I recently shared a portion of my journey towards what I am today, the eclectic mix of writer, marketer & publicist, on a coaching podcast. I think I was invited because I’ve always been one to go with the flow, and not being able to pursue one thing always opened the doors to something else.

For most purposes, the journey began 11 years ago (there is a slight blip in the story that takes us back 19 years as far as my career plans after high school, but we’ll get to that later!)

I had been working in retail prior to the birth of my oldest son. I had been fully intending to go back before he was born, but afterwards I couldn’t face going back and leaving him to daycare. So I decided to become his daycare and I went through the process to become a registered dayhome provider. That was my first home based business.

As I did that over the next two years, I also began to explore other opportunities. I tried direct sales briefly, but found it difficult and not quite my cup of tea. It was around that time that I started to dabble in freelance writing, though the bug didn’t really bite until a couple of years later when our family ended up on a small Northern Reserve with very little for me to do, other than look after my own boys and write.

I wasn’t a freelancer for long when I began to want more. I started a site and newsletter for childcare providers. It wasn’t successful by today’s standards, but I was proud of it. By the time the newsletter was in full swing, we’d moved again and I began to realize that freelance writing was an endless exercise in patience. Seeing as how I have no patience, it was not a good fit and I made a transition into writing directly for business.

A few brochures and website pages later, I added writing press releases to my repertoire. By this time I was also ghostwriting, doing product descriptions for catalog sites and editing white papers. I continued with this through two more moves.

Then one day as we were driving into town for groceries, I heard an ad on the radio. They were looking for a certain type of person, and it sounded just like me. I wasn’t looking for a job, but after much discussion we decided I should go for it.

It was a childhood dream to work in radio. I had even gone to broadcasting school after high school, thinking that would be the path to getting on the airwaves. Of course, the job I took was about selling air, rather than being on it - but it has helped me to remember that in these last days at that radio job when I wonder “What was i thinking?”

Now that I’m going back to the mad mix of writing, marketing and publicity…enriched now by nearly two years learning how radio really works from the inside out, and experiencing the influences of other traditional media. I’m ready to provide a more encompassing approach to marketing to better meet the needs of small business, especially on gaining local exposure.