We recently connected with Catherine Lang-Cline and have shared our conversation below.

Catherine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

Building your career by working for large and small companies is the best education you can gift yourself. After about 15 years of doing that, Kristen Harris and I chose to start a business based on what we learned and by not doing a number of the things that we experienced. We both had long careers in marketing and wanted to fill the gap we saw regarding finding great marketing talent that fit your budget and giving the talent the rates they deserved in a position where they would thrive. When we started our staffing and recruiting company, we didn’t want it to operate in the typical fashion. We didn’t want to simply fill empty seats, we wanted to make perfect matches. We wanted open projects to be great opportunities for the talent we represented. We also wanted the companies we worked with to have the person who had the perfect skill set for their project and was also a great fit for their culture. Sometimes, we couldn’t send anyone for a while because we felt it would be a failure to rush and put the wrong person on the job.
Internally, with our team, we wanted a great life balance. We don’t track time off, but we do track the goals we have set for every person. We believe people need balance and can perform better when we give them the opportunity. Growth, both personal and professional, is also very important in our culture.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Portfolio Creative is a staffing and recruiting company that specializes in placing marketing people. Since 2005, we have placed amazing talent in great companies. Because we have over 30 years of combined experience in marketing and advertising, we can offer our experience in making the best selections to fit their budget. We have also advocated for talented people to get the best pay on a project that suits their skill set. People like working with us because we understand their project and the challenge of finding the right person. They appreciate our love for what they do for a living and the desire to help them win in their careers.
The three things that make us unique are experts, we are creative, and we are good humans.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I met Kristen Harris, my business partner, years before we started a business. We both worked at a Fortune 500 company in their marketing department. One of the things that I greatly admired about Kristen is that she worked hard and got things done. Years later, we reconnected when I was looking for freelancing work. I reported to her for all of my assignments, and one day we had a discussion about starting a business. Our relationship has only ever been a professional one and that has seemed to have worked over the last 18 years of our partnership.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Word of mouth was first. As any start-up knows, marketing can be a financial challenge, especially when trying to “sell” the idea that you are experts at what you do. The people that we worked with became fans, and our fans spread the word. Community involvement helped to build our reputation as well. Our commitment to local businesses and the creative community illustrated that we are in this for a reason greater than ourselves. We want everyone to succeed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://portfoliocreative.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portfolio.creative/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PortfolioCreative
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/219009/

Image Credits
Karianne Munstedt and Big House Photography