Over my career, I have written over a dozen business plans, consulted over 100 businesses in regards to marketing and general business strategy, have brought over two dozen products to market, have marketed close to two dozen financial institutions, am a regular speaker at regional and national credit union conferences and have even created close to a dozen new "products" for the credit union industry (i.e. New Revenue Streams).
Here's a quick top line of my career:
I've been drawing since I was 2 and selling since I was 12...so marketing has been a perfect way to amalgamate my talents. My marketing experience has included:
• At 19, I was the first advertising director of a startup college newspaper, the FSView (selling, setting advertising policies, managing sales staff and even developing ads for clients). Our efforts put the previous 78 year old on-campus paper out of business in just 5 years of our paper operating. A college newspaper has a definite ceiling, so I decided to take advantage of the experience and "edge" I had on others my age upon graduating from Florida State University.
• At 21, Being the youngest account rep ever at AK/Media in Miami. Over my two year tenure I doubled billings and managed accounts including Sandals Resorts, Air Jamaica, Roadhouse Grill and Reebok. It was there that I expanded my knowledge of the media and built an extensive network of seasoned marketing mentors at major agencies including CPB Miami.
• At 24, I attained my goal to one day have my own marketing firm. That opportunity came in 1997, when I moved back to Tallahassee to be a partner in ThinkCreative as VP of New Business and Account Service. Under my tenure, our new business successes included many in my banking/credit union niche: Alabama Credit Union, BankOne, BankAtlantic, Community First Credit Union, Coosa Pines Credit Union, First USA, First Commerce Credit Union, IBM Southeast Credit Union, League of Southeastern Credit Unions, Orlando Federal Credit Union, Patriot Federal Credit Union, the Virginia Credit Union League as well as other passion clients like Black & Decker, Boat US and Chris Craft Boats. What I take the most pride in is the length of these relationships - our average client/agency relationship exceeded 5 years.
• At 40, I just attained another of my goals...building a business to the point I could cash out ; ) In February 2013, I sold my portion of ThinkCreative to my business partner and joined The Pod Advertising as a Principal and Chief Marketing Officer with the goal of tripling the firms billings in under 2 years and taking the credit union/banking industry by storm!! In my first year on board, we already have added 5 new credit union clients to the agency roster and have expanded our footprint outside of the southeast and into the northeast as well.
