This piece was written in honor of International Women’s Friendship Month, which takes place every September, by Hera Hub member Rebecca Tall Brown. As a fourth-generation entrepreneur and marketing strategist, she shares why working with your friends makes all of the late nights and crazy hours of being your own boss a little more worthwhile.
Imagine flipping your typical college environment and work environment.
What I’m suggesting isn’t a boardroom littered with red Solo cups.
What I’m suggesting isn’t a boardroom littered with red Solo cups.
I’m talking about bottling the best of a college experience — real-world training, being able to work alongside peers, lifelong friendships– and that being your work environment.
Might make work a little more… fun?
My back story is woven with a bit of this thread.
As a very serious first-generation college student on a scholarship and also a commuter student, I habitually bypassed social scenes for work experience. I voraciously spent more hours at my part-time jobs than I ever did partying or in the library.
Productivity and efficiency were the drugs I experimented with.
While I’ve been lectured that I wasted precious time and memory-making potential, I’m pretty satisfied. Because as fortune would have it, work ended up surprising me with all that the college brochures promised.
Rebecca Tall Brown, Founder of Tri-Line Marketing, is a Marketing Strategist with small business in her DNA. A fourth-generation entrepreneur outfitted with an MBA, Rebecca has seen first-hand that businesses with well-planned marketing strategies are better equipped to take advantage of opportunities, maximize order and structure, and forge a strong bottom-line.
What I couldn’t have known then, was that I’d get this second chance to gain the off-the-transcript benefits of college in my work career by developing genuine friendships with my colleagues and then working alongside them.
Finding colleagues and fellow business owners who are just as committed to having fun with their work, delighting clients, and growing their businesses was paramount to me realizing that this work thing could have friendships baked in. And that rather that it being a Wolf of Wall Street-esque nightmare, it could actually make work-life balance real and rewarding.
The more I learned about my fellow business owners, the more I was able to not just go out a dance with them on a given weekend (because Tax. Deadlines. Had. Been. Met!) but was able to have my mind blown at their work — even bringing them to some of my clients when I knew a specific writer, or designer, or sales trainer would actually make all of the work better… and the client’s life, therefore easier.
And I’m pretty much still the same. Productivity and efficiency are still my drugs of choice… but now I have comrades in work who geek out on planners, apps, and email inbox handling techniques. They love a good list segment, and giggle when I tell them that at the age of 22 how personally I took it the time I had a class attendee fall asleep during my marketing presentation.
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Rebecca Tall Brown, Founder of Tri-Line Marketing, is a Marketing Strategist with small business in her DNA. A fourth-generation entrepreneur outfitted with an MBA, Rebecca has seen first-hand that businesses with well-planned marketing strategies are better equipped to take advantage of opportunities, maximize order and structure, and forge a strong bottom-line.
Rebecca works alongside big thinking entrepreneurs, helping them build custom marketing blueprints – effective approaches that close the door on hype and fatigue. In the process, entrepreneurs learn how to organize, revise, maximize, and utilize their marketing as efficiently as possible. Learn more about Rebecca at TriLineMarketing.com
