Working as a Collective

Alkimie was founded in 2020 by Gili Wolf, Vanessa Louis-Woolley, Georgina Miller, and Diane Pauley. Alkimie is a strategy-first brand and marketing collective that includes brand strategy, art direction, marketing strategy, and content strategy services. They believe that people connect with brands that are connected to themselves. Their vision is that every business operates from a place of self-awareness and self-regard as the catalyst for their decisions, actions, and words.

Episode highlights:

• How Alkimie Collective formed
• How making decisions as a collective works
• What are the benefits of working as a collective?
• Communicating with clients that you work with as a collective
• Creating a marketing strategy as a collective
• Best advice: 
  • Gili: Learn how to do everything.
  • Georgina: Keep perspective. Take a step back when things get tough.
  • Diane: We’re all in this together. We’re all just doing our best.
  • Vanessa: If you love what you do, you’ll be good at what you do, and if you’re good at what you do, the money will come. Just find what you love to do.
• Habit that contributes to success: 
  • Gili: Self-acceptance
  • Georgina: List-making
  • Diane: Filling my own cup
  • Vanessa: Just having a conversation
• Recommended book: 
  • Gili: The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck
  • Georgina: Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, anything by Brene Brown
  • Diane: Untamed Glennon Doyle
  • Vanessa: Crucial Conversations

Links:

• Alkimie Collective: www.alkimie.co 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alkimiecollective/ 
• Gili Wolf’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giliwolf 
• Big Bad Industries: www.bigbadindustries.com
• Vanessa Louis-Wolley’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessalouis/ 
• STAND: https://www.standforbrands.com/ 
• Georgina Miller’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginamillerpr/ 
• Crabapple Communications: https://www.crabapplecomms.com/ 
• Diane Pauley’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-pauley-2050b575/ 
• Gimme Sweet Words: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gimmesweetwords/ 

Quotes:

• “The whole point is collaboration and to hit this collaborative effort. Hitting on that isolation piece, it just gets lonely working by yourself. I love teams, I love being on as many teams as I can, and I feel fortunate to have met these ladies.”
• “We really try to take the approach that we don’t do the one-size-fits-all, here’s a cookie-cutter solution for the business or the brand, because you can get that anywhere. We pride ourselves in high-touch, really digging to understand what their deeper needs are so that we can support them in the most meaningful way possible.”
• “We’re quite upfront about the awkward questions and quite open to it and talking. Sometimes we do need to do a bit of negotiating between ourselves.”
• “Once we have explained the structure, it doesn’t seem much of a problem [that we’re working as a collective]. I think that as long as the client knows it’s going to be easy for them…so they understand that the inner workings will be handled internally and they don’t have to worry.”
• “Because there are four of us, we have a much larger network amongst us. So we do know all of these other people in adjacent fields…that we can tap into.”

Takeaways:

• Working as a collective can be mutually beneficial.
• A collaborative effort helps eliminate isolation.

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