ABOUT

Hey, I’m Jordan

I’m not singular and neither are you. While branding is what I “do,” I’m challenging myself to offer you more than that.

My Story

I’m a little bit southern, a little bit out-west. My heart is in the mountains, but the boys in my life love the beach, so beach bumming it is for now.

I am equally right-brained + left-brained, a high D on the DISC assessment, an ENFP, and an enneagram 2 (with a 3 wing).

I am a networker, and connector. I’m great at zooming out, finding the purpose, building a foundation, and coming up with out-of-the-box, creative ideas to help reach an overall goal.

I am creative, really into aesthetics, a wannabe home renovator, and lover of all of my migraine triggers including cheese, chocolate, good wine. I really look forward to weekends away with the gals and my 1x a year “do whatever I want” week..

I really like being my own boss

Whew…I don’t think I could ever go back to someone else telling me when and where to be or what hours to clock. I have found my rhythm in the weird non-existent balance of motherhood, entrepreneurship, home improvements, our needy 110 lb pitbull, and trying to prioritize my health. I NEED to work from anywhere, take a week off of showering to hike some trail I’ve never been on, play around with acrylic paints and go to the gym until 9:30.

All that to say…I am highly motivated to live this beautiful life on my own terms, so you will likely find me here, talking to anyone who cares about branding, family, organizations and companies I love, what’s in my closet, and how I continue to dare myself to do something different.

I’ve realized my independence and flexible schedule have actually met YOUR needs better too. Wild how that works, huh?! I decided to lean in to what I think I need, and it turns out to meet you where you need to be met. Whether you are starting a new business and still working or you are creative at different hours (like me), I can make it work.

I was always bossy.

You can ask my siblings. I’m the middle-child, and at different stages of life I’ve been told I’m “too much,” “intimidating,” “too fast,” “care too much,” “too loud,” too…whatever. I have always been a truth seeker, a bleeding heart, a fast worker, and well…a little anxious.

Ya know what, I’ve found that you love that too! It’s exactly what you need. You are coming to someone you need expert advice from, and I’m not scared to give it.

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio with almost my entire extended family in a weird split-level house wearing my brother’s umbro shorts, refusing to comb my hair, yet painting my nails in my room with carpet (then hiding the mess). I was a ballerina, and swimmer, basketball player, softball player, volleyball player, and obsesser of getting A’s.

When I was 12, we moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, technically Summerfield, but we couldn’t even find that on the map. There was a cow field across the street from my middle school and high school and I cried for three months straight.

Soon enough, I made a boatload of friends that still get together about once a year.

FAST FORWARD

I tried to get as far away from North Carolina as possible for college, applying to art and design schools in California, Hawaii, and anywhere a plane was necessary to visit. That plan didn’t work out.

You’ll have to wait for the memoir all my friends are begging me to write to hear about my dark early twenties and how I survived. I did, however, graduate with a bachelors in Communication Studies, and went on to finish my MBA online. I worked several jobs, one of them was doing beer promotions for craft beer brands, which landed me my first “creative” job and I loved it. Before the distributor had a team of 20+ dudes slinging the tasty beers, it was just me, running beer dinners, telling stories and explaining flavor profiles of the New Belgium Lips of Faith Series, the Great Lakes Brewing specialties and more. I went on to sell bourbon for Beam (for a very short time) until my husband swept me off to Florida unexpectedly for his next Army base. There, I worked for Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation and quickly became the Director of Marketing. All of you know that a Director of anything at most non-profits means you do everything and then some, and if you can’t do it, you figure it out. My heart burst there. It married everything I love - impact, charity, creativity, marketing, storytelling, and raising a hell-of-a-lot-of-money. Not to mention, my wine world expanded exponentially, and I became a slight snob.

Then, just as it was terrible timing, i took the leap

Evan was getting out of the Army and looking for the next big adventure. We had adopted Cheech from Pitbulls and Parolees totaling our weight in dogs to almost 300 lbs. I had just started a side hustle working on branding and marketing for small businesses and non-profits in the Destin area, and we decided to move to Montana. I immediately got on backcountry.com to look for anything that would keep a Florida-girl from freezing her ass off in 10 months of snow.

I fell in love.

Y’all don't understand. Montana changed me. We were only there for about 1 year because Evan’s ranch job didn’t quite offer what had been promised, but I go back every year. The people, the mountains, the fresh air, the sun shining, the pace of life, the collaboration and camaraderie, the horses and bison and moose, the freedom of not doing your makeup or caring about the extra pouch your tummy acquired from loading up on carbs to keep warm. It changed who I am forever, and I will always be grateful. I am convinced that if I had taken my 3-month-old business to almost any other community - it would have failed. But it didn’t. I learned so much from the Women’s Business Center, other entrepreneurs rallied around me, and I started growing my clientele pretty quickly.

My business was called BrandBoss® and I honed in on three main branding packages to include everything from logos to the whole suite of brand assets and web design and development. Simultaneously, my dear friend and I started SheWolf® ( I told you I was intense). SheWolf is a collaborative mission for womxn (yup, the x is intentional to include anyone who identifies as female) to work together and connect.

I started a podcast. I began to organize a dinner tour. I was speaking at conferences and events in Palm Springs, and Utah. I was attending events in Bali, LA, San Francisco, Portland, and more. I had clients all over the United States.

And just like that, life imploded

The grind came to a halt when the trifecta of my work-a-holic tendencies was taking a toll on my marriage, I had a miscarriage, my branding business took two huge financial losses in a span of 3 months, one being a client disputing a $10,000 deposit (yup - the bank just gave it right back even though we did the work), and another contract falling through and just not paying us (would have cost us more in court). More on that as I dish in the blog on the business failures I’ve endured. I’m an open book, my friends. Why the hell would I want anyone to experience the things I have had to learn the hard way?

Our SheWolf dinner tour was just taking off and then…COVID.

Can anyone relate to the magic word, “PIVOT?” Not different from that episode in friends. Did they actually ever get the couch upstairs? In my case, I just donated the damn couch. I scaled WAYYYY back, firing my team, canceling every unnecessary software, and getting rid of my office space and any extra equipment. I started working on much smaller contracts with much smaller businesses, and then our rainbow baby appeared!

I can’t pretend to know how motherhood impacts others but I can only tell you that time just spiraled. I was living in two different bodies, one that still only knew who I was, how hard I worked, and what I defined myself by, and the new me that I had yet to know. Don’t get me wrong, you could still find me pumping in the bathroom at a client video shoot two weeks after Everett was born. But for the most part, I was forced to become the one who quit anything unnecessary to be with my sweet #craniowarrior who endured skull surgery at 3 months old, wore a helmet for the next 9 months, and now amazes me every damn day. His story WILL be a great one. I can feel it.

He’s doing great now. I sometimes forget about those 9+ months in the helmet and countless appointments, and I’ve finally figured out a balance that works, which usually entails of cranking out the creative while he’s at his little preschool for 9 hours a week and then posting up in the corner of our sectional with my laptop from the second he falls asleep until my own bedtime.

So here I am, no time and definitely no energy for the b.s.

I’ve done the rebrand, the pivot. I’ve walked the paths. I work with people that make me feel alive. I create brands for companies I care about, and I pass on all the knowledge I possibly can to YOU, the one who read that whole damn novel because something I said felt like you. You can relate, you wear all the hats, you juggle all the things, and you are highly motivated to impact the world, your family, your community, all with your project, your business, your endeavor.

So, shall we?