Today we’d like to introduce you to Tori Kinley.
Hi Tori, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
In 2020, I planned to get a PhD in Behavioral Marketing at an Ivy League school. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic brought those plans to a complete halt. I had been doing extensive research in social media, specifically surrounding the psychology of persuasion, storytelling, and body language in preparation for this PhD. By this time, I had about 4 years of social media marketing experience as an influencer while in college. I had worked with over 150 brands on influencer marketing campaigns. I became obsessed with learning how to grow a following and make money on social media. I combined the research I started for graduate school with my knowledge of influencing and created theories on what would make videos on TikTok go viral. I filmed 5 research videos in a Walmart parking lot, the same day I quit my Marketing Specialist job at a company in Fort Myers, FL. I posted them to a brand new TikTok account. The second video I posted got 1.2 million views and I gained over 150,000 followers overnight.
Because of this success, I decided to go full-time in my business, Kinley Inc Marketing, in January 2021. I began replicating these formulas and created successful social media content for businesses. Like any new entrepreneur, my income was not stable. I kept my expenses lean. I tried to live in the least expensive places possible, I drove an older car, and I didn’t spend money on unnecessary things. I reinvested every dollar back into the business. Some months had more dollars than others, some months had none. I kept my rent costs below $1,000.
Unfortunately, in March 2022, my landlord in Southwest Florida informed my roommate and I that if we wanted to resign our lease in June our rent would be increasing from $1,800 a month to $3,200. Spending $1,600+ a month on rent when I previously budgeted $900 was not feasible. I tried to find new places to live, but I was faced with a sobering reality: I was priced out of my hometown.
I was born and raised in the Naples/Fort Myers region of Florida, but I spent every summer growing up in Northern Michigan. My parents had their own business and a unique opportunity to work while traveling. As soon as my sister and I got off of school, we would pack up our motorhome and travel around Northern Michigan State Parks. We always took numerous trips to Mackinac Island, and every summer I dreamed of one day living and working there. Eventually my parents became snowbirds in Cheboygan, MI (20 minutes away from Mackinaw City).
When my living situation, business, and plans for the future came to a complete halt, I decided to fulfill my childhood dream of living and working on Mackinac Island. I heard these jobs come with housing, meals, and plenty of overtime hours, meaning you can leave with a good chunk of change at the end of the season. BUT I also heard that they fill up quickly, and it is very difficult to get a job on the island. I started my job hunt, but very quickly became overwhelmed with the disorganized process. What did the housing look like? What did the jobs look like? Who is the best business to work for on the island? How do I even find good jobs on the island? What is the best job on the island? The questions went on and on and remained unanswered, no matter how much research I did. Eventually, I settled on the safe option: Grand Hotel. I thought I got lucky, thinking this was one of the few jobs left before season started in less than 60 days.
In May 2022 I moved to Mackinac Island. I decided to come back to my social media influencer lifestyle and began posting about life on the island. I shared stories, recommendations, and general behind-the-scenes of life on Mackinac Island to over 200,000 followers on TikTok. I would get recognized in the streets as “Tori from TikTok” and have people stop and ask me for photos. I also received hundreds of messages from people asking how they can get a job on the island. I ended up having over 20 people come up to me during that season, saying that they got a job on the island that summer because of my videos. On the flip side, I saw businesses on the island struggling to hire. Many who relied on H2B and J1 visa employees. I started thinking “maybe there’s a business opportunity here” to fill these positions.
However, in November 2022, I tabled that idea.
My original plan was to stay on the island year-round and continue my storytelling on social media. However, in September 2022, Hurricane Ian destroyed my hometown. I returned for what I thought was a quick visit home and became distraught at the devastation. I spiraled into intense survivor’s guilt and depression. So much of what I knew and loved was gone. It didn’t feel right going back to my cushy life on Mackinac Island when people I knew lost everything. I reached out to one of my friends at a news station and offered to volunteer for behind-the-scenes projects. I wasn’t physically strong, but my strength was in storytelling. I wanted to feel like I was making an impact in the rebuild.
However, when the News Director met me and saw my storytelling videos on TikTok, he offered me a job as a News Reporter on the spot. I was thrown on live TV my first week and was on every weekday at 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm. I covered many stories about struggles in our community and made many great connections. Particularly, I gravitated towards stories of people who could no longer afford to live in their homes because of the continuing housing costs that I experienced just a few months ago, now exacerbated by the hurricane damages.
I realized my community needed even more help than what I could provide on the news. I ended up resigning from my position at the news and restarting Kinley Inc in September 2023. I was going to use my social media storytelling skills to help rebuild businesses destroyed by the storms and bring awareness to issues in SWFL for politicians to see. Many of my videos caught the attention of leaders and politicians, and we continued to make impacts through social media for the rebuild. Eventually, I expanded to nationwide clients, specifically focusing on hospitality.
When I restarted Kinley Inc I once again has no income, so I had nothing to show leasing offices when they required 3x income to rent a $2,000 1-bedroom apartment. However, I was able to qualify by showing my savings. From my 6-months working on Mackinac Island I put away $40,000 into my savings account. This gave me the relief and financial safety net that I didn’t have in 2022.
Unfortunately, many of my peers were not this lucky. The pinnacle moment for me was when a friend of mine came over and cried on my couch. She was 29 years old, had a college degree, and had a respectable “big girl job”, but was only getting paid $55,000 a year. She came to me crying because she was denied from the least expensive studio ($1,800) that she could find in our area because she didn’t make 3x income and she had $189 in her savings. She picked up a second retail job at the local mall to fill the gaps, working a total of 60 hours per week just to make ends meet and still save $0. I also worked with the Lee County and Collier County homeless coalitions as my clients for Kinley Inc, and there I learned just how terrible many people are struggling in our area and country. In Collier County, Florida you have to make over $90,000 to not be considered low income. That’s how expensive everything is here.
I recommended working on Mackinac Island to her. And over time this story continued over and over with other friends in my life. I realized how much my life changed because of working on Mackinac Island. Don’t get me wrong, I worked my ass off for 50-60 hours a week and clocked tons of overtime. But my housing costs were $300 a month and all of my money went to my savings.
Why was no one talking about this?
Working on Mackinac Island – Seasonal jobs in general – were the key to the American Dream. My friends were crying and feeling hopeless about never being able to save for a down payment on a house. You know what $40,000 in your savings can do? Put a major dent into a down payment. After much research, I realized most people come away with $10,000-$60,000 by working a seasonal job on Mackinac Island, as long as they don’t party through their money and spend it wisely. Bartenders and servers, as well as other tipped positions, leaned on the higher end of that spectrum. And employee making $13 an hour with overtime minus costs of living and food can leave with $10,000 in their pockets. That money can be used to start a business, put a down payment on a home, or just give someone the cushion to breathe for the first time in their life.
Seasonal Jobs are the key to unlocking the American Dream that has felt out of reach for many 18-35 year olds in the United States.
However, the H2B visa workers already knew about this life hack. Everyone I spoke to on a H2B visa came to the island, worked hard for 6 months, and went back to their home country and lived like Kings for the winter. Many workers returned year after year, some 30+ years.
I saw a few issues with this. 1) The visa workers go to their home country in the winter, so this money is not being circulated back into the US Economy. That’s millions of dollars getting exported. 2) There are millions of young, hardworking Americans struggling financially, and these jobs are the key to the American Dream. Why are we importing work when we have domestic employees needing it desperately? 3) With the current Administration’s dialogue of stricter immigration reform, seasonal work employers are going to find it more and more challenging to import visa workers.
I saw this problem and created the solution: Mackinac Works. Mackinac Works utilizes expert marketing strategies to market seasonal jobs to domestic workers. We are the ONLY business dedicated to recruitment on Mackinac Island. Mackinac Works is a one-stop-shop for domestic workers to apply for jobs, gain insider island knowledge, and purchase things they need for their season to be successful. We have created guided seasonal worker journals with finance tracking and worker mental health in mind. On the business-to-business side, we have created many viral videos showcasing jobs on Mackinac Island. Employers can utilize us for job and business marketing, and our expertise in viral video creation can promote their business as well. Kinley Inc has a track record of continued marketing success. For example, we sold out one of our clients in New York from 2 videos. Both videos went viral on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook and this client became fully booked from May-October with leads just from these social media videos. That’s the power of what we do.
So we combine that with the added extension of marketing for jobs and recruiting the best domestic employees to not only support the businesses and the US economy, but to help struggling Americans achieve the American Dream.
Our mission at Kinley Inc DBA Mackinac Works is to help struggling Americans achieve the American Dream through seasonal jobs.
Our mission does not stop on Mackinac Island. We will be expanding nationally. We are currently working in Naples, FL (my hometown) to get Mackinac Island summer workers connected with winter jobs (with housing) down here.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
This business relies on cooperation with businesses to utilize Mackinac Works as one of their main job listing platforms. If we don’t get enough businesses on board, we have no business. We already have hundreds of applicants in our candidate pool. We need jobs to place them in.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Mackinac Works by Kinley Inc?
Kinley Inc Marketing is the parent company of Mackinac Works. We specifically work with hospitality business to create successful socal media content online. We have sold out entire hotels with just two social media videos.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
You can send me an email at kinleyinc@gmail.com or go to kinleyincmarketing.com or mackinacworks.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mackinacworks.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/mackinacworks
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576569249798
- TikTok: tiktok.com/tori.kinley
