Inspiring Conversations with Jen Vanee of Wright Touch Marketing & Consulting

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jen Vanee.  

Jen, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
After graduating college at the height of the 08′ recession with a degree in Communications/Business, I found myself ready to go while the rest of the people in my industry were losing their jobs. I started saving money and planned to move to Chicago in the fall of 2011, where I knew there would be more opportunities for a communications professional like myself. However, that summer I was hired for an in-house marketing position with a family-owned commercial real estate and private equity firm where I ended up wearing many hats. After a few years of growing in that role, in my mid-twenties, and married to my work I made the decision to leave that position for a mid-sized partner firm with a better work/life balance. After a couple of years in that position, I was headhunted into a management role in Corporate.

While I was excited about the progression I was gaining in my career I didn’t know what was ahead of me. Corporate was a culture shock for a people-focused leader like myself. It was not kind to a woman in her early 30s starting to build a family. After years with the company and some of the best performance numbers in the country I was let go from my position at 6 months pregnant because “they wanted to go a different direction with their leadership.”

This was a big blow… to my ego and our family’s finances as we prepared to welcome a little one into the family. While I’m thankful now (because I probably would not have taken that leap alone) that was a scary time for my family. This series of events lit a fire in me and is when I initially started Wright Touch.

Then I got my next surprise; having a baby and launching a business at the same time is really hard. But I made the decision that I was not going to just take a job because I needed money. If I was going to work for someone else, it would be in a place where I knew that my voice would count and a place that aligned with my value system. All that to say, a few months into ramping up activity with my own business, I ended up taking a leadership position with a marketing agency, becoming the President.

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, I came to a lot of realizations about what was important to me and who I did and didn’t want to be as a leader, mom, and wife. I had grown the firm substantially over the course of the pandemic, leading the agency to various awards and national recognition, but was also feeling the culture of the organization slip through my fingers. Something so fundamentally important to me, I no longer felt was within my control. So, it was time to go.

That is what reinvigorated Wright Touch and shaped the direction of the business. I’m eternally grateful for the experiences I’ve had in my various positions because they shaped the business I do now. What started as a business focused on basic marketing implementation has grown into a company focused on people-centered strategy and consulting. Strategy development is incredibly exciting and rewarding work, I love watching my clients grow and scale because they are working from a sustainable growth strategy that is mindful of the people doing the work. At the end of the day, a strategy’s success or failure is in the hands of its people, and with the right structure & processes, performance metrics, and empathy, there is no reason every company can’t be great.

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?
It’s definitely been anything but a smooth road, but luckily my steamroller should be here any day now. Ironically, one of my biggest challenges getting started was trying to do the work I do for others, for myself. Strategy work, specifically messaging and positioning is really difficult to achieve when you can’t look at the business without objectivity or bias, and even as a strategist I struggled to do that with Wright Touch.

As the business is in early growth, it’s hard not to want to market every skill set in my arsenal, because let’s face it, the first few years of owning your own business are scary… Your income is not steady, you have to work your ass off to find business, and you learn a lot of lessons the hard way because you don’t know what you don’t know (sometimes until it’s too late and often expensive).

We’ve been impressed with Wright Touch Marketing & Consulting, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Profits through people. Strategies are ambitious in nature, as they should be, but unfortunately there is a reason that almost 70% of them fail to execute. Too often the leadership is far enough removed from the day-to-day of the business that they will develop strategies and goals that simply aren’t attainable with their current operations. The structure of their organization isn’t capable of performing… but they will try. Which leads to stress, burnout, low accountability, and high turnover amongst their staff.

While I have the flexibility to work with clients as they need, I’ve developed a standard engagement designed to help them save a lot of money, and create a solid backup plan in this turbulent hiring environment. The 3 phase process looks like this:

Phase 1 – I work closely with leadership so I can learn the ins and outs of the business. I do extensive research to understand best practices, the industry, competitors, and their customers. All this so that we can develop their positioning & messaging, target audiences, and a tactical implementation plan. Or as I like to say, “The Why, The Who, and The How”. (The best part… the messaging portion can also be used internally to create brand cohesion and strategic alignment within the organization)

Phase 2 – Maybe they already have someone on their team or maybe they need to hire someone. I will help them hire and/or train their team to get the marketing efforts off the ground and develop a dashboard for tracking results.

Phase 3 – I fall back into an advisory role. They and/or their team have access to me whenever they have questions, and we meet once a month to review metrics and determine what’s working, what’s not, and where we may need to make some strategic adjustments. All while teaching their internal team (through doing) how to do it themselves.

The two main benefits are:

1) Businesses get a senior-level marketing strategist overseeing all of their marketing activity at a fraction of the cost. Seriously… I’m talking like 75% less

2) In this turbulent hiring environment, if a business happens to lose their marketing person they still have access to the person that developed the strategy and has been engaged in the business. In that event, I can come back in to help hire or train so that the business doesn’t have to worry about taking capacity from another team member for onboarding.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Here are my lessons from the pandemic:

1) Speak up! Be the voice for the voiceless because the changes we make now will impact the future.

2) Be authentic! Show up as you are… People can only take your power if you give them permission.

3) Set boundaries! Your life and family must come first. We have to stop making ourselves feel guilty for not being connected to our work and team 24/7.

4) Trust your gut! It already knows what your head is still trying to figure out.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wrighttouchmarketing.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wrighttouchconsulting
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wright-touch or https://www.linkedin.com/in/wright05/