My Story
I started my consulting career quite by accident, many moons ago, while working at Best Buy and putting myself through college. A customer bought a new PC from me, and needed help setting it up and learning how to use it. In those days, home PCs were a pretty new phenomenon. Word got around, and my little freelance business skyrocketed. Pretty soon, I was branching out into small businesses, when a law firm ask me to set up a 10 PC network and train their employees; that was quickly followed by a gas station chain owner who needed to set up networks with remote access to each of his five gas stations.
As the World Wide Web started gaining traction, I began creating and coding websites for people and small businesses. In 1994, I heard about Amazon.com for the first time, and thus began my fascination with ecommerce. Over the years, the requests morphed into ecommerce-related needs.
In 1995, while working as a Circuit City store manager, I coded Circuit City’s first home page ever, sent it off to our corporate HQ (on a ZIP disk!), met my future boss, and began planning the re-launch of Circuitcity.com as an ecommerce-enabled website, which we accomplished in 1999. I’ve been working in ecommerce ever since, and SmallBizCoach has been focused on ecommerce and digital marketing for small businesses since 2008.
Over the past 20+ years, I've held leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies, startups, and mid-sized businesses in a variety of industries, for retailers, D2C, and B2B companies. Those roles included retail management, merchandising, marketing, ecommerce, project management, digital product management, and cross-functional team leadership.
In that time, I’ve worked as a part-time, “Fractional CMO” for some businesses, done project work for others, and simply advised others on various ecommerce and digital marketing topics.
My objective now is to be that strategic marketing partner that entrepreneurs and small business owners need to help them grow and professionalize their businesses.
My Philosophy
As a coach, consultant, or advisor, my first goal is to earn your trust, so that I can become a valued partner for you. I believe that 50% of the job is simply being a great listener. Another 25% of the job is about developing a great understanding of your business, your customers, and your needs. The last 25% is about being professionally competent. With my background, I know more about ecommerce and digital marketing than you do (most likely), but I don’t know everything. With almost every client engagement, I run into questions I’ve never heard before, or issues I haven’t addressed in some time. But, I’m very good at research and problem-solving, and tailoring solutions to your situation, team, and business processes. Whatever your vision is, I’ll work with you to make it happen.
Keep exploring my site to learn more information about me, and reach out directly with any questions.