Now that I’m ten years into my career, I frequently get asked the same question: how does my SaaS background and my creative work fit together? People want to know if one is the real job and the other is the side gig, or whether they're actually related at all.

If you run a small business, you already know how many hats you end up wearing. You’re making the product, sending the invoices, answering emails, and probably doing your own marketing on top of it all. Branding often gets pushed to the back burner, or it’s done piecemeal with a logo from one place, a website template from another, and a handful of Canva graphics in between.

Here are the questions I ask all my new clients to get the ball rolling when they’re considering hiring a remote marketing manager or small business marketing consultant.

Don’t forget customer acquisition isn't where the work ends. Creating a brand personality, and a world in which your products exist is the challenge!

Adapted from “Identifying and Countering White Supremacy Culture in Food Systems,” the research brief by Alison Conrad, MPP, Duke Sanford World Food Policy Center. Food system actors must understand how white supremacy culture narratives function to center whiteness across the food system.