We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Bulmer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.

Hi Katie, thanks for joining us today. Looking back, what’s an important lesson you learned at a prior job?

My background is in advertising I had two key jobs I feel really prepared me for what it is I am doing today. My first job was in Television advertising. I had to come up with the storyboard, go on commercial shoots that often took several hours, and sit with the editor to condense hours of footage into a 30-second commercial. I see how all of that prepared me to make content for social media and YouTube.

Second, I work in promotional sales. In 2014 I was selling bulk orders of T-shirts to colleges. At the time the “babydoll” tee was trending. Everyone wanted the smallest tee they could find. Yet as I was walking around college campuses I noticed the sorority girls wearing oversized tees. Almost simultaneously I started getting request after request of comfort colors brand T-shirts. I was working in the T-shirt industry yet I had never even heard of this brand. As I was filling the request I noticed comfort colors kept having stock shortages and delays. They were growing so fast they couldn’t keep up with the demand. I got so curious why this unheard of brand was all of a sudden exploding in popularity.
I learned the company did no new advertising, they didn’t launch any new products, their CEO was in failing health yet they sky rocked in sales, why? I was able to meet some executives behind the scenes at comfort colors corporate in January of 2015 to ask this very question. “How did a mom-and-pop company skyrocket in sales 30 years after inception with no new advertising?” Their answer, “sorority girls can change the world.”

No one knows how or why it started but sorority women decided they liked comfort colors t-shirts. They started buying them for their socials, sharing them with others, sporting them on campus and the rest is history.
Gildan, the largest t-shirt distributor on the planet bought comfort colors later that year for the whopping price tag of 100 million dollars. The founder of Comfort Colors retired a happy man.

This was the “ah-ha” moment that led me to see the trend-setting power posessed by sorority women. Now I have traveled to over 70 colleges nationwide helping sorority women understand their trend-setting power and helping them use it FOR GOOD!

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

After spending 15 years in marketing I couldn’t help but notice the incredible trend-setting power in sorority women. As a sorority alumna myself I also knew the insecurity and self-doubt holding so many of these women back. I would ask myself, “do young women even realize they have the power to take unheard of brands and turn them into a 100 million dollar phenomenon? Imagine the impact these women could make if they harness this power FOR GOOD!”

I wrote a blog post that turned into a book that turned into a speaking platform and social media presence. I have traveled to over 70 colleges all across the nation, have a podcast and show up on social media all to “be who I needed when I was younger.”
I help young women understand their worth, make a positive impact while they are young, raise the bar in dating, and help them understand the power in the gift we call sisterhood.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Nearly all of my speaking engagements come from social media. I am a big believer in the “know like and trust factor” For anyone to do business with you they need to: 1) Know who you are
2) Like you
3) Trust you
And I believe, in many cases this can be done in 15 seconds or less.

Video is the most powerful form of media we have. Imagine when the only way we had to communicate our business was through a black-and-white ad in the newspaper. Now, through the power of a cell phone, you can offer sight, sound, color, motion, and emotion in a matter of seconds.

Example: I stumbled across a tiktok of a woman with a bicycle pump with the pump end in a jar of jam. She proceeded to start “pumping the jam’ while the audio of, you guessed it, “Pump up the jam” was playing. I thought it was the funniest thing I had seen all day. I immediately liked her and wanted to know more. I clicked on her link in profile and learned she makes custom bath bombs. My daughter had a birthday coming up so in matter of minutes I had bought 10 custom bath bombs for an upcoming party from my new friend who knows how to “pump up the jam”

I don’t think it’s all about silly videos, I think you need to share your message/products and testimonails and also just be yourself. My social media is full of me promoting my podcast, speaking, and also jamming out to Taylor Swift. It’s just me being me.

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

Very quickly after the world shut down from COVID I offered a free Zoom session called “How to make the most of your sisterhood when you can’t see your sisters” Colleges were scrambling hoping students wouldn’t drop their membership with all the events canceled. From that initial meeting, I was able to facilitate a place for sisters across the county to share ideas on how to make the best of this situation. Word spread I was helping sororities during COVID and I quickly became an in-demand virtual speaker.

I spoke to more colleges during the pandemic than at any other time. One evening I “traveled” from Nebraska to Floridia with a 15 minute buffer because it was all virtual. I was doing several events a week and often several in one night.
I learned to bring energy and fun to a Zoom call and vowed to be way more fun than their professors via zoom.
All virtually, I had the girls do yoga poses, utilize the chat box for interaction, do an interactive quiz, and I always stood up during the presentation to keep the energy high.
Today I still offer Zoom as a more affordable option and learned so many skills on presenting during that forced career pivot.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://katiebulmer.life/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiebulmerlife/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-bulmer-b78346135/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYhOtuRIwnYLMXfojeUFeTg
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@katiebulmerlife?source=h5_m