Today we’d like to introduce you to Sherri Roberts.
Sherri, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
For the past nine years, I’ve worked as a marketing director for one of the top plastic surgeons in the world. On the side, I began helping friends and business owners with their marketing: advising them with their branding, producing videos and writing content for their websites and social media. I was surprised to discover that people seemed to be most intrigued and inspired by my own story more than anything else I wrote about.
The short version of it is this: Within two weeks of graduating from Texas A&M with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a marketing minor, I met a man whom I married less than a year later when I was 22. By age 35, I had six children (yes, I gave birth to them all) whom I homeschooled. Fast forward 22 years later: I divorced and found myself forging a new identity as a single woman in the city, working in Houston’s highly-competitive plastic surgery scene planning and executing marketing strategies. In addition, at age 50, I began modeling.
While having dinner with my brother Jason one evening and discussing my vision to create a health and wellness blog, I remarked to him how different my life had turned out than I had expected. When I became newly single again in my 40s, I was surprised that men a decade or two younger than me were regularly asking me out. Reflecting about that time and my dramatic life change, I jokingly remarked that I became “An Unintentional Cougar.” Jason encouraged me to share my story, pointing out that it was far more riveting than the topics I was toying with pursuing for my blog. While I had always kept the subject of my pre-career life tightly locked away, sharing details of it with only a few of my closest friends, my intuition told me my brother was right. I trademarked the name, “The Unintentional Cougar,” which became the name of my company.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Making the decision to leave my economically-comfortable life as a married woman, starting a new chapter and building my career, was one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever faced. When I first sought out my current job position, I was competing with hordes of women who had just graduated from college. I felt like an extreme underdog! What happened was this: the plastic surgery group’s hiring manager narrowed the candidates he interviewed for the job down to three, of which I was one. Then came the final phase. The manager brought each candidate in to write about a topic he assigned us for the purpose to test our writing skills. A week later, I received a phone call from him announcing he and the surgeons had chosen me for the position! That moment was a turning point in my life, one that marked the beginning of a still-unfolding adventure ahead.
While initially, I primarily wrote content for the surgeons’ websites and produced the newsletter they mailed to patients, my role expanded to include social media and video production. I was constantly pushing myself to learn new skills in the ever-changing world of marketing. New technologies and platforms are constantly emerging. It requires a combination of creativity, instinct, technical expertise, and strategic analysis to do it successfully.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Patronella Plastic Surgery – what should we know?
My focus is helping individuals with branding and promoting their businesses through social media, video and content writing. I feel my greatest strengths are my creativity in the way I think and my ability to see a person’s unique attributes and gifts. I’m then able to envision strategies to effectively showcase people and their products in a way that captivates an audience.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
“The Unintentional Cougar” almost always evokes fascination and curiosity when people hear the name. It reflects the soul of what drives me. The most essential quality of this, what I strive to lean into, is courage. I had a fire inside me to reinvent my life–taking small steps toward that which excites me physically, mentally and spiritually. It requires courage to put yourself and your endeavors out there and move toward your dreams–whether that be building a business, learning a new skill or achieving a personal goal.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theunintentionalcougar.com
- Instagram: sroberts_red
- Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/ theunintentionalcougar/ - Email: sroberts.cor@gmail.com
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