We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katy Martin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Katy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?
Overall, Success drives me, and I strive to always be more successful and better each and every day. I want to succeed in producing great events, leading my team while helping them grow, and to help each and every wonderful client that I work with. I want to mention that success is so important but so are the everyday accomplishments too. I strive to focus on the great things that happen along the way. I’ve tried to teach myself as well as other younger individuals in this world that success is how you measure it and to take pride in each and every step of success.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I have been the Proud owner of Coastal Coordinating for 16 proud years now. Anyone who meets me will tell you how much I love event and wedding planning – It is truly my calling and passion. I started my company out of the blue and honestly on accident when a friend reached out to hire me to plan their friend’s wedding. I had been a planner for 6 years before I started Coastal Coordinating while working for the Marriott Football Hall of Fame (Yes, I helped plan an event for John Madden and Warren Moon). I have also worked as A Director of Catering for Hilton and at a Private Venue in St Augustine, Florida. When my Friend reached out, I was working for Corporate America in a Human Resources role and had planned to explore that field more, but fate had another plan for me. When my friend reached out, I referred a few other great planners, but they wanted me to do the wedding for them so long story short, within a year after As other vendors found out I was planning this wedding they started to refer me more and more and that is how I started my business. In the first year we did over 40 events and now we do 10x that on average as a company. We are able to give great service on each and every event due to the wonderful planners I have on the team.
Here are some personal, fun facts about me:
-My favorite part of a wedding day is bustling the wedding dress!
-My husband and I celebrated our wedding reception dinner unexpectedly at Waffle House due to COVID – But honestly, it was truly the best and I wouldn’t change one thing about it!
-I am obsessed with pool floats, (you should see my patio). I just love them all. I think if I could take all my calls in the pool on my float, life would be complete.
-I have two pups that I love more than anything, Hank and Lucy.
-I am a bonus mom to the best girl ever named Marlee. This is probably one of my greatest accomplishments that I never saw coming.
-I really love to take chances and go out on a whim. Life is short and I plan to make the best of it! I always try to live life with the glass half-full.
-I love love love the color PINK!!
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Years ago, a co-worker of mine told me that social media was the best way to market to our customers and clients. I am a tiny bit old school, and I thought no way is this true. But Wow was I wrong for sure. I took a leap, listened and opened my eyes to new ideas. I let her show me and teach me and I let her take over a lot of the aspects of social media to grow our presence in the market. We did it all organically and in-house. She still helps me each and every day to make this a part of our business and help us grow. Over the years, I’ve had to learn more and more about new platforms and ways to be creative with an audience while staying authentic. I truly believe that you have to take the leap and put more into it and sometimes it’s hiring an outside company to help you with the things that you can’t do in house. The world of social media and marketing is changing each and every day and we just have to be open to it. I know I was in. It really helped me. Thank you, Brittany. I will forever be grateful to you for this.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Years ago, a co-worker of mine told me that social media was the best way to market to our customers and clients. I am a tiny bit old school, and I thought no way is this true. But Wow was I wrong for sure. I took a leap, listened and opened my eyes to new ideas. I let her show me and teach me and I let her take over a lot of the aspects of social media to grow our presence in the market. We did it all organically and in-house. She still helps me each and every day to make this a part of our business and help us grow. Over the years, I’ve had to learn more and more about new platforms and ways to be creative with an audience while staying authentic. I truly believe that you have to take the leap and put more into it and sometimes it’s hiring an outside company to help you with the things that you can’t do in house. The world of social media and marketing is changing each and every day and we just have to be open to it. I know I was in. It really helped me. Thank you, Brittany. I will forever be grateful to you for this.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.coastalcoordinating.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coastalcoordinating/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coastalcoordinating/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@coastalcoordinating
Image Credits
Amber Yonkers Fantastic Photography – Julia Ivanova Kourtney Kaiser Tori Huff – Taken By Tori Rodrigo Mendez