We recently connected with Karin Samelson and have shared our conversation below.

Karin, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

It started with a layoff. It came out of nowhere and shook my Type A body to its core. My friends took me out to dinner and bowling that evening to try and distract me and that night I received a text from an old boss that said, “Hey. Let’s go get coffee this week.” To which I replied, “WHO TOLD YOU?!”

Within one week, he had convinced me to consider marketing consulting and I had two clients through his network ready to sign up for my services.

The next week, I had gone on a second interview for an in-house position at a local business in my niche, as I wasn’t totally sure of taking on the consulting role. I was transparent with them and told them my options and they said, “You know that’s fine, we’re happy to hire you on as a part-time consultant as well.”

So within two weeks of being laid off and thinking it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me professionally, I had three clients, was making more than I was at my full-time job, and had the freedom to make my own schedule.

A few months after that, I convinced a friend to go all-in and start our marketing agency: UMAI Marketing and the rest is history.

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?

I went to one of the best journalism schools in the country and during one of my junior year classes the professor told the room, of about 300, that only 3 of us would go on to become professional journalists (and make a living wage).

As I looked around the room of my peers, I was realistic enough to know 1. I was not the smartest one (or three) in the room and 2. My passion wasn’t strong enough to endure that much hardship. I felt it was too late in my education to pursue something different so I ended up interning at the city’s magazine, writing for the school newspaper, and graduating with that journalism degree.

Then I spent the next 6 months nannying. As so many wayward graduates do.

Then one day I saw a job listing on Craigslist (yes, Craigslist) for a marketing coordinator position at a local fashion company. The job listing stressed the importance of writing blog posts and creating social content. Two things I knew I could do, and well.

I ended up getting the job and working there for a couple years before finding a new opportunity at a local egg company startup.

They had been around for a couple years and when I left my first interview – they handed me a half dozen of eggs and I was hooked. I believed in their mission, I enjoyed (most of) the people, and was excited about the work.

I ended up getting the job and worked my tail off for the next few years supporting marketing, traveling to all the farms and meeting the “girls”, and getting my first taste of CPG.

Vital Farms is now a publicly traded company and I’m proud to be one of those first dozen-or-so employees who utilized storytelling to support that massive, and quick, growth.

To this day and every day, I still use my background in writing to weave stories, connect with consumers, and drive conversions for consumer product brands that I believe in.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

We met at a pageant and prom dress showroom floor! And no, neither one of us is the prom and pageant type.

She was in sales and I was in marketing and we got to go on a lot of fun adventures together: behind the scenes of photo shoots, New York Fashion Week, The Today Show, etc.

Once the fashion world stopped serving us in the way a fulfilling job should, we left for different opportunities and reunited about five years later to start our agency.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Give, give, give, give. Over the past almost six years, we have spent countless woman-hours giving our time and lending our expertise: hosting free webinars, creating educational content, offering free 30 minutes strategy calls, the list goes on.

In the early years, it felt like the more we gave, the more we got back. We made sure that what we were giving was high value and actionable and the word-of-mouth recommendations came flowing in.

We found the networks, non-profits, and groups in our industry and formed relationships with everyone we could. Again, offering our time and expertise in exchange for exposure in front of their communities.

This strategy has helped us gain a solid reputation as one of the go-to marketing agencies for CPG brands in Texas, and beyond.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://umaimarketing.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/umaimarketing/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-samelson