Today we’d like to introduce you to Melinda Love. Them and their team share their story with us below:
With 30 years of experience in marketing, advertising, and public relations, Melinda Love started her career in Washington, DC, working for a start-up that specializes in health care and education. In DC, she was one of the first women to start a creative team within a boutique agency. She was the 20th employee and went on to assist the agency in growing to more than 125 with offices in DC, Los Angeles, and New York.
In 2000, she moved to St. Louis to work for Omnicom-owned powerhouse PR firm, FleishmanHillard where she led business development for the East Coast and went on to lead a 125 person creative business with very little turnover and record-breaking profitability for almost 17 years.
Her love of helping others soon drew her to a highly specialized boutique focused on health care, where she hired 11 people, started three divisions and managed business development for the agency. As they prepared to sell, she decided to focus her energies on growing her own consulting business in 2018. For the past three years, Love has been steadily growing a highly personalized consulting business. Her clients include companies who are looking for marketing, advertising, creative, and communications agencies; agencies themselves by providing counsel on rate structures, process and delivery systems, talent development, and more.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The most challenging aspect of the business has been honing in on what I do best: Agency Matchmaking. I work with companies to find agencies. I’m very good at helping companies find agencies to work with through an RFP or a “Non-RFP” process. It’s a mutual service since I’m an objective third-party. I can often provide insight to the client on what agencies will charge and how to get the best work out of agencies.
Talent Curation. As a prolific networker of people, I’m very good at helping agencies secure hard-to-find talent. It takes time, but I specialize in helping companies position themselves in the market, and I go through relationships vs. random job postings.
Management Consulting. I’ve had a lot of experience in helping large companies grow and become profitable. I like to take what I’ve learned there and apply that knowledge to small-to-mid-size agencies. This ranges from negotiating rate structures with large companies, to reinventing a talent structure, to identifying processes and resources to help small businesses scale more rapidly.
Creative Consulting. Since I’m a classically trained writer and graphic designer, there are times when I will take on small assignments or white label the work I do for other agencies. For instance, I’m very good at B2B communications, so a number of CPG-centered agencies will hire me to help with that vertical.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about M Consulting Group?
If you work with, at, or need a marketing, advertising, communications, or creative agency, we should get to know one another. I help companies find agencies and agencies find good talent. I understand what it takes to grow a business, and I help you find the people to do that.
My products are: Agency Matchmaking, Talent Curation, Fractional CMO, Creative Consulting, and Coaching.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Running your own business is not for the weak-kneed. You’ve got to have lots of chutzpah, drive, and personal passion for moving your business and your clients forward every day. If you are not used to independent decision-making, if you are uncertain, or lack confidence, build your support system to address those items. It’ll pay off.
Contact Info:
- Email: melinda@mconsultinggroupllc.com
- Website: www.mconsultinggroupllc.com
- Instagram: mconsultingroup
