Today we’d like to introduce you to Teresa Kulupka.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
In March 2013, I relocated from Illinois to Texas with my husband, our 6th month old son and two cats. My husband had gotten a terrific job opportunity in Irving that would change our lives and my existing job was willing to let me be fully remote until I found a new job locally. I found a new job within one month and I stayed there for over 8 years. We rented in Irving for a year and we became pregnant with our 2nd son and I was ready for us to find our home which we found in Southlake.
I didn’t know anyone locally and ended up showing up a stranger’s house who had posted on a Facebook group that they wanted to start a book club to meet new people. I found in those strangers a tribe of successful women who had kids of the same age, had relocated from other states and also needed to create their own tribe and support system. We supported each other by showing up at the door with cold medicine when our husband’s were traveling and we couldn’t bear to load the kids in the car. We tested out each other’s business concepts in garages and talked about anything BUT the books at book club. It was life saving to have our tribe to talk us off the ledge, feed our kids popcorn and get time to feel normal again.
Both my husband and I enjoyed the fast pace of our jobs, but after many years at the same job and two promotions, I had hit the limit of what I could do to grow in my role & business and could no longer handle the stress and long hours away from my family.
I was doubting myself, my capabilities and my communication styles. What was I doing to make other department heads so unwilling to work together as a team? I became very data centered, I mean who can argue with facts? I was sharing valuable data and insights which told us what tactics were working and which weren’t, but they wouldn’t change. I forced myself to ‘circle the wagons’ before I’d bring new ideas to light to get buy-in from peers, I was very careful to be diplomatic and praise others for contributing insights during meetings and I’d still get pushback. In meetings that I led, I’d get drilled with questions, 99% of which I could answer, but the point was to try to make me look bad, not for me to clarify.
I got great advice and training from my Leadership Coach, Natalie Hahn, who helped me understand this was my Imposter Syndrome talking and that the behaviors of peers and other employees was about THEM and NOT about ME. This was a huge turning point for me, I felt like I got permission to let go of some of the stress, I worked to build up my confidence and prepared to make the ultimate decision to leave the work I loved. At this job, I’d built a terrific team from the ground up, created & documented processes, worked with the C-suite to build an e-commerce and marketing department that ran like a top and tripled revenue. This was also where I made my first Texas friends who I still consider besties to this day, we meet for lunch regularly and have our own group chat to keep us connected.
I began to make my list of non-negotiables for my next role and was very choosy about which roles I would consider. I wanted to have flexibility to be able to attend my kid’s school events or other appointments during the traditional 9-5 day and not have to work 80hr weeks which were causing anxiety, depression and physical stress.
I took a role at a finance company, a year later I was impacted by layoffs when they closed the entire department. I then worked for a marketing agency, where I learned a great deal about processes and worked with a wide variety of clients in diverse industries. I was again affected by layoffs when the agency lost several large clients and I was not looking forward to the application process to find a new job.
This was when my husband suggested that I try to freelance and see how it worked out. He’d already formed an LLC during the pandemic and experimented with a side business, so I already had the infrastructure setup and ready for me. We had intended for freelancing to be a break for me to enjoy our family and do some work while I would look for another permanent corporate job. But the job market had changed so much since the pandemic and it was harder and harder to get an interview let alone find a full time job. I threw myself into in-person networking by exploring options locally like the chamber of commerce, lunch and learn groups and individually run networking groups I’d found on meetup.com and eventbrite. I noticed the impact of networking after 9 months, have been busy ever since and am really excited to help small and medium businesses with their business growth.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It was never a smooth road as an employee or an entrepreneur, but it was worth going through all the hurdles and hard times to really learn about myself and what I could accomplish. I had a lot to learn, got opportunities to work during the “dot com” boom in the early 2000s and also saw layoffs when the “dot com” bubble burst. It also was where I learned to code on my own, teach myself photoshop, learn how to use databases, how to respond to customer service emails, how to deal with being on-call and making edits in the wee hours of the morning, how to negotiate, how to CYA (cover your ass) for when someone tried to get me in trouble, but I had the receipts! How to tell a client ‘yes, but’ without giving away all your time, how to ‘circle the wagons’ and get support from peers and leaders and how to bounce back and start over.
As for starting my own business, I knew how to do the technical aspects of it, but it was selling myself and creating my message that I needed to work on. I took a sit-back-and-learn approach initially with networking and growing. The first year was slow with experimentation, some not so great clients, clients who didn’t pay, clients who gave amazing feedback and helped me by referring new customers and giving google reviews.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about mArchitectGroup?
I have over 25 years of experience in digital marketing holding roles like, Director, Vice President and Chief Operations Officer over entire marketing departments. I’ve led and built campaigns on E-commerce, Social media, Email, Text, Paid Ads as well as worked on SEO, User Experience, Mobile Apps, Analytics and Strategy.
My agency finds ways for companies to gain more visibility online and offline by using marketing strategy, a well designed website and search engine optimization (SEO). I act as your fractional CMO by looking at the bigger picture and help you to build your website and implement SEO strategies that get your business seen by the right audience.
What sets me apart from other marketers is that I look at marketing holistically and believe that creating your strategy is the foundation of effectively marketing to your personalized audience, where they spend their time and solving their problems. A website by itself can’t help you get business unless you have the right strategy and messaging in place with technical and content rich SEO. I also feel that SEO is the biggest opportunity for growth that business owners aren’t taking advantage of and am educating local entrepreneurs how they can being being seen better with SEO efforts.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
I have a quote I wrote down that another business owner said:
“I’m not paid for what I do, I’m paid for what I know”.
Your time is worth money, just because it only takes you 20mins to do something doesn’t mean you’re not worth your hourly cost. That 10, 15 or 20years it took you to learn how to do it efficiently is worth a level of service that you can’t find on fiver or upwork.
Watch out for other entrepreneurs or ‘sales people’ who ask for your services for “free” in exchange for their services. Also watch out for others who want to represent you and take a cut of your business. I was initially flattered to be asked, but those partnerships often didn’t go beyond an initial meeting, give it some time and you’ll get the right offers.
Make a list of red flags for clients and partners. Those are your non-negotiables that signal partnering with them will cause you more stress than you need. Not every client is “YOURS”, even if you really need the money, in the long run you’ll end up spending more time with them than anyone else and your margins will zero out.
Pricing:
- 3 Month SEO Audit & Optimization $2500
- Websites start at $1,000
- fCMO services start at $2,000 mo.
Contact Info:
- Website: mArchitectGroup.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teresakulupkaconsultant
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresakulupka
- Other: https://share.google/8ikfZsT3QoZwRrIba
Image Credits
Tina Caron Photography
