Today we’d like to introduce you to Erica Bauer.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Erica. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
As my college graduation date neared, I couldn’t have been more excited to apply my new knowledge and creative energy to the Chicago advertising scene. I had a shiny new degree. A crisp stack of resumes. A fancy new interview suit! Then just a couple months before the long-awaited graduation date I’m slapped across the face by the 2008 financial crisis.
The worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Lovely. The sh*t has hit the fan and I have rent to pay! It was time for me to get a little scrappy. For a couple years I paid bills with a combo of serving shifts at our local watering hole and graphic design gigs from… well, wherever I could dig them up.
In college, I dreamed of having a full-time Ad Exec role with a big office and official desk nameplate. After being forced to venture out on my own, I found myself quite pleased with the hustle and bustle of freelancing. I was really getting the hang of it!
Eventually, I was lured to a full-time hotel marketing position with the promise of something so adult; healthcare! Okay, the roles were pretty amazing too. I held roles where I could combine my love of design and strategy with hospitality. If you’ve ever worked in a hotel or restaurant you know that it takes a special kind of person to thrive in these wild and crazy industries. I’ve decided to fall in love with both. The constant evolution of restaurants isn’t too far off from the constant evolution of marketing and design after all.
Being a creative professional can be confusing. How do you balance making money with doing what you love?
Full Belly Marketing is the product of years of soul-searching. What do I love most? Food, design, photography, social media, digital marketing! Instead of searching for the perfect job, I decided it was time to create my own. And Full Belly Marketing is born. A food-focused marketing agency where I can work with clients that are as passionate about their restaurant as I am about marketing.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
One of the toughest parts of starting my first business is experiencing uncharted territory over and over again.
Hiring a lawyer to draft contracts, forming an LLC, and how about taxes? I’m a designer. This is all new to me!
It took a moment to accept that there would be a failure in the future. And that’s okay. Some of this is totally uncharted territory.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Full Belly Marketing story. Tell us more about the business.
Full Belly Marketing is a boutique restaurant marketing agency. We “speak the language” or food and beverage and understand the urgency in this ever-changing industry.
We offer to restaurants what most other agencies do not engaging content tailored to your restaurant by a live human-non-robot-being. We get to know your restaurant, its voice, its food, its biggest fans and we use that knowledge to develop an engaging communications strategy.
Now, this may seem like something that any agency would offer, but it’s so not true. It’s hard to find an agency that makes you feel like you’re number one on their list and not client #1534. Our team accepts a limited number of clients and will never grow to a point where one account manager has 20 clients. Seriously. That’s not a made up number. 20 clients!
Our goal is to make restaurants feel as if we’re an in-house marketing team member. We’re going to make restaurant owner’s lives easier. We handle their communications so they can get back to focusing on restaurant operations! Our services include social media management, graphic design, email marketing, local SEO and website design.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I struggle with the word “luck”. I like to believe that being lucky is really just my hard work finally paying off in one way or another. And bad luck is really just a crappy slice of life that I have to make the best of. But I do have to say that if there is one piece of luck that landed in my favor, it’s that I have some extremely supportive people in my life.
Since I can remember, I’ve had a free pass to be whoever I wanted. I could chop my hair off and decorate the walls of my childhood room in glow in the dark puff paint without a negative peep from the parentals. In fact, they’d probably run to the store and get me more puff paint when I ran low. They fueled my creative fire quite early in life.
And now I’m extremely lucky to have a supportive hubby. A “go out and get it” cheerleader. Someone to calm me down when I’m freaking out and cheer me on when I need a kick in the pants. He has an unbelievable way of putting things into perspective which, when you’re starting your first business, is the only real way to not lose your sh*t. xoxo Tim
It’s the human element that I totally lucked out on.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fullbellymarketing.com/
- Phone: 989.280.0221
- Email: hello@fullbellymarketing.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fullbellymarketing/
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