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

Hi Alison, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

After working in the Promotional Products industry for a few years, I noticed the industry seemed to be a few steps behind others that I’ve worked in previously (marketing, PR, sales roles). It lagged in technology advances and even though our target market was professionals in the marketing space, marketing in the promotional world was far behind trends. I thought I could do it differently.

Having a marketing and sales background, I saw gaps in the way we helped clients. There was opportunity in discovering ways to help our clients in a new way that had never been approached before. That’s when I decided I would have more flexibility to not only explore those gaps, but solve bigger problems for my clients if I started my own company.

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

Extend Marketing is a premiere, full service, women-owned marketing and promotions agency with a passion for result-driven marketing. Our mission is to help others tell their story through multiple forms of media. We create customized, integrated marketing strategies helping companies address some of the biggest questions in business. Our premiere team here at Extend believes everyone has their own unique story, and our mission is to help you tell it. We help all sizes of business- from large corporations acting as an extension of their team on a project basis or long term retainer, to startups-helping you get what you need to get off the ground. We flex to meet you where you are at in order to elevate your brand.

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

We started as a promotional products agency – helping our clients from a strategy level plan for annual events by providing promotional products and apparel for their teams, clients, and prospects. In 2020 when the world shut down, we had to pivot. Our main source of revenue was tied to the event world and with corporate events all postponing or canceling completely, our business would soon shut down as well. Since we had marketing and PR experience plus had been providing marketing strategy consulting to select clients (although never truly marketed it), it was an easy pivot. We quickly re-wrote our business and marketing plan, adjusted our service offerings and quickly had success in launching those new services. We now today have equal revenue streams in both the promotional product / event space and the consulting space. Truly providing full-service marketing services to our clients.

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 always been a hard worker – meaning I don’t quit until I’ve reached the finish line. My determination, grit, competitive nature has always pushed me in my career. However as a business owner and a mom of littles, I had to learn how to balance it all. Burnout hit me like a brick wall at the end of 2020. I wanted to be present with my family but also continue to drive the business forward. Scheduling (yes, scheduling) time to disconnect, rest, take a break was crucial to being able to continue to move the needle. This was a new concept for me – I was taught rest was for the weak or more so, when the job was ‘done’. But in motherhood, in business ownership, there is no ‘done’. There is continual learning, forward growth, and always something left unfinished. Learning to take breaks was a new concept for me and something that is crucial to my companies continued growth.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://extendmarketinginc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/extendmarketinginc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExtendMarketingInc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/55044859
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq-ZOPUJYF_cgceFnqR4-0A
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/ExtendMarketingInc

Image Credits
32Oh Society for headshots