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

Gina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?

“Hope is not a plan.”

For most of my professional life, I was an accountant. At this time, I had been in accounting for over 15 years, and I was working for a large, well-regarded company. I always knew that an accountant was not what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” But I didn’t know what I actually wanted to be at that time, so I did my job diligently. I showed up and checked all the boxes, but always wishing for more.

One Friday afternoon, I left the office, knowing that a large deposit was going to hit our account in the next few days, but so was a large withdrawal. And I knew that if the withdrawal hit first, the account would overdraft.

Instead of taking a few minutes to make a transfer from one account to another, I left – hoping that the deposit would go in first.

Well, it didn’t. By Monday morning, the withdrawal cleared, and the account went negative. By tens of thousands of dollars. I walked in at 9:00 am, and my boss confronted me about it. Obviously mad as hell, but still respectful.
He asked why I didn’t make the transfer on Friday, and I told him I was hoping the deposit would clear first.

That’s when he looked at me and said, “Hope is not a plan.”

To be clear, there were no real repercussions. I was able to get the $35 overdraft fee reversed because we were such a large client, and nothing bounced.
But that statement – “Hope is not a plan” – is how I’ve lived my life since.

Gina, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When I graduated in 2002, I was planning on going into psychology because I’ve always been interested in the way the brain works. But my dad owned a trucking company, and he was having trouble with his bookkeeper. One day, he called me up and said, “Hey, Biscuit, why don’t you come do my books?” Me, 18, with zero accounting experience.

Fast forward to 2015, I’d been in accounting for about 13 years, and I was in a very high-stress job. I left that job, and 3 days later, I had a stroke. I went back into accounting after recovering.

Then 2023, I started having the same headaches I was having before my stroke. I was in another extremely high-stress job. So I left that position and got a nice, quiet admin job at a financial advisor’s firm.

But then I was bored. I went from working 65+ hours a week to a flat 40. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself.

That’s when it hit me. I was driving one afternoon, and I realized how I wanted to serve people and fill my time. And that’s how I started Takin’ the Backroads.

I love photography, specifically food photography. And I started working with Texas mom & pop restaurants to tell their stories & show their food. Because I saw them closing one at a time, many of them just because people didn’t know they existed…because they didn’t have the know-how or the budget for big marketing.

And I realized that my blog, while effective, wasn’t making a big enough impact.
So I started marketing for some, for free. Interviews, photos, videos, articles, social media management, events, etc. And that’s when I saw how much helping them build their community grew their business.

In February of this year, I decided that if I was going to really go for this and start my own company, there was no better time than the present. I took the leap. I went full-time with Takin’ the Backroads and started Wildflower Media because I was seeing my work help small businesses, and I wanted to do so much more.

I learned that community is more than where we live. It’s our family, employees, business partners, customers, and even charities that we support.

It’s everyone who surrounds us.

I decided that I needed to specialize in community marketing, because where they thrive, so does business. Now, it’s my goal to drive revenue by creating die-hard brand loyalists, organically. My goal is to grow small businesses’ communities, so that they can grow their business.

I do this through high-touch service. That means I’m out at businesses, getting video and photos, attending their events to capture special moments, and helping them brainstorm ways to make their customers feel more like they’re part of their family, not just a part of their paycheck.

Because I believe that small business deserves big marketing, and we’re going to get that by having a loving and loyal community.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Takin’ the Backroads was on a mission to help Texas mom & pop restaurants thrive. But that has since grown.

Since starting Wildflower Media, we’re now on a mission to flip the marketing industry on its head by making marketing accessible, personal, and wildly creative for small, local businesses. We take their vision personally, nurture it like our own, and turn it into growth that feels real.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

“I’m just a girl from a trailer in Bryan, Texas. What do I know about starting my own business?” This is a tough one.

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit, but it took a long time to feel deserving of pursuing it. I didn’t go to school for business. I grew up low-income. What gave me the right to pursue something so huge?

I think what made me realize that I do deserve it is the amount of work that I’ve put into it, and that I’m willing to put in. Just the sheer dedication has proved to myself that I was made for this.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.takinthebackroads.com, www.wildflowermediatx.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Takinthebackroads, https://www.facebook.com/WildflowerMediaTX/

Image Credits
Gina Prince