Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Caitlin Locascio-king. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Caitlin, appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

When my business partner, David, and I decided to formally join forces earlier this year, we knew that our name had to be perfect. We have been working together for sometime on branding, marketing and social media for our clients so our brand had to be spot on. We spent many working sessions together before we came up with one of our best collaborations: Magenta Fusion Brandworks. This is a division of my longtime company, Modern Marketing Legal, and we crafted a complimentary and cohesive logo to bring MFB and MML together.

Magenta is a beautiful and striking color that represents harmony and balance. I love color theory and Magenta combines the power and energy of read with the introspection of violet. We also pulled from aviation and the concept of the “magenta line” which is what guides pilots to their destinations. By working with Magenta Fusion Brandworks, we set the branding and marketing path for these businesses to follow to find growth and success.

Fusion is to celebration our collaboration and our skill set. Our company has co-founders with years of experience in business law, social media marketing and graphic design.

Brandworks is the heart and soul of what we do – be it launching all new branding of elevating an existing brand that has been outgrown or is out of date.

Magenta Fusion Brandworks.

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 have been an attorney for 14 years, focusing on estate planning and small business law. About 8 years ago I accidentally fell into social media marketing as I saw some of the Etsy and e-commerce shops that I purchased from were active on socials. I began tagging and sharing them. As a photography enthusiast, my photos were high quality and helped them gain traction. Soon they were sending me product in exchange for sharing posts and this led to conversations and, ultimately, friendships. I quickly realized that many of these incredibly talented artisans were not necessarily natural business owners and I began helping them out. This got my wheels turning and I saw huge opportunities for them – less than a year out, I began formally working with dozens of shops and growing a 15,000+ active member Facebook group, which led to years of my clients achieving 7 figure sales.

In 2022 as the economy began to slow down again, I realized that I had two skill sets (law and social media/digital marketing) that I should not continue to keep separate. So I founded Modern Marketing Legal and, earlier this year, its’ branding division Magenta Fusion Brandworks. We work with businesses of all shapes and sizes and in all stages on branding, social media and digital marketing success and website development.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I started my business with a free filing cabinet that I found on the side of the road. There was no glory, but a lot of guts. I took the ultimate gamble in 2011 when I went all in on my own business armed with little more than an infant, a car payment and student loans. I had to be successful from day one and knew bootstrapping it was the way to go. So when I saw that free filing cabinet – I jumped on it. Far too many hours later of hosing and scrubbing, my husband had it in good enough shape to bring inside.

This is symbolic of everything that first year – even several years. I knew I was bringing to the table my skillset, knowledge, creativity and compassion and those would carry me. I scrimped, save and was extremely strategic in spending. If I did not need it, I did not have it. I saved up to buy what would help me grow to feed my family and reinvest in the business.

Fast forward several years and a whole lot of hard work later and I own 100% of two successful companies. It was not the easy route by any means but it was worth every step of the way.

Have you ever had to pivot?

About 5 or years ago, I began to expand my branding and social media marketing work beyond the scope of my Etsy, Shopify & e-commerce clients. I had plenty of work to keep me busy with my existing clients, but a voice in the back of my head said I should diversify “just in case” and that I would enjoy the business expansion. Then COVID hit and, while we had been fully immersed online for years, the rest of the world had to pivot on a dime. We were in prime position and had already put in hours and hours to establish the groundwork – virtually all of my clients saw their businesses explode. For the next two years I put in Herculean hours and saw lives change and businesses grow due to the change of how the world went shopping. I kept my non e-commerce clients on though, more times than I can count, I wondered why I was putting myself through that when I had a full time (plus) job focusing on my bread and butter clients. Then, in 2022, things began to change. And some changes came rapidly. The bubble burst, the recession was really grounding in and people’s budgets for the expendables began to diminish rapidly. What had once been (generally speaking) a very congenial community took dog eat dog to astonishing levels as competition for ever diminishing clients with ever decreasing budgets grew more and more headed. I knew how this would go as it progressed and made the difficult decision to pivot fully from “almost all e-commerce” clients to “nearly no e-commerce” clients. This change was not taken lightly and not easy to undergo. There was a lot of fear and a lot of faith in my ability to cutdown and regrow my existing business. That little voice in my head that had told me years earlier to diversify was worth listening to and gave me a very minimal income stream while I focused on the pivot and executing it to the absolute best of my abilities. Saying that transition year was rough is an understatement, but, looking back now, it was the best decision I have ever made for my business, which is thriving now because of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mfbrandworks.com and www.modernmarketinglegal.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/magentafusionbrandworks and www.instagram.com/cllk09
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-locascio-king-23aa5a1b/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@modernmarketinglegal
• Other: www.threads.net/@magentafusionbrandworks
  www.tiktok.com/@modernmarketinglegal

Image Credits

Leah’s Lens