Postcards from a strategy house

kylie smith-clayborne

How to hire help with socials & marketing without losing your edge or wallet… I’ll never forget handing off my content that first month. It felt like standing at the edge of a cliff and realizing the only way forward is to jump.A mix of thrill, terror, and quiet hope. I know everyone says your […]

The fog is lifting. I’m finally seeing what works in Marketing again…. Every month, the marketing girlies release their Trend Reports. New audios.New “what to post in November” slide decks.New video edits to spend hours pondering only to post none of them. (just me??) Listen… I love a good vibe shift.I love an aesthetic seasonal vibe mood […]

And what every Beauty & Wellness Founder can steal from a $140 million mess. If your brand feels beige, it’s not because you’re out of ideas.It’s because you started painting by numbers. Somewhere along the way, your work stopped looking like you and started looking like a Pinterest board of other people’s confidence. I get it. I […]

How High-Achieving Women Outsmart Themselves You’ve probably seen the headlines: thieves walked into the Louvre in broad daylight and walked out with millions in royal jewels.No masks. No chase scene. No chaos even. It was strategic. Almost polite.And that’s the part that got me. Because that’s exactly how the brain steals from you when you’re building […]

When marketing lost its soul, the best brands didn’t panic. They got curious, slower, a little weirder. That’s where the real traction lives now. For the ones building brands with heart, brains, and just enough weird to feel alive again. (file this under: founders rediscovering their humanity in Q4) Every Monday this fall, a few […]

Why the next wave of marketing looks a lot more like creative sovereignty than content calendars. I’m sitting in Crete right now. Currently somewhere between a Greek salad and a breakthrough. My laptop is open and my inbox is pretending I don’t exist. I booked this trip back in the spring, knowing I’d need a […]

Because your marketing is only good if people are coming back. Last week, a client emailed me out of the blue. We hadn’t worked together in 3 (!!!) years. She’d grown, pivoted, tried other things. But when she was ready to take her next leap? She came back to me. And listen: that’s the kind […]

The launch strategy your nervous system has been waiting for… I’ve been offline for a few days.Not hiding. Just quiet. A book. A glass of water. Fluffy pillows. Sun warming my face. Stillness. Five years ago, this would’ve felt like professional self-sabotage.My brain would’ve bullied me into “just post something” so the algorithm didn’t forget […]

Why your content feels Heavy (and how to make it Hum) Death by a Thousand Tiny Decisions Every week I make the same mistake.I open Pinterest, type “chicken recipes,” and convince myself that my family desperately needs me to make new recipes. Why? They like Marry Me Chicken. They like Taco Tuesday. Nobody’s begging me […]

The Horses Outside My Office Door Told Me Everything About Why She’s Scrolling Past You… It was the whinny that stopped me.The first time I heard it I thought, Did I really just hear what I thought I heard? Was that a horse whinnying??” Yes- yes it was. The first thing I noticed when I moved […]