I did not plan on starting a company I always wanted to go work for a large multi-national business and be a Fortune 500 CEO. When I was a student I looked at leaders like Meg Whitman & Ursula Burns as my role models. I started my career on Wall Street in the 80s and had a successful career in Corporate America at companies like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and worked at 3 different tech startups as the head of marketing, all had positive exits. I became an entrepreneur and took the leap right after 9/11 when the company I worked for cut their marketing. I had nothing to lose. My company’s mission is to bring world class marketing talent and expertise to organizations that want to make a difference in the world regardless of size or budget. We believe every organization deserves the right words and pictures to tell their story in compelling ways. It has been a lot of fun, I joke that I am the accidental entrepreneur. I knew I had made it when Harvard wrote 2 case studies on my business a few years after I started it, we were very early to pioneer sharing resources on the marketing front (before my company it was really only done with HR, legal and accounting/ finance).

Everyone in our group comes out of industry so our heads and hearts are much more aligned with our clients than a typical agency or consulting firm. We are not professional PowerPoint makers, we have actually done the job as marketing and communication leaders so our recommendations come from having been in our clients’ seats before. We are an extension of their team and spend their money the way they do, not as a vendor so I think that is a compelling angle when they hire us. We do not see marketing as a necessary evil, we believe in the power of great brands and think all organizations regardless of size or budget deserve great marketing advice. Our passion comes through in our tag line “Because Marketing Matters” and in everything we do.

My first client came from a talk I gave to a professional networking group. Someone from the audience came up to me after and made an introduction which resulted in my first project a few weeks later. It was a 1 year agreement for a 6 figure engagement which felt great that my talk was so well received and generated meetings and referrals as follow up, I knew I had a real business. I still give lots of talks and it is a great way to generate leads and business. I think having a good reputation is incredibly important to building a strong B2B business. My company’s mission is to bring world class marketing talent and expertise to organizations that want to make a difference in the world regardless of size or budget. We believe every organization deserves the right words and pictures to tell their story in compelling ways. It has been a lot of fun, I joke that I am the accidental entrepreneur.

In the first few years of my business I had pitched a CEO before I ran into her at a networking event where she was the keynote speaker and her topic was about being a woman leader in a traditionally male-dominated business. I had followed up after sending my proposal several times via e-mail and voice mail but the CEO never returned any of my messages or even acknowledged receipt of the proposal requested. I thought I was being pleasantly persistent but I was nervous to see her at the event because I thought she might think I was stalking her. You can imagine my shock when she announced at this event as part of her speech that she believes it is important to put your money where your mouth is and for women CEOs to support other respected & well-run women’s businesses and that is why she has hired my firm to handle all her company’s marketing & PR! Everyone congratulated me after, her word of mouth was a better endorsement than the New York Times because she was very well known and had the reputation of being very tough with high standards so I got a LOT of business from people in the room that night because they thought if I was able to impress her I must be very good 😉 To think I almost did not even show up maybe seeing me there is what prompted her to pull the trigger and hire us? I sold more business in the month that followed than l ever had since starting my company so we really began to scale quickly at that point and got a lot of referrals as a result! It was a big day in our history for sure. Wasn’t it Woody Allen who said 80% of success is just showing up. It is a strategy that has worked for me and has been a fun way to build my marketing business. I think it has to be genuine you cannot incentivize people to refer business they do not believe in, the more authentic the more effective it will be.

My biggest challenge early on was that the people you start with are not always the ones who grow with you. The hardest lesson I learned when I started my company is not getting rid of weak people earlier than I did in the first few years of my business. I spent more time managing them than finding new customers. I knew in my gut they were not up to snuff but out of loyalty to them I let them hang around much longer than they should have. It would have been better for everyone to let them go as soon as the signs were there. They became more insecure and threatened as we grew which was not productive for the team. As soon as I let them go the culture got stronger and the bar higher. “A" team people like to be surrounded by other stars. It is true that you should hire slowly and fire quickly. I did not make that mistake again later on so learned it well the first time. I wish I had known it even earlier though but lesson learned for sure!

Growth strategies have evolved since the pandemic and my budget has been redirected to social media and website/AEO/GEO/AI improvements and automation away from in-person events and direct marketing efforts. Leveraging Content Marketing, Influencers, video, and podcasts are included to drive growth as well. SMBs in industries that once relied on the event calendar as the core of their planned marketing activity have taken a giant digital leap forward since the pandemic began and online content-led alternatives have filled the gap. Budgets that were formerly assigned to event exhibition costs have been redirected to content and in-bound marketing, AEO/GEO, digital PR and paid programs. Events are no longer about volume of attendees, people have become pickier about how they choose to spend their time so a more targeted PR approach is essential to catch key influencers. It’s no longer about the quantity of attendees to an event but rather the quality of those who attend and ensuring you work with the best contacts that are well aligned to your brand to form lasting brand relationships.

I started my business before social media, the pandemic or AI were on the radar. I have established authority in my space with outbound content and use LinkedIn to warm leads up. People do not exist today if they cannot be found online. Social media is 24/7 so it is easy to get sucked into it but you don’t have to let it drive you crazy, you do not need to be everywhere, it does not matter which platform you choose just pick one or 2 that are authentic to you. In my experience, you need to be on LinkedIn so that you can be found. It adds credibility and transparency when you know the people you are meeting or working with know people in common. LinkedIn has become more than an online resume or rolodex, it is the foundation for building trusted relationships in the digital economy. Now it is about quality more than quantity though. We’re attending fewer in person events but getting much more bang from them today. Less is more now. You do not need to blog or be on all social media platforms but make sure you are active on the ones where you are. If your clients do not use Facebook, Twitter/X or Instagram to find you then you do not need to make them a priority. For B2B professional service firms like mine, LinkedIn matters the most.

I recommend NOT spending money on things like fancy brochures, letterhead, business cards, etc. Until you know your business is launched I would say to put your budget into things that help fill your pipeline with customers. Getting your URL and a website up and running is key. I created online stationery for proposals and invoices, ordered my cards online and made downloadable materials as leave behinds for people looking for more information to help me find clients more quickly. I know other business owners who spent thousands of dollars on these things and found it was a waste of money. Your story will evolve as you find your market, you need to look professional and have a web site to be taken seriously but embossed paper with watermarks and heavy card stock is not going to accelerate your sales cycle. Find those reference customers quickly, use them to get testimonials and referrals. There is plenty of time later to dress things up!