When I was fresh out of college in 2000, I packed up all my belongings (there wasn’t much) and drove to Hollywood to achieve two life goals:

1. Learn to surf
2. Become a professional writer/marketer

Upon arrival, I rented a little studio apartment off Santa Monica Boulevard ($420 monthly), furnished it with a desk and futon (IKEA) and got to work. A voracious reader, I started by ordering four books from Amazon.

Three on how to surf, which strikes me as hilarious now. Any athlete knows the way to learn is to get out there and move your body, injuries be damned, which I eventually did. As my avid readers know, I have now surfed all over North America.

The fourth book would prove pivotal to my now 25-year career in marketing: The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman. Then and now in its latest edition, the publication tees up clear promises:

• Find, land and execute high-profit writing projects
• Leverage virtually any career/educational background into a lucrative writing practice
• Enjoy an enviable lifestyle (with tons of freedom/flexibility) and a handsome living

Following Bowerman’s guidance, I contacted up to fifty marketing and advertising agencies every weekday with one simple question: “Do you have any overflow projects you need help with?” For every ten firms I reached, one was willing to have a conversation with me and see samples of my work. For every fifty, I landed one job.

Saturdays and Sundays, of course, I surfed.

Week over week, I built momentum. Within my first year I had a good handful of clients. What’s more, I was learning all the inside workings of agencies large and small. It was like earning a marketing degree on the job.

When my husband’s work took us to Denver in 2001, my book of business naturally parlayed into a regional, a national and then eventually an international footprint. I briefly worked in-house for a marketing agency where I learned the foundation for what is now my brand strategy offering, whereby my team and I survey clients’ clients and formulate brand assets directly from voice-of-the-customer data. This gave way to my development of additional cornerstone marketing strategies: content, social media, digital, automation and more. As those were born, I expanded my team, aligning myself with people who are more talented than me in delivering those strategies.

I am still the writer. These days it’s not unusual for me to produce 10,000 words a week writing blogs, eBooks, email campaigns, social media campaigns and the like. My team delivers the design, development and automation.

Rarely does a day pass that I don’t thank my higher power for allowing me to be of service with my gifts to make a living. I can say for sure Bowerman’s promises have come true for me. I spend my days connecting and aligning with people who need what I have, and it’s grown into a profitable business that makes businesses profitable. How about that? I leveraged my degree in English into a lucrative writing practice. Beyond the volume I produce in my professional writing, I maintain a daily practice of creative writing that further fulfills me. I enjoy a lifestyle with tons of freedom, flexibility and good income.

And I still surf. On my desk sits a cork globe bearing markers for every location where I have stood or plan to stand on water, either on a surfboard or a SUP board.

Here’s what I have learned: the secret to a fulfilling and profitable marketing career is persistence, recognizing and acting on opportunity then letting go. Momentum comes from consistently taking small, intentional steps. My wish for you, fellow marketers, is to embrace your unique gifts, lean into your passions and trust the process. Whether it’s learning to surf or mastering marketing, the breakthroughs come when you paddle out beyond the whitewash, face the waves, catch the right ones and ride them all the way in. Thanks for being out here with me.

Wendy O’Donovan Phillips
CEO, Big Buzz

Since 2007, Big Buzz® has helped Stage II to Stage III organizations systemize marketing to achieve growth goals. Founder and CEO Wendy O’Donovan Phillips is the author of two books available on Amazon, Kaboom and Flourish, multiple data-driven eBooks, has been published in McKnight’s, in Forbes, and has been quoted in The Washington Post, ABC News and Chicago Tribune. She has lectured dozens of professional organizations in front of audiences ranging in size from 25 to 6,000. She has been honored by the American Marketing Association for excellence in her field and has been named a Gold Key Award Winner by the Business Marketing Association. In her two-decades-long career, she has consulted with hundreds of organizations globally to support improved marketing clarity, strategies and outcomes. Get details: visit www.bigbuzzinc.com and follow Wendy.