The Story
Once upon a time many years ago, Tara Stoutenborough and Linda White met as directors in a traditional advertising and PR agency – big creative, big art department, and big contract. While Tara and Linda worked to make that agency one of the most successful in Southern California, they saw the world of marketing changing. A dynamite ad was no longer the best way to solve every marketing communications problem. Clients wanted to keep some services in-house, and even in those days before social media, Tara and Linda realized that the day was coming when content would be king.
That’s when they founded Strategies, a highly flexible communications and branding company focused, as its name implies, on uncovering and solving the client’s communications problem, not providing a pre-packaged solution. Deeply experienced and marketing-minded, Strategies’ staff constantly steps outside the boxes called PR, social media, direct communications, inbound marketing, and more to blur the lines and create new approaches. And Strategies bills by project, short program or, with media relations, an established monthly fee – whatever best fits your needs.
To the extent that any company is business-to-business anymore, Strategies specializes in B2B technology, process automation, and healthcare markets. The agency is maintained as a boutique, serving a handful of valued clients so that every client receives senior attention and day-to-day direction. Strategies’ client base ranges from start-ups, to regional leaders, to divisions of the Fortune 500. Few projects are too small or too big. Strategies is truly an extension of the marketing department of a few – dare we say lucky? – clients.
“Throughout Strategies’ tenure with Schlumberger, they developed strategic and comprehensive PR programs that helped position the company as one of the premier vendors in the ATE industry.”
Principals
Linda White
Linda has over 30 years experience in marketing communication, client service par excellence and has helped put a variety of national and international companies on the map. With a never-say-die personality, she’s highly competitive, loves a challenge, looks at situations from all angles and is a problem-solver and strategist. A born leader, she instills client confidence and builds trust with executive management. And Linda and Tara build internal custom teams to specifically meet client needs.
“At the end of day, Strategies’ assets have always left the building. In other words, our employees have always been our greatest asset and nothing has changed. Our clients benefit from that commitment with service and product quality that is hard to beat. That’s why the tenure of both our key employees and clients is rare in the industry.”
Give Strategies a call and see how we would approach creating the custom team that would best fit your needs.
Tara Stoutenborough
Have Fun and Serve Others.
Oddly enough, that’s Strategies’ corporate mission statement. We created it one day many years ago over a kitchen table and never have seen a reason to change. No jargon, just reality.
Why be in your own business if you’re not having fun? So that’s our first touchstone. Will helping this client, solving this problem, taking on this market be fun? A challenge? A satisfying experience for all our people? Okay good. Let’s go!
Serving others means for us being committed and dedicated to our clients’ success, always going the extra mile, coming up with ideas that are the best for the client, not our bottom line. It also means creating a company and place to work that employees love so much they stay, learn, and grow. We give our team tons of freedom and tons of responsibility. Once, Linda and I were both at a conference and someone said, “How can you both be gone? Who’s minding the store?” Our response was, “The only problem with us both being gone is that there’s no one in the office to tell our team to stop working.” As Linda said, our clients benefit from this commitment.
Can we put our mission statement to work for you?