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Jacque McHugh
Marketing, Sales & CX Professional - Promotional Products Distributor - Asana Certified Professional - Author - Artist
Professional Background
Jacque McHugh, known as the "Marketing Mama Bear," is a distinguished consultant, strategist, and advisor renowned for her expertise in marketing, business consulting, and corporate training. As the CEO of the innovative marketing agency Branding Bear, based in the vibrant region surrounding St. Louis, Missouri, Jacque has carved out a reputation as a thought leader in the industry. Her commitment to building meaningful connections within the human community through empathy, kindness, and a unique compass-driven approach resonates deeply in today’s fast-paced business landscape.
With decades of experience in marketing, sales, and executive leadership, Jacque offers a wealth of knowledge that guides her clients in navigating the complexities of modern branding and communication. She has a talent for developing bold strategies that promote organizational success while passionately advocating for inclusivity and equity. This philosophy is woven into the very fabric of Branding Bear, where the mission is not merely to promote businesses but to unite individuals around a common sense of purpose.
Jacque's approach is both refreshing and necessary in a world that often feels disconnected. By encouraging brands to reevaluate their strategies through a lens of empathy and kindness, she helps them create authentic connections with their audiences. She firmly believes in a strategy that aligns corporate goals with humanity, challenging companies to engage with their communities meaningfully, especially during these challenging times.
Education and Achievements
Jacque McHugh's strong foundation in marketing and public relations stems from her education at renowned institutions. She studied Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations at Webster University, further enhancing her knowledge base with additional studies in Political Science at Southeast Missouri State University. This diverse academic background provides her with a comprehensive perspective on effective communication and strategy development.
Her professional journey includes multiple influential roles in various organizations. As the Owner and CEO of Branding Bear LLC, Jacque has spearheaded initiatives that emphasize the importance of kindness and positive impact within the marketing realm. Beyond her own organization, she has served on advisory boards for various companies, offering insights that help them thrive and grow in competitive markets.
Notable Positions
Among her many accomplishments, Jacque served as an advisor for NüCure Naturals and held advisory board positions at VYZR Technologies and Vector Business Navigation. Her dedication to service extends to the nonprofit sector, where she has helped organizations such as Grace's Place, Peace Lutheran Church, and Camp Arcadia with strategic planning, board training, and fundraising efforts.
In her role as Development Director at 3dASAP Promotional Solutions and previously as Regional Sales Manager and eBusiness Manager at The Magnet Group, Jacque honed her skills in sales, marketing, and public relations, laying the groundwork for her visionary approach to business strategy.
Jacque's work has not only impacted businesses but has also advanced the missions of the nonprofits she has engaged with. Through her efforts, she has positively influenced community programs, demonstrating her belief that marketing can indeed be a force for good.
Areas of Expertise
Jacque's expansive knowledge includes business consulting, strategic planning, marketing, and the implementation of key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives and key results (OKRs). Her expertise also extends to areas crucial for modern businesses, including:
- Corporate Training: Her facilitation of team building, customer experience enhancements, and diversity and inclusion initiatives empowers organizations to foster positive environments that drive success.
- Digital Collaboration: As a certified collaboration technology consultant, she assists companies in integrating tools such as Asana, Slack, and G-Suite, ensuring that remote teams can collaborate effectively.
- Public Speaking: Jacque's speaking engagements cover a variety of topics, including branding, company culture, and social media best practices. Her engaging and energetic presentations inspire many to adopt a positive ethos in both their personal and professional lives.
- Nonprofit Consulting: Through her experience in fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and strategic board training, Jacque actively supports organizations striving to make a difference in their communities. Her passion for service propels her commitment to assist with policies and staff retention strategies that enhance their effectiveness.
A Vision for the Future
At the core of Jacque McHugh’s methodology is her belief in the transformative power of kindness, inclusivity, and empathy in marketing and leadership. She advocates for a future where marketing is used solely for good, a principle that aims to eliminate deceitful practices and prioritize human connections. Her vision encourages brands to take a stand and align their values with their actions, allowing them to not only thrive but to contribute positively to society.
As we continue to navigate the complexities of today's business landscape, Jacque McHugh remains a guiding light. Her innovative approach and unwavering optimism inspire countless entrepreneurs, leaders, and organizations. By redefining what it means to market a product or service, she invites everyone to evolve alongside her and to engage in building healthier and more connected communities.
Achievements
Jacque’s notable achievements include her establishment of Branding Bear, where her leadership has fostered a corporate culture that emphasizes the importance of values and empathy. Her impact extends to various organizations in both for-profit and nonprofit sectors, making her a beloved figure in community service and corporate responsibility.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
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Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
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