About Karen Porter 

Professional Marketing Bio

Karen Porter has enjoyed a professional career that has coupled over 20 years of extensive marketing experience, with a creative bent and entrepreneurial spirit that has always flourished within. Her career has taken her from teaching marketing and advertising at the univeristy level, to coaching hundreds of small business owners on marketing effectiveness, to owning her own advertising agency, and heading multi-million dollar marketing departments at Fortune 500 size organizations. She has also created her own products which are retailed and wholesaled across the United States.

During her years in academia, Karen taught advertising and marketing at The University of Montana. Among the numerous courses she taught were two short-courses she developed specifically to meet regional small business marketing and advertising needs. Her courses were often standing room only, and she received several teaching awards during her years at UM.  Her greatest accomplishment during that time was leading her team of advertising and marketing students to a first place win in a national advertising competition in which they pitched a multi-million dollar campaign to VISA. (Second place went to the University of California at Berkeley.)  She was also appointed to the American Advertising Federation’s national academic advisory board and was honored with an AAF Outstanding Advertising Educator Award.

For a period in the early 90's, Karen owned an advertising agency that served local and regional clients in the Pacific Northwest. Although she worked with clients large and small, her passion was in helping small businesses achieve their marketing goals with cost-effective budgets.

In 1993 she was offered the position of Director of Marketing for the Texas Lottery and she found herself transplanted to Austin, Texas.  In that position she oversaw all aspects of marketing the country's #1 lottery where she and her team were responsbile for increasing sales by 62% in a three year period.  In 1997, Karen moved back to her roots in education when she assumed the Director of National Marketing position for a corporation that owned 1400 child care centers and before- and after-school programs located throughout the U.S.

After exiting corporate America in 2003 followng a corporate acquisition, Karen spread her entrepreneurial wings once again. Parlaying a lifelong interest in arts, crafts and personal expression, she launched Scents of Decor, Inc. She opened a retail store and also began wholesaling a unique line of products. Scents of Decor, Inc. creates and markets a unique line of candles made of cosmetic-grade ingredients that become a warm moisturizing lotion when lit. Available in a variety of delectable scents, the clever Skinny Dip Candle^tm line is wholesaled to retailers, salons and spas across the U.S. The Skinny Dip lotion and massage candle is sold at retail on her website, www.SkinnyDipCandle.com.

While Karen has provided marketing consulting services throughout her career, the Shoestring Marketer^sm is a recent endeavor that allows her to assist small businesses with cost-effective consulting regardless of where they are located. As a consultant, speaker and marketing coach, Karen's passion is working with small businesses to help them effectively navigate the marketing maze and achieve measurable marketing results, even on a shoestring budget.

Can Karen Help You?