback he receives makes him aware of the impact he has on some people (“Quite a scary thought!”), and it makes him feel good to be able to motivate people in this way.
Making the translation
Enes also loves to simplify complex concepts in his work. In fact, that is one of his reasons for choosing the IT sector. Previously, IT was mainly boring, old-fashioned, and focused on technology, but thanks to his empathic ability, Enes is ideally suited to make the translation. His sense of satisfaction comes from coming up with concepts that help partners and customers understand what QS solutions does, and results in them recognizing themselves in the content. “That’s the great thing about marketing within IT!”
His hobby has allowed Enes to grow enormously as a person. He reads a lot about motivation, discipline and the importance of consistency, and he’s learned what works on social media and what doesn’t. This knowledge comes in handy in his daily work at QS solutions.
Enes about QS solutions
“QS solutions has always been a self-managing organization. You’re given complete freedom to do your job and fill in your hours as you see fit. For some colleagues this means that they mainly work from home, while others prefer to mostly work at the office and regularly ask their manager for help or direction. It simply depends on what suits you better!
“Chef en Bo, our ‘company dogs’, are regularly in the office”
The organization is very informal – we even have two ‘company dogs’, Chef and Bo, who are regularly in the office – and 100% transparent. You always have the support of the management team, and even though there are no actual performance reviews, they are there for you at the slightest problem. I really think it is a fabulous company to work for!”
Contact
Do you have what it takes to further develop the QS solutions marketing program with Enes and make the international world of IT more accessible? Are you curious about the possibilities? Come and visit us for an informal chat. We’d love to talk to you.