Common marketing missteps waste time and money. These 5 fixes are GAME CHANGERS.

“Do The Thing You Think You Cannot Do”

Eleanor Roosevelt said that. Or wrote it. I was born on the same day as she was though not, as some people might think, in the same year. Any way you slice it, I’m a fan.

Here’s the deal: I’m not afraid of hard things. Most days, I do whatever it takes to get the job done. (I have my off days, I’ll admit. I’m not a Marvel superhero. Or a robot.)

The most ambitious among us don’t spend our time cowering in fear. We’re also smart enough to pick our battles. We recognize where we excel and where we don’t, and we identify high-value, strategic partners who help us raise our game, use our time wisely, and get the job done.

For small businesses that want to make a name for themselves and enterprise organizations that want to land deals and dollars, I am one of those partners.

Smart Entrepreneurs Partner with Proven Experts

As an entrepreneur, you’re wearing 20 hats, at least 10 of them ugly and ill-fitting. I get it. I’m an entrepreneur too.

I started my career working for Unisys at the Pentagon under the guidance of Beasley, the world’s best mentor. (We can play the “my mentor was better than your mentor” game, but I’m pretty sure I’ll win.) Under his tutelage, I tested and edited U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) manuals, authored multimillion-dollar proposals, and designed and led writing workshops for DoD personnel. It was a nifty gig as far as first jobs go.

I learned how to respect, listen to, and learn from the wisdom of experts — business strategists, brand strategists, and marketing strategists in particular. Over time I became a recognized expert myself.

(Beasley and me traveling in Ireland, 2009)

Hiring Experts Saves You Time and Helps You Make More Money

I like to lead or be led. Where I falter is the murky in between. You won’t find me doing my own taxes, going the “for sale by owner” real estate route, or building my own website. I know what I don’t know, and I turn to trusted experts for the work I don’t have the time, talent, or inclination to do.

In turn, I recognize and own my areas of business, marketing, and branding expertise, and today I spend my time telling smart entrepreneurs and business leaders what they should do and exactly how they should do it.

I’ll build your brand, optimize your marketing dollars, and show you how to win hearts, minds, deals, and dollars. Breathe easy. It’s going to be okay.

Origin Story: Why My Company Is Called Gower Street

My company, Gower Street, does business as CarolynDaughters.com. But we are and always will be Gower Street at our core.

Gower Street is where I studied Shakespeare and chemistry and read books to Sarah and drank room-temperature Guinness and ate free cereal for breakfast and lunch and gathered with a dozen others to watch Twin Peaks on Monday nights. It’s where I combed the shelves of Waterstones bookshop and returned from daily wanderings, some solo, some with 30 fellow students, some with Mary, Melissa, Rob, and the Pauls. It’s where I first experienced the joy of being lost and learned to get my bearings.

London will always and forever be my first love. And a brownstone on Gower Street in London was for a brief while the place I called home.

Gower Street Company Logo - CarolynDaughters.com
getting out at gower street - Gower Street, LLC - CarolynDaughters.com
Carolyn Daughters - Branding and Marketing Expert - Carolyn Daughters.com

Gower Street, LLC (dba CarolynDaughters.com) is certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s largest third-party certifier of the businesses owned and operated by women in the U.S.

We recognize the commitment to supplier diversity that is embraced by corporations and government agencies today, and we can add diversity to your supply chain.

Nuts and Bolts (aka, My Resume)

I started Gower Street, LLC (dba CarolynDaughters.com) back in 2002. Marketing, branding, and communications are my wheelhouse. I craft, execute, and optimize smart, actionable business and marketing strategies across the funnel, from acquisition and conversion to retention and loyalty.

I have served as a fractional Chief Marketing Officer for firms nationwide. I set, prioritize, direct, and evolve top-line inbound and outbound marketing efforts, often scaling at startup speeds. I work toward long-term stability and future growth, always keeping people, products and services, price, promotion, and product distribution in mind. My areas of expertise include short- and long-range business planning, program design, communications plans, staff development, website analysis, and asset development.

I’ve designed and led 50+ deep-dive, interactive brand therapy/marketing strategy workshops to empower organizations to communicate and own their brand identity, craft marketing plans and tactics that connect with their audiences, scale, and grow. I regularly build strategy playbooks that pinpoint value propositions, key differentiators, competitive advantages, opportunities, threats, audience needs, and next steps.

I’ve supported more than 50 federal, state, and corporate proposals. The most recent was BI/GEO Group’s winning $2.2B federal bid. To support CH2M Hill/Jacobs, I nominated Rocky Flats for the Project Management Institute (PMI) Project of the Year, which recognizes the best $100M+ project in the world. It won.

Finally, I’ve led intensive professional writing workshops that have helped teams at the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force, and businesses nationwide hone critical thinking skills, tell powerful stories, and build persuasive business cases that enhance credibility, gain stakeholder buy-in, and seal deals.

Throughout my career, I’ve gone toe to toe with marketing agencies big and small by staying nimble and pivoting as clients’ needs change. I know what questions to ask. I know how to produce messaging that packs a punch, construct real-world arguments that meet audiences where they live and breathe, and arm sales and business development teams with the resources they need to close new business. Simply put, I know how to tackle ambitious agendas and get things done.