From Executive Secretary to Publicist
Makes four times her old income
Success strategy: "I'm not afraid of cold-calling. I don't fear rejection."
Carrol Van Stone, 50, of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, was an executive secretary for nearly two decades, but her passion was tracking the news. Sometimes she'd even take a sick day so she could watch breaking news on TV. Still, she was the opposite of a bad employee: She'd often notice how current events tied in with what her bosses were working on, and she began coming up with creative ways to generate press for them. In other words, she was thinking like a publicist.
Once, when Van Stone worked for a nonprofit think tank and the news was filled with stories about troubled schools, she pitched her boss to the local TV and radio shows as an expert they could interview. Van Stone's success at winning him visibility made her realize that she was "maxed out as a secretary" and could be earning much more money as a publicist.
At 41, Van Stone revamped her resume and aimed for a PR job. Calling herself an executive secretary/scheduler ("Being a scheduler means your external contacts are significant," she says), she moved her publicity achievements to the top of the job description. "Even though it was the smallest part of my 20 years of experience," she says, "it was the most important part for the transition." Then she applied to a one-man firm that could only afford to hire someone trying to break in. It was a perfect match. When she became so successful that her boss couldn't continue to pay her bonuses, she found a position with a company that allowed her to take on freelance contracts. In 2002, she went entirely freelance. Her reinvention took all of two years.
Van Stone believes the shrewdness she developed as an executive secretary helped her market herself. She lands clients at networking meetings, through Craigslist, from referrals, and by plain old cold-calling. "I'm not afraid of picking up the Yellow Pages and just phoning people," she says, "and I don't fear rejection."
In 2008, she made over $200,000, more than four times her executive secretary salary. This year, she expects to do even better. "I'm flexible and a bargain compared with a full-service PR firm," she says. "Money doesn't buy happiness, but it allows you to go out and buy a Cadillac, so you can drive around and look for happiness."
