Carey Earle was recently promoted to AVP for Branding. So we decided to ask her a few questions about the initiative — and herself.
Q. You’ve recently taken on a role heading up a new branding team. What’s the goal behind the team?
A. We want to amplify our brand and increase engagement on every front – from employees to our buying and selling customers — both current and future. We want to empower each of them to build the brand with us and share our message.
Q. What in your mind are the three strongest aspects of the National Life brand and how will you leverage them in the work you’ve just started?
A. #1 Authenticity #2 Our Values #3 People who live those values. Our brand is authentic because our employees and our agents have embraced our values of Do Good. Be Good. Make Good. We have a great brand story…we just need to work on telling it to more people in unique and targeted ways that expand our reach.
Q. What do you consider the best brand in the marketplace, why, and what can National Life do to emulate that brand?
A. Alexa and I are close – really close. She really knows me and understands me. We have conversations about music, the weather, my horoscope…I confess that I do have a love affair with Amazon (and now Alexa). I can’t imagine living on my dirt road in Eden, VT without Amazon Prime. I admire their ability to think in the future, to use customer data and behavior to deepen relationships…and to learn from their failures. They have failed a lot – but many of those failures made the home-runs possible.
Q. What brought you to National Life and what roles have you played during that time?
A. My family brought me back to VT. I spent 20 years in Manhattan, and I wanted to spend the second half of my career being closer to my family in VT. Like many people who were in NY during 9/11, that day really changed my trajectory. It was an opportunity to re-boot and re-focus on what matters most to me. At National Life, I’ve been one-part marketing chameleon and two-parts brand evangelist. I’ve worn many different hats in marketing: from incentives and marketing and branding training to the Women’s Insight Network, and working on the conference team to develop and produce President’s Club and Conference of Champions. I can’t forget the dance moves…I love to weave dance moves into business content. I’m a fan of business unusual.
Q. We know you’re on the board of River Arts in Morrisville, a community arts organization that bills itself as a place for “people of all ages, backgrounds and talents to explore their creativity.” What’s your creative outlet?
A. I love the written and spoken word, and I love writing short stories and poems. I often write poems for family and friends as gifts. I recently wrote a poem for my sister that I turned into wall art for her new home. I love to dance in my farmhouse while cleaning. Think Robin Williams vacuuming in Mrs. Doubtfire…I do that!
Q. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with absolutely no preparation?
A. Personal branding and wine. (I took a wine course at the UC Sacramento for one month…pure heaven!)
Q. Tell us three interesting facts about yourself.
A. I have a 425-page draft of a coming of age novel that I completed, but then didn’t like what I had written. I have delivered four eulogies (so far.) I do a mean Johnny Cash when it comes to karaoke – Folsom Prison Blues.
Q. Who is your role model and why?
A. Maya Angelou. I read all seven of her autobiographies and what inspired me about her was that she treated every part of her life as poetry and art – creating from it all, learning from it all. No matter what hat she was wearing…as an activist or a writer or a leader, she was also lifting her voice and sharing her experiences. I want to be her when I grow up – even in the smallest way.
Q. What would surprise your coworkers most to know about you?
A. This is me with a filter on – channeling a Zen master who is most likely off the Zen wagon trying to get back on.
Q. What is the one thing that you are looking forward to?
A. I look forward to aging with a fiery spirit, and continuing the love affair with my farmhouse that is an ongoing labor of reinvention, and passion for capturing family memories and history.
Photo at top: Carey, far left, takes a selfie with her Mom, Uncle Harold and Emma, her neighbors.