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Meet Julia Cassano

Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Cassano.

Hi Julia, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I officially started my career after college working in corporate media in NYC for Discovery Channel. However, I always had odd jobs and side hustles all throughout high school, college and my early corporate career. Whether it was designing a logo for a friend of a friend or creating visual brand assets for a client I picked up in a cafe, I had to be doing more than just my day job. I also picked up an adjunct teaching gig at the Pratt Institute lecturing on marketing, branded content and freelancing.

After about two years in corporate + all my other hustles, I decided to take the plunge into freelancing as those gigs were making me more money than my corporate job. I quit and began working as a consultant for start-ups in NYC. When the pandemic hit, I lost my main client just as I was about to sign on full-time with them. At first, I was discouraged and worried but it was a blessing in disguise because I would have just ended right back in a corporate-style job making someone else’s dream come true and having no work/life balance or passion for what I was actively working on every day.

After I lost that client, I started to evaluate what I really loved doing and what kind of working environment I wanted that would complement my ideal lifestyle. Eventually, I came to the realization that I needed to start my own creative consulting agency where I could onboard a few junior consultants and decide what kinds of clients we could take on.

Currently, I run my agency remotely from my apartment in West LA. I work with two junior consultants and we specialize in social media strategy & content production, event consulting, and branding. My team is based in NYC where our main retainer client is, so we cover all time zones in the US. We work primarily with direct to consumer apparel and beauty/personal care brands.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No road to success is without its twists and turns. Balancing multiple clients in different timezones, finding the right small business tools/software for everything from bookkeeping and invoicing to project management and file storage, opening a business bank account and filing as the right entity type, and defining boundaries with clients as a female small business owner working remotely during a global pandemic to name a few!

The value of good people can never be overstated also. I would not be where I am with my business if it weren’t for the junior consultants I onboarded to support on certain client projects.

Being able to evaluate if a client is a good fit for you is also a skill you pick up along the way. When you’re working as a consultant, the relationship between you and the client is a two-ways street. If they’re not the right fit for you, whether it’s conflicting communication styles or budget constraints, it’s sometimes best for both parties to pass.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
My consulting agency is small and intentional. We love working with female-owned small businesses specifically in the health/wellness space. We’re known for being thorough, innovative, and direct.

Our most well-known client is Allure magazine’s retail shop @theallurestore, located in Soho NYC. We manage their social media accounts, content production, and all in-store brand events. We built their social up from the very beginning and have amassed over 4K followers through organic content alone. We’re very proud of the content strategy we developed and the event production management we provide for hundreds of brand events.

Aside from social media management, we consult on marketing/social strategy, event production and branding. My background is in graphic design and UX design. Everything we do, whether it’s creating a style guide for a rebrand or building a social media strategy and content guidelines, is based around the end user’s experience. How will someone encountering your brand/product/service feel about it? What steps do they need to take to get to their desired destination? How can we make their experience the most pleasant and effective?

I approach everything from a human-centric perspective and really put myself in the shoes of the consumer or target audience that my client is trying to reach. It’s easy to forget that at the end of the marketing action is a real person that is looking for connection and understanding.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
If you don’t take risks, you’ll never grow to where you want to be. Everything I have now with my agency is due to taking leaps of faith earlier on in my career.

When I first left Discovery channel, it was to consult for a real estate tech start-up. I had no context on the client, nor did I have experience working with a start-up. It turned out to be one of the best learning experiences because it pulled me so far out of my comfort zone, taught me the importance of setting and reinforcing boundaries early on, and gave me the confidence I needed to pursue other clients and sell myself as an industry expert. I single-handedly organized a month-long, 30,000 sq. ft. experiential pop-up that featured curated programming including member events, brand sponsorships, strategic partner integrations/live demos, and a brand launch party that was heavily attended by press, investors, and influencers. (This aided in securing $25M in funding, closing out their second investment round)

I also recently moved across the country to LA from NYC on a whim. I didn’t know many people and had no idea if I would be able to run and grow my business in a new city mid-pandemic. Not only has it been the best decision for my business, but for my overall happiness and work/life balance.

Taking risks can be scary but it’s what you need to do sometimes to get yourself out of your comfort zone and into a world of new opportunities and possibilities.

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Image Credits
Julia Cassano Kendall Cornwell

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