I've been involved in marketing (in some form) for my entire adult life. I started out as an advertising copywriter and have been a business owner, agency principal/owner, marketing and public relations director, stay-at-home mom and part-time writer, and a college professor.

Since 2003, I've worked with the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) as a writer, consultant, researcher and judge for tED magazines Best of the Best Marketing Competition. And about 72% of my clients are in electrical distribution or manufacturing.

I love solving complex marketing problems. Like how to rework an under-performing marketing department or build a content marketing strategy.

But no matter what your industry, the principles, basic strategies and tools of effective marketing are the same. It's all about understanding and empathizing with your audience, and writing to your readers in language they understand. Sometimes it's taking something that's very complicated and boiling it down to something simple. And sometimes it's just about starting a conversation.

In 2017, I won three national awards including a Platinum Hermes Creative Award , a Platinum dotComm Award, and PR Daily's Digital PR & Social Media Award for my digital marketing efforts. So that was exciting.

These days, I enjoy teaching and training, solving marketers' problems and learning about emerging topics like social/digital marketing, marketing automation and content marketing.