Fellow business leader:

The idea for Mend was born from my strong desire to focus my professional life on doing impactful, customer-centered work and my love of fly fishing. With 25 years of incredible work under my belt and two daughters that would soon be off to college, I needed to take what I learned throughout my career and refocus my professional time making tangible contributions to ambitious, purpose-driven companies looking to grow.

As I marinated on the learnings I've drawn from what has been a pretty rewarding career, one particular observation stood out - businesses that grow the most, and have the strongest customer relationships, are those that embrace the idea of "Big M" marketing. Organizations that use "Big M" marketing lean on their marketing organization for more than brochures and ads. They use marketing as a strategic lever for growth that galvanizes the organization and its operations around the voice of the customer. And, as I thought through it more, I realized that capturing and using that "outside-in" perspective was not only one of my proverbial "superpowers" as a business professional, but it also had lots of parallels to things that I've learned on the river while out fly fishing.

You see, for fly anglers, there are many steps you need to execute well to succeed. Knowing what you're fishing for and where to find them (targeting), understanding what those fish are eating (insight), and executing the right cast (marketing) are all essential ingredients to a banner day, but simply picking a fly and landing it on the water isn't enough. Once your fly (value proposition) is on the water, you need to manage how it's presenting (being received) to the fish in light of the surrounding conditions. In fly fishing, it's the step of properly mending your line - manipulating it in response to constantly changing water conditions (competitors, trends, customer preferences, etc.) – that helps ensure that your fly presents in the most natural and natural and appealing way possible. Mending at the right time, and in the right way, also often makes the difference between a successful day on the river (growth) and getting skunked.

It's been my observation that many organizations, regardless of where they are in their development, get too caught up in simply getting their fly on the water, never get around to mending their line, and then wonder why they aren't catching any fish. So it's in that spirit that I built Mend.

If you aren't currently experiencing the growth you were hoping for, or are getting ready to launch something new and want to do it in the right way, I'd love to find time to chat about whether or not Mend can help you reach your goals.

Cheers,