"Be true to yourself and your team to be an effective leader"
Kristin Marquet Tweet
Kristin Marquet has been a publicist and business owner for more than 14 years. As the owner and creative director of Marquet Media, LLC, Kristin oversees the daily operations of the business while executing client campaigns. Throughout her career as a publicist, Kristin has developed partnerships with leading brands and entrepreneurs such as well-known divorce coach, Jen Lawrence; celebrity chef, Melissa Eboli; psychotherapist and entrepreneur, Angela Ficken; and many more. She and her clients have been featured in Inc.com, Forbes.com, Fortune.com, Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur.com, and so many more.
With an academic background and advanced studies in data science, business, and public relations, Kristin has attended Boston University, New York University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kristin is also a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council.
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Table of Contents
Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Kristin Marquet: One cold and rainy Saturday morning in March 2017, I was feeling a bit unmotivated and burnt out. Although running a successful PR firm provides so much gratification, I kind of felt like something was missing, and I didn’t know what it was…until I started sorting through emails from former and prospective clients. After I read a dozen of these emails, I noticed they all had one thing in common: these entrepreneurs wished there was a one-stop resource on everything related to running a creative business. So then an idea smacked me in the head…
Why not start an online resource where people can go to get free tips, tricks, advice, tools, and resources on just about every aspect of running a business? (All but the legal side, because we’re not lawyers!) When I decided to start FemFounder.co a few days later, I dug a little deeper. I researched what ailed these entrepreneurs – I conducted surveys and tried to chat in person with as many as I could.
After connecting with hundreds of entrepreneurs, I learned they predominantly asked one of the following two questions:
- ”How can I create an online side business that’s profitable within the first year? I’d like to make an extra (X) number of dollars per month.”
- “How can I scale to hit (X) revenue or increase it by (X%)?”
In order to try and drill down on these two big “pain points”, I sat down with my team to create The Profitable Founder, the simple five-step business framework that anyone can follow. We’ve used this simple framework to build my businesses and the 550+ brands we’ve launched since 2009 at CreativeDevelopmentAgency.com (now Marquet-Media.com).
You may be curious to know how more about:
- How can I create a brand that’s truly unique?
- Where can I find my ideal customers?
- What are the ways to get into magazines, major websites, and partner with bloggers without spending a fortune or hiring a PR firm? (Hint, hint – We own a PR firm in NYC so we share everything we know about the field in blog posts, masterclasses, free email courses, and webinars).
- How do certain entrepreneurs have massive audiences making millions of dollars every year?
- What’s the secret sauce to having an impact on the world?
Well, we set out to find the answers to those questions by experimenting with our own businesses and interviewing experts on our blog and forthcoming podcast.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Kristin Marquet: I wanted to be a surgeon so I went to a college where the science programs are top-notch; however, I changed my mind and shifted my focus to technology and marketing after college. I worked in consulting for four years and then I launched my first business over 12 years ago.
Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Kristin Marquet: We are a small team that works with a select number of clients with missions we believe in will provide value in some way.
Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Kristin Marquet: Entrepreneurship seems glamourized and romanticized on television and in the movies; however, the profession requires a lot of grit, hard work, and being able to manage uncertainty. Not everyone is cut out for it.
What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Kristin Marquet: As a small team, inclusion and diversity are very important to get other perspectives and look at different ways of solving problems. So diversity is critical to the success of the business.
How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Kristin Marquet: Be true to yourself and your team to be an effective leader. Listening to your team is also one of the most valuable traits any leader can have to be effective in the post-Covid World.
If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Kristin Marquet: As a business owner, I manage a small team, oversee all client accounts, and ensure the daily operations of each venture runs smoothly.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Kristin Marquet: Taking on a select number of clients has enabled us to focus on the projects in front of us without being scattered. Focus and niching down have been difficult because we have not been able to work with every client we’ve loved but we’ve been able to concentrate on getting the best results we can for our clients.
Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Kristin Marquet: Ha, being full of useless and trivial information is my least useful trait.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Kristin Marquet: I have written two books and my third one is called” From Nameless to Notable: How to Gain Influence, Establish Authority, and Reach Expert Status in Your Niche or Industry: Ultimate Guide to Generating … Website Traffic, Email Subscribers, & Sales” and will be released in Q1 2022.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Kristin Marquet for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Kristin Marquet or his company, you can do it through his – Twitter
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