That means something about my voice or experience probably connected with you.
Or perhaps you find yourself in a similar situation: you want to start something, grow something or simply put yourself out there and not sure where to start.
Since this is my very first article, I feel like it should properly introduce myself and give you some context.
Unfortunately, that means referencing my CV.
Please bear with me. There is a method to the madness.
Founder & Strategist
A fairly average student, I graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, majoring in Marketing and Management.
Getting into the workforce wasn’t easy. In fact, it was quite a torturous journey. In hindsight though, I don’t think I’d want to change it.
I started my career at a prominent Civil Engineering and Project Management Consultancy. Technically, I actually started there as a Receptionist before becoming a Regional Marketing Administrator, but in the interest of keeping this concise, we’ll move swiftly past that part.
Everyone around me was speaking a completely different language.
Viaducts. Pre-stressed concrete. Desalination.
I spoke Commerce and Marketing.
But this is where I first learned how to be uncomfortable. I learned how to enter an industry I knew very little about, immerse myself in it and eventually understand it well enough to write business proposals for major tender submissions.
That was my introduction to Business Development and Branding.
Back then, we had no AI or fancy programs curating copy for you. You presented your Project Achievements as Project Data Sheets.
I used to have nightmares about them.
At the same time, I was seconded to a Communications Agency, where I began refining my craft and discovering what I was actually good at-Strategy and Communications.
I wrote Communication Plans, Marketing Strategies, Website Copy, Press Releases, Transcriptions of Global Summit Meetings and, yes, even more Project Data Sheets—this time for competing Engineering Companies. Again, back in those days you didn’t specialise in a single arm of copywriting, you needed to be flexible enough to do it all.
Then came Event Management or as the specialists call it, Production Management. I’ve never worked as hard as I did there, nor have I ever had my attention to detail tested quite so intensely. It wasn’t necessarily my first love, but I did it with passion and was fortunate to have learned from some of the best.
I learned what hard work really looked like. I learned to set a standard that exceeded Client expectations and because I’d now worked on both sides, I learned to move seamlessly between Corporate and Agency environments.
Then came Centre Management.
This is where it all got real. I became Head of Marketing for Cresta Shopping Centre in Johannesburg.
Everything I’d learned up until that point was called upon—and then some.
If you ever want exposure to every facet of Marketing and Communications, work in the Marketing Department of a Shopping Centre. It will change you. For the better.
I forged relationships with Service Providers who felt less like suppliers and more like part of my team. I lobbied Partners to build Strategic Commercial Relationships. I troubleshot business challenges and had to find creative solutions, often with little to no budget.
There was Crisis Communications and safeguarding the Brand. Creating concepts that would delight and surprise the Market. Finding ways to invest meaningfully in the community that supported us. Getting Management excited enough about an idea to put millions behind it.
Then came something that made me incredibly uncomfortable:
Visibility.
I had to present, speak to the media, become a Spokesperson, put my face and my voice out there to be seen, heard and, inevitably, judged.
However, when I think back about my time at Cresta, the thing I’m proudest of aren’t the Project Awards or becoming a Chartered Marketer or even being interviewed on National Television.
It was my Team.
I loved guiding them, teaching them, holding their hands when they needed it and pushing them when I knew they were capable of more. It was deeply fulfilling helping them see their potential and achievements when they couldn’t quite see it for themselves. I wanted to give them something I didn’t formally have for myself-Mentorship. A lot of what I learnt came from observing others and figuring things out along the way. When I eventually left, they didn’t collapse without me.
They thrived.
Of course they still had doubts. We all do. But I knew I’d taught them something more valuable than how to follow my instructions. When they didn’t know exactly what to do, they trusted that they knew enough to figure it out.
As it turns out, I eventually had to learn the same lesson for myself.
Now about this visibility thing…
You’ll see the word visibility a lot around here.
That’s because I think we get so caught up in trying to appear perfect, or if you’re anything like me, intensely nervous about putting your face, voice, work or ideas out there to be judged, that the pressure can become paralysing.
Here’s something my career took a very long time to teach me:
Even people who appear incredibly successful and confident suffer from Imposter Syndrome.
I certainly did when I first stepped into my Head of Marketing role. I was academically qualified. I had years of experience. I’d done the work. And yet, when Agencies sat across the table from me and spat marketing jargon in my direction, I’d cringe internally and wonder whether everything I thought I knew was somehow worthless.
It took me a while to realise:
Honestly, it’s not that deep.
It doesn’t all need to be so complicated.
So, if you’re trying to start something, build something, grow something or simply become a little more visible, here are a few things I’ve learned along the way.
The idea for Elevation came to me about two and a half years before I actually launched it. I didn't think I had it in me.
Of course, sitting behind my desk in the Centre Management Office, I could confidently think, “I could do this myself.”
Actually doing it was another story.
When I started working with my first Client independently, I had a panic attack. I was plagued by the anxiety of not having all the answers.
Yet the irony was that if someone else had come to me feeling exactly the same way, I would have told them “you’ve done this a million times before, this is just dressed differently.”
I couldn’t do it for myself.
Eventually, I stopped trying to solve the whole thing.
I read somewhere that when you are paralysed with overwhelm, start with the smallest action you can take, that feels safe and manageable. I did just that-I gave myself a name. This signaled to me that I had officially started.
Elevation Strategic Consulting was born.
The name said something about what I wanted this business to be.
I’m not here to overpower someone else’s business with my ideas. I’m here to work alongside people, help them recognise what they already have, bring perspective and specialist support where it’s needed and, ultimately, ELEVATE it.
But here’s something I need to add—because it changed everything for me. I used to tell my Team “I don’t care if it doesn’t comply 100% with the Brand Guidelines. What matters is the message.”
Do people understand it?
Do they connect with it?
Can they envision it?
Do they get excited about it?
Now I had to learn to apply that same thinking to myself because I was doing the opposite.
I was waiting for things to be perfect before I shared them. I was waiting for the right camera, the right lighting, the right words, just the right version of me. But the truth is (and this is where visibility really shifts) you can absolutely create a social page with no feed and wait for the photographer, or the designer, or the “perfect” version of your Brand to arrive.
Or, you can just start sharing what you are about now. Capture anything and everything. A thought. A moment. A messy idea. A voice note. A photo taken on your phone. A half-formed concept.
Because chances are, your Market will connect with it more when it’s not perfect.
Not despite that.
But because of it.
Because You wrote it. You said it. You took it. You can stand behind it. You can answer any question thrown at you about it.
That is what authenticity is.
Starting didn’t require me to know everything that would come next.
It just required me to do one thing.
We get caught up waiting for the perfect time, more experience or someone else's permission. Confidence comes after action.
I wish I had connected with this sooner.
We get so caught up in needing to be perfect, believing we need enough experience, another qualification or somebody else’s validation before we’re allowed to call ourselves something, that we end up doing nothing at all.
So, if you want to be a runner, just run.
I wanted to be a Strategist, so I started writing strategies, for free! The money followed.
I wrote them for large corporates. I wrote them for small Brands. I wrote them for myself.
At some point, you have to stop waiting for somebody else to give you permission and validation.
Because confidence comes after action, not before it.
You don't need to know everything. Sometimes bringing specialists into the room is the smartest decision.
This may be one of the most important lessons I’ve had to learn.
For a long time, I believed that because I worked in Marketing (particularly once I’d earned my Chartered Marketer designation) I needed to be proficient in everything.
Graphic design. Web design. Digital. Social. Advertising. Everything!
I don’t.
I’m a Strategist.
I solve problems. I connect dots. I get people on board–which I’m actually pretty good at. I’m quite a savvy negotiator too.
Once I released myself from the expectation that I needed to be perfect at everything and started bringing specialists in to do what they are exceptionally good at, things started moving.
Sometimes you don’t even know what you need until you speak to someone who has been through the trenches before.
That’s not incompetence.
That’s just smart business.
You bring the knowledge of your business, we bring another lens.
I know. Strange thing for a Marketing Consultant to say but its true.
I saw it with successful Founder-led businesses operating within the Shopping Centre, and I’ve seen it again working with independent Brands.
When you’ve built something from the ground up, spoken directly to your customers, experimented with everything from Content and Social Media to Branding and Communications, you’ve accumulated a kind of knowledge that can’t simply be replicated by someone arriving from the outside.
A Consultant shouldn’t walk into the room and presume to know your business better than you do.
What someone with the right experience can do is work alongside you to make sense of what you know.
They can:
Challenge you.
Ask the questions you haven’t thought to ask.
Identify patterns you may be too close to see.
Bring experience from other businesses and industries.
Help you find a more efficient or effective way forward.
You bring the knowledge of your business, we bring another lens-that’s where the good stuff happens.
AI cannot replace your experience, judgement, relationships or human touch. But it can give you momentum.
Look, everyone has an opinion about AI.
I don’t claim to be exceptionally qualified in AI or to have some ground-breaking insight nobody else has thought of.
But here’s my two cents.
AI cannot completely replace you.
It cannot replace your lived experience, judgement, relationships, instincts or the human touch you bring to what you do.
But it can give you momentum.
When you’re staring at a blank page, paralysed because you don’t know where to start, use it!
Let it help you create the base.
Let it organise the thoughts swimming around your head. Let it challenge an idea, help you structure something or just get you past the blank page.
Here’s the trick though–Bring yourself back into it.
Your words. Your experiences. Your judgement. Your voice.
Don’t let the tool overpower the person using it.
Because you still know something it doesn’t:
You know you.
Founder & Strategist
Elevation Strategic Consulting
When I look back over my career, there wasn’t a perfectly mapped-out path.
I went from Reception to Marketing Administration. Engineering to Communications. Corporate to Agency. Production Management to Shopping Centre Marketing. From being terrified of visibility to becoming a Spokesperson. From believing I needed to know everything to building a multi-national network of people who know things I don’t.
And now, Elevation.
At almost every stage, I’ve walked into something I didn’t completely know how to do.
I figured it out.
Perhaps that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.
You don’t need to have every answer before you’re qualified to begin.
You don’t need to feel confident before you put yourself out there.
You don’t need to become an expert in everything before you build something worthwhile.
Sometimes you just need to do the first thing.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Trust that momentum will follow.
I am passionate about empowering people to recognise their capability and move forward with confidence. Whether I’m working with a Corporate Marketing Department, Founder or Professional, I make Strategy and Visibility feel less intimidating and more accessible. I try not to get stuck on tiny details that halt momentum. Much like an "Angel Investor", I invest my experience, perspective, network and support to propel you to success.