About Taylor.

My experience in marketing has taken me from agency business development to consumer and franchise development marketing across multiple brands. Working with people whose expertise and priorities differ has shaped how I approach a project: understanding what needs to happen, explaining it clearly, and making sure the result is useful to the person who needs it.

Advertising and agency work

I studied marketing and management at Samford University and began my marketing career at Big Communications in Birmingham in March 2020. Within a week of my arrival, the agency moved to remote work. Learning a new role while the organization was adjusting meant asking questions, learning independently, and figuring out how to contribute.

In business development, I worked closely with the director of business development and the CEO on pursuing clients, developing proposals, and explaining how the agency could address a business problem. The role gave me exposure to creative, account management, public relations, social media, content, and web development, along with projects involving DoorDash, FedEx, Google Fiber, and state and regional organizations. It helped me understand the coordination behind a finished campaign and how different kinds of expertise contribute to the result.

Marketing in franchising

I joined United Franchise Group in 2022, initially working in marketing for Signarama. I supported franchise owners with local marketing, advertising, and growth while contributing to national initiatives and partnerships. Working directly with owners brought me closer to the businesses the marketing was meant to support. Their investments, employees, and customer relationships were tied to the outcome, so a completed deliverable had to make sense within the business.

I later moved into franchise development marketing across approximately eleven UFG brands. My responsibilities included websites, paid media, franchise portals and directories, content, outside vendors, budgets, strategy, and performance. Each brand had its own priorities and deadlines. Keeping the work connected to sales goals required deciding where attention was most useful, communicating those decisions, and finding processes that could work better.

My work with Black Optix Tint has brought that experience together with consumer marketing, franchise-owner support, and the opportunity to help develop an emerging automotive brand. It has included bringing in new marketing partners, negotiating better economics for owners, and supporting franchise expansion. Decisions about the broader brand have to work for the individual locations, too.

AI in practice

My interest in AI grew from a practical problem: there were worthwhile projects to pursue and processes to improve, but finite time and resources. I began using generative AI in 2022 and 2023 for writing, research, content, and developing ideas. That use expanded into websites, small applications, knowledge bases, competitive intelligence, video workflows, and agents that could advance separate parts of a project.

As I used the tools more, I became less interested in whether they could complete a task once and more interested in what they needed to do it reliably. Where should I review the result? What context was missing? How would it fit into the rest of the work? A demonstration could suggest a possibility, but using it against a deadline, a brand expectation, or an owner’s need revealed what it took to make that possibility useful. An unsuccessful attempt could still show me where a process broke.

I have also been exploring AI discovery: how brands appear in AI-generated answers, and how websites, original content, public relations, directories, and other third-party information may contribute. My interest includes both how AI changes the production of marketing work and how it changes the way people find information about businesses.

What I write about

I write about marketing, practical uses of AI, and how work is changing for individuals and small teams. The questions come from projects, processes, and relationships in my own work. Writing gives me a way to examine them beyond the immediate demands of a project, including how professional roles evolve and how organizations decide what to do with the time and resources new tools create.

Communication and judgment are recurring interests. Explaining what is needed affects how much useful work can be delegated, and expertise is still needed to recognize weak output or a missing piece. More output also creates new constraints. Several drafts or analyses help only if someone can give them adequate attention; review, prioritization, and coordination can become the harder parts of the process.

My experience in franchising keeps those questions connected to relationships. Owners need useful support and people they can rely on when something goes wrong. The ability to automate a step does not settle whether doing so creates a better experience for them. As the tools change, I want to keep examining where they help, what they require, and how individuals and organizations decide what to do with the capacity they create.