A Pinch-Me Moment: Fiddle Leaf in Authority Magazine

Some news that still feels a little surreal to type: Authority Magazine interviewed me for their series on building highly successful service-based businesses, and the feature is now live.

You can read the full interview here.

Their questions went deeper than the usual tips and tricks. We talked about the whole journey: the decade I spent in paid advertising, building the department of account managers, strategists, and creatives that supported a thousand clients at one of North America's top digital agencies, and the decision to start Fiddle Leaf from my kitchen table after my second daughter was born.

We also talked about the part I care most about: I never wanted to build the biggest agency. I wanted to build a boutique one, where every client gets a real, personal relationship.

The five things, in short

The interview goes into each of these with the stories behind them, but here's the honest summary:

1. Use the resources available to you. You don't need a big team or a big budget to start. Free tools and AI close more of the gap than most people realize, and a small team that uses them well can do remarkable work.

2. Keep showing up, even when something flops. Not every post lands, not every pitch gets a yes. Putting your work out there anyway, and learning from the misses, is most of the job in the early days.

3. Put relationships first. Fiddle Leaf has grown through referrals and partnerships from day one. People work with people they trust, and trust is built slowly, in small moments, long before anyone signs anything.

4. Celebrate the small wins. In the seasons when the big wins feel far apart, honoring the small ones is what keeps you moving. A kind email from a client counts. A campaign finding its footing counts.

5. Love the work. When the work is tied to something you care about (for me, helping women build the businesses they've been imagining), the hard days are still hard, but they make sense.

Thank you

To the Authority Magazine team, thank you for the thoughtful questions and for telling this story so well. And to the clients, partners, and family who are the reason there's a story to tell at all: this one is really about you.

If you read the interview, I'd genuinely love to hear which of the five resonates most with where you are right now.