Live Unexpectedly.
The connection between first response and marketing.
Picture this: you’re on vacation and step out of your car at the beach. The sun is hot, the sky is blue, there’s a breeze making it all the more beautiful. As you and your group set up, a lifeguard informs you of a surf rescue demonstration taking place that morning. I’m the lifeguard. You, along with 50 other people from the surrounding beach area, crowd around as I prepare to share the day's dangers. I talk about possible rip current areas, how fast the current is moving, how big the waves are, and what we as lifeguards do every day to prevent and respond as needed to emergencies. But wait, what does this have to do with marketing? Everything. The skills that make someone effective in high-stakes public safety, whether in the backcountry of North Western Montana or the Eastern Shore of Virginia in my case, are the same skills that drive successful marketing campaigns: reading your audience, strategic communication, data analysis, and crisis management. Whether it’s responding to emergencies, composing music, or crafting ad campaigns, success comes from pattern recognition, audience connection, and the courage to show up even when you’re scared.
Reading the room is as important as announcing the elephant. Every person in a crowd has different needs, being able to identify a common ground is helpful when thinking of a target audience. Finding a true target audience, at its core, is connecting with people in the crowd in an effective way. At a National Park, you have to realize who you’re talking to and what they may lack in knowledge about the dangerous environment they’re planning to explore, thus addressing potential problem points (bears, rip currents, etc.). Whether I’m reading a crowd at Logan Pass, a packed open mic, or analyzing ad performance data, it’s all about intuition informed by practice. Understanding what the audience needs then meeting them there to exceed their expectations.
Informed intuition is the result of making careful decisions with data. It’s easy to fall into the trap of repeating a practice just because it works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Sometimes, but if things have been working the same way for 20+ years, believe it or not there is likely a more effective way to be operating. When backing your choices with proven data, it generally means the results will improve everyday outcomes. This summer, working at Glacier National Park, I conducted talks throughout the week to visitors about potential safety hazards. Including myself, there was only a team of 3 Preventative Search and Rescue Rangers tackling the busiest district of the park's 2.4 million visitors. Working together, we noted where the most deaths occurred in the park, and their causes, to determine where we needed to be every day. Through analyzing this data and recognizing the patterns, we reduced emergency responses by 24% despite there being an increase in park visitation.
Bringing things back to business, this was our conversion rate for the season. We determined baseline data, implemented new strategies, tracked the results, and proved the impact of our operation. I try to make my decisions similarly with my businesses. To track the most effective use of ad spend, I have to choose my copy and designs wisely; basing what goes where on new trends that might be popping up or other successful posts I’ve seen from competitors. My capstone project is a perfect example of this, finding scientific articles to present to the Rain Garden Initiative, thus making our argument to implement social media advertising that much more persuasive.
That is what it's all about after all, persuasion built on education, not pressure. It’s not about pushing people into doing something, you have to identify their knowledge gaps and meet them there. Whether I’m giving a surf rescue demonstration or crafting an ad copy, I’m thinking about the most important thing that my audience needs to know. What does this solo hiker not know about the weather and difficulty of this trail? What does this customer not realize the solution is to their problem? How can I help them most? Before even thinking about what you’re going to say, or how you’re going to present it, nailing down what it is you must teach your audience is most important. Once this is determined, you can convince customers to take action, influence their behavior, without using pushy tactics. The audience takes action because they've been educated, not coerced.
However, no matter how well you educate, things always go wrong. Whether it's an ad campaign underperforming, someone tripping on the trail, or the crowd just not responding, you have to be able to think adaptively. Assess quickly, adjust the strategy, implement changes on the spot, then monitor the results. I could be managing a medical emergency that just took a turn for the worse, or analyzing why my latest campaign isn't converting: either way, you take the challenge without hesitation. Thankfully, you rarely take it alone. When responding to an emergency, it takes multiple teams working in sync, whether it be law enforcement, search and rescue, EMS, crowd control, it’s an all hands on deck operation. Cross-platform marketing campaigns require the same coordinated effort. Everyone must know their role, perform efficiently, and trust that the other team members have the knowledge and capability to do the same, even if it's their first time working together. Whether I'm coordinating a multi-agency rescue operation or managing a client's integrated campaign across Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads, the principle is the same: clear communication, defined roles, and a collective trust in the mission.
Before you can trust a team, you have to be able to trust yourself. Whether you’re working on a team, or in the backcountry alone, there’s one skill that helps you stand out (and sometimes survive): creativity. The ability to see solutions where others see problems, to imagine what doesn't exist yet and bring it into being. That’s what drives every campaign I create and that’s what’s driven me throughout the last seven years of writing music. Leaning into your creativity is the biggest leap of all; trusting yourself to create something people will enjoy and respond to even when you’re intimidated. Some of the best art has been discovered because the creator took the leap to release it, not knowing what would happen, but nonetheless doing it scared.
This is all coming from someone who has written well over five albums worth of music that no one, other than some close friends, has heard. Why? Because of fear. The same fear that could have stopped me from teaching myself a new field to expand my creativity, from pivoting careers and stepping into marketing without a traditional background, from diving in and creating Willet, my marketing consultancy. I am a trained first responder in wilderness and back country settings. I have pulled people out of the ocean. I understand how to assess danger and act anyway. Fear is information, not a stop sign. You have to calculate the risk without rushing into recklessness.
I started Willet with a dream to help small, local brick-and-mortar businesses grow. Then, I wanted to help students find a better way to create income on their own to pay off loans, so I created the outline for an online course that’d be full-package and affordable. When I noticed my partner struggling with back pain from sitting at his desk all day, I created my online store, WorkFlow. I launched WorkFlow to get high-quality, ergonomic, furniture to people who work from home and deal with the uncomfortable eight-hour slouch. All of this while finishing a bachelor’s degree and leading an initially inexperienced capstone team through a successful campaign launch that was adopted by our client for implementation. Here’s what I’ve taken away from my experience: even if the knowledge and training you have seems unconventional, but you continually show up for yourself and your team, you can do anything. Life isn’t a rollercoaster, it’s a hike: it doesn't matter how long it takes to get there, as long as you don’t stop.
As this article comes to an end, I hope I’ve reframed how you think about what training qualifies you for your dream job. As long as you look for patterns and recognize how to be adaptable, every skill transfers. Releasing my music is still a someday dream, just like being a park ranger once was, just like being a business owner once was. I understand trusting the process, knowing that success isn’t about perfection, it’s messy! It requires showing up when you’re scared. I’ve shown up for myself during emergency responses. I’ve shown up for my community. And maybe, by the time you read this, I’ll have shown up for my music too. Don’t wait to be ready, it’s never the “right time.” Just keep going, you’ll get there.
