Laurel Mintz, the CEO and founder of Elevate My Brand, is a badass businesswoman who got her start as a corporate attorney. Her company is a full-service marketing agency based out of Los Angeles. They work with companies on their digital strategy, which includes web content, social advertising, and creative 
advertising. Mintz also hopes to inspire and lift up other women, and has some fantastic advice for aspiring businesswomen.
NYMM: With what type of companies does Elevate My Brand work?
LM: We work everything from small startups doing their initial branding, messaging, and content builds all the way up to enterprise scale companies like Verizon and everything in between. I’d say our sweet spot is more middle market and we really love working with CPG brands, food and beverage clients, fashion retail, skin care. We even have a really interesting niche in the toy market right now.
NYMM: What is your role in the company?
LM: My role in the company is to inspire my team. As the CEO, I am responsible for a majority of the business development, so I bring in all of the clients. But, really my team is what makes the business thrive and what has allowed us to see a double digit, exponential increase in business year over year for the last eight years. So my role is to be an evangelist for our clients and a cheerleader for my team.
NYMM: What got you involved with the marketing world?
LM: I am a corporate attorney and I was at a big firm in San Francisco, but my dad got sick so I had to come back to LA and take over his business. I took over his business for about three years while he went through chemo and surgery.
Luckily, he survived and stepped back in and I started going after those big firm jobs again. I had a visceral reaction to those great six figure offers and, to me, it was just really clear that this was not my path anymore. So, I thought, “You know what? I am just going to take a breath, put my skill set out into the universe, and see what comes back to me.”
My very first client was a woman named Julie Hewett, an A-list celebrity makeup artist, who was trying to 
raise some money to launch her own makeup line. She hired me to do a business plan marketing model
for the fundraising that she actually did receive.
It was like a light bulb went off. I realized that I had such a valuable skill set and could do contracts, trademarks, marketing models, create social platforms, and develop content. All of these skills really were what a full service agency did and plus some because I had all the legal background.
So, I basically woke up after that experience and realized, “Okay, this is my business. This is what I am going to do for the rest of my life because it is something that gets me excited and gets me out of bed.” And, that was when Elevate My Brand was officially born.
NYMM: What advice would you give an aspiring businesswoman?
LM: I guess the advice that I would have wanted was to just leap and do it. To me, it happened very organically and grew out of something that could have been the most devastating thing in my life but instead something amazing sprouted. I thought that I had to go through all of the educational avenues that I went down to be in a place to run a business, but the truth is that I had this in me the whole time.
Now, I’m not saying that I would change my path for anything because I feel the skills that I have are invaluable but I think I would tell someone just leap. You are going to mess up, it’s going to be tough. Some days I want to cry, other days I want to celebrate. Some days I want to throw up, other days I want to have a cocktail. It is a big mixture of emotion, but I really think the biggest piece of advice I would give is to just do it.
There is no room for being timid in business. You have to take that flying cannon ball leap, but that also means you are going to belly flop and that’s okay too.
NYMM: You also have your own column, which is featured in Inc. Magazine where you write about various subjects like empowering women. Why is it important for you to empower others?
LM: My mom is a teacher and she is a real inspiration to me. I grew up with one sibling who is a sister and have always been surrounded by women, my whole life. Even our dogs were always female. My dad said that I came out of the womb with fire and I always had this kind of energy and fire inside of me.
I think that as I have gotten older, I realize that there is still very much a good old boys club and in order for me to be successful it can’t just be financial or building a big company, I have to give back to my community and the best way that I can do that is by focusing on servicing my fellow women. We do a lot of philanthropy work as an agency by giving back, by writing, by mentorship, by speaking out about it, and really just being a voice for female empowerment.
I feel like we all have to be there for each other, empowering each other, and lifting each other up. For a very long time, it was us versus them or if I have a slice of pie then you have less of a pie, but I have never had that mentality. I have always felt like there is enough for everyone. I am so fortunate to have what I have and I feel that empowering women is my way of giving back.
To learn more about Laurel Mintz or Elevate My Brand visit https://www.elevatemybrand.com/.
Title Image and First Body Image By Catherine Horne
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