Your identity isn’t created by colors or logos or strategies. It’s communicated through them.
When I started my first business, HoneyMAP, one of the most surprising insights was that my personal life experience was essential to my professional brand. Try as I might, I could not separate who I was from what I was creating, and fighting against it was creating an uphill battle as I was trying to manufacture success in every facet. When I began to incorporate myself into my business, I saw dramatic differences. Learning how to articulate my core message and identity and share that with my audience, while maintaining boundaries between my personal and professional life, was no easy task. But finding that balance made everything fall into place.
I have the absolute joy and privilege to speak nationally (and internationally if anyone should care to invite me across the pond) about my own experience as a business owner and all of the lessons I have learned and taught along the way. And I love working with mission-minded business leaders to help them articulate their core mission to their audience through honest messaging, business organization, and creative marketing strategies. I believe that healthy businesses stem from healthy brands, which are created by healthy leaders.
Who am I?
How do I answer that question? How can anyone? I would love to sit down with you over a cup of coffee and swap heart stories for a few hours, but in light of the parameters of reality, I’ll do my best to share a well-rounded sneak peek of my brand.
In words
Ambitious, Determined, Driven, Resilient, Stubborn, Open-Minded, Compassionate, Thoughtful, Sweet, Caring, Sarcastic, Sassy, Funny, Honest, Authentic, Transparent, Candid, Real, Raw, Thorough, Playful, Adventurous, Introspective, Perceptive, Vulnerable, Brave, Adventurous, Confident, Soft-Spoken but Direct, Creative, Innovative, Resourceful, Dreamer, Globally Minded, Illuminating, Articulate, Devil’s Advocate, Can See Multiple Perspectives, Balanced, Down to Earth, Expressive, Nurturing, Challenging, Encouraging, Passionate, Inclusive, Inviting, Visionary, Questionable Taste in Television, Wanderer, Directionally Challenged, Crunchy with a Side of French Fries, Feeling, Thinking, Calculated Risk Taker, Smart, Understanding, Not a Morning Person, Intentional, Grounded, Thoughtful, Persistent, Idealistic, Cynical, Hopeful, Forward Thinking, Backward Glancing, Present Living, Surprising, Curious, Quick-Witted, Content, Deep, Kind, Good with Chaos, Calm, Inspirational, Secure, Prolific, Intuitive, Empathetic, Socialized Introvert, Questioning, Opinionated, Invitational, Surprisingly Funny, Walking Contradiction
In Snapshots
In Experience
My resume looks like…
A decade of professional experience and more than a few decades of personal experience in identity and brand strategy. I have been fortunate to have held roles in both agency and internal marketing and have spent the last chunk of my career as an entrepreneur working with other entrepreneurs. The first job I ever had was as a special events and brand sponsorships coordinator. I got to dress celebrities in our company’s t-shirts and pick out various concerts and events to sell our swag at. Though I did my job responsibly, I absolutely took advantage of the situation and picked as many handsome male singers to dress as I could find, along with all the concerts I had ever wanted to attend. As the only person on staff who enjoyed rap music, I also got a lot of backstage VIP access.
My first post-college job was at a small ad agency in California. I believe I was the 7th hire, and as a recent graduate in the middle of a recession, I was thankful to take anything I could get. I started out as an assistant to the CEO on a 5-week temp assignment, and 2 weeks in I was asked to join the full time team as an Account Coordinator. As our team grew, a department director was hired, and she soon demoted me because I was ‘ridiculously young.’ (I now know that this is illegal - know your rights, newly working kiddos!) The advantage to being a non-threatening kiddo in a startup agency was that I was allowed to be a part of almost every conversation as a ‘learning opportunity.’ And I took it. In my 3 years at that agency, I expanded my role beyond Account Coordinator and spread into media planning, graphic design, copywriting, digital strategy, social media, administration, new business, RFP writing, and brand strategy. I worked with dozens of clients across retail and service industries and government agencies and collaborated on several campaigns that are still growing across the state of California.
In 2014, I moved to New England and joined a global finance company in Boston where I helped manage their social media strategy. I like to believe that if I can successfully implement marketing and social media in the world of financial services, I can do anything. My super power was sweet talking the Compliance Department into expediting our posts. (Never underestimate the power of a thank you card and a fresh batch of brownies.)
In 2016, I created HoneyMAP as a cute little hobby business. Some life happened, and I had to get real very quickly. By 2018, it had an entirely new look and feel, and it is now the buzzing business you see today. I have worked with hundreds of business leaders to help them articulate their brand and create marketing strategies that work within their personalities and resources. I’ve also collaborated with other brand agencies and specialists to help them grow their own branding processes and better serve their clients. Through HoneyMAP, I’ve led several workshops around the nation to help businesses and their owners navigate both the personal and professional challenges of running a successful business and implementing marketing strategies that work. I’ve also created a podcast and lifestyle brand, Successful(ish), and spoken nationally about my own adventure of growing a business and what it means to redefine success and talk back to imposter syndrome.
Outside of the branding space, I have been certified in care and crisis counseling and held peer roles for several years. I regularly use those skills with my clients to look at brand identity comprehensively from both the business and the business owner to identify what is really going on and what opportunities are waiting to be tapped into. I have been on a TEDX Board and served in a number of volunteer and networking roles to support local business. My personal upbringing has also given me a unique perspective in identifying the underlying dynamics of where unhealthy practices are stemming from and how to reconcile identity crisis between what a brand wants to be and how it is currently perceived by others. My mission is to sweeten the world by ending identity crisis; I believe that in doing so, in being fully myself and encouraging others to do the same, every person can live in the fullness of the potential that only they can fill. And that is a beautiful world.
What I Have Created
HoneyMAP
HoneyMAP is my first business and remains a core resource for all of my clients. I have tailored the process to fit businesses of all shapes and sizes, from the solopreneur to the Fortune 500. When I first created HoneyMAP, I created a marketing agency. I consulted small businesses on their marketing strategies and offered services like copywriting, marketing planning, and content creation. As I worked with more clients, I found myself dancing between the roles of marketing agency, brand strategist, business consultant, and personal therapist. Clients would come to me for a social media strategy, but as we dialed back to the core of the problem they were actually trying to solve, we’d find that social media was a tactic, not a solution. I found that even the most successful businesses often have blindspots and disconnects between the reality of their brand and the delivery of their messaging. Everyone has blindspots, especially as we grow in scale, it becomes increasingly more important to have a core mission to direct everything back to. I began creating comprehensive roadmaps for my clients that spelled out their core identity - their mission, vision, goals, brand positioning, core values, the heart of their business - and then mapped out a marketing strategy that was specifically designed with their audience in mind- a HoneyMAP. Today, there are a variety of templates that serve the small business community, as well as the B2B branding community. I am committed to serving the small business community by providing materials and workshops that are accessible, affordable, and jargon-free.
C-Sweet
There are some distinct differences between C-Suite leadership and small business owners (namely that many business owners have no idea what a C-Suite is; a C-Suite is the team of corporate executives, a.k.a. key decision makers, including but not limited to the C.E.O., C.F.O., C.M.O., C.O.O., C.I.O. etc.), but the strategies and consultation are essentially the same. There are many great resources for business development, and a lot of coaching resources for personal development, but I have struggled to find a place that speaks to both.
Having worked in agency, corporate, and entrepreneurial settings, there are traits to be learned from each. I created C-Sweet as a subset of HoneyMAP to be a community for anyone in business leadership to have access to tools, resources, and conversations that include business strategies like branding, marketing, project management, organizational structure, business financials, etc., but also the personal topics that affect anyone in a business leadership role. Things like mindset, meditation, habits, and hard things like firing clients or employees, navigating imposter syndrome, maintaining leadership while having depression or panic attacks, trying to be human when you are perceived as ‘celebrity’… real challenges that we each face and need support to navigate.
If you are a mission-minded business leader looking for a community that balances personal and professional development (because are those two ever really separate?) buzz on over to the C-Sweet.
Successful(ish)
Successful(ish) came out of my personal experience in growing HoneyMAP. It was a silly, made up phrase that perfectly encompassed my experience as a business owner: not yet feeling like I’d reached all my goals, but also knowing I’d accomplished a heck of a lot- ‘living between successes.’ Being a business owner has been a profound teaching experience in success, failure, and living in-between. As I began sharing my story with other business owners, the phrase continued to resonate. In 2020 Successful(ish) became a trademarked name and has grown into a podcast and lifestyle brand.
What I Believe
I believe that healthy brands come from healthy people. I believe that you own your brand and no one else should create one for you. I believe that most business snafus come from identity crisis - whether it’s a blindspot, a disconnect in communication, or message confusion, the most successful brands have a clear, consistent message that is translated through the internal business structure and external marketing channels, and it starts with the owners. I believe that good business starts with good leadership, and that brand integrity matters. I believe that marketing should be honest, creative, engaging, and inviting. Good ideas deserve to grow, and growth starts with clear goals and a roadmap (ahem, HoneyMAP) to get there. I believe it’s vital to know which yardstick you are measuring success with, and that success should come with more than one metric - and one of those should include failure. I believe in trying new things and showing up every day committed to serving others. I believe in working hard and playing and resting harder. I believe that everything in business is connected, and that it’s all connected to the top leadership. I believe in boundaries and confidence. I believe that creativity and fun are essential to creating success and that the numbers and revenue will always follow. I believe anything worth doing is worth doing right. And I believe you are the only person who can do what you do, so it’s really important that you do it.
Ready to Collaborate?
I love collaborating with mission-minded business leaders. There are a number of ways to connect with me. Where would you like to start?