Mentors: MARKETING
Summary of Qualifications As a fractional CMO Deborah helps organizations identify their brands, identify their key goals, and determine appropriate marketing strategies to achieve those goals. Throughout her career, she has worked in corporations, ad agencies and currently as an independent consultant. Deborah has worked with large organizations and smaller organizations. She gets involved in creating communications plans (external and internal), marketing plans, and the pieces and parts that make up marketing plans; as in strategies and tactics including branding, research, public relations, and advertising. Frequently, the first step is the most difficult. Helping clients understand what it is they are really offering, and why their product meets the need of the prospect better than the competition is not easy, but it is almost the most important step in the process. Without a clear grasp of the brand the marketing strategies may fall on deaf ears. Over her career, she has worked in the business 2 business arena, and business 2 consumer. She has worked with retail, tourism, education, health care, housing and the financial industries. Want to meet with this mentor? Schedule an...
Summary of Qualifications Leslie is a C.P.A. who has specialized in working with small businesses for over 20 years. She provides a wide range of small business financial and accounting services ranging from business set up and income tax preparation to financial and profitability analysis. With a focus of working with small businesses in the Richmond area, Leslie works in the areas of tax return preparation, tax strategies, financial statement preparation, business set up, and financial analysis. She has an accounting degree from JMU and an MBA with a concentration in Marketing from VCU. She is a C.P.A. and a QuickBooks Online Certified ProAdvisor. Over the years Leslie has worked with various industries and business structures. Her clients come from the manufacturing, retail, and service industries. She works with S-corporations, C-Corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and sole proprietor entities. Leslie has a relationship based approach to working with small businesses. She works with businesses in all phases of business development from the initial start-up stage to mature businesses looking at growth and strategic planning. She believes knowing the client and establishing a relationship enables greater success for the small business. In her spare time Leslie enjoys spending time on the James River boating, kayaking, and hiking with her family and Chocolate Labrador Retrievers. Want to meet with this mentor? Schedule an...
Summary of Qualifications Doug is a veteran entrepreneur and consultant whose experience focuses on strategy, operations, analytics, and finance. He is a founding partner and owner of Gather, whose coworking spaces provide a community to more than 200 entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small business people. Doug White spends his time solving business problems for entrepreneurs and their organizations. His background in physics, math, engineering and business gives him an ability to go beyond the easy, surface solution; to dig deeper and find unique answers to the problems that plague small businesses. He has a talent for making the complex simple and guiding others to see and understand the key that will solve their puzzle. He helps organizations develop strategies to take them to the next level, grasp what their financials are really telling them, develops metrics to keep track and measure what is important and fixes operational issues by finding the root cause of the problem. Doug has successfully led start-ups and turnarounds. He has been a part of executing acquisitions on both the buy side and the sell side. He has worked successfully in fields ranging from heavy duty manufacturing to sales and distribution, from consumer lending to investment brokerage. The common thread through each assignment is that Doug has been the catalyst for creating significant bottom line value and he can teach you his methods. He has specialized in taking businesses that were broken and fixing them or taking businesses that were successful and raising their performance to the next level. Currently, Doug works with his wife Polly at Whitestone Partners, their full-service small-business consulting firm. Together, they...
Summary of Qualifications Brooke is a proven entrepreneur and business strategist. She helps entrepreneurs of all types to start, grow, and save their small businesses. Brooke works with entrepreneurs to achieve optimal success in both their business and their lives. With experience in all types of businesses and roles, she can help you create a plan to save, grow, or launch your business. Unlike other consultants, Brooke focuses not only on setting up businesses for success, but also the success of the entrepreneurs running them. She evaluates everything from overall business strategy, to sales efforts and processes, to customer service and retention, as well as explore and implement solutions to let you work “on” your business instead of “in” it. In addition to her own knowledge and network, Brooke can educate you on grants, resources, and services that are available at little to no charge to entrepreneurs in the Richmond area. Whether you are struggling to solve one problem within your business, or would like to evaluate and grow all aspects of your business, Brooke can help you achieve optimum success, growth, and balance as a business and an entrepreneur. Brooke graduated Summa Cum Laude from Middlebury College in 2001 with degrees in Philosophy and Spanish. For the past 15 years, she’s gained experience and expertise in many areas of the business world, from sales to operations to process improvement, for all types of industries and companies. Through her experience at companies like UPS, Duncan-Parnell, and LeClair Ryan, Brooke has been exposed to and learned about many types of operations and management styles, which allows her to be flexible and...
Summary of Qualifications Polly is a veteran entrepreneur and consultant whose experience spans all industries and whose expertise focuses on people. She is a founding partner and owner of Gather, whose coworking spaces provide a community to more than 200 entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small business people. In 2002, Polly left the corporate world to start her first consulting business serving large and Fortune 500 companies in the areas of leadership and organizational development. Her business continued to grow in both size and capabilities over the next several years adding services in HR, compliance, strategy and workforce development. In 2009, she joined forces with her husband, Doug, to form Whitestone Partners, a full-service small-business consulting firm. Together, they work with clients across all industries and have extensive experience in real estate, construction, the trades, professional services, non-profits, advertising and marketing, manufacturing and financial services. They help businesses that want to get to the next level as well as those needing to get back on track. Today, Polly is recognized as a small business expert, successful serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and founding partner of Gather, coworking spaces that create community for more than 200 entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small businesses. She writes weekly columns (with her partner, Doug) for both RTD Business and Entrepreneur.com. She is a best-selling author, sought-after speaker, and business consultant. Want to meet with this Lead Mentor? Schedule an...
