Katie Stoller, Founder of Influencer Insider Guide
Name: Katie Stoller
Founder: Influencer Insider Guide
Who is Katie Stoller?
Katie Stoller is an influencer marketing veteran. She began her career in 2009 in Los Angeles working in fashion PR, dressing A list celebrities and working celebrity gifting suites at award shows. After LA, Katie moved home to Chicago where she had a decade-long career working at top global PR agencies (Ogilvy, Ketchum and Golin). She then led the influencer marketing team at Fiat Growth, a fintech growth consultancy working closely with affiliate and performance marketing teams. In 2023, Katie transitioned to being an independent marketing consultant for agencies, businesses and talent. She also launched her education company, influencerinsiderguide.com where she puts out valuable resources for those in the influencer marketing industry.
She lives in Highland Park with her husband, two kids and a Japanese Chin.
In less than three sentences tell us about your company and what you do.
Influencer Insider Guide was created as a 101 crash course in everything influencer marketing - designed for new marketers, students, business owners and anyone looking to work with influencers. I also freelance with Fortune 100 brands at a global PR agency, advise tech/SaaS platforms and manage influencers. If it has anything to do with influencer marketing - I touches it. In fact, I have closed over $15M in brand deals with celebrities and influencers.
What does BEING a FoundHer mean to you?
For so long I was a corporate (agency) girlie, but I always was plotting my way out. Even back in grad school when all my friends were getting big, cushy agencies jobs, I thought it would be so dope to start my own thing. But after years of being taught financial anxiety around scarcity, I stayed stuck on the hamster wheel of corporate life. It took a layoff to knock me over the head and push me into fully going independent. Luckily, I had already been building up a personal brand so the transition was fairly smooth and incredibly rewarding.
How do you support other female founders and women in business?
I mentor with Women in Influencer Marketing (WIIM). I mentor students at DePaul University. I always take 15-30 minute intro calls with anyone on LinkedIn who is looking for guidance or advice (4,700 followers). I am constantly sharing marketing advice with friends with side-hustles or looking for career changes. Transparently, I am very new to the suburban business scene as most of my career was (and currently is) spent working with professionals in big cities, but a 2024 goal for me is to connect more with women in the suburbs and build more of an IRL community where I physically am!
At what point did you make your company a full time gig? How did you know the time was right?
I always wanted to go off on my own, have my own business, make my own decisions, pick my own clients...etc. It wasn't until I was on maternity leave with my first baby that I had the moment with myself where I basically said "now is the time to trust your power." Something about the confidence I got after creating a human and something about the anxiety of being tied to an in-office desk job mixed together and I knew a change needed to happen. I went to HR mid-maternity leave and said "I need to reduce my hours." I was so lucky that my agency was willing to work with me and allowed me to drop to 20 hours per week, keep my benefits and half of my PTO days and allow me to work from home one day per week.
Looking back (this was all pre-pandemic) I can't believe how lucky I was to have this period of time where I could keep my career that I had worked so hard to build AND spend more time with my newborn. That was the foundation of where I am today as a total free agent.
What lesson or skill did you take with you from a prior job to help you succeed in your role today?
As much as agency life can be intense, exhausting, toxic and just insane, it is like bootcamp for future marketing jobs. You have access to the best brands. In my 10 years in the agency world, I worked on brands like Wendy's, Allstate, IKEA, Cheerios, Folgers and so many more. There is no way you'd ever have access to brands like that without working at a large agency. Now, I am able to pull experience from working on those huge accounts into the smaller teams I advise. As much as that chapter of my life was hard, it was also incredibly rewarding and fun. Getting called into fix a new business deck at 3AM before a pitch is not something I'd love today in my late 30's but it was thrilling and exciting as a 27 year old!
How did you land your first client?
When I officially went off on my own in February, 2023, I was able to drum up my initial clients fairly easily because I have the best network of supporters on the planet. Old colleagues, WIIM friends, LinkedIn friends - everyone came through with advice, connections, intros and I was able to build up my client portfolio fairly quickly. The challenge for me was finding the right balance of doing what I loved and what I was really good at, versus just taking gigs because they were available. I am still figuring that out.
Sometimes the more lucrative opportunities are things that I despise doing so I will pass. Sometimes the stuff that is like second nature to me and I enjoy is less lucrative or less consistent but I know my energy is spent more productively there. I think the ultimate successful independent is someone who is very clear on where he or she should be spending their time and maximizing their rates there to get the best bang for their buck on what excites them.
What is something you do differently from the industry standard?
When most people think of LinkedIn they think of their "professional network" but the platform has changed a lot in the last 3-5 years. It's no longer this stuffy space where posts should be perfect and insightful. People use it more like a long-form Twitter now and share more of their authentic self. As personal branding becomes more common place we are seeing real personalities emerge on LinkedIn. I am incredibly snarky, silly, off-the-cuff on LinkedIn and I get so much incredible feedback. Someone once said to me "I can HEAR your voice in your LinkedIn posts" - the best compliment I've ever received.
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