We were lucky to catch up with Leniece Lane recently and have shared our conversation below.

Leniece, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Small Town Soul started out as a subset of another marketing agency I was working for at the time. The owner and myself were passionate about helping small businesses and nonprofits in our community but we donating so much of our time that our business suffered. So I started thinking about how could we still help them be successful. Thats how our Lunchplate Marketing Program and Small Town Soul were born. After that agency closed, I expanded Small Town Soul into a full marketing agency and educational organization that focuses on helping rural communities, small businesses owners and nonprofits get more out of their marketing budget while empowering them to do a lot of things on their own through our skill building programs..

Leniece, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Notes

I was born and raised in a small town and one of the things that really impacted where I am today is that sense of community. When you’re young, you don’t appreciate that, you find it constraining because everybody’s all in your business. I felt the same way when I was younger. I couldn’t wait to get out of my small town, move to the big city and be a CMO at a big firm. Then there’s a time in your life where you realize that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. For me it was when I had my daughter and I knew I wanted her to be raised how I was raised with that sense of family and purpose, in a community that even if we’re struggling, they are there to pitch in and help you. Moving back home helped me reconnect with that part of me, the small town girl that never really leaves us.

Since moving back, I’ve watched so many businesses that were thriving just a few years before close their doors. Places I grew up with, unique places where everyone knows your name and what you like to order. That ask about you parents and how your kids are doing in school. It broke my heart and I wanted to do something about it. At the time, I was still working in corporate America for American Express. I think maybe I didn’t have the confidence then to go out on my own. I did real estate for a little while when I moved back just because I already had my broker’s license, and it’s hard to find a job in marketing in a small town. Then I just kinda followed the signs I guess for lack of a better word. I feel like the universe provides opportunities that lead you down the path you are meant to go, leading you to your bigger purpose. It’s up to us to have faith in ourselves and be brave enough to take that chance.

I got involved in a marketing committee for a NC Step Grant with my hometown of Rutherfordton and it reignited my passion for marketing. Helping my town rebrand itself and increase its visibility was invigorating. I knew, without a doubt, this was the work I was meant to do.

After that I worked for a local marketing company, which I found by happenstance. It was owned by a lady that was married to an childhood friend. We were introduced one day and realized we had a shared passion for helping our community and that was how it all started for me. That’s where SmallTown Soul got started. It was born out of my passion for helping nonprofits and small businesses and so I developed Small Town Soul as an educational branch of the other agency. It was focused on providing education and courses that helped empower, small businesses, small towns, nonprofits, churches, anybody that struggles with budget, and taught them how to think like a marketer. I took complicated marketing strategies and broke them down into something simple and digestible to the average business owner. That became our Lunchplate Marketing program. It is still our core program even though we have several other courses now that are more focused on particular skills. It was created as an overview of components should be in your marketing plan. It’s based on those old cafeteria lunch trays where everything was sectioned off. Your square pizza went here your carton of milk there. It takes all the main components that make up a marketing plan and it breaks them into the subsections of the tray. This serves as a visual reminder of how much of your budget and time should be spent on each section to be successful. It really helps business owners visualize and breakdown something that can be very overwhelming to them. We teach them some of the tricks and tools we use every day so that they feel empowered to go back and be successful in their own business.

Eventually the marketing agency I was working for closed and I took Small Town Soul and turned it into. Full service marketing agency. Today we do everything including developing a marketing strategy, branding, websites, social media management, collateral, etc.

A lot of our clients, especially communities, have us on retainer where we act as their internal marketing team. We are able to do it at a fraction of what it would cost of to hire a full-time marketing person. This allows them to get professional services at an expert level without having to spend 40-50,000 a year on additional staff. Our marketing retainer program is very popular for rural communities that have a limited budget but still need assistance when it comes to marketing.

On the educational side, we speak and do a lot of presentations at conferences. We have a variety of courses that cover anything from time management to teaching communication skills such as how to have difficult conversations. We offer community engagement programs and economic development strategies. We also build custom courses if a client requests a particular topic. I worked in corporate America for several years. I helped build companies from scratch, so I have a robust background working for global companies. I can take those skills and then show small businesses and nonprofits can apply that methodology to their business and help them get ahead.

It takes a certain person to understand the challenges that small towns and rural communities face. You don’t have the population or the foot traffic you have in urban areas. On top of that you have to consider the unique quirks that come with living in a tight knit community. That’s a huge component that bigger marketing firms don’t always consider but it has a huge impact on local businesses. There are different strategies you have to employ to be visible and remembered. We are a smaller marketing company but we know small towns and we understand the people that live in them.

We’ve had some of our clients for 8+ years. We become part of the family, part of their communities. We have just as much passion for marketing them as we do our own community. I think that is so rewarding. I can’t even put into words. I have you Town Managers that invite me to their kids graduation or a small business owners that invites me to their 50th birthday party. Clients become friends they become part of our family and we become part of theirs. That’s a really special part of what we do and you don’t get that in corporate America. I think that’s where corporate America gets it wrong. Many of them started as small businesses, but as they grow they become so disconnected from their customers. That’s something that I’ve committed to, no matter how big we grow, I’ll grow my team at the pace that I need to to make sure we don’t lose focus on our clients. I want us to always have that intimate relationship with our customers because when you have that it makes you more passionate and you’re able to better tell their story when you’re part of that story.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

We get 90% of new clients as referrals from our existing clients. It’s kinda funny, as a marketing company, we do very little self-promotion. Our clients do it for us. They value the relationship they have with us and are so happy with the services we provide that they are more than happy to tell other people about us.

We do a lot of work with local government and municipalities as well as Main Street communities. We want to expand and help more towns throughout the US, but we know our work speaks for itself and we are excited to see what opportunities exist outside of our current client base.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I would say as a small marketing company, everyday is a story or resilience. We have some retainer clients, but most of our work is project based. There isn’t always consistent income and it is difficult to grow without a known budget.

We also try to keep our operational costs low so we can continue to provide low cost services to our clients. It’s part of our value as many of small budgets and we want to give them the most we can for the money they have. We’ve developed a strong network of experts that we contract with on an as needed basis. These are contractors that share our passion for rural communities and are committed to providing high quality services in their specific areas. We have worked together for several years and we trust them to deliver on whatever project we give them. This allows us to provide top notch services without the overhead of having full time staff or a big payroll we have to make when business is slow.

It also helped during Covid that we already had a nice selection of courses already developed that could be delivered online. That really helped us survive during the pandemic.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Smalltownsoul.us
• Instagram: Smalltownsoulus
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/smalltownsoul.us
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/small-town-soul/

Image Credits

Small Town Soul