Today's Marketing Cookie - The Happiness of Your Life

Today's fortune came from Celinda Shannon of Brookline, MA.  Celinda is the administrator at the Brookline Chamber of Commerce. She manages all the events, and marketing for the Chamber including the website, facebook and Twitter. You should follow her on Twitter. @celindarella

Today's Marketing Cookie can really happen to you. I know because it happened to me.

After I had founded my second company, I got a call from someone I had not spoken with in several years. We had worked together in the same company about ten year prior and it was good to hear from her again. She had just started a new job as the vice president of marketing for an exciting new company that was growing like wildfire. She said that the CEO had just held a meeting with the executive team, announcing that company was not doing enough online. He said that their competitors were gobbling up all of the traffic from Google and he wanted something done about it right away. So, she asked if I would help her improve their digital presence. It sounded like a terrific opportunity and I enthusiastically said, "yes."

Meanwhile, one of the senior engineers who attended the same executive leadership meeting knocked on her door. He told her that he knew of someone who could help them start a blog and get them found on Google. She looked up at him and said, "thank you very much, but I already have someone in mind."

The engineer shook his head and rebutted saying, "I really think you should consider this person. This is a very important project. The CEO wants it done right."

She put down her pen, took off her glasses and said, "The person I plan to hire is very good. I've known him a long time and I am certain he will do an excellent job for us."

The engineer sighed, reached down and took a sticky note off of her desk, and while writing, said, "I still think you should give em' a call and see what you think. It is well worth a phone call."

The VP of marketing took the sticky note, turned it around and squinted to read the engineer's messy handwriting and exclaimed, "You've got to be kidding me!! You know Myles Bristowe too? We've both been talking about the same person."

...and there you have it. For the next several years, I helped them build up their digital presence until they were quite happily acquired by a fortune 50 company. I suppose you could say that I stumbled into the happiness of my life... or maybe I hadn't stumbled at all.