We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katlin Pacheco a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katlin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

My life changed in 5 days….

I got engaged and then I got a phone call not even a week later that we would be moving to North Carolina. This was my life now as a military spouse.
I knew my entire world was about to change -my career, my relationships…all of it.
But I took a risk. I could’ve said no, believe me I could’ve. However, I couldn’t find one part of me that was telling me “no”.
This was a new start I have always wanted and dreamed of my entire life, so I said let’s go for it.
I wish I could say it was an easy route after that but it wasn’t. With dealing with family, moving arrangements, and trying to keep our sanity…it was hard.
My biggest fear was leaving my job. I felt like I had really established myself in my job and the community and I wasn’t ready to just let that go, but neither was my team.
2A Marketing got together and decided to keep me as a full-time employee working from home in North Carolina.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My beginning and my drive started back on the farm and in my small town community. I went to school and went home to work on the farm for a majority of my life. I knew I wanted more and I wanted to go out and do something with my life. College was a pivotal point in my life. You meet so many people and learn so many different things, and if I didn’t need an internship to graduate, I probably wouldn’t have met 2A Marketing.

To graduate college, I needed an internship to complete my degree. 2A Marketing was gracious enough to let me intern with them in the summer of 2020. Before I started the internship or met the CEO, he called me and told me they were looking to add a communications position at their company. He was intrigued with how I organized the internship that he wanted to offer me a position they were considering on creating in the company, so the internship was a “trial run” to see if I wanted the job. After the internship, I was hired as 2A Marketing’s Client Relations Specialist.

2A Marketing is a full service marketing & advertising agency in Belton, Missouri. From brand building and managing media campaigns to web maintenance and growing social profiles, our small team of creative hybrids turns headaches into opportunities, and turns small and medium-sized businesses into recognizable brands. Business owners work with 2A Marketing because we make it easy for them to do what they do best, run their business.

I became the “central hub” of the agency. I helped bring organizational stability to 2A Marketing by reorganizing their client customer database and developing a system to track the workflow between clients. I helped identify strengths and pain points and assisted with developing and redefining processes throughout each department. All with no prior experience beforehand, and I was only 22. They put trust in me as an individual fresh out of college to come in and assist with the agency’s growth.
To this day, I help lead a team of marketing professionals at 24 years old and sit in leadership meetings to help improve processes, assist with anything each staff member needs to succeed in their work, and help the agency grow.

On International Women’s Day in March 2022, I attended a women’s conference hosted by the Belton Chamber of Commerce and did my first public speaking event. I gave an inspirational speech and spoke about the impact of surrounding yourself with the right people.
To my surprise, multiple women reached out to me after my speech to tell me how my speech inspired them. I was not expecting this at all.
This sparked something in me.

Since then, I’ve become an advocate for women in business and my community “Women Who Mean Business was born. I help inspire and motivate women to be the best that they can be and take what I’ve learned from 2A Marketing to help women with their businesses.

Being a part of 2A Marketing allows me to help people make their businesses the best they can be. I’m most proud of being a part of such an amazing and growing team. Finding a job with individuals who care so much about you and your success has truly been a blessing to me.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Moving to North Carolina, everything was a complete pivot. I went from a complete whirlwind of a life, to working fully remote and not knowing anyone around me. I had to start over – create new routines, learn how I was going to manage my job 1000+ miles away, adapt to the military life, and even plan a wedding on top of it.
My husband has been gone a majority of 2023 for training so I had to learn how to be alone in the midst of all of this as well.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

After everything that had happen, I hit kind of a low point. I was stressed, I was in constant fear of losing my job, and I kind of distanced myself from the Women Who Mean Business community I created. I knew I wasn’t performing to the best of my capability either which bothered me because I cared about the success of 2A Marketing and helping our clients. I was not at all the big Type A personality everyone knew me as.

After all of that, all I can say is have faith. Embrace change and it’ll build resiliency.

I had to take everything one step at a time. Eventually being alone got easier, my team and I are in constant communication throughout the day so it’s almost like I never left, and the wedding planning is finally over.

One day, I had a woman reach out to me from a Facebook group I was involved in and asked for a little insight on a situation she was dealing with in her business. It was a brief encounter, but it really helped spark my drive to get back out there and go back to being the woman in business advocate that I was.

I have new visions for the future. Even though everything took a turn, I learned to have faith in myself and that I was a lot more resilient than I gave myself credit for. Your support network is what will really help you get through it.
I couldn’t have done it without my team, my husband, and even my new friends I have made here in North Carolina.
Just because things have changed, doesn’t mean your life and your career is over. It’s just a new challenge that will make these things even better that you can learn from.

As for the future, what does it have in store for me? Who knows, but I know I’m strong enough to handle it now.

My next step: well, everyone has a story to write….

Contact Info:

• Website: https://2amarketing.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/2amarketing/?hl=en
• Facebook: facebook.com/groups/705122287387075/?ref=share
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katlin-pacheco-696b7a19a

Image Credits
SW Photography