What I'm Learning Right Now (And How It Shows Up in Your Business)
You know that moment when you're three tabs deep into "best practices" articles, each one contradicting the last?
Or when you finally carve out time to learn about Google Ads or AI tools, only to realize you have no idea which advice is actually relevant to your business — or if any of it even applies?
Here's what I've learned: As a business owner, the problem isn't a lack of information. It's too much noise and not enough discernment.
You're trying to step into the CEO role your business needs. But the day-to-day keeps pulling you back in, and when you do come up for air, the landscape has shifted again. New platforms. New tools. New "experts" with conflicting advice.
That's exactly why I stay ruthlessly selective about my own professional development — and why having someone in your corner who does this filtering work is more valuable than you might think.
The Learning I Actually Do (And Why It Matters)
I'll be honest: I'm not the person attending every mastermind or collecting certifications. I'm extremely selective about paid education because most of it is recycled content designed to sell the next course.
What I do instead is curate relationships with working experts — people who are actively running campaigns, testing strategies, and seeing what's converting right now.
I have ongoing conversations with specialists who live and breathe specific platforms: the Google Ads expert who knows what's working post-algorithm shift. The Klaviyo strategist who's testing new automation sequences. The Meta ads consultant tracking how iOS updates are impacting performance. The social media manager watching platform changes in real time.
These aren't influencers selling courses. These are practitioners in the trenches — and staying connected to what they're learning means I'm bringing current, tested knowledge to your strategy, not last year's playbook.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Here's the reality of how I stay current without drowning in content consumption:
I'm part of four paid communities — specifically focused on expert-level business owners where we collaborate and learn from each other. These aren't massive Facebook groups full of people asking basic questions. They're small, curated spaces with people running real businesses and sharing what's actually working.
I have at least one coffee chat per week with an expert in a field I want to understand better. Sometimes it's a deep dive into Google Ads. Sometimes it's understanding how AI is impacting discoverability and how to work with it in ethical ways. Sometimes it's learning what's working right now in Meta Ads from someone who's managing accounts daily.
I do buy courses and pay for workshops — but only from people I truly trust and who have come recommended to me. I'm not looking to become an expert in every platform or tool. I'm taking courses for specific niches and tech platforms to understand why they matter, what questions to ask, and how to discern the quality from the junk. This means when a client asks about Klaviyo or PR or Social Media, I understand enough to know what's realistic, what's worth the investment, and what's just marketing hype.
I attend local networking events and female -led conferences a few times a year — not to collect business cards, but to have face-to-face conversations with people doing the work. There's a different quality of insight that comes from in-person dialogue.
I ruthlessly curate my circle of inputs on social media, LinkedIn, and email newsletters. I only follow the true experts in eCommerce, AI, PR, copywriting, e-mail marketing, social media, and paid ads and more — not the ones with the biggest followings or loudest voices, but those I've discerned are genuinely the top in their field.
Here's the thing: You won't have heard of most of them. Many of them you couldn't afford to hire directly. But I have access to their insights and expertise at a level that makes sense — which means when I'm building strategy for your business, I'm aligning recommendations with what's actually working at the highest levels.
This isn't about name-dropping or collecting connections. It's about building a network of discernment — knowing who to trust, what to test, and which advice applies to businesses at your stage and scale.
What This Actually Means for Your Strategy
When a client asks me about their paid advertising strategy, I'm not giving them generic best practices from a 2023 webinar. I'm pulling from recent conversations with experts who are actively managing six-figure ad spends and seeing what's working this quarter.
When we're evaluating email marketing platforms or discussing AI tools, I've already tested them, talked to specialists and fellow business owners, and figured out what's worth your time versus what's just shiny and new.
The value isn't that I know everything. The value is that I know who to ask — and I've already done the asking.
This means you're not spending hours trying to decode conflicting advice or wondering if what worked for someone else will work for your business model. You get strategic recommendations based on current data and real-world results, filtered through the lens of your specific goals and constraints.
The Corporate Background Meets Small Business Reality
Here's what my corporate experience taught me: Big companies have entire departments and agencies dedicated to staying current. They have CMOs who synthesize information, test strategies, and make informed decisions about where to invest resources.
Small businesses rarely have that luxury — but they need that level of strategic thinking even more.
That's where my background becomes useful. Years of corporate marketing strategy, a Master's degree, hundreds of hours working with coaching clients, plus running my own businesses — it all creates a particular kind of pattern recognition.
I can look at your business and see what bigger companies in your space are doing. I can identify gaps in your strategy that you're too close to see. And I can translate high-level strategic thinking into actions that make sense for your specific stage and resources.
But none of that matters if the strategies are outdated. Which is why I stay connected to what's working now, not what worked three years ago.
What You're Really Hiring For
When you bring in strategic support, you're not just hiring someone to execute tactics or give you a marketing plan.
You're hiring someone who can see your business from 30,000 feet — who understands how brand, marketing, operations, and growth all connect, and who can help you prioritize what actually matters right now.
You're also hiring someone who's already done the work of filtering signal from noise. Who's invested the time in understanding new tools, platforms, and strategies so you don't have to. Who can tell you what's worth testing and what's just distraction.
This is the difference between hiring a tactician and working with someone who brings CMO-level strategic thinking — the kind that sees how all the pieces fit together and knows which levers to pull.
I handle that strategic layer so you can focus on what only you can do: making the big decisions, serving your clients, and actually running your business.
The Questions That Tell You It's Time
You might need strategic support if you're asking yourself:
Am I focusing on the right things, or just the urgent things?
How do I know if this new platform/tool/strategy is worth my time?
Why does my marketing feel scattered instead of cohesive?
What should I actually be doing differently to grow?
These aren't tactical questions. They're strategic ones — and they require someone who can step back, see patterns, and provide perspective you can't get when you're inside your business every day.
A Different Kind of Partnership
I've never believed in the kind of consulting where someone hands you a fifty-page document and disappears. That's not how real strategic support works.
The value comes from ongoing collaboration — someone who understands your business deeply enough to spot opportunities, catch problems early, and help you make better decisions faster.
Someone who's already having the conversations with experts, staying current on what's working, and filtering everything through the lens of what actually matters for your specific goals.
You don't need more courses or more information. You need clearer thinking and better decisions — and sometimes that requires another set of eyes from someone who's spent years developing the expertise to see what you can't.
If that resonates, let's talk about what strategic support could look like for your business.
— Tina
P.S. I work primarily with established service-based business owners who are ready to grow more strategically. If you're doing consistent revenue but feeling stuck at your current level, an If Were Your CMO Strategy Session might be exactly what you need to get unstuck.