Jenn Kjellman was born to be an entrepreneur.
Her grandparents ran their own businesses.
In 2019 she took her marketing background and started JSK Marketing.
She is president of the agency, and her husband, James, is the company’s chief strategy officer and partner.
The full-service marketing company specializes in strategy, digital marketing and providing creative content.
The agency has more than 100 clients in 20 states.
Kjellman’s first job out of college was in Chick-fil-A corporate in Atlanta working in marketing and later she did agency work. A marketing job with Dream Finders Homes brought her to Jacksonville.
Today, Kjellman, 35, is the mother of a 3 1/2-year-old and 9-month-old twins.
She had to be persuaded that James was a good fit for her team when he joined JSK in 2023.
“He had been trying to convince me for a few years to let him come on board,” she said.
“I said, let’s go back and talk to the team, because we really put an emphasis on culture. And so I didn’t want them to be like, the culture is going to be different, because Jenn’s husband is on the team.”
He traveled often in his former health care IT job and was missing big events in their child’s life.
“So we talked to them, and they were like, it’s only weird to you. They figured this was coming at some point.”
There aren’t a lot of rules about talking shop while at home, but she did make one steadfast rule.
“There’s a lot of times we get up in the middle of the night and feed someone, and he loves to ask a good question about business in the middle of the night. And I’m like, this is not the time, so I’ve made a rule that, in the middle of the night, you cannot ask me questions about the business.”
When Kjellman decided to go out on her own she found she had a ready-made client base working with people in the real estate and building trades.
They knew her and she was familiar with their businesses and their marketing needs. She also made a point to become involved in the JAX Chamber.
“I was very lucky that the minute I announced that this is what I was doing the floodgates opened. I had been really involved with NEFBA. I had a lot of great relationships there. And so once it was official, just several people within that space that knew me kind of jumped on and trusted us to bring their brands to life,” she said.
Beside builders at the Northeast Florida Builders Association, the company has health care clients.
Kjellman enjoys working in Jacksonville because of word-of-mouth networking.
“Jacksonville is definitely a town of referrals and getting to know people and relationships,” she said.
“We tell even our clients all the time, we’ll never replace referrals. I don’t think referrals are going anywhere anytime soon in Jacksonville, especially when it comes to a professional service type business.”
Kjellman has five employees. Initially, she could do all the work herself but as her business and family grew, she knew she needed help.
“The big push to hire our first employee was when I was pregnant with my son, and knowing I needed someone who could be my right hand because life is going to look a little bit different,” she said.
That’s where referrals work in another direction.
“It’s not the best use of my time to be doing someone’s social media campaign. I can still be behind the scenes in strategy, but there are people that love social media and are going to do a better job.”
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