I believe in good strategy, honest storytelling, and the kind of businesses that make a community worth living in.
I'm a Wake Forest-based marketing strategist, writer, and the voice behind What's Good Wake Forest. For ten years I've been building brands, launching markets, and helping entrepreneurial teams grow — and I started Kindred Creative because small businesses deserve the same caliber of thinking that big companies pay a lot of money for.
It's not about the money you spend. It's about the conditions you create.
Most people think marketing is about promotion — ads, boosted posts, a bigger budget. And yes, those things matter. But the businesses I've watched grow the fastest understand something deeper: marketing is about making it easy for the right person to say yes.
That happens in the small, thoughtful details — a Google profile that actually builds trust, an email that sounds like a real person wrote it, a story that makes someone feel seen before they ever walk through your door. The businesses that get this right don't feel like they're marketing at all. They just feel worth knowing.
I spent ten years watching a company grow from lean and scrappy to something real, and my favorite part was always working alongside people who cared about building something — not just running something. That's the energy I bring to every client.
Why I planted roots here — and why it matters for your business.
I spent years in Raleigh before Wake Forest found me. And Raleigh is wonderful — but it has also grown into something enormous, and a little impersonal. Wake Forest still has that small-town energy that makes you feel like a neighbor, not just a resident.
When I started What's Good Wake Forest, I wasn't thinking about marketing strategy. I was just noticing that the best businesses here weren't getting the attention they deserved. The feed store with three generations of loyal customers. The boutique that sources locally. The restaurant where the owner still knows your name. These places have incredible stories — they just need someone to tell them.
Kindred Creative grew out of the same instinct. I know what it feels like to have a great product or service and not know how to get it in front of the right people. I know how frustrating it is to work with a marketing partner who doesn't take the time to actually understand your business. I built this to be different — rooted in community, genuinely curious, and honest about what will actually move the needle.
A few things worth knowing about me.
I'm writing a thriller. Not thinking about writing a thriller — actually writing one, in the hours between client work and the rest of life. It turns out a decade of studying how people make decisions is surprisingly useful for plot construction. Who knew.
I moved to Wake Forest after years in Raleigh, and I'll be honest: I didn't expect to love it as much as I do. But there's something about a place that still knows its neighbors. What's Good Wake Forest started as a personal project — a way of paying attention to what was worth noticing here. It became something bigger than I planned.
When I'm not working, I'm outside — hiking with Poppy, exploring new places, finding coffee shops in towns I've never been to. I have a compulsive need to find the best version of wherever I am. It's both a personality trait and, conveniently, the entire premise of What's Good Wake Forest.
I came to marketing through writing — newsletters, business magazines, a master's thesis on how people change behavior. The strategy came later. But the throughline has always been the same: find the true thing, figure out how to say it, and say it in a way that actually reaches people.
Three words my friends would use: reliable, thoughtful, fun. I'd add a fourth — honest — because I think it's the thing that matters most in a working relationship, and the thing that's hardest to find.
What you can count on.
Sound like someone you want in your corner?
Discovery calls are free, low-pressure, and 20 minutes. Let's find out if we're a good fit.