All About The Marketing Greenhouse
This is a post I meant to write months ago but just haven't gotten to. In late March I launched The Marketing Greenhouse alongside my business partners Tracy Fadden and Jen Naye Herrmann. We have been so busy getting everything set up and jumped right into working on client projects from the beginning. And then, of course, we've been dealing with everything else that 2020 has thrown at us simultaneously. Anyway, I wanted to give you guys a little background about The Marketing Greenhouse, how I got here, and where we're going.
How Did I Get Here?
My career definitely has not been a straight line. I started my career in hospitality. My parents owned restaurants and nightclubs growing up and after I left college, I moved back to DC (where I grew up) to help manage them. The Spike TV show 'Bar Rescue' reached out and asked me to be a hospitality consultant and I was on a handful of episodes over 3 seasons. During that time I moved to New York and continued consulting while also working in hospitality.
When I got sick of the crazy schedule I decided to look for a more "normal" job. That's when I pivoted into tech sales for about 4 years or so. I quit my job when we moved to Chicago 2 years ago and enrolled in classes to get my real estate license (I was also pregnant during this time!). After I got my license, I joined a brokerage and worked in real estate for almost a year, but just found it impossible to build a business from the ground up with a newborn. Oh and somewhere in here I started a swimwear company, TenSwim, with my husband, Kyle, and sister, Kenzie, but I'll explain that more in a later post.I applied for and got a job at The Everymom as their Social Media Editor.
I learned so much, but honestly, I still needed more flexibility (life with young kids is insane) so I decided to quit and branch out on my own. It was a risk, but within a week of leaving, I secured 4 freelance clients so that was a huge relief.Even though I was doing well freelancing, I really missed being around people. I reached out to Jen (who at that point was an Instagram friend) because I knew she had been working for herself for about a year.
I asked if we could get coffee and hoped I could pick her brain and get her best freelance tips. We did and chatted for about 3 hours and the rest was history -- she's now one of those friends I facetime without warning ha! We also have kids that are 2 months apart so it was just kind of meant to be.Anyway, we became freelance "work wives" for a few months when Jen connected with an old mentor, Tracy Fadden.
Tracy had also left her corporate job in the last year and was doing freelance consulting work and started her own meditation company, Reverie. After a few conversations, they came up with the idea to start The Marketing Greenhouse so that they could take on bigger projects. Together they are marketing geniuses and gurus (seriously, I couldn't have partnered with more talented people) but thought they could use someone with a stronger digital marketing background so they asked if I wanted to join.
I was pretty much on board immediately because it was the best of both worlds for me -- I would still get the entrepreneurial life I wanted but was able to do it with other people. When I met Tracy, I loved her immediately. We could talk for hours (and have ha Jen often has to reel us back in during meetings when we get lost in random tangents) and she is one of the smartest, kindest, and wisest people I've ever met.
We got to work immediately and launched and I am so happy we did. We are already working with some incredible clients and I have loved working with and becoming closer to both Jen and Tracy everyday.
What is The Marketing Greenhouse?
The Marketing Greenhouse is an agency for companies aspiring to start, scale, or structure their business. We design business, marketing, and digital strategies tailored to deliver value and elevate your offering. Our approach is rooted in the balance of methodical, corporate training with a strong bias for action, and entrepreneurial thinking.We accelerate businesses by quickly understanding the landscape and engineering strategies that deliver solutions. As your strategic partner, we invest time with businesses to ensure seamless execution while meeting long-term needs. You can find more about the business here, too. (I stole this part from Jen's post because she explained it so well)
What I Love About It...
We are both women and minority-owned and know that our diverse perspectives serve as a strength and allow us to approach our work in unique ways that produce superior results. We are continuing to build out a group of hand-picked contributors based on their expertise which allows us to construct talented and savvy teams grounded in proven marketing tactics. We want to empower people to embrace flexibility and provide an environment for our collaborators to prosper on their own terms.Basically we work our asses off and no, not everything is super fun, but we are doing it on our own terms and making our jobs work with our lives -- and we want others, women especially, to have opportunities to do this too.When people are passionate about the work their doing, the work will be phenomenal and effective. We are already proving that and are excited to continue helping businesses grow and prosper.
Work With Us!
We are currently offering free 20-minute jumpstart calls where we'll chat about your business, help you solve a challenge or two, and talk about how we might be able to help you going forward. If you're interested this link will take you to a page to schedule a meeting! We're excited to grow The Marketing Greenhouse and can't wait to see where this journey will lead us.
