Meet Charissa Marciniak

We were lucky to catch up with Charissa Marciniak recently and have shared our conversation below.

Charissa , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I have always been an extremely motivated person. As a child, I would create a daily plan for myself starting as early as 5 AM with tasks listed in 15-minute increments. My goal was to ensure that I was getting as much out of each day as possible. I was afraid of wasting my life so much that when each birthday would come around I would dread the thought of getting older (just like Peter Pan).

While I have gotten over my fear of wasting time, I have continued to embrace the idea that each day matters and is a gift. I try to start each day with gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to build a business and control the path of the agency that I have built.

This mindset, coupled with the determination that was instilled in me by my entrepreneur father, is responsible for the drive and work ethic that I have.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Hello! I am Charissa Paschke Marciniak the founder and owner of Right Relations, a full-suite marketing agency that provides all tiers of support to startups, small businesses and nonprofits.

With a background in both profit and nonprofit marketing, I founded Right Relations because of the discrepancy I noticed in the marketing field. I firmly believe that the approach to marketing for small and early-stage institutions is unique and each business should be able to reach their target market in an engaging and efficient way. That was not what I was seeing in the industry. As an experienced marketer, I understand the limitations of a one-size-fits-all marketing approach and believe it doesn’t benefit the types of businesses we serve.

As an agency, our goal every day is to help take the guesswork out of marketing and communications by providing consulting, full-service management and even training in all areas of marketing. Since we work with companies of all sizes across industries, we customize our plans to account for each business’s unique needs and goals. We are a fully remote agency with offices based out of Boston and St. Louis.

Throughout my life, I have always loved and supported the arts (One of my degrees is in classical voice) and I would say that I am passionate about music. My passion for performance directly impacts my daily work. Much like a musician on stage, I am always exploring the best strategies to help our clients connect with the people they are trying to reach. I truly believe there is an art to communicating well and a purpose to marketing.

If you are a business owner looking to stay up to date on all things marketing, you should check out our monthly marketing recap the “Right Now Report”. In this report, we highlight marketing updates and trends and keep up with everything in the industry so you don’t have to.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Tenacity (don’t take no for an answer). You have to be able to pick yourself up when you fail and find motivation from within.
Optimism (not to be confused with toxic positivity). This job is difficult and sometimes it can feel like there are more bad days than good. However, I have found that what separates successful business owners is their ability to keep failures in perspective and find the positive in even the worst situations.
Problem-solving. There is always something that can be done and you have to be able to come up with solutions or at least action steps that can be taken for each problem that arises.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Finding sustainability within the agency structure. We have adopted the term as the basis of our culture as an agency and have focused on seeking out systems that are sustainable and encourage balance both inside and outside of the agency.

Often the agency model only benefits the individuals at the top. I am here to challenge that thought and have the goal of finding sustainable ways for the business to operate and grow without sacrificing quality for profits.

One of the ways that we are tackling this problem is by hiring specialists for specific projects instead of hiring full-time staff members and then being overstaffed in some areas and understaffed in others. This also helps us avoid the issue that hyper-specialized agencies face, where they push specific marketing strategies on clients to meet their own goals, regardless of the client’s actual needs

Contact Info:

• Website: https://therightrelations.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therightrelations/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therightrelations/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rightrelations
• Other: Right Now Report: https://rightrelations.kit.com/3d49604aee

Image Credits

Jeannie Liautaud Photography