UNIGNORABLE

It’s 2023. People want to buy from people—not faceless brands. We help entrepreneurs build a personal brand that build their business.

Co-Founder

Customer Camp

Stop Guessing. Start Growing.

You've got big plans and zero time to waste. You know that deeply understanding your customers is the ultimate growth hack and you want to be more customer-focused, but actually doing it can be pretty tricky. That’s why we created Customer Camp.

At Customer Camp, we help frustrated teams figure out where to focus so they can make better decisions and market smarter. Learn more: www.customercamp.co

CEO & Lead Trainer

Volta Labs

I'm delighted to help startups coming through the Volta Cohort program.

Board Member - Volta Cohort

Vendeve

Vendeve is a VC-backed peer-to-peer mentoring platform for women entrepreneurs. As the founder and CEO, I oversaw every aspect of the company's development from ideation and concept validation through to product development and fundraising. Vendeve launched in July 2015 and is the result of a major product pivot. 

• Called the "LinkedIn for women entrepreneurs" by Forbes and Inc Magazine
• Grew a global community organically  
• Featured in regional and international media including TV, radio and web/print publications (e.g. Forbes, Inc., Huffington Post, Flare, TechVibes)
• New Business of the Year Nominee

CEO & Founder

RedRiot

RedRiot is a strategic branding agency that specializes in guerrilla marketing. RedRiot started as a freelance business in 2010. In under 3 years it grew from a one-woman operation to one of Halifax's most recognized branding agencies. We won international awards and reeled in clients like Target and Holiday Inn.

RedRiot incubated our original tech product, Swapskis (later became Vendeve). RedRiot closed it's doors in 2014 so our team could focus on scaling our startup.

• Won local and international awards for our work
• Secured clients like Target and Holiday Inn
• Grew team to 9 full-time employees

Founder & Senior Brand Strategist

The Fork Project

The Fork Project is a full-service restaurant consulting firm. As Halifax's only full-service restaurant consulting firm, The Fork Project stood out in a sea of generic marketing and PR firms. We worked with local and international clients. 

The Fork Project was successfully acquired in Jan 2014 after less than two years in operation.

• Worked with local and international brands
• Helped clients reduce food cost by up to 30% while doubling and tripling revenues
• Successfully acquired in under 2 years

Revolve

Revolve is a branding agency comprised of inspired individuals who understand that brand is more about culture and behavior than logos and advertising.

I have a unique interest in brand development, so Revolve was a perfect fit.

Accounts Coordinator

Progress Media Group

In March 2010, Progress Media Group was set to host their 2010 entrepreneurial conference. I partnered with the team in the weeks leading up to the conference. 

I was responsible for all PR/communications tasks relating to the 'Face2Face' networking conference and the 'Best Places to Work' award ceremony. 

In addition to logistical planning, I also commissioned a social media campaign and oversaw all media relations proceeding the events.

Communications Coordinator (internship)

“The Customer Whisperer” 🧠 I reveal the hidden reasons why people buy | 58,000 smart marketers read my newsletter on buyer psychology

This ain't my first rodeo...

I'm a serial entrepreneur who’s built businesses spanning the marketing, tech, and hospitality sectors.

I've had successful exits and epic failures.

I've been named as a "visionary entrepreneur" by Forbes (and then lost everything trying to build the next unicorn startup).

I've helped build brand strategies for solopreneurs, small businesses, startups, and Fortune 100 companies. 

After years in the entrepreneurial trenches... one thing is clear:

Whoever gets *closer* to the customer *wins*

Marketing tools, tactics, and channels change rapidly. But people don't. 

If you want to better understand buyers and build an audience of raving fans then stick around because I can help.

I decided to switch to a 3-day workweek this summer (and my boss was pissed)

Before I get into the details of the nasty showdown with my angry boss—and how I eventually convinced her it was a good idea—first, a quick backstory...

Years ago I was featured in an article celebrating female startup founders.

One of the other people mentioned was Randi Zuckerberg (yup, Mark Zuckerberg's big sister).

I was building a tech company.

(Spoiler: it failed miserably—but that’s a story for another time) 

Randi was promoting a big idea that later became her book.

Randi’s big idea?

She summed it up in a tweet back in 2011 by saying:

“The entrepreneur’s dilemma:

1. Maintaining friendships
2. Building a great company
3. Spending time with family
4. Staying fit
5. Getting sleep

Pick 3”

Pick 3?

Randi was saying that you can have it all—just not all at the same time.

Each day you can pick 3 of the 5 areas to focus on.

This idea stuck with me for years.

Before becoming a mom, I routinely picked:

1. My business (often 6 or 7 days a week)
2. Sleep (because w/o sleep I can’t do good work)
3. Time with my husband

I'm ashamed to admit it, but maintaining friendships and fitness often got overlooked.

It felt like there just weren’t enough hours in the day and, as a startup founder constantly trying to figure out how to keep the lights on, work came first.

That’s going to change this summer.

I’m switching to a 3-day workweek.

I’ll spend my extra time:

> Making friends in our new city (we recently moved to Quebec)
> Learning French 🇫🇷 (which will help because, as I said, we live in Quebec now)
> Getting fit

When I first shared this idea with my boss... she wasn’t happy.

Nope. She was downright pissed.

She slapped me with 10+ reasons why it was a bad idea.

Then she tried to guilt me into working even HARDER this summer instead.

“We could easily hit $1,000,000 in revenue this year if you just stay focused,” she argued. 

I told her to F*ck off.

“There’s more to life than work and making money,” I shouted. “Happiness is the goal!”

After some quiet contemplation, I finally convinced my boss I was right.

“Ok. 3-days a week for the summer.”

Could you convince your boss to let you do this?

(Psssssssssst: I’m my own boss)

Katelyn Bourgoin 🧠

“Content is king” is a lie

Creating fan-f*cking-tastic content isn’t enough

(Many failed starts created great content)

You need to distribute it too

Ross Simmonds has been spreading this message for years 

Now you can learn from the best with his new book 👏

You can build an audience on LinkedIn without spending all day waiting for big accounts to post so you can rush to comment first

How?

1. Do stuff IRL that's interesting
2. Post about it

Yes, commenting can give you more impressions and may help you snag a few more followers.

But if you want to build an audience of future customers, you can't just hang around and comment on stuff all day.

You need to share your own posts too, right?

(I shouldn't have to say this... but there are so many LinkedIn gurus who are self-servingly pushing commenting as "the holy grail of growth" that I figured people could use a reminder)

"I want to build an audience but every time I go to post... I freeze." ~ a super accomplished entrepreneur

I hear stuff like this all the time and it's infuriating. 

Too many brilliant, experienced, hella-smart people want to build their personal brand... but can't push themselves to post.

They struggle with imposter syndrome.
They worry about what their peers will think.
They dismiss their content ideas as too simplistic.
They spend hours working on posts that never feel "good enough"... 

So they never publish. 

Meanwhile... overconfident newbies are posting often, building loyal followers, and getting rich in the process.

Why?

The difference between experts and newbs is that experts know how much they *don’t* know.

This keeps them stuck.

Remember: no one has all the answers. 

We're all figuring it out as we go.

(Even "the experts" like you)

OK. Time for a pep talk:

Stop waiting for the right time.
Stop watching others from the sidelines.
Stop discounting your hard-earned expertise.

People need to hear the ideas locked inside your head.

Stop f*cking lurking. Start sharing.

Deal?

There's an easy way to spot a scammer on LinkedIn from a mile away...

The trick?

They promise to help you build an audience and say *their* way is *the* way.

There is no one “right way” to build an audience

There’s only the way that works for you.

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Dan Go grew to 500K followers on Twitter by tweeting upwards to *350 times per day*

Julian Shapiro, Neal;'s cofounder in Demand Curve, grew to 250k followers by tweeting *once per week*

--

Sarah Hart ✤ designs gorgeous PDFs to share her ideas on LinkedIn—she drops 3-4 of these a week.

*They take her hours to make* but also showcase her mad design skills so they’re basically mini ads for her brand design service.

Meanwhile, Andrea Bosoni shares short, no fluff plain text posts. He shares *one marketing insight a day* on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Amanda Goetz can crank out a killer newsletter in *90 minutes*

Harry Dry has spent days working on *a single issue* of his newsletter

--

So I repeat, there is no one “right way” to build an audience

Trying to follow someone else’s recipe for success when you don’t have the same core ingredients is a recipe for sadness.

Now I'm curious...

What does your content creation process look like? 

Share it in the comments to inspire others.

--

P.S. I stole this post idea from Neal O'Grady. He said it last year and it's stuck with me ever since. 

Proposify officially turns ten years old this year, and, well, it’s been a wild ride. 

In the first half, we enjoyed high growth, landed millions in venture capital and won awards like the Deloitte Fast 50 and E&Y Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in Atlantic Canada.

I felt like I was on top of the world.

But for the last five years, it’s been HARD. 

Our growth slowed, and as a result, I started checking out mentally to the point where I almost threw in the towel in 2022. 

I’ll share more on this, but let’s back up. 

In early 2022 we laid off 25% of our workforce. 

We had raised cash in 2020 and 2021, and had been burning over $400,000/month but only growing by 17%. Similar companies needed to be doubling revenue every year to sustain that kind of cash burn.

Things had started to go off the rails before that, but it was finally catching up to us.

Fast forward to today: We were profitable in 2023 for the first time since we raised outside funding.

Our long journey up-market is finally starting to pay off, as we now have a handful of six-figure enterprise accounts and many growing five-figure accounts.

We have a smaller team of ~55 full-time employees and I’m more in the weeds than ever, leading our small product and marketing teams.

After years of slow product evolution, we’re finally making progress. This year we’re launching Proposify version 3 which has been in development for a year and a half. 

Proposify 3 will be faster, easier to use, more stable, and will offer new features existing customers and new prospects have wanted. Stay tuned for more updates over the coming weeks, and I’ll share our vision for where we’re going in the future. 

I’m going to share why we got stuck, the mistakes I made, what we're doing about it, how I got my groove back, and why I'm more excited than ever about the future of Proposify.

And from this point forward, I'm going to be building in public.

This isn't the glossy "look how smart and successful I am" type of content that gets shared around LinkedIn. This will be raw, warts-and-all kind of stuff. 

I hope by sharing these learnings and documenting what I'm doing differently now, the LinkedIn community benefits from my mistakes. And I hope you'll follow along with me.

If someone in your network would benefit from this content, please give it a share and ask them to give me a follow as I'll be sharing the process as we look to grow from $10M -> $100M ARR. 

How I think about copycats:

If you find something that works... people will copy you.

And that's a *good* thing.

When I first started talking about customer research and marketing wayyyy back in 2018... it was far from a "sexy" topic.

Today I see marketing research specialists all over LinkedIn—yay!

When I launched the Why We Buy 🧠 newsletter in 2020... "buyer psychology" wasn't exactly a hot topic yet. 

(Probably because I was the only one using the term "buyer psychology". Most folks in the space use the correct—but kinda dull and confusing sounding—term "behavioral economics")

Two years later, someone launched a rival newsletter that is a shameless Why We Buy 🧠 clone. 

And today I see new "buyer psychology geeks" popping up every day—yay!

When I came up with the name for UNIGNORABLE... I was excited because it's a damn good brand name and no one else was using it.

Since then I've watched other creators bandying it about—yay!

Why would I celebrate being copied?

Because it's better to take a risk, do something different, and be copied than to play it safe and be ignored.

Remember: people value originals more than knock-offs.

Be bold. Be original.

Do you agree?

I’ve built an audience of over 265,000 people across X, LinkedIn, and my newsletter in the last 3 years

(While also running my business and raising a newborn)

Having an audience gives you massive leverage.

This shit ain’t easy. But it is possible.

If I were starting from scratch today and wanted to build an audience of ideal buyers... 

Here are 3 tips I’d want to know:

--

1/ Clarity comes from engagement

It will feel murky in the beginning. You won’t know exactly which audience to focus on or what topics to talk about.

It’s easy to convince yourself that you should figure it all out before you start posting.

DON’T DO THAT.

The best way to figure out what works is to start with a hypothesis, start creating content, and then to listen to your audience’s feedback.

I’m proof.

How I started:

In the beginning, I targeted early-stage SaaS founders and wrote about customer research

(Hense the pic)

How it evolved:

Today, I target marketers and online entrepreneurs and write about buyer psychology and audience growth.

My business did $745,000 last year

(And my son turns 3 in June)

I NEVER would have gotten to where I am now if I hadn’t just started posting.

--

2/ Invest in understanding people

Social media algorithms change often.

Platforms are fickle and the tactics and content styles that work will quickly get copied. And stop working.

But the people whose actions influence the algorithms?

Their software evolves very, verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly

(I’m talking about their brains)

There are timeless principles that drive attention and trust.

When you invest time to understand behavioral science and buyer psychology you’ll stop stressing about algorithm updates.

Because no matter how a platform changes, you’ll know how to adjust your strategy to win.

--

3/ Pour energy into what you can control (not what you can't)

I’ve got bad news for you:

You can’t just pump out a bunch of AI-generated content and attract 10,000 followers in 30 days.

(Despite what the gurus around here may promise)

But you CAN commit to showing up.

Don’t set GROWTH goals—set INPUT goals instead.

Commit to publishing a specific number of times each week and invest time building real relationships with awesome humans.

Your first 100 posts might be duds.

But your 101st could go viral.

Put in reps and growth will follow.

--

Those are 3 tips I’d want to know if was starting from scratch today.

None of this is easy. But it actually works.

What would you add to this list?

Can you relate?

Why is it that you can easily dish out advice to other people...

(Solutions to *their* problems seem so obvious)

Yet, when it comes to your own problems... you struggle.

If you think you're the only one that feels this way, think again.

There's actually a name for this.

Behavioral scientists call it Soloman's Paradox.

So how can you overcome it?

One solution is to get outside your own bubble.

It’s hard to see your own problems objectively. We tend to overcomplicate things or fall prey to limiting beliefs

Investing in mentors, coaches, and mastermind groups gives you an outside perspective.

As the famous saying goes...

"You can't read the label from inside the jar"

Find smart people to talk through problems with.

It can be formal—like a paid mastermind—or informal like a text chat with smart friends.

Seeking outside perspective is one of the best ways to get unstuck.

Who are your brainstorming buddies? Tag 'em in the comments to show them some love.

Selling digital products ain't easy...

(Despite what the gurus promise)

When I teamed up with Phill Agnew to create Wallet-Opening Words, we knew we couldn't just create a great product—we needed to launch it with a bang too.

Here are 4 science-backed techniques we used to drive nearly $80,000 worth of sales during our launch (on a $129 product).

Do you know someone with a big launch coming up?

Tag them in the comments so they can check it out — sharing is caring 🙏

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If you geek out on buyer psychology stuff like this, you'll love UNIGNORABLE,

It's a 36-day audience building challenge for busy entrepreneurs. Me and Neal O'Grady 🍉 teach the art and science of scroll-stopping content. (No more wasting hours on posts that only get 5 views)

Enrollment for our next cohort opens next week. Let me know if you wanna hop on the waitlist.

How to sell digital products (science-backed)

How did my photo end up on a bathroom wall in Italy?

And not just my photo.

I was hanging right next to my all-time marketing heroes—folks like April Dunford, Rand Fishkin, Talia Wolf, Claire Suellentrop, and Gia Laudi.

The short answer?

Twitter.

The longer answer?

I finally got serious about building an audience after 22.5 failed attempts and yeeeeeeeeeears of putting it on the back burner.

I started showing up and posting daily.

(Even when I didn’t feel like it. Even when I thought I was “too busy”.)

Many of those early posts got little traction, as to be expected.

But a few really took off.

My audience started growing.

I started getting tagged in conversations as an expert to follow.

And people I’d admired from afar for years started reaching out to *me*.

(It was totally crazy.)

But writing good tweets is only part of the story.

The real magic happened when I started chatting with my online marketing heroes.

It wasn’t a growth tactic.

I wasn’t being strategic or “engaging with big accounts” so I could get more visibility on my posts.

I was just genuinely interacting with people I admired and hoped to connect with.

Then one day I got an email from Rand Fishkin...

(Rand had graciously agreed to be a guest on my podcast earlier that year)

Rand invited me to attend a small founder mastermind in Italy hosted by Peldi at Balsamiq.

When I read his email... my jaw dropped to the floor.

“Me”?

Rand was inviting little ol’ nobody “me” to hangout with these marketing legends?

Sign me up!

That trip to Italy was a turning point in my business.

I spent 3 days hanging out with internet famous marketers I’d admired for years.

We talked about everything from building 9-figure businesses to managing stress and mental health.

It was amazing.

I walked away with new friends and a newfound confidence in myself.

What can you take away from this story?

Two things:

1. Show up. Be yourself. And make real connections online.

I can’t promise your photo will end up on a bathroom wall in Italy...

But I can promise that your business and life will be better for it.

2. Stop doubting yourself 

The people I met in Italy were every bit as brilliant and inspiring as I’d expected.

But they were also just... humans.

Humans with insecurities, struggles, and f*ck-up stories.

Stop putting your online heroes on a pedestal. You can do it too.

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P.S. If you're ready to commit to building an audience and want help and support, enrollment in UNIGNORABLE opened today.

You can learn more are snag your seat here: https://lnkd.in/evSY92iv

"If you aren’t investing in SEO then you're losing customers."

I know that's true, but—like an idiot—I still hadn't gotten serious about SEO.

That's changing in Q2.

I've published 125+ issues of Why We Buy in the last two years and generated over $450,000 in sponsorship revenue.

It's time to finally build a dedicated newsletter website.

I'm working with an awesome designer so you know our new site is gonna be G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S.

But…

If I want to hit my goal of 100,000 newsletter readers in 2024, it's gonna take more than a pretty website.

I need to attract new readers like moths to a flame.

That means getting serious about SEO... so I headed over to the Ahrefs blog.

(Ahrefs is my go-to for all things SEO)

I found 2 resources that I immediately bookmarked to revisit.

You’ll wanna check these out too.

📌 Resource 1: A blog post on comprehensive on-page SEO Checklist for 2024

This post is too damn good. 

It's like a giant cheatsheet that explains *exactly* how to optimize a page so both Google and readers love it.

There's so much good stuff in his post that we'll use to design our newsletter archive pages.

📌 Resource 2: A YouTube video on how to use ChatGPT to rank #1 in Google (in one hour)

My internet friends are buzzing about using AI-assisted content to boost page rank.

But let's be honest—it sounds too good to be true, right?

Wrong.

Ahrefs' step-by-step video tutorial taught me exactly how to use ChatGPT to get our pages ranking.

(It was also wildly entertaining to watch—well done, Ahrefs 👏)

SEO is a whole new frontier and I'm excited to dive in.

If getting free traffic from Google is a priority for you in Q2 too, check out these resources.

I'll drop a link to both in the comments.
--

P.S. Do you know any freelance SEOs we should hire to help with the new build? Tag 'em
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#marketing
#SEO
#sponsored

2023 was a sh*tshow.

I was traveling back-and-forth across the country every 3 weeks for my husband’s new job (with a toddler in tow).

My husband worked 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, for 3 weeks at a time. 

This meant on top of being a solopreneur running a growing business, I was also on solo mom duty most of the time.

Honestly?

I was stressed out, majorly sleep-deprived, and totally overwhelmed.

I’d never felt more UNPRODUCTIVE in my life.

And yet... 

I crushed my 2023 revenue goal of $500k… in August.

I actually closed out the year making ~$245k more than that.

That’s not to toot my own horn.

It’s to say 2023 was f*cking HARD.

I didn’t have a big team who could jump in and fill in the gaps while I was off dealing with life.

I couldn't do focused work for 8 hours a day.

(I was lucky to work 25 hours each week).

I was just barely holding it all together.

I NEVER would’ve surpassed my 2023 revenue goal if I hadn’t set aside excuses *years earlier* and started building an audience.

Even when I didn't feel like it.

Even when I thought I "didn’t have time.”

Building an audience is kinda like having an insurance policy.

You can’t wait until something bad happens to invest in it. It’ll be too late then.

But if you commit today, you'll reap the rewards and your ass will be covered when sh*t really hits the fan.

I can’t promise it’ll be easy—it won't.

But it will be worth it.

Your 6-months-from-now self will thank you.

(Your 6-YEARS-from-now self will thank you even more.)

Want help?

Today is the last day to join UNIGNORABLE, a 36-day audience building challenge for busy entrepreneurs.

See my bio link for details

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