Image Credit Nathan Mays Photography
Today we’d like to introduce you to Kat Bundy.
Hi Kat, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Shortly before the pandemic hit in late 2019, I gradually realized I was utterly miserable. I had lost sight of who I was and what I wanted. I wasn’t healthy. I was commuting an hour every day, eating badly, and generally not taking care of myself the way I knew I needed to. I had started thinking about how I wound up there and wondering what I could do about it. I started a weight loss journey, and (finally) for the first time in my life, I worked to develop a healthy relationship with food. As the weight started to come off, I wanted to be more active, and I realized that it was no wonder I wasn’t. I had no opportunity to be. I was spending a whole extra work week, 40 hours, every month just on my commute. I was getting home after dark for a large portion of the year. Between work, volunteer commitments, household needs, and trying to spend even minimal time with my friends and family, there were no hours left in the day.
And then, the world shut down. I was working from home and thriving because of it. I was eating better, spending more time with my partner, rediscovering hobbies, and living with so much less stress. It didn’t occur to me how much better my life was until I had to give it up and go back to commuting. When I returned to the office, I felt different about being there. I started to resent my job. I even realized that I suddenly hated driving, something that I always used to enjoy.
But what choice did I have? I had a great job with a company I loved and wonderful coworkers. I couldn’t walk away from that. Nonetheless, I dreamed about other options. A little at a time, I realized that as scared as I was to walk away from a job I loved, I was far more terrified to keep living a life that was anything less than fulfilling.
In exploring my options, I entertained some remote work, but I kept coming back to the idea of working for myself. I wanted to work with more non-profit clients and clients with small budgets. And, I wanted to offer the best possible solution every time. Sometimes, that isn’t feasible in an agency setting with high overhead. Sometimes you are forced to withhold recommending the best possible solution in favor of recommending a solution that simultaneously serves the client and the agency’s needs.
I always knew I wanted to start my own business at some point, but I imagined it would be much later. Then I looked at things critically and couldn’t imagine a more perfect time. I had enough experience to be able to do business on my own. I didn’t have kids. I had paid off my student loans. And, best of all, I was still young enough that if I fell flat on my face, I would have time to make up for it and still be able to retire before I turned 90. Even more importantly, the pandemic had just thoroughly proven that you didn’t need to physically be in the same room as someone to work with them. I wouldn’t even need to open an office; I could work from my house and only travel to meet with clients on an as-needed basis.
But how do you walk away from an incredible job with people you genuinely care about? I was the VP of Marketing for an agency. I had my hands in a lot of different functions throughout the business. I couldn’t give a two-week notice and walk; even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. I wanted to ensure my team wouldn’t suffer because I was doing what was best for me. Ultimately, I built an exit strategy with our owner to work me out of a job gradually. I told him I was leaving in January 2021. In February, I officially formed my business. I worked my last full-time day with the agency in May, but I kept doing aspects of my job on a retainer basis through October 2021.
My first few months on my own included some trial and error. I had planned to focus on marketing strategy and public relations work. I wanted to get back into media relations and earned media work I had given up when I moved to a creative agency. While that was my focus, I still picked up requests from folks who needed a new website or who wanted help running their social media because I was secretly terrified that I would starve to death if I turned down work. I signed a few retainer clients, picked up odd jobs as I wanted, and tried to carve out at least a few hours a day to dedicate to my writing and networking; then Anthony called.
Anthony Piercy was a friend of a friend who I had done some limited work with in the past. He heard I was out on my own and reached out to see if I might be interested in doing some work for him. That was a no-brainer; Anthony was the director of the creative production for the American Cancer Society’s global marketing team. I would be able to say I had a national client. I would get to help with work that would be seen by millions of people and that had the power to impact people in real and tangible ways. That’s a potential game-changer for a one-man-band kind of business like mine.
So, I said yes. I took an hourly contract helping Anthony with resource management and cleaning up a few problem projects. About three weeks in, I thought I was getting fired. Anthony reached out and started taking projects away from me. I panicked, thinking I had done something wrong. After a minor mental breakdown and a phone call with him, I learned I was getting a more permanent assignment, working with the team’s lead strategist managing the American Cancer Society brand.
I never really made it back to my PR roots once my strategy work started to take hold. Since then, my client roster has grown and been refined. I’ve been representing increasingly technical clients, including partners in the aviation, transportation, financial, and utilities industries. I rarely take on website construction. I even had to stop offering content creation services for social media after my workload became unmanageable.
Entrepreneurship isn’t easy, and it isn’t nearly as glamorous as many folks want you to believe, but it is rewarding, and it is what you make it. The best part is that somewhere along the way, despite all the challenges of getting a new business off the ground, I uncovered the best version of myself. I’m happier than ever, even on my most challenging days. Now, a little less than two years after I established my company, I have a well-curated list of incredible partners who support me just as much as I support them. And after a little over a year under contract, the American Cancer Society offered me a full-time position–without closing down my other business. While my business won’t grow by leaps and bounds anytime soon, I can keep all my existing clients and serve as a senior marketing manager for the ACS brand.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Things have been really simple for me from a business perspective compared to many start-ups. I already had experience in the financial side of running a business from working with family businesses. I had almost no overhead going in. I could even cut many of my basic expenses like gas and food because I wasn’t commuting to an office anymore. But I had a few hiccups from a physical and mental health perspective.
Only a few months into owning my own business, I had to have surgery. I was out of work for a couple of weeks. While it wasn’t major surgery, it hurt my momentum. I had to slow down my intake of any new business before my surgery to ensure I didn’t overpromise and underdeliver. I had just started to make money, and then things came to a grinding halt, and my expenses went through the roof. Buying health insurance for myself was a big enough expense, and adding several thousand dollars in medical costs felt like an insurmountable obstacle for a little while. I got through it, but it was a moment when I questioned whether or not I had made the right choice.
When I first stepped out of my full-time job and into my own business, I hit one other really big wall in a big way. I have always been a highly productive, task-oriented individual. I’ve never had an issue being a self-starter. I couldn’t say the same within the first couple of months of flying solo. I was struggling to get anything done. I constantly bounced around from task to task without marking anything off the list. I felt like a hamster on a wheel.
At first, I thought I was having some anxiety issues, but endless stress management techniques, breathing exercises, and yoga couldn’t get things under control. As someone who has struggled with a few chronic health issues, I avoid googling symptoms. Instead of researching “racing thoughts,” I would always stick to safer inquiries like “anxiety management techniques.” After weeks of frustration and only getting repeats of the same advice I had been given for years, I finally started searching for symptoms. Imagine my surprise when they consistently returned ADHD, not anxiety. I was sure that couldn’t be right. There was no way. About two months before my 30th birthday, I was diagnosed with ADHD.
I was good at managing teams and building systems that optimized productivity, but not because I was inherently organized. It was because I was building fool-proof systems designed around my brain. In turn, that resulted in fail-safes that could work for large groups of people. But, when there was no checkpoint, when it was just me, there wasn’t a process to follow, and I started floundering.
At first, I felt defeated and embarrassed. I was worried that if people found out I had ADHD, they would think I wasn’t a good fit for their company or project. But now, I’ve rebuilt my systems around me and only me. I’ve figured out certain times of day are best suited to specific tasks. I’ve permitted myself to organize things in sometimes unorthodox ways. Ultimately, I’ve given myself the grace to work with my brain, not against it, and I’m back to my ultra-productive self.
We’ve been impressed with Kat Bundy Strategic Marketing, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I am an independent marketing strategist. I avoid the word consultant, even though that’s ultimately what I am, simply because many folks seem to have a mistaken perception that consultants don’t execute, they only consult.
My goal is to provide comprehensive marketing solutions for businesses of all sizes. I work hard to provide agency-quality work without the agency price tag. Because I am an intentional team of one, I can minimize overhead and design solutions specific to a client’s needs. I have developed an incredible network of professionals to fill specialized needs like design, video production, web development, and more.
While it isn’t unique, what sets me a part is perspective. I have relatively diverse experience. I’ve worked in non-profit performing arts, represented non-profit and for-profit clients of all sizes in an agency setting, designed B2B and B2C strategies, and delved into highly specialized industries like law, finance, and insurance. I’ve written copy, built websites, planned and purchased paid media, driven earned media initiatives, and managed photo and video shoots.
I love working with clients to walk through their business and determine the goal and how to get there while incorporating a variety of disciplines to meet that objective. Many organizations I have partnered with have divided their business into too many silos. They put their marketing people in one room and their PR team in another and neglect the need for collaboration. On some level, you have to divide up teams and budgets as your company grows, but on another level, we are all playing on the same team. I help folks tear down the unnecessary walls, or at least build a bridge between them.
Can you talk to us about the role of luck?
I’ve come to resent the word “lucky.” I don’t believe in luck. I used to, but the older I get, the more I realize that chalking anything up to luck is just a way for people to make themselves feel better about something that you’ve accomplished, but they haven’t. Luck is a convenient excuse for those who want to make you feel small or make themselves feel better. Calling someone lucky or crediting their accomplishments to good luck is an insult to their commitment and skill. Every time someone calls me lucky, I recall the same conversation. I was talking with someone close to me who vocally perceives themselves as less successful than me. They said, “you’re just lucky. You always get everything you want.”
They told me they couldn’t call me anything but were lucky when I never failed. I have failed plenty. I have fallen flat on my face. I have made a complete and utter fool out of myself more than once. But when I fail at something, I try and fail again and again until I get the outcome I want. Yet, all most people see is the getting it right part, not the pain and suffering it took to get there. The way we handle failure directly correlates to the success we experience. Unless you let that failure define you, ten years from now, no one will even remember the times you failed. They will think you are lucky.
Now, luck and good fortune (or privilege, whichever you prefer) are two different things. I am very fortunate, and I recognize that. I am fortunate to have been raised in a stable home, to have been able to attend college and graduate with relatively little debt, and to have a strong support system. If you want to call that luck, by all means, I am lucky. But, if we are talking about luck in the way most people generally do, chances are that anything resembling luck resulted from a lot of trial and error, many sleepless nights, a bucket full of tears, and the support of the incredible network I’ve built.
Contact Info:
- Website: katbundy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katbundy/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kat-bundy/
