Today we’d like to introduce you to Tara Wilson.
Tara, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am the CEO of an experiential marketing company, Tara Wilson Agency, based in Fort Worth, Texas. The trajectory of my life and career began in college at the Harbert J. College of Business at Auburn University. Following an internship at Merrill Lynch, I began my career there as a financial advisor after graduation in 1997. After close to spending a decade producing client events in the financial world, I realized my passion and creativity for event design was something I could turn into work.
I became an entrepreneur in 2007 when I opened Tara Wilson Events, a Fort Worth-based social event design company. We specialized in creative event design for weddings, corporate events and social gatherings. During that time, I appeared in a recurring “At-Home Entertaining” segment on CBS 11 in Dallas and twice on the Today Show – fulfilling a longtime dream. I recall at 14, standing outside the NBC studios at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City thinking that someday I’d be on the show.
My interest in the metrics and marketing side of the events I produced led me to pivot the company after eight successful years as an event planner. In 2015, I became an entrepreneur for the second time – rebranding as an experiential marketing company named Tara Wilson Agency, www.tarawilson.com. Operating under the company mantra “Fierce enough to handle it!,” our Tara Wilson Agency team is a committed and fearless group of experiential marketers who create emotional connections between our clients’ brands and the people they want to reach through imaginative, immersive and transformative experiences. We specialize in experiential events, or brand activations for business giants Nike, Samsung and Ann Taylor.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Yes, there have been challenges along the way. It takes capital to run a business and big business will use you as their bank, if you allow it. Imagine landing a large contract for a Fortune 500 company and not having the capital to pull it off. That was what my agency was facing in the beginning when we started doing half-million-dollar projects.
Thankfully, I called on my network and was able to cobble together alternative lending to get us through that first year of contract.
Personally, I’ve been challenged as a leader as my agency has rapidly grown. My soft skills aren’t at the level I would like or what is required to lead a scaling agency, in my opinion. For that reason, I’m spending a lot of “downtime” reading and trying to quickly brush up on those skills.
It’s humbling to realize you don’t have all the qualities that it takes to scale a business. By soft skills, I’m referring to how to properly conduct an employee review, how to guide an employee to course-correct when they’re going down the wrong path, how to have hard conversations when mistakes are made or how to hold team members accountable for their actions without micromanaging them.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Tara Wilson Agency – what should we know?
Our Tara Wilson Agency team is fiercely committed – 365 days a year. We create memorable, immersive and transformative event experiences for our clients and the people they want to reach. We understand the tremendous power of inviting people into a brand’s universe by way of a deeper, sensory and moving experience. Face-to-face interactions are important – there’s power in that. Experiential events help people truly engage with a brand in a more authentic way – they can feel it, touch it, inhale it. We are passionate about creating moving experiences that leave people changed.
We have a seat at the strategy table with clients, counseling them on the best way to achieve their marketing goals. We plan, design and produce interactive experiences – for example, for Samsung training tours, the events educate and train their sales representatives in multiple cities about new innovations, products and technologies. We also create engaging and immersive experiences for clients like Nike and Ann Taylor. The secret to our success is being wholly aligned on the goals we set out to achieve and having an unrelenting pursuit of excellence and success for our clients.
It is also important to me to build a company that offers employees more than just a place to work. I’m passionate about establishing a company that is a place for my team to thrive and be as creative as possible while growing both personally and professionally. Where people feel safe, valued and empowered to do good work and take ownership of their ideas and creativity.
Our company reached a key milestone in 2017 and ranked No. 901 on the Inc. 5000 (https://www.inc.com/profile/tara-wilson-agency), a prestigious list of the fastest-growing companies in America. As CEO, I’m immensely proud of my team! Being recognized on the 2017 Inc. 5000 is symbolic of our company’s growth and dedication to hard work. It is one of the greatest accomplishments of my entrepreneurial career and puts Tara Wilson Agency in an elite category. Most importantly, it’s about the external excitement and accolades that come with this honor. It validates the hard work our team put into our business to get us here. This translates internally – boosting our excitement and morale and elevating us.
Placement on the Inc. 5000 also affirms the work we are doing matters and is getting us somewhere. It helps us attract even more talent to the team. When you’re a small firm, there is sometimes a concern that if something goes wrong – like a client is lost – your job is in jeopardy. This honor shows potential candidates that we are growth-minded and can achieve big goals rapidly.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The quality that I feel is most important to my success is a willingness to stick to my goals. To be willing to try, fail, get back up and try again. That’s just my personality. I really hate to give up, especially on myself. I have tunnel vision when it comes to my goals. I’m good at breaking them down and going after them. I’m willing to see that it takes lots of small steps to get to big results and that those small steps add up over time to lead me to what it is that I really want.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3470 Riverbend Blvd. No. 401 Fort Worth, TX 76116
- Website: www.tarawilson.com
- Phone: (817) 764-2601
- Email: tara@tarawilson.com
- Instagram: @tarawilsonagency
- Facebook: @TaraWilsonAgency
- Twitter: @TW_Agency
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