In the fall of 2015, I was frustrated in my job as VP of Sales and Marketing for the country’s largest business planning firm. I did love that every day I spoke with so many eager and creative entrepreneurs but what I did not love was that they kept making plans but not doing anything with them. For years, I had been following the progress of the plans that my clients were creating but 70% of the time, the plans went unrealized. The truth was, and still is, that business plans are cloudy crystal balls. They paint a very fuzzy picture and are meaningless without action, effort, and execution. I realized that I no longer wanted to only focus on the planning and that there was a need to help people bring their plans to life! I quit my job a few months later and started COWE Consulting.

COWE is an acronym for Community of Working Entrepreneurs. Cows, the animal, also have meaning for me. Besides being delightful enormous puppies, cows are socially complex creatures that respond to their name, have lifelong friendships, and can solve problems. In my head, the business is represented by the farm, the cows represent the business operations and the milk from the cows represent money. Now, there are some people in the world who have no problem setting up milk production factories because money is their only desire. Other people are concerned with having the biggest farm and all they do is buy up other farms and make other people do their heavy lifting so that they get all the milk. None of that interests me. I want a healthy, sustainable, natural farm. I want a farm where the people are happy, the land is happy and most of all, the cows are happy. Happy cows are fed great food (business development), they are kept clean and nurtured (brand), and the farmworkers and the cows are consistently cared for and tended to before any milk is taken (culture). The most important rule is that nobody ever takes more milk than what they need. If more milk is needed, then we need to care for more cows. This philosophy might seem corny and pathetic to some, but it is important to me and that is how I run my company to this day.

I fumbled, tripped, and failed a LOT throughout Cowe Consulting’s first two years. I practically paid people to be my clients and I networked most my days away. Through this networking though, I met Nicola Staples. Nicola and her husband owned their own audio and visual production company and had recently moved from the UK to the US. Our local chamber of commerce hosted a networking meeting every other week and she and I started hanging out. Nic loves branding, strong tea, Friends, sarcasm, and dogs and in no time, we were friends. Just like two schoolgirls complaining about classes hampering their fun, Nic and I were exhausted with networking. We just wanted to work! Then on one sunny day in August of 2017, Nic and I decided that two heads were better than one and that by combining forces, we would become unstoppable.

Our clients needed strategy but then after that, they needed help implementing that strategy. In order to do that for our clients, we needed to grow the team. As we grew the team, we grew our space. As we grew our space, we grew our capabilities, then grew our clients and so on.

We pivoted once more in 2019. Through the guidance and mentoring of one of the world’s best PR agencies, we added public relations to our list of services. This was a game-changer for us because now we could develop strategies, implement those strategies, and now publicize those strategies for our clients! We rebranded to Cowe Communications and not a day has gone by where Nic and I do not pinch ourselves and think that we won the lottery.

At Cowe, we care about quality over quantity. We value honesty, integrity, accountability, and enthusiasm. We focus on developing strengths and fueling extraordinary talent. We dedicate our time and money to causes, individuals and organizations that are committed to making positive impacts on their communities and the world around them. This is our story. And our story is just starting.