Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie Phair.
Carrie is the founder of Stated, a marketing consulting firm partnering with small and medium-sized companies to create smarter, insightful, and compelling outreach at every stage of the funnel. Inspired by two entrepreneurial parents, and governed by efficiency and efficacy, she was attracted to the rules of supply and demand and the challenges of everyday business. She received her degrees in economics and an MBA and went on to consult locally in San Diego before joining the team at HP. She worked across elements of global integrated marketing before heading up both marketing and education at Nordic Naturals. In the years since, she has grown her own sole proprietorship focusing on assisting emerging and national brands to find their purpose and state it clearly and simply every day.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Great question about the road leading here! At a macro level, I’d relate the professional journey to that of a drawn-out road trip. You know where you want to land, yet the route certainly isn’t as straight as the crow flies. But that’s a good thing! Like most creatives, marketing professionals are bored with monotony, repetition, and following a set itinerary. So most of us do a good deal of training, due diligence, and analytics-building but ultimately throw out the map and navigate with our gut and a little GPS. We are not necessarily looking for one direct path, but rather intrigued by the billboards, side attractions, and the experiences that make the journey far more colorful.
Marketing has so many different facets and the ability to learn the different segments, tactics, channels, and methods at each stage make it richer. Over the years, I’ve found that the more diverse the conversations, and the greater the degree of difficulty found in each opportunity, the more it has forced me to develop, think harder, and grow my marketing toolkit. That goes for content as well as clients. Sometimes those clients who are trickiest to work with are also the ones that elevate our game exponentially and urge us to consider our words and our underlying assumptions.
Bottom line, I wouldn’t want that straight path and would caution anyone entering the field to think twice about their preferred level of risk and tolerance for change, because marketing is not formulaic.
Please tell us about Stated Marketing.
Stated is the sole proprietor marketing and strategy consultancy I started in 2018. I was hungry for three things: bright minds to work with, products and services I love, and adding a net positive of good to the world. To clients who meet these criteria, Stated offers a simple and focused approach that puts the customer front and center. Based on deep listening, lots of questions, and a collaborative approach, Stated’s services distill a brand’s objective and bundle that with the right set of tactics to cleanly, efficiently, and creatively appeal to their exact audience.
We won’t boil an ocean, instead, at Stated we incite action in customers while we K.I.S.S. We’ve become known for just that: keeping things simple. There are so many choices for marketing endeavors- be it online, offline, social or digital, events-based, direct or 3rd party, etc.- that it can be overwhelming. However, given a brand’s specific objectives tied to real metrics, it becomes easier to prioritize and narrow the scope. We all have a limited budget, even the big guys and via appropriate resource planning, we can make those dollars work harder. We will declutter their to-do list and focus on the elements that have ROI while shelfing the distractions.
The wins over the last few years are marked by both sales and relationship achievements. I love when clients hit their quarterly metrics or topple a BHAG. These consistent successes reinforce that smart work leads to good results and even better feelings. I so enjoy it when a client writes an email or leaves a voicemail just to share a recent victory. These markers provide proof that our collaboration is mutually beneficial and sometimes allows us to increase scope so that more good can be implemented.
The best and truest marker for me though is repeat business and referrals. These two things are better than gold because inherently you know you’ve established a trusted and worthwhile relationship where the client is gleaning value and the cherry on top is that there’s so much extra goodwill that they want to share you with friends.
Often it feels as if the media, by and large, is only focused on the obstacles faced by women, but we feel it’s important to also look for the opportunities. In your view, are there opportunities that you see that women are particularly well positioned for?
Interesting question about the women-perspective. I never pondered it growing up. Having only two daughters and being entrepreneurs themselves, our parents believed that all jobs were equal-opportunity. My sister and I grew up cooking splitting wood, gardening, changing oil, playing sports and excelling academically without knowledge or limitations within the boy-girl stereotype. Yes, our parents had fairly traditional roles in the household but this was mostly personality and preferentially-driven, allowing our Eagle Scout father to McGyver home projects and financially control affairs and our perfectionist mother to masterfully concoct feasts and service a multitude of nonprofits. They taught us you did what needed to be done and you did it well. I was lucky enough never to be bullied and to be born with a heck of a lot of self-confidence. Even if someone else wasn’t sure of my abilities, that never stopped me from giving it a go! Looking back across my career, I have had little evidence to believe that my value was restricted by anything other than how hard I’m willing to work and the relative value of my contribution compared to the bright minds and talent I’ve worked alongside.
Now this all sounds idyllic, and perhaps a tad naive. Growing up as a white female with educated parents certainly gave me an advantage. I have not experienced many of the hardships or seen the discrimination firsthand, so my ability to credibly speak to the other side is limited. What I can say is that I’ve learned to listen to all sides of the discussions, especially around #MeToo, to investigate the wage gap and push myself to be mindful of that when I do my own negotiations, and lastly strive to be a counter-example to staggering facts around the number of women business owners. My dream down the road? To take the male/female question off the table and instead make it about the person. I want to get the contract, be promoted, and to earn the title not because I am a girl and special parameters have been set for me, but because I am the absolute best person for the job.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://statedmarketing.com/
- Phone: 831-915-7524
- Email: carrie@statedmarketing.com
- Other: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriephair/
Image Credit:
Stated Marketing: Meal Prep for Fit Healthy Happy U, Taco About It for Nucelus
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