But try anyway.
When East and West Coast leadership spent 11 weeks trapped in revision hell over our new B2B look, I didn't just keep designing. I pulled the CEO aside, and asked him to take another look at my original wordmark. A week later, the new Marx Foodservice logo was printing on business cards. Perseverance can be revisiting a good idea again when you hit a dead end.
Click a card, any card.
The Challenge: De-risking the B2B Sale
Independent brick-and-mortar retail buyers are inherently risk-averse. The challenge was twofold: How do we convince zero-knowledge store owners to take a chance on a new brand, and how do we scale that wholesale volume without destroying our profit margins?
The Approach: Personalized Plans of Attack
Before pitching a single store, I ran a cost of goods analysis to build a distributor catalog consisting only of SKUs that maintained a >60% profit margin. Then, I used Google Maps to define territories and researched target stores' existing inventories to build customized sample packs. We walked into these stores cold, dropping off our line sheets and letting buyers touch and feel products we already knew fit their aesthetic.
The Takeaway: We scaled our wholesale footprint by 350% (growing from 2 to 9 accounts) in just six months and secured our first national distribution agreement. A beautiful catalog isn't enough; B2B growth requires empathy for the buyer in understanding their risks, and making the sale a mutually beneficial action.
The Challenge: The Commodity Trap & Cannibalization
When our primary beef vendor capped our imports, we launched five new programs. How do you arm a sales team with six different premium options without having them trip over each other, confuse the buyer, or cannibalize our existing beef program?
The Approach: Architecting the Category
I mapped the six programs across five strict differentiation axes (feed, origin, age, breed, price) to ensure each brand owned a unique lane. If two brands overlapped on the matrix, that meant the sales team wouldn't have useful answers of how to pitch it and could split our existing customers.
We built distinct brand positioning for each—from the coastal heritage of Ocean Beef to the elite prestige of Pure Black Wagyu. Through bespoke test kitchens, we captured the specific eating quality and story a chef could put on their menu.
The Takeaway: We generated $10.4M in beef program revenue growth (a 48% increase) over two years. All of this was from new beef programs.
The Challenge: Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
Food is fast paced and can't hold a smile. But, luckily I can.
The Approach: Oiling the Machine
Before a test kitchen started, I got alignment: I sat with the CEO and the marketing team to lock in exact deliverables, business goals, and shot lists. All subjective creative debates happen before the shoot, not during it. I acted as a filter on set, keeping standards high, ordering refires when I knew a dish wouldn't work, and ensuring we maximized every minute of studio time for our team of three cameras, a chef, a copywriter, and a CEO.
The Takeaway: I increased our usable A-roll output by 5x—scaling from roughly 40 to over 200 final shots per shoot—by separating one busy day into two. The day before is dedicated to all raw shots, and the day of is all about action and cooking. This prevented overwhelm with our team and increased our accuracy overall.
The Challenge: Beyond Pay to Play
The playing field is tilted, and organic engagement alone won't lift you out of obscurity. However, paying alone won't guarantee future engagement either-- a mix of genuinely entertaining content with a little oomph behind it can have wings.
The Approach: Microbudget Likeability
For Crushworthy, I engineered an authentic, digital-native voice across TikTok, Instagram, X, and Bluesky. We cultivated an insider community, focusing on shocking and delighting our audience. Starting with our pride sale ad, we achieved liftoff on $50 of total ad spend per platform.
The Takeaway: We reached organic escape velocity. We consistently gain daily momentum and net-new followers even on days we don't post. A narrative voice makes followers flow because they perform organic actions after a boost.
My perspective on growing, dying, and how to put as much space as possible between the two.
Imagine no one has ever heard of your product. In fact, I probably haven't either. I happen to think this is great. It's a really key part of how I empathetically investigate sales cycles, which customers we think we're talking to, and what they think they know about us.
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Sometimes I don't know shit about shit. That's a great starting point.
One time a friend of mine called his mom to ask about how long his pothos (house plant) would get. She said, "plants either grow, or they die." Huh. Sometimes I feel like if I don't grow, I will die.
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Everything is hard. But try anyway.
Beautiful work that never gets published is worthless. Worse than worthless. It's a dead weight on the ability to pivot to time-sensitive content. Agility in leadership means removing obstacles, equipping the team with the right tech, upskilling them where necessary, and getting beautiful shit into the world for those sparkling hungry eyes.
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My eyes only sparkle when I'm crying, but that could be a good sign if the content was beautiful.
The truth will set you free, but sometimes it's ugly. Ugly freedom! What a thought. Sometimes I do think freedom is really ugly. But that's sort of the deal we struck, huh?
Anyway, design-by-committee snarls and broken web flows (enough with the popups already) hate to see me coming with my gnarled, outstretched finger.
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I've been the dumper in every relationship I've been in. Unfortunately this means I'm still single, but it does define a way I operate: I don't shy away from difficult truths.
Scaling wholesale distribution footprint, automating B2B acquisition funnels, and leading operational ERP migration for an expanding Seattle apparel brand.
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Spearheading brand development, creative strategy, and cross-functional team leadership for specialty food products and white-label programs.
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Directing multi-channel print, web, and social design across numerous vendor brands and internal sub-brands, while revolutionizing content production workflows.
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Driving video/audio branding, design standards, and rapid brand creation for quick-service retail SaaS clients.
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Leading instructional design, digital media teaching, event media production, and media internship programs.
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Creative Direction is a process I've done my whole life from stand-up comedy, drag, videography, and now leading teams to talk to their customers like humans do. It's cool to like your job.
I graduated from the University of Washington with a BFA in Digital Art & Experimental Media (DXARTS) and a BA in Communication.
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In my off time, I am slowly ticking off my home improvement projects, hosting brunch on Sundays at my place, or relying on my retired drag persona to remind me not to take myself too seriously.
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Whether you're looking for a creative operations leader to scale your brand, or need a little boots-on-the-ground media help, let's build something rad.
Hi!
Ah, I got ahead of myself there. Send me an email or linkedin message first.
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