04/15/2026
grab your antacids...this one is spicy! advocacy in marketing is not a cute brand value you slap on your website between "strategy" and "storytelling" to make yourself sound like you give a s**t.
advocacy is reading the contract your client is about to sign and catching the clause that screws her. advocacy is getting on the phone with a man across the country who thinks he can mansplain his way out of accountability and staying on that line until he runs out of audacity.
there is an entire business model in this industry that is built on keeping small businesses confused and dependent. contracts designed to trap. domains registered under the company's name so there is always a leash. websites built on platforms the client can never access so every single update, no matter how small, becomes another invoice. and they get away with it because most small business owners trust the people they hire and have no reason to know they're being taken advantage of until it's already cost them thousands.
i am so fu***ng tired of watching women pour their savings into something they believe in and then find out the people they trusted never planned to let them fully own it.
your domain should be in your name. your website should be accessible to you at all times. your contract should be something a human being can actually read and understand. and if the person who built your digital presence set it up so you can't walk away without writing them another check, that was never a partnership. that was a trap with a logo on it.
if you can't log into your own website right now, look into it today. not next week. not when things slow down. today! and if you want the full story behind this post, including what happened when he questioned my experience and i dropped my voice low enough to make him stop talking, it's on substack. link in bio.
for these incredible images of me feeling like a badass!!!
