Ep. 4: Kymm Martinez on Purpose, Power & the Pivot

Amanda Nizzere is joined by fractional CMO Kymm Martinez, CEO of Wilder Marketing Group. With a 25+ year career that spans Fortune 200 brands, nonprofits, and higher ed—including CMO roles at General Mills, the University of St. Thomas, and the American Cancer Society—Kymm now leads her own fractional marketing firm with purpose, flexibility, and impact at the core.

In this refreshingly honest conversation, Kymm shares what prompted her bold leap at age 55, why she left a high-profile job with no backup plan, and how she gave herself space to figure out what came next. She discusses the difference between consulting and fractional work, the joy (and surprises) of entrepreneurship, and how she’s using automation and AI to scale her business and her network.

Whether you’re thinking of launching your own fractional business or wondering what happens after you leap—this episode is packed with practical insight, inspiration, and real talk from someone who’s walking the walk.

Resources & Tools Mentioned:

• 💼 Wilder Marketing Group
  
  
• 🧰 Tools: HubSpot CRM (free version), ChatGPT, SCORE/SBA, LinkedIn
  
  

Favorite Quote from Kymm:

“I’m still a work in progress—but I’ve learned to stop defining myself by my last job title. I have so much more to give, and now I get to decide how and when I give it.”

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Transcript

Amanda: [00:00:00] Welcome to Female Fractionals, the biweekly podcast for successful female fractional executives and those ready to take the leap. In each episode, I'll bring you actionable lessons and inspiration through interviews with thriving fractional leaders and experts. Let's dive in. Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of Female Fractionals.

I'm your host and fractional CMO, Amanda Nizzere on today's show. I'm excited to speak with Kymm Martinez, CEO, and founder of Wilder Marketing Group. Kymm is an executive with over 25 years of experience spanning organizations and Fortune 200 companies, nonprofits, and higher education. She brings diverse real world experience from the C-Suite and the boardroom to help organizations unlock the full potential of their brands and marketing teams.

Her past experiences include driving growth, reinvigorating legacy brands, and navigating [00:01:00] complex organizational challenges. Kymm has served as the chief marketing officer for the University of St. Thomas, the largest private university in Minnesota and the American Cancer Society. The leading cancer fighting organization in the United States.

Kymm's career includes two decades at General Mills, where she rose to become a corporate officer, leading some of the world's most iconic brands, including Cheerios, Pillsbury, and Y Play. Her leadership extends beyond borders with international experience in Latin America, and expertise in building culturally resonant strategies.

Collaborative, agile and deeply strategic. Kymm is a trusted partner to executives seeking to make their marketing organization and brands a true driver of business value. Kymm resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota and holds an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, and a BA in International Relations and Economics from Mount Holyoke College.

Without further ado, let's [00:02:00] jump into my conversation with Kymm. Hi Kymm. Welcome to Female Fractionals. I'm so happy to have you. 

Kymm: Oh, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me. 

Amanda: Of course, of course. Alright, so I wanna kick the conversation off, and I would love for you to just start by sharing a little bit about your professional background, which is incredibly impressive, and just how you got started in marketing in general.

Kymm: Sure. Uh, actually my, I have never worked outside of marketing. Um, I don't know, um, I don't know if that's common for others, but when I was in college, between first and second year, I had a internship at a bank, a regional bank, and they randomly assigned me to the marketing department. It could have been anywhere, but it just happened to be there, and I've never worked outside of marketing since.

So I got a really early start and a really early love of it. What I love about marketing is the opportunity to. To really walk inside somebody else's shoes, to look at the world through their perspectives, to understand their pain points, and then figure out how, [00:03:00] with whatever I am trying to do, how I can connect to them and help solve and bring solutions to them.

So I've always loved that empathy that comes with being a marketer. Um, and then after my early bank days, when I graduated from undergrad, I went to work for MetLife Insurance Company in New York. Um, in their marketing area. I, it was a management training program where you got to rotate through different areas and my rotations were always, um, in marketing just to continue to build different, um, vantage points for that.

But after four years in financial services, at the time, I felt like I really wanted to. At the age of 26, I felt like I was teaching more than I was learning, and I felt like I wanted to go work for an organization that could really teach me the craft that I really wanted to learn. And so I set my sights on consumer packaged goods, believing that that classic marketing training that CPG is known for would be, um, the thing that I really wanted to do.

So to do that, I needed to get an MBA. So I went, uh, to Northwestern, to the Kellogg [00:04:00] school. And then from there was recruited to General Mills, um, in Minnesota, which. Minnesota was never on my radar. I had a rent controlled apartment in Manhattan. I fully expected that I was gonna be back in Manhattan. Um, but I ultimately couldn't turn down the General Mills offer because it just seemed like the training opportunity.

It was everything that I'd been looking for. Um, I. And so I made the jump to Minnesota. I'm still here. It's the classic Minnesota story. It's very hard to get people to move here, but once you move here, you don't wanna move away. I was with General Mills for almost 20 years. Um, really loved that organization.

Had an opportunity to work internationally. I was down in Mexico City, working across all of Latin America. So lots of really great experiences there, um, before I, um, made the decision to move over into higher ed. Uh, so I went to work for, um, the largest private university here in Minnesota, was their first ever chief marketing officer, as they were really figuring out what to do with marketing in higher ed.[00:05:00] 

Um, I was there for almost six years before going to the American Cancer Society as their National Chief Marketing Officer, and then just last year decided to step down from that in order to found my own business, the Wilder Marketing Group. So in a nutshell, that's how I come to you today. 

Amanda: That's amazing.

That's amazing. So many little nuances that I want to try to tap into throughout our short time together, but. Where I wanna focus in right now is what happened a year ago. Like what inspired you to really take that leap to become a fractional executive? 

Kymm: Yeah. Um, I. Well, I was hitting a milestone birthday.

Um, I was turning 55 and it was really a moment in my life where I feel felt like I wanted to take a step back and just do that exercise about what gives you energy versus what takes energy away. And there were also other pulls in my life. I have elderly parents, other reasons why having a little bit more control over my personal time would be advantageous and beneficial.

And when I just did [00:06:00] all of that. Thinking. Um, I did something I've never, in my entire professional career did have done. I left a job without having no idea what I was gonna do next. I've always been super planful about all of my moves, and it just felt like the right thing to do. Um, to leave and then to give myself the space and time to figure out what it was that I wanted to do next.

And through all that, I was talking to my network and just listening to, um, what people were saying and advising and guidance. And, uh, a lot of people were saying, why don't you start your own thing? And I thought, well, um. I've never really thought of myself as an entrepreneur before, but it would really allow me control over my time, my who I was working with.

Um, it sounded exciting and fun because it was something I had no idea how to do, and I've always loved throwing myself into new experiences where I'm not sure I'm gonna be successful just believing that I'm gonna learn more in that kind of an environment [00:07:00] than one where. It's like a slam dunk. Yeah. I know how to do this.

And so it was all those things together that made me, um, decide to start Wilder Marketing Group. 

Amanda: I wanna tap obviously a little bit more into the work that you're doing now, but, but I do want to talk a little bit about, for somebody that has always been so calculated about the pivots that you have made, which.

We're so different, right? Moving from CPG into education, like very specific and big, bold moves. When you did take the step away at your milestone birthday and really we're taking some time, I think burnout is real. We talk about it a lot. How did you give yourself permission to really take that break and what did that look like?

Kymm: Yeah, no, that's a great question. And um, and I am in a position now where I'm married and my husband works full time, so that provided me with, um, I didn't have the [00:08:00] pressure of having to carry the insurance for the family. As an example, he has our children on his insurance. He has me now on his insurance.

So, um, so that was definitely. Now is also different. Uh, I'm, this is my second marriage and, uh, I've never, I don't think, I've never really relied on somebody. I've always been the breadwinner role. I've had that role in the family. So actually being able to take a step back and to let somebody else carry the load, um, for a second was actually.

Was a big deal for me and, and it, and it's something that I, um, I, I know I'm fortunate to, to have that. So, uh, and along with that also just the financial stability of having all those years of working and really saving. Um, and I did sit down with my financial planner, um, pretty, I. Although I did it after the fact, I didn't do it before the fact when I said, all right, can I stop working now?

Or do I need to keep working in order to be able to achieve all of the retirement goals, you know that we have? And [00:09:00] happily, the answer was, you've got time. If you don't wanna work, you don't have to. It might mean in a bit of a different adjustment in terms of a. Maybe a little bit of a, a lesser standard of living in retirement if I decided never to, uh, to work again.

But, um, but getting the financial knowledge and getting those, um, getting the facts about the financials in front of me was a big, I. Uh, it, it allowed me to take that deep breath and be like, okay, I really am gonna be okay. We don't need to cut the cable bill or, you know, whatever. Um, and, and, and to really give myself the permission and the time, and then I did it by, um, I really did give myself some time.

I said, I'm gonna give myself a year, you know, to figure out what it is that I wanna do. I'm not gonna put my pressure on myself. Um, you know, to, to figure this out in the next month or two months. And I think that's another important thing to give yourself oodles of time. Although, the funny thing I will say is once I did decide to start my business, I did a business [00:10:00] plan.

And in my business plan, I gave myself four months to assess whether or not this was something I wanted to do. Um, and so I didn't actually give my business the same, uh, permission that I had given myself personally, although people in my network were very quick to say. Don't make any decisions at the four month mark.

Um, give yourself a year in your business to figure out whether this is something that you really wanna make a go of. So, 

Amanda: yeah, I think that's great. Obviously a lot of great reflection and thinking was done, and so that time that you took was definitely time. That was hopefully restful, but obviously it was also very well spent.

So that, that is great. So you entered the fractional space without a client, which is amazing. I think you hear both sides of it. Some people are like, oh, I just fell into it. And some people were like, I really had to hustle to get my first client. So how, how did you end up landing your [00:11:00] first client and what did that look like?

Kymm: Yeah. Um, well I had think, I had mentioned that the, what I was most worried about was the business development aspect of it, because I don't think of myself as a salesperson. I. I have definitely been on the other side of the pitch when somebody is trying too hard to sell you something and I never wanted to be that person, or I don't wanna be at a cocktail party where people are like, oh God, don't talk to her.

You know, because she's just gonna like hit you hard over the head with, you know, kind of like her new business or service. So I was worried about that part of it, uh, until I spoke with, um, a really trusted confidant of mine, somebody who has worked with me, um, through for many years. And I was telling her about this concern and she said, Kymm, she's like, more than anyone else I know, every time I.

See you, you've just had breakfast with somebody or you've just had coffee with somebody, or you've just learned something new. She's like, that's all it is. It's those connections and fostering those connections authentically. Um, that's [00:12:00] how you should think about business development. And as soon as I thought about it from that lens, I was okay with it because I do love making connections with people and it isn't necessarily about me trying to sell.

It is about me. Listening and learning about what's going on in their lives and, um, all of that. And, and so that's kind of how I thought about the pipeline building in the very beginning. The goal for me was how can I let my network know what it is that I'm up to and what it is that I'm doing? And then how can I make sure that my network remembers that this is something that I'm doing.

Um, so that's how I've been thinking about my, my. Pipeline. And that is actually how, um, how my first clients came to find me, uh, was through that network. So, 

Amanda: yeah. And do you find that, when you're going into these engagements, are you having to differentiate between fractional and consulting still? I feel like they're.

Is still a need to define [00:13:00] 

Kymm: yes 

Amanda: and sell. And so how, how are you managing that? 

Kymm: Well, and not only that, I, I've even had to do that for myself. Like, so actually if you go right now to my website, which I need to update, um, like, because I did my website in the very beginning when I was trying to figure out what my services were gonna be.

And I didn't wanna cut any avenue off because I wasn't sure. Um, where I was gonna start to get traction in terms of my services. And so, you know, I do talk on there about either doing interim work or fractional work without really necessarily defining, other than interim being a hundred percent with one client and fractional being, um, a part-time gig.

Um, what I'm finding is that I love being a fractional worker, so how I define that is it's a part-time person. But I'm embedded in a team, so it doesn't, it's not gonna feel like a part-time person. I'm part of the inside of the organization and that's how I would differentiate between fractional and consultant.

A [00:14:00] consultant is more looking from the outside in, um, making recommendations in, whereas me, as a fractional, I'm working from inside the organization, I can lead your marketing team or your. Um, your, your efforts, um, even on a part-time basis, because I'm efficient and I've seen so much with my expertise that I can do things pretty quickly.

I can see things pretty quickly and I can go into spaces where you don't need a full-time person to do this, but you do need somebody with a seasoned background to help you. Um, I can do that for you. Like I can come in 20 to 40% of my time. Um. What you get is you get a resource that is the exact right fit for the project or the challenge that you have right now.

Um, and what I get is flexibility and freedom and the opportunity to stack, um, meaning work on more than one client, which I have found is important to me. Uh, because, um, because there's a great learning that [00:15:00] goes as I look at the different clients and I see the different. Uh, circumstances that they're in, and I feel like it helps to make me a better fractional CMO because I'm able to, I'm able to look at those different circumstances and make connections.

So that's how I define the difference. And, and that's a newer definition for me. I. Um, so I do need to go back and I need to update my website to talk about that, but I recently, last week attended a solopreneur virtual conference and there was a lot of conversation on, in that conference about terminology and fractional versus, um, consultant, and there was some debating.

Some people like to call it a freelancer, and they're using the same fractional definition. To define freelancer, and others are like, no, this fractional thing is a different animal. But I firmly believe it is the future of work. And that's another thing that I'm really excited about too. I feel like I'm on the, I'm on the cusp, I'm on the front edge of the trend, [00:16:00] um, uh, into what is going to be really helpful for not only workers, but also businesses, because you can get exactly what you need when you want it at the right budget.

So. 

Amanda: The question, I guess is twofold is one, how many clients have you found. Can you manage at the same time? Like, what is your sweet spot and how long did it take you to figure that out? And then how do you handle code switching between clients? 

Kymm: Yeah. Um, I would say because I'm newer into this, about six months in, I am still figuring out like how many clients I can handle right now.

I, um, I've contracted. For about 60% of my time, uh, between the clients that I have, and I'm not sure that I can take any more on at this moment. But I also know though that I'm still early days with some of them. And I understand from other fractionals that in the beginning, like the first 90 days is a [00:17:00] really, can be a really intense time.

And then it actually, um, evens out a little bit. So. I'm interested to see whether that's going to play out for me as well. I also need to make sure that I'm watching, um, I'm watching how much I'm giving and that there are boundaries to it within reason. Like, I definitely don't wanna be, you know, like a law firm where every time somebody picks up a phone and calls you, it's like, cha-ching, you know, you're.

You're, I, I do track my time. For me, I'm not, uh, I'm not, I do not want my client to be thinking of me as hourly or, or anything like that. Um, but it's more for me to know how, what, again, what, what, what am I, am I engaged in the most impactful? Um, activities on behalf of my client, or am I finding that I'm getting sucked into more regular day-to-day meetings?

Um, and that actually has been one of the biggest ahas for me, which actually maybe shouldn't have been, but I. As a chief marketing officer, a [00:18:00] full-time chief marketing officer, I was in meetings all the time, literally from like seven 30, sometimes eight o'clock all the way through till five, and then I wasn't able to do any of my real work until after five o'clock or on the weekends.

Now I knew that, right? Like that wasn't something I didn't know. But I also felt like all the meetings that I were in. There was a reason why I was there because I would never have sat through it if I had thought it was a waste of my time. So I always saw value in it. But the aha for me now with not having a day full of meetings is how much I can get done during the day.

How, how, how damn efficient I can be. Yes, I feel that very much. With my clients, I am very much resisting, you know, um, they're like, you wanna be in this regular meetings? Do you wanna be? And I'm like, you know what? I don't, there's only gonna be very few regular meetings, and I'm also tracking the difference between the meetings I'm sitting in and then the desk work that I'm doing on behalf of my clients.

Um, just to make sure that that balance is so I'm still figuring that [00:19:00] out. Um, but right now I feel like I'm wearing, I'm. I don't know. I, I, I, I think I ideally would love to be able to manage anywhere from three to five, and I get that number from talking to other fractionals who are more experienced, who've been doing this for longer than I am.

And those are the numbers that they're tossing out. And then as far as code switching between, um, you know, again, uh, what's cool is that I'm finding that I have a lot of templates just from. In my brain work that I've done before, and I'm able to then bring that, those frameworks into my clients, uh, and help them work within them and then use those.

So that's one way that I'm going back and forth between clients is sharing frameworks, um, and, and seeing what's working. I'm also collecting information for myself about, so where do I think I'm adding the most value? 'cause again, I'm still in the early days of figuring out what's gonna set me apart [00:20:00] from other fractionals in this space.

And for sure having been a chief marketing officer twice, that's part of it and the breadth of the experience that I have. But I think the notion of marketing as strategic. Support for the chief, for the CEO, frankly, and really being able to work with CEOs who haven't been able to articulate yet their narrative for their organization.

Um, I'm coming in and they're asking me to do marketing plans and I'm seeing that there aren't. Written down organizational strategies or objectives yet. And so I say to the CEO, that's our starting point there. Um, and then once we know organizationally and everyone's on the same page, then we can write your marketing plan.

And I think the ability to translate for the CEO, um, from business over to marketing, I think is gonna be kind of the niche that I am going to be. Um, using to add more value to my clients, and that's, that's something that [00:21:00] I'm definitely bringing from, um, from group to group. 

Amanda: Mm-hmm. And I think that's great.

Like, think about how much that may have shifted since 

Kymm: Yeah. You know, 

Amanda: where, where you were thinking you would've been a year ago. Yeah. To six months ago. To, like, you're already saying that you need to refine the website a little bit. Yes. Amazing how much things can morph and shift like so quickly just based on lessons learned.

And that's the beauty of owning your own thing, is that you completely control it, but you learn so much in the first year of. Building your own business. Yeah, it's, it's so powerful. And being so open to like niching down and changing the way that you do things is like just you're embracing the entrepreneurial mindset, which is what is so amazing.

And also just acknowledging the fact that you're six months in and you are saying that you. [00:22:00] Don't think that you can take in any more clients. Like I hope that you are like taking a moment to really reflect on that and congratulate yourself because that's huge. That is huge. Oh, thank you. So are there any tools that you use that you have found that have really helped you as you've built the business in the early days that you would recommend?

Kymm: Yeah. You know, the other big resource, um, that I had never really thought of before is score, which I don't actually even know what that acronym stands for. I, I think it used to like a retired core of engineers or something, people, professionals who are willing to give back on a, in a volunteer basis.

It's run through the Small Business Association, the SBA, but they have a ton of really fabulous, like webinars and you can actually get a. Free mentor, you know, to help you like, kind of like advise on your business. So that's one tool. I've done their webinars and I, I don't know yet whether I'm gonna do a mentor.

I think it's gonna decide, I'll see how far I get on my own with my business Plan 2.0. Um, but [00:23:00] other tools that I've learned or other, the thing that I'm really fascinated with right now is, um, automating my, um. My networking and my CRM. So I actually did, uh, decide to jump into A-C-R-M-I use HubSpot. Um, it's the free version of HubSpot.

I haven't yet gone up to the $20 a month paid subscription 'cause I'm not yet sure what you get from that versus what I get. But, um, but what I have been hearing people do. I know other fractionals that have been doing this using, um, AI to take notes during their intake calls with clients or even just like, you know, discovery calls, uploading that into chat, GPT, asking chat GPT to give you, um, like uh, words.

Like that, areas of interest that this contact might be, um, interested in actually for future follow-up. Um, Chet also will obviously draft, um, initial follow-ups emails, that kind of thing for you. Apparently there are some, uh, I think it's [00:24:00] called make, which will actually do the interface for you with a Google email so that it'll land the draft in your draft.

So all you have to do is go in and do that. Um, some people then take that and. Download it back into their CRM, so in this case, HubSpot. So now you have the contact and you have the transcript of what you talked about, plus the summary plus keywords, and then you can go in and search it. Like, you know, if you run into an article that you think would be good for people to know on.

Whatever it is, productivity, you can go back into your CRM and search for who's interested in marketing productivity and then send it through there. And then you can see open rates and like all sorts of stuff that I am super excited about. That vision. I haven't, um, I haven't figured out how to get all the way there yet for myself, but those are some of the tools, um, that, that's kind of where I'm trying to go.

And what I also love about that, and maybe this is also why I love being. Um, you know, running my own business is because some of my clients are smaller, and everything that I just described to you in terms of [00:25:00] automating that sales process would be really helpful for them. And so I, it's almost like I'm figuring it out in Wilder Marketing Group, but then I can bring it to my clients as well.

So it's, it's not as if it's just for 

Amanda: me. Okay. Looking back to, you know, these first six months, if there was, you know. One piece of advice you'd give yourself In thinking, thinking back, what, what would you, what would you say to yourself? 

Kymm: Control what you can control? Um, what you can control is the number of networking meetings, the number of contacts, the number of that kind of thing.

That's, that's what you can control. And so that's where, set your goals. By that, whether it be 10 meetings a week or whatever it is, 10 connections, 10 whatever, whatever the right number is. Like, measure your progress by that. And not necessarily by did I land the client by the date in which I said that I was going to?

Because if you're doing that activity right, um, and [00:26:00] if, again, if, if your network is gonna start working for you, um, you know, you, you've gotta give it time. Set a realistic goal. And, and, and again, for me it also went back to the financial plan of like, alright, how much, how am I gonna pay my living expenses, you know, kind of in the meantime and how long can I go?

Um, before I have to start thinking maybe a little differently about spending or about, um, income coming in and really giving myself the runway to be able to figure that out. So that's what I'd say. 

Amanda: Okay. Well it seems like you are loving this entrepreneurial life. Mm-hmm. Um, do you think that this is the path that you'll be on for the long term?

I. 

Kymm: Yes, I I, yes. It's funny 'cause I know sometimes, and I've met people this way who are using the consulting or the fractional or whatever as sort of the, the placeholder for like the next big job. And in fact when I stepped back from the American cancer study, I definitely had people saying, I think you have one more big job in you, Kymm, so [00:27:00] why don't you look for, you know, kind of like that and.

Um, I call those for me at least, my hair on fire jobs, you know, where it's just like, oh my God, you go all in and then your hair is constantly on fire. And, um, what I'm finding in this gig, my stomach isn't in a knot when I wake up in the morning and pick up my phone at like, what shit show am I gonna find?

You know, kind of like that's in there. It's, and that's again the another nice thing about being part-time, like my clients know I'm part-time, you don't have me. I want you to have me and access me anytime you need me. But it's not that same sort of like on demand thing that you have when you're full-time with just one organization.

So, um, so for me, the control, the, the being able to, um, the benefits of it have just been really great. 

Amanda: Okay. Well, I like to end every interview with rapid fire questions, so these are meant to be [00:28:00] answered in one word or one sentence or less. So are you ready for rapid fire round? I'm okay. Okay. 

Kymm: As ready as I can be.

Amanda: First job that taught you something valuable. 

Kymm: Uh, I taught piano in high school, so I kind of had my own business. I had 12 students in high school that I was responsible for. And, uh, and it, it was my first exposure to, um, running a business actually, which wasn't a connection that I made until recently when I started thinking back to it.

But, you know, keeping my books, um, figuring out how I was gonna get clients, um, managing the feedback with the parents. Um, so that was my first job that really taught me that. 

Amanda: That's cool. Okay. Best investment you've made in yourself. 

Kymm: Let's see. I. First of all, my second husband, I just can't say enough about the importance of being, having the right life partner by your side, um, in [00:29:00] terms of really giving you wings in order to be able to fly.

So there's that. Um, but there's also, I also periodically in my life have, uh, invested in an executive coach for me where. Somebody who I can bounce ideas off of and just be like, Hey, this meeting felt a little off. Like, I just felt like I wasn't maybe my best self. Can you help me kind of unpack a little bit of that?

Um, so I am a big fan of executive coaching and then really tactically, the other best investment I made was in my logo, um, for a Wilder marketing group. I tried really hard not to spend any money on it and to do one of those DIY, um, programs. And as soon as I looked at it, I was like, oh, I just cannot represent myself like this.

Former creative director at one of my jobs to come in and help me out, and he nailed it. And every time I look at my logo, I feel happy. So that was also a great investment. 

Amanda: That's great. Okay. Fun fact about you that's not on your LinkedIn profile. 

Kymm: I have never had a headache, so, and that is the God's truth.

I've never had a headache, [00:30:00] so 

Amanda: knock on, knock on wood. 

Kymm: Yeah, I know that's true. I will knock on wood because I don't want that to, to start now, but yeah, no, that's a. 

Amanda: Fact. Oh, okay. Early bird or Night owl? 

Kymm: Night Owl, for sure. 

Amanda: Okay. Mentor, you'd like to give a shout out to. 

Kymm: Uh, I think I mentioned earlier the chief marketing officer of General Mills, who actually, um, was on the board and had brought me in.

It's this phenomenal man named Mark Atix, who I cannot say enough wonderful things about the marketer that he is and the fact that I got to work under him and really. See how he pushes the boundaries and the way he thinks. I have brought him in as a inspirational speaker at every organization that I've ever been at, um, for him to push the thinking of my team, and now he's in a position where he's also kind of helping me with this.

He's just been such an amazing advocate for me and a mentor to me and a friend. Um, and again, whatever he's done for me, I absolutely just wanna pay that forward to other [00:31:00] people. So he's just been a great, great role model. 

Amanda: If you could instantly master one skill or hobby, what would it be? 

Kymm: Singing, I wish I could get on stage and sing like, you know, Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or Kelly Clarkson.

Um, I can't, but I, if I could master one talent, it would be, what would be that? Or Cynthia Arrivo and singing that wonderful like end line to Wicked, you know, that everybody is like trying to do now. I would love to be able to do that. 

Amanda: That would be amazing. Okay, two more Last thing you impulse bought. 

Kymm: Um.

Just last week I impulse bought and I feel like an 80-year-old by doing this Sketchers slip because it's one of those things where I do find, I'm like, who has time to tie their shoes? Like I'm like, I just need a shoe that I can just go in and you know, Martha Stewart was dancing around in the Super Bowl ad like kind of like in her sketching gliders.

[00:32:00] And so I just impulse last week. I'm like, I'm doing it, I'm getting 'em. And, uh. And they're coming. I ordered 'em online, so I don't have them yet, but I, that was my last I impulse buy. 

Amanda: Okay. We need the review. We need the review on them. Okay. And finally, what's the most adventurous thing you've ever eaten? 

Kymm: I.

Uh, well I lived in Mexico City, um, as I mentioned, and, um, so down there I had crickets. Um, they actually had, there were crickets, um, in a Parmesan. Um, and then I've also had Aunt Larvae, which also is something, uh, that was a delicacy down there. So I don't think I knew I was eating Aunt Larvae at the time that I did it found out later, especially with the translation of Spanish English, but those were the most adventurous things I've eaten, and they weren't terrible.

It just is kind of gross when you think about it, but it wasn't so bad.

Amanda: Oh, okay. 

Kymm: I know, I know. 

Amanda: Well, on that note, well this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it. This has [00:33:00] been a great conversation. I think our listeners are gonna have learned, I. So much from this. I 

Kymm: hope so. I hope so. There's just so much fun ahead of people who are going to jump into this fractional pond.

So I hope that more people do it and get to take control over their lives and who they're working with and just feel more agency over, um, you know, stepping into their power a little bit more, especially women. So, I'm excited that you're inspiring women to do this, and super excited to see where your podcast goes and to follow you.

Amanda: Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, if anybody wants to learn more, I will put a link to your company and your beautiful logo in the show notes and on the website. Um, and thank you again. 

Kymm: Oh, thank you for having me. This is really fun.

Amanda: As always, please remember to follow, like, comment, and share. And don't forget to head over to female fractionals.com for a full transcript of the show [00:34:00] and links to everything we talked about during our conversation. Thanks for listening.