In this very special episode of All Things Marketing and Education, some of our team got together to celebrate Leoni Consulting Group (LCG)’s fifth anniversary. We discuss what we’ve learned together and share our passions and insights from these five years. We hope that sharing a little bit about our journey at LCG inspires you to reflect on your own journey and maybe even take a risk or two, because none of our team would be here without that.
Starting Leoni Consulting Group
Our founder and CEO, Elana Leoni, spent eight years of her career working at The George Lucas Educational Foundation, known as Edutopia. In her many roles there, she had the pleasure to collaborate with inspiring and hard-working educators. This experience taught her so much about the world of education, what she was good at, what she loved doing, and who she was good at communicating with but something was missing. She started to realize that to make real change in education, you have to be able to collaborate with all of the many stakeholders in education (parents, teachers, educators, education administrators, etc.) and as a marketer, she wanted that challenge. As Elana frames it, “The way that you truly move the needle in education is not just working with one stakeholder. You got to work together. It’s got to be collaborative. I wanted to do that as a marketer.”
At the same time, she realized that she’d like more formal education around marketing, as everything she did, she learned on the job. She got accepted in the executive MBA program at the Haas School of Business. It inspired her and gave her the confidence and connections she needed to start LCG. Elana used her time at her MBA to incubate LCG. She thought, “If I’m going to do my own thing, this would be the window to do it. This is my time to innovate, and fail, and try, and start new things.” She started off as a consultant, eventually growing her team to an agency. During her time at Haas, she also joined and won a startup competition with a startup aimed to help refugees resettle into the US more effectively.
LCG is, first and foremost, a mission-driven organization working to make an impact in education. But Elana also reflected about the team she helped grow. “In social media and community, you can never do it alone. My greatest joy has been working with a smart, talented, passionate team that inspires me.”
Leading with Heart and Intention
One thing Elana says a lot at LCG is “I'm not about growing for the sake of growing, so I can boast numbers about this or that. I’m about making an impact and first and foremost making sure my team is happy.” This means that we look for metrics that matter, in our services, such as organic social media management, community growth, or content marketing, and within our overall business metrics.
Elana told the team, “I don’t ever want to feel like I'm asking you all to do more than you’re able to do, that we're struggling because the workload is too high. Leading with heart and intention, and I know that sounds touchy-feely, but that's what I’ve been able to do, and it’s worked for us.” When she brings on new team members, she always asks them “what do you actually like doing? Where’s your passion?” Each of our team members, from LCG’s project manager, Anna Field’s analytical mind and talent for GANTT/excel sheets to LCG Director of Joy, Porter Palmer’s natural ability to connect and “direct joy,” are in positions that fit their interests, while we all work passionately to make a deep impact in education.
Wayfinding to Focus
When Elana initially started LCG, even just solo, she said yes to everything. She wanted to know what she liked and didn’t like doing and what she could do really well. Elana says, “I mostly said yes to the people and the products first and foremost. If I believed in the product or I knew the people understood the power of social media or community, I would work with them. It was less about the project itself.” From this experience, Elana says, “Wayfinding in your own business and product lines, is just looking for what you like doing and understanding what you’re good at, and what you would like to do over and over again.”
Porter pointed out, “we’ve done e-books, and whitepapers, and Pinterest, and audits, and then community things, social media management, newsletters, and paid ads. We’ve thrown the spaghetti at the wall over the years.” During a meeting, Porter re-affirmed what Elana was thinking for a while. We needed to focus on a few service offerings that align with our passion and expertise — something that we would all LOVE to do over and over again that would make an impact in education.
Elana worked to hone in on three services: 1) Organic Social Media Management 2) Community Growth Strategy and Support 3) Custom Content Creation. Porter joked, “we’ve gotten to where we do some of the same things more than once.” But Porter, Anna, and Elana agree, this is just something that naturally happens over time.
Creating an Agency to Provide a Work-Life Balance
People thought she was crazy, but when she started LCG, Elana said “I'm starting a company to have some work-life balance.” Elana says everyone that heard this laughed because founders typically start a company and work 80 hours a week and agencies were no different. Elana admits, “Sure, there was a lot of sweat equity put into this. There was a lot of stress, and a lot of uncertainty about the future at times. And I was constantly trying to understand where LCG fit in the landscape of EdTech agencies, consultants, and overall social media agencies.“
In the midst of it all, she tried to never work more than 40 hours a week and she questioned the necessity when she saw any team member working on the weekends or late at night. To make her feel better, the team member would have to assure her that it was their choice to have a flexible schedule. Most of the senior team at LCG has worked in organizations where they got lost in the brand and defined themselves with their work. They burned out and vowed to never to do that again. This value permeates through all of LCG’s decisions, priorities, and workload.
LCG Team Journey
Our team is actually much larger than the 5 voices you’ll hear in this episode- so many incredible people have been a huge part of our journey along the way. For full bios of our team members, check out our team page.
Porter Palmer, Director of Joy
When Elana was working at Edutopia, Porter was in a parallel position at Discovery Education, building the DEN community. Elana and Porter serendipitously both left those organizations almost at the same time. Funny enough, during their roles they actually had an exploration call where they talked about the power of community. They laugh about this to this day.
While Elana was working on her MBA, Porter took off on a 2-year journey traveling the country in her RV, seeing national parks. Porter toyed with the idea of returning to the workforce. And around the same time, their mutual friend, Steve Dembo, who also helped run the DEN community, ran into Elana at ISTE. Elana mentioned a project that she was starting to build a team for, and Steve recommended she call Porter. If you’re interested, Porter discusses their meeting more in the first episode of our podcast. It involves a blueberry field and both of them admitting that they could both use a Pinterest refresher.
Porter says, “I’ve learned so much. I love our collaboration together. I love the clients that we get to work with because they make a lot of impact in our world. I just believe that it was fate for me to find Elana and for us to be able to do this work together.”
Anna Fields, Project Manager
While reflecting on her career and work at LCG, Anna said, “I think what gets us through it most of the time is that we believe in the end result of what we’re doing. We believe in the cause. That’s why I switched from the various industries I was working in, to zero in and focus on education and educators. Because I know that out of any industry in the world, they have the biggest impact on changing the future for the better.”
That passion is why Anna chose to come to Leoni Consulting Group to begin with. After taking time off to spend with her daughter, she says she “needed to use that other part of my brain again,” and was so happy that it was towards a cause that she believed in. “It’s allowed me to volunteer 8 to 10 hours a week at my daughters’ schools and be present for that, while also being a part of this wonderful organization that’s doing things that I really believe in.”
Anna summarized, “For me, it was just amazing timing. It all just fell into place perfectly.”
Jen Gibson, People + Ops
Jen knew LCG and Elana from EdTech events and found her to be a thought leader in the community. They became friends over the years and that led to her joining the team as Opps and People support in December 2020. It started out as a temporary project to help support with new growth of the organization. She loved working with such a fantastic team that cares about each other and education as a whole. Jen adds, "It is a bonus that everyone is brilliant at what they do!"
As Jen describes, "The culture and mission of LCG is one that is truly inspiring. Needless to say what was supposed to be a short-term project has evolved into so much more. It is a true honor to be part of the LCG team and the awesome clients we serve."
Emelina Minero, Community Manager
While Elana was working at Edutopia, she frequently collaborated with Emelina on social media and community projects, who was working as a member of the editorial team at the time. Although she had no formal community experience, Elana always considered Emelina a natural community builder. A few months ago when Emelina was looking to expand in new directions, she was offered a community manager role at LCG and really thrives in this role.
Emelina describes, “LCG creates an environment where you can come as you are, and feel supported and encouraged. People on the team see and acknowledge your efforts and the value you contribute. It’s a really wonderful company to be a part of.”
Ariella Hayden, Social Media Associate
Ariella started last April (2021) at LCG as an intern. She was approaching her college graduation college and was so determined to be fully employed when she did. That’s when she found LCG and started as an intern. She asked, "do you think I could become fully employed?" As the team was growing slowly, she was told it was a maybe.
As Ariella tells, “I just found that I was in this environment where I got to do what I love, which is social media. And I was working with people who I loved to work with. It was such a collaborative and supportive environment. I always felt like, 'I'm happy here. I going to wait it out. I'm going to keep doing what I love to do. We’re going to see what comes of it.' Look where we are now. Now, I'm fully employed, so everything worked out, and I'm really glad that I stayed.”
Jordan Moldenhauer, Content Marketing Associate
After college graduation, Jordan had no idea what she wanted to do next. She was connected to the LCG summer intern job application by a freelancing client, the Hyperdoc Project, who spoke highly of Elana and her team. Over time, the team helped guide Jordan to her interests in content marketing. “At the beginning of my internship, I was able to try so many different things, and over time have focused myself through LCG.”
Jordan reflects, “LCG has been a really supportive learning environment for me to figure out who I am in a professional environment, and what I want to do in my career, with people who value mission, impact, work-life balance above everything else. I definitely do not take those things for granted, and I don’t think you get them at every company, especially at your first ‘real’ job.”
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
LCG: What We Offer
LCG: Who We Work With
Get in touch with the team:
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
For more about team LCG, check out our team page.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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