Things Worth Saying (Marketing, Mostly...)
Some of this is strategy. Some is opinion. Some was only relevant when I first wrote it — but it all has a place.
If any of it helps you market more clearly, confidently, or quietly, then it’s doing what it’s meant to.
The Solo-CEO of Everything: Prioritizing When Survival Counts
The Solo CEO of Everything? Yes, Everything. No team. No partner. Just a business to run and family to feed. From keynotes to scrubbing toilets – how I prioritize when survival is the only metric that counts. When people talk about planning and prioritizing, they’re not talking to me. They’re talking to someone who probably has help – either at home or at work. Someone they can pass off some of the less important things …
On Culture & Cults: The Faint Line in Women’s Networking
Be Careful You Don’t Build a Cult While Building Culture The line between culture and cult is VERY faint, and white women frequently create the wrong one. I got pulled into some girl drama a while back. Drama that I didn’t start. Drama that I didn’t have a role in. Drama that I didn’t have a stake in. Drama that I was purposely, intentionally avoiding. But that didn’t stop other women from sucking me into …
The List I’m NOT Building: Unlearning High-Pressure Marketing
Email List? What Email List? On learning how to undo over a decade of online sales strategy and just write for the sake of writing. There is no lead magnet on my website. No opt-in offer. No little pop-up asking for your email in exchange for a PDF. If you go looking for way to subscribe to anything from me right now, you’ll find exactly one option: my Substack. That’s the whole list. And it’s …
September is Glorious — and Terrifying: A Reflection on Chronic Illness
September is my Favourite Month. It Also Scares the Crap Outta Me. Chalk this one up as “journal entry” because I’m too anxious to tie it to a business lesson today. Content Warning: Medical trauma, near-death experiences, and subtle mentions of fertility issues. September is my favourite month. It’s still technically summer, but the first hints of fall are starting to show. The landscape around me changes from green every where to pops of yellows, …
What Happens After the “Buy Canadian” Surge? (Marketing Strategy)
Borrowed playbooks, buy-local surges, and building something that survives past the moment. PIVOT! Do you remember the great COVID pivot(s)? I do-I was there. Hands-on, inside a variety of businesses. For three years straight, I was helping Canadian businesses reach new markets, build new sales systems and strategies, and manage big changes. For a lot of the businesses I worked with, the changes were so outside their founders’ comfort zones that I also became a …
I Am NOT Your Target Client: Why Ideal Client Avatars Fail
Why “know your client” means nothing if you’re still working off a worksheet of demographics. If you knew your ideal client, you’d know why I’m not it. I am not your target client. And I will never buy from you – not now, not ever – unless you understand why. I am not your target because you sold me before I was ready to hear a pitch. I am not your target because you didn’t …
A Marketer Goes Looking for a Marketer: Tactics vs Strategy
A Marketer Goes Looking for a Marketer. It Goes About as Well as You Expect. I am a marketer who is currently vetting other marketers for a project. This isn’t a request for proposals; this is an outline of everything that is wrong with our industry. (And if you pitch me after reading this, I’m going to add a paragraph dedicated very specifically to critiquing your approach.) I have been in marketing for over 20 …
The Hidden Costs of Visibility in Entrepreneurship
Yesterday I Had a Panic Attack in Front of 100 Strangers. I’m Also an Experienced Public Speaker. Yesterday, I found myself having a full-blown panic attack in front of 100 mostly strangers, and it was one of the most weirdly validating experiences I’ve had as an adult. It wasn’t one of those situations where I was having a panic attack and 100 people happened to see—it was me being unexpectedly called to the front of …
In Defense of the Marketing Tactic I’ve Always Hated
In Defense of the Tactic I’ve Always Hated Marketing, by definition, is the process of getting people to buy, spend, or act in a way that they maybe wouldn’t have without the marketing. And if you’re not careful, it can get VERY predatory very quickly. All it takes is an extra push, a descriptor that promotes an emotional response that it shouldn’t, or an answer that isn’t ready to be given yet. I’ve spent my …