Meet McKenzie O’Malley

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful McKenzie O’Malley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with McKenzie below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have McKenzie with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

My work ethic comes from my family. I am a first generation college student and I graduated from The University of Tampa in May 2022 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Marketing with a minor in Spanish. My dad is a custom home builder and owner of our family company O’Malley Builders. My mom is a real estate broker for Century 21 Pride and my Grandma Sue was President of Coldwell Banker. I have followed in their foot steps and am so grateful for where I am today. I went into college and became a part of The Success Scholars Program for students who are underrepresented minorities and/or first generation college students. I enjoyed the program a lot and became a mentor for the program during the next couple of years.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Hi, my name is McKenzie and I am a Chicago girl living in Tampa. I am pescatarian and love to run and go to F45! I have a passion for sales and building client relationships. I have been with my current company AppyHour for almost 4 years now. I started as an intern in college, then went part time, and then went full time when the company got investor funding, and was most recently promoted to Account Executive (Supplier and Brand Sales). During my time at AppyHour I have grown a ton! I ran our social media, wrote blogs, and I hired domestic and international employees and managed them. I have also created an entire sales process myself for our bar/restaurant/retailer side by cold calling, going door to door, setting meetings, closing deals, and managing those accounts. In my current role I now am implementing this process on our brand side with clients such as Heineken, White Claw, GoodBoy Vodka, and other breweries.

I also dabble as a Tampa Bay Sales Representative for DermaPen and Entech Systems, expanding my knowledge in both medical sales and IT/cybersecurity sales . I am also working on publishing a book and starting my own company one day.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The three skills/areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey are…

1. Cold Calling- This is obviously no one’s favorite thing to do, but my training and experience at Harness Giving cold calling nonprofits helping them to get younger donors to donate and recurring donations really prepared me for success. I could not have implemented the sales process at AppyHour without this experience. Don’t be afraid of rejection and pick up the phone and talk to people!

2. Every job teaches and prepares you for your next role. You can learn something always. I always aim to be a continuous learner, because you don’t know what you don’t know. I think it is especially important to learn from people of different backgrounds and view points as well, challenge yourself!

3. Always dress to impress! My love of fashion started at a young age and my mom always said I dressed like a little business woman. If you feel confident you will pour that energy out into the world and everything you do!

For folks early on this journey I would say show up everyday and aim to be 1% better than you were yesterday and never give up. Something I also learned at Harness. The more you show up and try the more you will learn and grow and get to where you want to be. It’s okay to fake it until you make it!

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

My parents have done so many wonderful things for me including always supporting me no matter what, sending me to college, and always showing up for me. However, I think the most important professional skill I learned from them is how to talk to people.

When I was in high school my dad had my sister and I greet potential clients or existing clients with appointments at his office. We were young teenage girls and knew nothing about custom built homes so you could say we were kind of thrown into the fire. We had to make small talk and help people as much as we could while my dad finished his other meetings. I didn’t know it then but that skill taught me more than I could ever know and has opened so many doors for me, just because I dared to take the extra step that most people don’t. I asked for the internship, asked for the raise/promotion, and asked for what I deserve and I’ve received a lot more yeses than nos. Also, add the power pause here and you’re golden!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: kenzie_omalley
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mckenzie.o.malley.2025
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mckenzie-omalley/
• Other: As, it gets closer to publication date check back in with me I might have a website for a business I am starting TBD for now! I also might have some career updates as well, but as of now this is all I can say.

  I also make Kenzie’s Kocktails on Tiktok for fun and I am happy to include a link but it’s more of a goofy fun thing! https://www.tiktok.com/@mckenzieo2000

  Also, I ran my first half marathon last year so I shared a pic of that too!

Image Credits

Grad pics: https://www.lilywigglemedia.com/
Others: my bestie Juan Figueroa