Meet Trailblazer Sherean Malekzadeh Allen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sherean Malekzadeh Allen.

Sherean, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
“The wind blows. The sea roars. My feet are cold on the naked floors.” – So begins a poem I wrote when I was 10 or 11, a moody little tween vacationing at the Caspian Sea with my American mom and Persian dad as I was reading a book about the Bronte sisters. (How different would things have turned out had I been reading Jane Austen instead?) The poem was published in a local rag and my grandmother (an English teacher) started buying me journals every year and inscribing them “to my writer.” Back then, I wrote the endings for my poems first and worked backwards. I enjoyed solving that “problem” of writing into my ending. (I was *so* tempted to answer your question by starting with where I ended up instead of how I began because honestly, the path was not linear or planned.)

Is that how I started? A couple of other moments stand out: in college, I noticed a few teachers commenting on my essays, praising my “easy, breezy writing style.” I took a copywriting class, and then an advanced version and it made sense to me. (I also took a really difficult class on Communications Law and aced it and briefly flirted with going to law school, so you can see I was easily influenced by external affirmation.) All of that is to say, I didn’t start with a compelling, burning NEED to write. I just fell into it because a few people COMPLIMENTED me.

(Lately, folks have been telling me they really like my hummus so don’t be surprised if I start a little food business on the side.)

I graduated during a recession and landed a job as a receptionist at an ad agency making minimum wage. Their copywriter left; they gave me a .25/hour raise and the job! I worked nights transcribing tapes for a law firm (owned by Tom Cruise’s grandfather, so there’s that) to make ends meet. I rented a room in a house and lived on cheese sandwiches.

But – I still remember the first time I heard one of my spots on the radio. I was on I-64 and I almost pulled over to the side to listen. It’s still a thrill today to see something I’ve written or directed fully produced.

A few years later, I got a job as a marketing director for a TV station and my career really took off. I tried to count once and figured that I wrote and directed over 400 spots. I was nominated for a regional Emmy and won a handful of Addy awards. I launched what became the 3rd largest Kids Club in the country and received a lot of accolades from FOX Broadcasting for that. I also promoted our new 10:00 newscast which became the top-rated primetime newscast in the country. I was still in my 20s and sitting on panels at national promo exec conferences with folks from DC and L.A. and here I was, punching above my weight class from Louisville. I had a serious case of Impostor Syndrome. Ugh.

After Louisville, I worked in TV in Raleigh and here in Atlanta at Turner, then I left TV for dot coms. I was one of the early hires at Cox Interactive Media and then I went to a social media startup in New Mexico as their VP of Sales & Marketing.

I came back to Atlanta and started a company called Fast Forward Interactive with four other people. The dot com boom went bust and we went our separate ways. I had a great job offer as a Chief Marketing Officer for a start-up in Kennesaw but I was burnt out and declined. I suggested that I do it for them on an interim basis while they found a permanent person and they accepted. It turns out I could get a lot done in 30 hours a week and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I started my agency New Thought Marketing (NTM).

It was all so clearly NOT planned.

Today, New Thought Marketing has been in business for 17 years. We’ve worked for small start-ups and companies as big as UPS. Most of the folks who work for NTM are senior level and don’t want to go into an office and work late nights. (They may work at night – most of them do – but from the comfort of their couches.) It’s the kind of talent most companies can’t hire because they aren’t interested in full-time jobs, so they work 20 or 30 hours a week for us. And they are fantastic! Our clients love that they get access to these big thinkers – folks who can come in and quickly assess your marketing needs and provide you with simple, get-it-and-go tactical plans.

Our slogan is “Tomorrow’s Ideas, Yesterday’s Wisdom” and I think that sums up how we think nicely. Because we aren’t burned out, we are brimming with creativity. Because we have deep marketing experience, we have good context and understand how to accomplish our clients’ business objectives.

Finally, back to that girl on the Caspian Sea. The agency is named “New Thought” which is the loose translation of the Persian word “Nofarest.” Growing up, my dad told stories of my great-great-grandfather, who was a well-known businessman in Persia (this was before the country was renamed “Iran”). The stories are quite fantastical and mystical. I have always been fascinated by how poetic and lyrical he was while also being a bad-ass businessman. He owned property in a little village that my Dad loved to visit. My dad (an engineer who memorizes poetry for fun) lights up when he talks about this place with the cold, best-tasting freshwater and plump, sweet fruit trees. The name of the village? Nofarest. New Thought.

And so, I suppose my story ends where it began many generations ago, at the intersection of commerce and creativity. I rest easily there even if I had no idea that was where I was going.

Has it been a smooth road?
Are you kidding? The first video shoot I ever produced in the field was with the mayor of Louisville – my first brush with celebrity. Something was wrong with the camera and I had to “bust” the shoot. I remember being so embarrassed and unsure how to handle it. Another time, I was producing a spot with the University of Louisville’s football coach (Howard Schnellenberger for you sports fans) and he could NOT get the station call letters right even though I was holding a cue card three feet away. After every take, he would ask me “how’d I do, little lady?” and I kept saying, “Great, Coach, but, um, it’s WDRB, not WLMNOP.” There was the celebrity from “Married with Children” who was hitting on my intern. The very married boss who routinely talked about the “broads” he “banged” but who was one of the people who advanced my career the most. (It was all so “Mad Men.”) The intern who called me from an event whispering that some drunk was waving a gun at her.

One of my favorite directors to work with once told me that something will ALWAYS go wrong on a shoot and that simple bit of advice helped me take all the random crazy stuff in stride and just work the problem.

I also struggled with anxiety and depression. I’ve been laid off, I’ve been fired, I’ve quit jobs without having another lined up. I put too much stock into my career to define my worth. Don’t do that. I worked too much and had no real hobbies or regular activities to balance my life. Don’t do that, either. Find a mentor or two or ten. Call me! I was in my 30s before I had a boss who saw me at my desk at 7 pm one night and said if I had so much work that I couldn’t get it done by 5, I had too much work. I didn’t know how to respond. I was used to working in TV where burn-out is baked into the business model.

A special note for young women: don’t apologize and don’t fall over with gratitude when someone praises you or gives you a job. When someone compliments you, don’t say “you’re so kind.” That implies you don’t deserve the praise. You earned that isht. Don’t let men interrupt you. They will try – say “Just one minute – I’m not finished.”

Finally, remember this: you deserve every good thing.

We’d love to hear more about New Thought Marketing.
What do we do? We make you a superstar! We help you identify your ideal customers, then we figure out the best channels to reach them, and the kick-ass creative to catch their attention. We DON’T sell ice to Eskimos because Eskimos don’t need ice. We are different from other agencies because so many of our folks have senior-level marketing experience. You are basically renting a bunch of VP’s of Marketing and senior level writers, designers and programmers. We are probably best known for social media content and digital buying, but that largely is reflective of the shift we made years ago as we saw where our clients’ targets were spending their time. We design really smart, creative, and “living’ logos and have a well-defined process for developing positioning and messaging strategies.

I’ve heard that only 10% of companies make it ten years and then only a small percentage of those make it another ten. So, I’m proud of making it 17 years and this year looks to be one of our best yet. But the thing I am MOST proud of is that I have been able to provide meaningful work and income for a whole bunch of women and men who – for whatever reasons – don’t want to work in a traditional job.

Personally, I am proud of the work I do that isn’t paid – the boards I’ve served on, the nonprofits I’ve helped, the progressive candidates whose campaigns I’ve worked on, my 9 year old son who delights me daily, and my husband, who helps me see myself in a way I hadn’t contemplated before.

Finding a mentor and building a network are often cited in studies as a major factor impacting one’s success. Do you have any advice or lessons to share regarding finding a mentor or networking in general?
I still find it strange when women refer to me as their mentor. I’m just connecting or helping people. I think it’s helpful not to think of it as a formal thing. I had no women mentors but had a few men I worked for that were enormously influential in my career, so I don’t have real world experience in how to find them.

Women, in general, feel compelled to help others. If someone found me on LinkedIn and sent me a message that said: “hey, you look like you’ve done some things that look interesting and I am trying to break into the field – could I buy you a cup of coffee/tea and pick your brains?” – I would very likely say “yes” to that and most women I know would as well. Regardless of how you find us, once you are talking to one of us, ASK us to introduce you to other people that could be helpful. We will. I actually spend a lot of my time doing this.

And follow up! I sometimes tell folks I’m busy, but to follow up with me next week. I notice the ones that do and the ones that don’t.

Pricing:

• Writing/Graphic Design $150-175/hr
• Logo Design $7,500
• Social Media Retainer $3,000/month
• Positioning/Messaging $10,000
• Non-Profits 10% discount

Contact Info:

• Website: www.NewThoughtMarketing.com
• Phone: 404-641-9134
• Email: sherean@newthoughtmarketing.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/newthoughtmktg/
• Twitter: @newthoughtmktg

Image Credit:
The personal photo and shot of my team holding white boards: Erin Henry, The shot of the kids jumping with backpacks on for Mori Luggage: Vanessa Munsch, The Feelux ad photo: Brinson & Banks Photography (Graphic design by Susan Spencer, writing by me, model is Erin Henry), The Baker Audio Visual logo: Susan Spencer, The Yapa Harvest logo: Cassie Gooding, UPS Pin it to Win it graphics: Susan Spencer, The magazine insert with me with a boxing bag is from “60 Great Ideas and the People Who Made Them Happen” issue of Promotional Marketing and Executives International

Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.