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

Cassia , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I always knew I wanted to be a business owner from a very young age. I remember in my tween years I wrote a lot and journaled. I remember “brain dumping” all the things I saw myself doing when I grew up. From coffee shop owners to model to having a career that allowed me to travel and not sit in a boring cubicle all day. I innately knew I was destined to live a very creative live in a creative field that allowed me lots of flexibility.

Fast foward, I was killing it in the online space, hosting workshops, hosting my podcast and gearing up to host an online masterclass in the thick of the pandemic. Then we went into a very strict lockdown while being based in Trinidad and Tobago.

The extreme and extensive lockdown sent me in a whirlwind of depression. By the time we were out of the pandemic and I returned to Trinidad after leaving due to the severe lockdown, I was really building myself back up personally much less professionally.

From the moment we went into lockdown I no longer had the capacity to fully run my business which not only required me to deliver on client projects but actually show up “happy and whole” to market my business as my business heavily relies on my personal brand. So I had no capacity to market my business and even manage and deal with clients and be an excellent project manager.

I just wanted to show up for work, do the work and get paid. I had no capacity for anything else. I was in contact with Pauleanna Reid – the owner of a Celebrity Ghostwriting Agency and in keeping in touch with her I lightly mentioned that I would be open to full time employment and the rest was history as they would say. In a nutshell she was hiring and I landed a position.

The fully remote position gave me the fuel I needed tend to my mental health and start feeling like myself again. It allowed me to go slow without having to push myself beyond my capacity in my own business. I can honestly say I love being a business owner and “doing my thing” which is building on my own creative pursuits in my business and other entrepreneurship projects.

I would never take on a regular job unless it fulfilled something bigger for me and I am open to discussing the right role, if they opportunity arrived but the best thing about being a business owner is the freedom and flexibility and once a role provides that for me, I would be open to that.

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

So my name is Cassia and I am the founder and Lead Strategist at From Basic to Branded Consultancy. I am a Black-Caribbean woman from Trinidad and Tobago.

While I am proudly born and bred in the beautiful twin island of Trinidad and Tobago, I spent all of my childhood years growing up between Trinidad, Tobago, New York, Michigan, and Canada. This exposure has heavily influenced my work, my desire to operate globally and digitally, and my perspective on my identity as a global citizen.

I dreamed of attending the prestigious School of Visual Arts (SVA) in NYC to pursue my passion for art. However, due to having been raised by my grand-mother a pensioner, this was not possible.

Instead, I unexpectedly became an understudy to a Creative Director and Ad Agency owner. In this role, I gained experience in design, copywriting, marketing, and the agency world. It was also here that my passion for corporate-level branding was ignited.

Fast forward to today, not only do I run my own Brand and Website Agency, but I am also a graphic designer and brand designer at WritersBlok – A Celebrity Ghostwriting Agency, led my Pauleanna Reid.

In this phase in my journey, I want people to know I am more than just a designer but I am a Brand and Creative Consultant and Mental Wellness Advocate. Coming from the Caribbean, self-care is something that is embedded in my soul. I crave days on the beach soaking in a the salty beach water and pouring into my soul through food and reflection.

This is something I want to do more of, so when I say I have creative projects I am pursuing this is the direction I am going. I want to speak on panels about mental wellness and self care, burnout as a creative as this is something I myself have a lot of experience in and then of course recovering from it because this world demands so much of creatives and we need to churn it out fast on the demand on the fly at a moments notice and sometimes it just happens that no amount of boundaries can prepare you for.

Especially when creative work is a feast and famine cycle, burnout is bound to happen, so this is an area I want people to see be more in and for.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

What helped me build my reputation was firstly actually knowing what I am talking about in my space. It’s okay if you don’t know, go find out and gain experience. I already had the experience so when I started leveraging social media and live video when Facebook launched Facebook LIVE video, I showed up spoke about what I KNEW.

Not anything else….what I knew.

Then I showed up consistently doing that, at least once a week, via Tea Time Tuesdays. I honestly created Tea Time Tuesday as a way to force me to commit to showing up every Tuesday (once a week) at a designated time.

Creating a segment or content series positions you not only as an “expert” or “though leader”, words that I also sort of overused but to put it simply, positions you as someone that is reliable and results in people believing that you are someone that people can trust.

In a nutshell this is how you let people know to take you seriously. When everyone else is flaking and falling off, doing something consistently over time, shows you have staying power.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

The resource is the power of your network. While being qualified/ showing your ish is great. It’s even better to build and nurture your network. This is the one resource I wish I had not overlooked or paid more attention too in building my business. I wish there were soft skills I learned how to develop and navigate especially as someone who is not just an introvert but has social anxiety.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cassiamarina.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_cassiamarina/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassiamarina/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cassiamarina
• Youtube: https://twitter.com/cassiamarina
• Other: Threads: https://www.threads.net/@_cassiamarina Tea Time with Cassia Podcast: www.cassiamarina.com/podcast

Image Credits
Kyle Archibald Photography https://kylearchibald.com/