Old-School Party Plan Marketing
In the direct sales world, my first education was as a child assisting my mother in her Home Interiors and Gifts business. I was about 5 years old when I went to her home decor shows in women's homes and watched her demonstrate how to create wall groupings from the various products offered. I loved the smell of scented candles and the sparkle of cut glass votive cups. It was fun to see the guests get new ideas and feel confident in their own decorating abilities. By the time I was a teenager, her business had shifted to designer jewelry with a company called Adorn, based in Carrollton, Texas. With Adorn, she helped women have confidence in themselves and their ability to coordinate their wardrobe and accessories to create their own looks.
Corporate Business Development
I took a traditional path for employment in high school, working for a bookstore, retail clothing store, and even as a photographer and makeup artist at Glamour Shots. In college, I worked as a merchandiser and began doing mystery shopping. These experiences gave me insight into customer service as well as the importance of presentation.
I took my first corporate position as a newlywed when I was 21, working in an insurance office, then moved to a consulting company where I was the administrative member of the client services team delivering process improvements. There I learned the importance of analyzing each piece of the process and identifying, then eliminating barriers to successful and timely completion.
When the company implemented Siebel Sales CRM, my proficiency in customer service and understanding of the sales cycle, coupled with my love of technology led me to become a non-technical database administrator. After several years I moved to the Business Development team and this is where I recognized my natural talent for marketing. A referral from my boss to a colleague led to my transition to an office management position for an entrepreneurial start-up. In that position, I was able to help develop and define the branding and marketing materials as well as the presentations used in sales meetings.
Becoming A Solo Entrepreneur - Guerilla Marketing
When I planned my wedding, I had the assistance of a friend's mother who was a wedding planner. Her guidance made the process much easier and planted a seed that I later developed into my own event-planning business. I worked it as a side hustle, doing corporate work on weekdays and spending my evenings and weekends producing beautiful events. I designed business cards, and then a tri-fold flyer, but what I really needed was a website. This was the dawn of the internet, circa 1997 and most small businesses didn't have any online presence.
I began building my site and consistently improved it as I learned more. I employed as many free marketing tips and tricks as I could, coining it as "guerilla marketing". My business was listed in every online directory, I created banner ads with the assistance of American Express's tools for small businesses, and I began using Google ads. By 2005 I had an established clientele, a burgeoning business blog, and a functional website with a contact form, a client testimonial page, and a portfolio of images of past events. My business offered tuxedo rentals, printed invitations, floral decor, a line of wedding keepsakes, balloon decor, face painting, clowns, and twisty balloons. I was doing corporate events, business grand openings, and larger weddings. I had dropped to part-time in my corporate position and was doing freelance marketing while my event planning business was on track for its highest-grossing year yet. I joined the local Chamber of Commerce, served on the events committee, and held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for my own business.
Later, I began creating multi-media art from recycled and repurposed materials. A friend asked me to show my work in her shop, and then another friend asked me to design a custom piece from family items. A new business was born. I developed a social media page, contact form, an Etsy shop and did many craft and art shows and vendor events.
Tragedy Strikes
In August of 2006 my third child was born a month early but healthy. In November, he took a nap and never woke up. SIDS changed the trajectory of my life and business. I was no longer able to plan festive and cheerful events with a broken heart, so I closed my beloved business. Our family was able to survive financially for almost a year before I needed to return to work, and I made the easiest choice, to go back to a corporate position.
Corporate Marketing
My return to the corporate world in 2007 marked my first recognition as a marketing specialist. In my role as Executive Marketing Assistant, I was responsible for the implementation of Salesforce CRM, corporate event planning, and conference support. In 2020, I joined a different company as the Product Manager for a professional certification course. I managed HubSpot CRM and then transitioned to ZOHO One which was integrated into the corporate website. I developed email marketing paths and triggers as well as traditional marketing collateral, case studies, webinars, blog posts, social media, and press releases. After graduating with my bachelor's degree in business marketing and English, I took a role managing marketing for the global planning division of a large company. I gained additional experience in internal communications and RFP response development. I spent a lot of time writing content and managing the deals pipeline and CRM first with Microsoft and then migrating the data to a new implementation of Salesforce.
Network Marketing
Throughout my journey, networking has been a big part of my marketing strategy. Developing relationships and helping other business owners have always been a priority for me. Building on my experience with my mom's successful businesses, I began selling AVON on the side while also building my event planning business and working in a corporate role. I approached this opportunity with the same professionalism and determination that I brought to my other entrepreneurial endeavor, and began to level up within the company. In addition to becoming part of the field sales leadership team, I did contract work as an assistant to the Regional Sales Manager. I helped to plan events, train new team members, and process the biweekly orders.
Later, when I was developing my art business, I noticed that the vendors with direct sales companies were selling more products, had a much simpler booth layout, and took much less time to set up and break down at events. As a homeschooling mom of 4, I needed more simplicity in my life, so I returned my artistic endeavors to hobby status and began selling a luxury candle brand. With this brand, I blended the experience of home parties with the convenience of social media and helped to create the phenomenon of "the online party". This marketing and sales approach was highly successful in the originating form, but quickly spread and fell victim to the unscrupulous tactics of the companies that give direct sales a poor reputation.
I found extraordinary success in Jamberry, the company that brought this "Glow Girls Team" blog to the world. Although my original intent with the company was to just get the discount, my marketing passion and background wouldn't let me "just start." I was strategic about my start date, allowing enough time to build anticipation for the launch. I offered free samples, which was what had enticed me. I created social media channels and revamped my existing online presence to make it easy for people to find my website to make a purchase.
After a few weeks of collecting sample requests throughout the week, hand-addressing them on weekends, and then following up, I decided to streamline my process with an online form connected to a Google sheet that would allow me to generate address labels instead of hand-addressing. I shared the link to that form on my email signature and social media channels. Prior to the online form, my biggest week included 17 requests. The first weekend brought 1,200 submitted forms. By Tuesday the number was close to 17,000 and I had to turn it off! After many months of working to filter and fill those requests, I had a multitude of customers, a team of 53 women, had earned my first 2 promotions, and had decided that maybe I would take the business seriously. In the next year, I focused on coaching, teaching marketing principles, creating video training, and team building. I branded the team so that we had a unified identity and an increased sense of community.
This approach was highly successful and as my team members promoted, I also experienced success. Our field sales
team included 40 executives, 100 managers, and 15,000 salespeople globally. I earned 14 rank promotions as well as one of 120 elite
Founding Executive positions. In addition, I secured my place on 4 incentive trips through sales, recruiting, and
leadership, and was recognized as a top field sales recruiter in 2012, 2013,
2014, and 2015.
Necessary Endings
Nothing lasts forever, as they say... and changes in my personal life created many new needs. Jamberry had changed hands to M Global, and then they absorbed another company and rebranded to BeneYou (and have since changed hands again and then been disbanded). I returned to school in 2019 to complete my bachelor's degree and began looking for a corporate position to add some needed stability to my finances and health insurance coverage. Although it was difficult to leave this team that I created, it was the right thing for me at the time and ended up being the right choice overall.
New Beginnings
Now, as we are approaching 2024, I am in the midst of another changing season. I was laid off in September and although I've been diligently applying for corporate marketing positions, the market is tough. The US economy is precarious; inflation is high and morale among job seekers is low. Industry experts are predicting a rise in freelancing and small businesses. Supporting small and local businesses has always been important to me, and I have deep experience in marketing as an entrepreneur and in the corporate world. I've decided to formalize the marketing mentoring and assistance that I've provided for the last 10 or so years. My new brand is ASOM Marketing. I help solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and small business owners
create strategic marketing plans that are true to who they are. Authentic.
Strategic. Organic.
This brand is a culmination of my 25 years of experience as a marketer, entrepreneur, small business owner, networker, artist, coach, trainer, and friend. I am still open to my next corporate role as well and have already developed a plan and process to continue to support existing clients when the right fit comes along.
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