PPB March 2020

self-promotion. It was called the “Loud and Clear” campaign. It was a box that we created and on the outside of the box, it said, ‘Are you connecting with your target audience?’ When you opened the box, it said, ‘Lemonade Creative Marketing helps your brand connect’—and in big bold letters it said— ‘Loud and Clear.’ Inside the box was a wireless Bluetooth speaker because our brand speaks volume, so that helped emphasize ‘loud and clear.’ By using that campaign, we were able to gain the New Orleans Convention Center as well as Entergy, which is a big electric and utility company [in Louisiana.] We gained those two clients at a small-business expo, and I was able to present each of the boxes in person to the representative from those companies. What are your tips to achieve a work/life balance? One of the biggest things that I’ve learned over the years is that you can’t pour from an empty cup. Being able to take care of yourself, I think, is one of the most important pieces of advice, because sometimes we are so busy sacrificing our health to be able to help our families, our clients and just everyone else, that we are not putting that same time and energy back into ourselves. Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time? I love the outdoors, and as often as I can get out to go hiking, kayaking or fishing, that’s what taking ‘me-time’ looks like to me. Just embracing the great outdoors and taking time to reset—even if it means taking a 15- or 30-minute walk around the neighborhood in the evening. What advice or resources do you have for other women business owners or those planning to start their own business? If you are starting, you want to start planning prior to leaving your job or even start the business part-time and grow while you’re still employed. That way you can use your current employer to help fund the business. Planning is paramount because businesses that fail to plan, plan to fail. The failure rate for small businesses is much greater than the success rate. If you take the time to plan prior to leaving your full-time job, I think that will help a lot. One of the programs I was privileged to be a part of was the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program. This is for established businesses; you have to be in business for, I think, a minimum of two years. It was a program fully funded by Goldman Sachs, which, to me, amounted to like an executive MBA in entrepreneurship. It was a 15-week intensive program, but it was something that I think helped me get a greater foundation for my business and a greater vision for where my business can be. — Kristina Valdez RENYA NELSON Founder, CEO Brand+Aid Salt Lake City, Utah Renya Nelson knows her brands. Obsessed with logos and brands early on, Nelson was curious about products and their impact on end users. After working for a marketing agency and a fashion trade show, Nelson started distributor Brand+Aid in her home office in Venice Beach, California, in late 2011 and moved it to Utah about five years ago. She created the company to connect great products with creative marketing ideas that would grow clients’ brands, merging exceptional customer service with quality design. Despite continuing to partner with large clients and big brands, today you’ll find Nelson on maternity leave with her three-month-old son. Nelson says, ‘That’s what we do as women business owners, right? We do it all.’ How did you get into the promotional products industry and what were you doing previously? The way I discovered promotional products was in my previous job. I was working at a marketing agency in Venice Beach. We focused on experiental marketing, so any way for a brand to get their products directly into consumers’ hands instead of the digital channels—it’s more physical marketing. I took the brands that we represented to big events like American Idol , New York Fashion Week and Lollapalooza. While I was doing all that, I was obviously a buyer of promo. We had this person who would sell to us at the agency I was working at, and he seemed, in my opinion, to not know the demographic we were trying to reach. I was really curious about products and the leverage they had with the people we were giving them to. I wound up quitting that job—it was a great job, but it was high stress and a lot of travel. I was 26. From there, I started Brand+Aid out of my house in Venice Beach. I had a room that I turned into an office, and I wound up contacting the company I had worked for previously. They were a little reluctant at first, but two weeks later, they called me saying they needed lanyards for a Walmart-Pepsi application. It was a $34,000 order. That was my first or second order, and I was like, ‘Okay, I can do this.’ I took a very small loan frommy dad, and I was able to leverage that. That agency became one of my first clients. I was able to get this experience not only from the marketing agency perspective, but also from the fashion brands and how they use their merchandise to grow their brands even stronger. FEATURE | Women In Business 62 | MARCH 2020 |