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

Martina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

My first client of my own I got because someone told me I couldn’t! My old company had markets that we split up, and one day I realized we had no clients in New York City. I thought New York City would be a great market for insurance marketing because of how high insurance premiums are there. When I asked my co-workers why, one guy said “don’t even try New York City, they’re all jerks no one will talk to you there.” Quietly accepting the challenge, I printed out every prospect in the New York City market I could find and started calling! Only hours later I had my first client, a very successful agent with one office in Queens and another in Brooklyn. He is still my favorite and most loyal client to this day, as well as a good friend!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My business is Uptown Marketing, and we specialize in digital marketing for insurance agents. We do SEO, Google & Bing Ads, social media campaigns, and marketing consulting. I’ve been in this space for over 12 years now, getting my start working for an insurance agents office in Rochester NY. I started my business in 2019 and we’ve grown every year since. I’m proud that we are an industry stand-out for our quality relationships with our customers, our talented hard working team, and our insurance marketing experience. Marketing is my passion and has been since I was young, and I love getting to do it for an industry I grew up in, insurance!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve had to unlearn a lot of lessons! I’m a stubborn person in general so I think overall, unlearning the idea that I know everything and I always know what’s best has been huge for me over the years. No one knows everything! Not even me, which came as a shock ;). Putting people in place that have sharper skills in areas you lack is the absolute key to running a successful in business. Once you find those people, let go and let them do their thing.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Making current clients happy is the key to getting new clients. Read that again!! It’s by far the biggest and best source of new clients for us, which is why we prioritize our focus on customer service instead of sales. The new clients will always get referred in, but only if the current clients are happy!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.uptownmarketing.com
• Instagram: @uptown_marketing
• Facebook: Www.Facebook.com/uptownmarketingllc
• Linkedin: www.LinkedIn.com/uptownmarketing

Image Credits
Erich Camping Photography