Carolyn Higgins: From Layoff to Living the Dream

We’ve all heard people say that losing a particular job may have been the best thing that ever happened to them.

But for BizSugar Contributor of the Week Carolyn Higgins, president of Fortune Marketing, it might just turn out to be true. When Higgins was let go from her job selling Marketing Automation Software solutions in 2009, she knew it was time to follow her dream of launching her own business consulting company, and Fortune Marketing was born.

“I started Fortune Marketing Company because I wanted to give small business owners the marketing tools that larger companies use every day in building effective, sustainable marketing plans,” Higgins explained.

It turns out that Higgins is in a unique position to help. Over a 17 year career, she had worked with all kinds of companies from businesses so small you might not know their names to firms as large as Nestle and Intuit.

“The main difference between them is that large corporations plan and study their customers and their markets and make marketing decisions based on research and strategy and small business owners try to emulate them without doing the necessary research first,” Higgins said.

The problem, she added, is that so many small businesses make the mistake of trying to simply imitate what bigger companies do.

“When it comes to marketing, many small business owners do what they think they should do – usually just copying what everyone else is doing; and marketing is not one-size-fits-all,” said Higgins. “You really need to understand your target customer (and how they buy), your market, competitors, or even your own business and what exactly you want to stand for, otherwise you’re just wasting a lot of time and resources on the wrong marketing tactics.”

Clients who deal with Higgins instantly understand her passion.

“Anyone who spends 5 minutes with me knows I’m passionate about helping small businesses succeed; I’m on a mission to stop them all from marketing blindly – I want to give them the tools to make smarter, more informed decisions so they can thrive!” Higgins explained.

So what’s Higgins’ own strategy when it comes to online and other small business marketing?

“Part of my own marketing strategy for attracting small business owners to work with is to provide relevant, educational, and fun content through articles, blogs, and social media,” Higgins said.

BizSugar is also an important part of that marketing approach.

“BizSugar helps me by giving me an avenue for sharing my blogs and other content that I think my target market will find interesting,” Higgins said. “Besides boosting my exposure and credibility, I know that if I need great information to share on Twitter, Facebook, or even my newsletter, all I have to do is log on to BizSugar and I’ll find great content to learn and draw inspiration from.”

How else can BizSugar help your small business?

“BizSugar is always one of my go-to sites for great marketing and business information,” added Higgins. “I know the quality of articles and information is always going to be top-notch at BizSugar. And I love that I can browse content quickly by what is most popular in the community. I know that if the BizSugar community is voting for an article in large numbers, my small business audience will most likely find it useful too.”

Visit Higgins’ blog today and if you’d like to become one of our Contributors of the Week, just sign up for a free BizSugar account and start contributing regularly by sharing small business news and information. Also, “like” our Facebook fanpage today and someday you too may be the next weekly contributor in our small business community.