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

Lauren, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Going out on my own to start consulting is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken professionally.

I’m someone who likes to work in a group and feel I’m part of something bigger. I’ve managed teams of 20+ and worked for huge corporations with tens of thousands of employees and multimillion dollar advertising budgets. I’ve been trained and sharpened by some of the brightest marketing minds in the industry — I truly felt lucky and honored to get to work alongside some of these people. There was never any appeal for me to work on my own!

Earlier this year though, everything changed. I went to bed one night after a phone call with an executive at the company I was working for and knew I was in the wrong place at that point in my life. I was still growing and still learning (always will be!), but I began to see a clear path to stepping out and helping lots of companies elevate their impact. Something clicked in me and I was completely confident that my ability to add value to all kinds of businesses and organizations would bring me the same fulfillment I’d had for the previous twenty+ years being part of a larger team.

This all culminated somewhat quickly — in less than 6 months — and I ‘took the leap’ as they say.

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?

For the last 20 years, Lauren Snedden built a robust Marketing and Communications background. Her experience uniquely equips her to deliver meaningful results for nearly any business.

She was the Head of Corporate Communications for a SaaS company out of San Diego (Tealium) where she planned and executed successful Brand, Design, Social Media, Public Relations, Internal and External Communications and Customer Marketing initiatives. This software powers the customer experience for 850+ global organizations like Pfizer, LinkedIn, Northwestern Mutual, Adidas, Hilton, and Volkswagen.

She was the VP, Marketing & Communications for Tulsa Regional Chamber/ Tourism where she efficiently relaunched the Visit Tulsa brand and website, as well as successfully planned and executed the Tulsa Safely visitor campaign during the Covid pandemic.

During her 8 years at Yahoo! in Dallas, she led category sales strategies spanning Pharma, Tech, Financial Services, Autos, CPG, Travel and Hospitality, and Retail/QSR and was the Go-To-Market Lead for the company. She developed high value, custom solutions and marketing materials for Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo News. She won a Sales LEAD Award for Exceeding Customer Expectations in the CPG category.

She ran media buying and planning for Oracle, Kellogg’s, Disney, Best Buy and Allstate, to name a few, during her 7 years at Starcom in Chicago, while winning multiple agency and industry awards for her thought leadership during this time.

She founded Sapphire Marketing and Communications Consultancy in her hometown of Tulsa, Okla. on a mission to elevate everything for businesses of all sizes in all industries. Her services range from one-off projects like re-branding or strategic workshops to fractional CMO services as an embedded, part-time leader of the organization.

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

Throughout my career, marketing, advertising and communications has evolved unimaginably. From the tools we use, to the data we have access to, to the ways people connect with brands, to the innovations in social platforms… staying ahead of what’s coming next has been my way of life.

However, I’ve had to unlearn the way I speak about what I know and can do for a business to my clients and prospects (and this is still a work in progress).

‘On the inside’ I would speak to my team in sophisticated marketing terms to demonstrate I was knowledgable about the latest trends and technology.

Now that I’m out in the world interacting primarily with people who don’t have a marketing or communications background, I’ve discovered how difficult it is for me to explain marketing and communications strategies and tactics in the simplest human terms.

Now, I am unlearning how I speak about the value I can deliver and relearning how to articulate my skillset. This has been very humbling for me as someone who crafts high value stories for a living!

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I feel very fortunate that the most successful way I’ve been able to build my client base was sending a mass email to almost every contact I have in my personal network.

Most of our friends and family have always known that I ‘did marketing’ but very few knew the full extent. Shortly after filing for my LLC, I decided to let all of my family and friends know about this change. I explained what I was doing, my background and some of my accomplishments and asked them to please keep me in mind if they knew of anyone needing marketing or communications support.

The amazing thing? Almost every single person emailed me back. I received dozens of the most supportive responses, best wishes and commitments to share my website with their networks. I was completely blown away. And when the email resulted in a handful of discovery calls too, it was icing on the cake.

I definitely recommend humbly asking your personal networks to help you as an entrepreneur. Give them all the information they need to be able to share your story for you, because no one will be a better cheerleader for you than your people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SapphireTUL.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-snedden-0324a86/