Loud and Proud: A Personal Story of Personal Branding

At Ad4! Group, we’re all about stories. We help businesses and individuals alike create, shape, and/or share the stories that make them who they are … or who they want to be. Those stories are an integral piece of building a brand, whether that brand is for an organization or a single person. 

Another thing we do at Ad4! is practice what we preach. Even as we work closely with our clients to tell your stories, we know that our own team’s individual stories — our own personal brands — are important, too. Our brand and the work we’ve done are what make you trust our team to take your team to the next level. Our stories are the reason we’re who we are today.

One of a kind

The story that Felica Sparks, Ad4! Group’s founder and chief strategist, shares, and the personal brand she’s built, is inextricably intertwined with our agency. In fact, it’s even in our logo: a megaphone.

“‘Loud and proud,’” Felica says. “Whenever anyone asks how I’m doing, that’s always my answer.”

Raised in Guntersville, Alabama, Felica was “the loudest” in her family, on her cheerleading team, and well, everywhere else.

“In school, I covered up my inefficiencies with my mouth,” she laughs. “I was actually very unsure of myself and bashful, but I created the facade of an outgoing person.”

Being loud and proud became Felica’s personal brand, but it’s no longer a facade. She’s grown into her outgoing personality, boundless energy, and unending drive. Her personal brand has become her professional brand, as well.

Do what you love

Careers in banking, management, customer service, advertising, and entrepreneurship (her first business venture was building the neighborhood’s most successful lemonade stand at age 8) led Felica to create Ad4! Group. With every position or project, Felica picked up a lesson … or four. These lessons — these stories — formed the foundation for Ad4!.

“I wanted affordable development — an agency with a mentality that focused on ROI and what’s best for the client,” Felica says. “The ‘AD’ in ‘Ad4’ represents that affordable development, and the ‘4’ stands for our four initial business lines: graphics, websites, video, and media buying.”

We can assume that, like the megaphone, the exclamation point emphasizing the AD is another manifestation of Felica’s “loud and proud” personal and professional brand. If not, it should be!

Love what you do

Today, Felica and the Ad4! Group team relish the opportunity to help clients with branding. Like her own story, Felica’s process for building a business’ brand begins with understanding the principles’ personal brands. Through a series of seemingly-innocuous questions and good old intuition, she’s able to discern a lot about what makes you, you. Using those details and nuances, Felica and her team apply her branding expertise to put all the crucial pieces together into a cohesive picture. It’s fascinating, really.

If you haven’t met Felica, Hollie, Lindsey, or the rest of the folks on the Ad4! Team, there’s no better time than the present. And there’s no better way to kick off an amazing relationship with Ad4! than with a branding or rebranding project — personal or professional. If it’s time to reinvent yourself or refresh your business brand, reach out to Ad4!