Shannon Clarke

Somewhere in the 15th year of my career (likely in a meeting about a meeting), I started to wonder if corporate marketing was a test to see how much jargon a person can take before they frisbee their laptop out the window.

Turns out ... a lot. But everyone has a limit.

My limit came after 16 years of watching corporate heads focus on grammar instead of guiding strategy and execs take credit for other people's work.

I loved the actual work. Building brands, telling stories, watching the right message connect with the right person at exactly the right time. But the credit theft, the buzzword bingo, the idea of "circling back" or putting something in the "parking lot" (what does that even mean)? Not my thing. I wanted out.

So I escaped corporate and started The Clarke Collective, where marketing strategy actually makes sense and "bandwidth" is a four-letter word.

Now I work with small business owners, service businesses, professional practices, and scrappy entrepreneurs building something they care about. Another driver for me? The agencies out there that bank on the fact that you don't know what you don't know. They sell you services you can't evaluate, explain it in a way to keep you nodding along, and count on you being too busy to ask the hard questions. I'm the person who asks them for you.

I've spent my career in the weeds. Helped to grow Animal Friends' brand for over five years. Doubled a nonprofit's fundraising campaign goal by telling stories that made people feel something instead of stories that made boards feel important. Turned a 515% ROI on event marketing by paying attention to what customers actually cared about instead of what sounded impressive in a quarterly report.