Amy Kinnaird, president of UnCommon Sense Marketing, has a great deal of satisfaction in working with her clients. Serving as the go-to marketing expert for the Pop Up Project, she finds herself working with several local small businesses. Kinnaird values time with her family and is quick to turn down anything that interrupts quality time with them.
Tell me about your job.
KINNAIRD: I work with success-minded, optimistic small business owners who want to simplify their marketing plan, who might be struggling to understand what to do with social media or who want someone to train their staff on best marketing practices so that their return on investment from their employees is higher. For example, a client might hire me to assess their current marketing and help them put together a marketing calendar full of both online and offline activities. And some might want me on a retainer basis to guide the implementation of parts of their plan. I offer my services through corporate training days, workshops, private consulting, and I love to educate a room full of business owners as a keynote speaker!
Q: How long have you been there?
KINNAIRD: Since 2008.
Q: What prompted you to start your business? What attracted you to do what you currently do?
KINNAIRD: When my boss retired, I decided to start my own business. I had been working from home for 13 years at that time and couldn’t see going back to a J.O.B. in an office. Marketing and training have been the core of what I’ve always done, so I continued to offer those kinds of services, virtually, to clients around the country. Pretty early on I began speaking on and teaching social media. It fit right in with my background, and no one else was really approaching it from a marketing standpoint in the early days. It’s just another marketing tool to add into the mix.
After leading with social media for so long, I wanted to get back to my love of all things marketing, so I’m working now with much larger businesses to strategize, and in some cases implement, a range of marketing activities.
Q: What are the advantages/disadvantages of owning your own business?
KINNAIRD: Advantages: flexibility of my work schedule. I have a morning routine for body and spirit to ease into my day, and it’s great to work from home. I enjoy dressing up and going to client locations and networking meetings, but it’s also nice to sit around and work in my shorts and flip-flops when I get back home! I like traveling out of town for business, plus I’ve made it a priority to invest time and money in personal development, whether through a business coach, (they have been critical to my success), online programs or just reading books or listening to podcasts from thought leaders.
Disadvantages: Owning your own business is a lot of work. It’s not for everyone. You have to be very focused and do a lot of things you never knew or cared about. Knowing when to outsource tasks is important, and you have to continually stretch in order to get to the next level. That means that a lot of time I am working outside of my comfort zone, but it’s so worth it. Working from home can be isolating and distracting, so you have to deal with that.
Q: What is a typical day like?
KINNAIRD:For me, there is no typical day. (Is there for anyone?!) But each day, I try to work some IN my business and some ON my business.
Q: What do you love most about your job?
KINNAIRD: I have two kids – a 21-year-old daughter, who is a junior in college, and a son, who is a graduating high school senior. Juggling is often pretty hard. There’s a lot of guilt for the missed things. I use to be a mostly stay-at-home mom, so I was able to make every school function and volunteer at every function the kids had.
Q: What is your advice to other career women in the working industry today?
KINNAIRD: I love that I have learned so much and accomplished so much since I started my own business. The people I have met on this journey have blessed and enriched my life more than I could have dreamed, and it’s exciting to realize that I can take this anywhere I want to go. I love getting in front of a group of people, whether as a speaker or trainer. My kids say it’s because I like telling them what to do, but for me, it’s hopefully helping them solve a problem they have.
Q: What is your most memorable experience at work?
KINNAIRD: Wow. Tough question. Each time I see the light go on in someone’s eyes when we work together, and when I see them putting into practice the things we have talked about, that gives me great satisfaction.
Q: What do you enjoy to do outside of work? Clubs? Organizations? Volunteer work? Hobbies?
KINNAIRD: President of local chapter of American Society for Training & Development, member of PRAL (public relations), Book Club, Garden Club, working out. Do a lot with my church. I actually love just sitting outside in the shade, visiting with family, friends or the neighbors, just chillin’.
Q: How do you balance it all?
KINNAIRD: I’m working on it! My morning Bible lesson time keeps me centered, and I’m learning to “just say no!” to things that take away from my family time.
Q: Any advice for the working woman/mom?
KINNAIRD: Find a mentor, a great mastermind group and a great business coach who ‘gets’ your business model and has walked the same walk. Avoid the naysayers. Be a constant learner, and start outsourcing long before you think you can or should. Don’t be afraid to fail. You’re going to fail at a lot of stuff. But you will learn as much from that failure as you will from each success.
Q: Any upcoming events at work the community should know about?
KINNAIRD: Each month of 2014, I am interviewing a different successful business owner in a free 30-minute conference call. Each expert talks about a different aspect of business. The series is called Amy U – Expert Lessons for Small Business Owners, and you can register at www.bit.ly/AmyU2014. You also get access to the recordings of each call.
Q: Tell me about your involvement in the Pop Up Project?
KINNAIRD:Liz Swaine asked if I would share some marketing ideas with each of the Pop Up participants. I had marketing strategy conversations with quite a few of the businesses and sent out a lot of ideas on social media, email marketing, websites and other tools. Liz and I provided feedback to the businesses before and during the Pop Up. It was fun to watch them evolve over the life of the Pop Up.
Q: For being so involved with technology at work, you mention on your website that you still believe in handwritten thank you’s and picking up the phone to keep in touch. Can you tell me more about that?
KINNAIRD: I’m kind of old school. My mom taught me to write thank you’s as I was growing up, and it seems like one of those long lost arts that means a lot to the recipient and to me! Who doesn’t like to get real mail that is hand addressed with a real stamp? I promise it’s the first thing people open.
Picking up the phone is another one of those things that we have moved away from as a society. I like talking to people in person, and this keeps you from hiding behind the keyboard. It’s too easy to mis-communicate otherwise. Avoid the email tag and get the conversation handled. People often comment that they are glad I called instead of sending an email. Everyone gets too much email anyway, and your message or question can get lost in the crush of their busy days.
Q: What’s the story behind the antique brooches?
KINNAIRD: Glad you asked. I started wearing pins as a little girl and kind of always kept it up. Over time, I have acquired lovely vintage pieces from family members, friends’ moms who have passed and estate sales. I wear them almost every day, and you can imagine my collection is pretty cool, with lots of memories. Some date back to the 1800s with only a few from the last 20 years.
– Cori Anderson
