Rachel Ballatori witnessed what makes brands soar and where they have to settle in both advertising and media, then she set out on her own to build a better way, she launched Mill + Co., a woman-owned and majority woman-operated team of lean strategists and creatives that work hand-in-hand to help brands tell their story in the right place and right way. Rachel was named one of Baltimore’s Finest 35 Under 35.
FWM: You are a successful entrepreneur. What drives you?
My family. Both of my parents achieved incredibly successful, self-made careers. My mother is a private practicing orthopedic surgeon, and my father was a world-renowned Researcher and Graduate Professor. Raised in families with no financial support but an incredible amount of love, both of my parents earned their own way into college and several rounds of post-graduate education. In a way, I have always been surrounded by entrepreneurial-spirited people. My father’s family of 6 came over to the United States from Italy with $500 to their name and speaking zero English. My relatives grow their own vegetables, hunt their own meat, make their own wine, bread, prosciutto, and pasta (hence the need for a Peloton membership). I was taught from a young age that if I couldn’t find a path, to pave my own. And that continues to drive me today with my company, Mill + Co.
FWM: Tell us about Mill + Co which is a woman-owned and majority woman-operated team.
In the spirit of paving my own path, Mill + Co. was born from the idea of simplicity. To date, brands that want marketing support have three choices: work with big, expensive, traditional agencies, source, interview and manage multiple one-off contractors, or interview, hire, build and train an in-house team. There wasn’t an immediate solution that provided brands with advertising support across all capabilities that they need, at a budget they can afford, while simultaneously supporting talented, independent contractors, and small business owners. Thus, the idea for Mill + Co. was born: we are an advertising collective, a team of 150 women and men across the US, covering all capabilities of advertising from strategy, creative ideation, content production, execution, management, and analytics. A hand-picked, curated team of trusted, vetted talent, built for any client’s brand, need, and budget.
As a woman-owned business, I feel a responsibility to not just state verbal support of women, but to encourage, empower, enable, work with and work for women. Truthfully, it is by chance that our roster is mostly female – but that didn’t surprise me. The roster, built from talent I know and trust and people with one degree of separation from me, formed itself into a majority-female powered engine. Individuals who share the same mindset as I do, that it is best to wear multiple hats and wear them well, and that simplicity and a good partnership trumps all.
FWM: What strengths do you bring every day to your company?
Humor: if I don’t laugh, or make a client or a member of my roster laugh at least a few times a day, then it hasn’t been a successful day for me. Life is tough sometimes, and there’s no need to take ourselves so seriously all the time.
Perspective: while I am young, I certainly have experienced my fair share of perspective. Losing my father at 20 years old to cancer and all of my grandparents by 23 years old, I was thrust into adulthood and a more poignant view of the world earlier than most. I love saying to those around me, “There’s no heart in the cooler”, meaning, we’re not in the business of saving lives, we’re in the business of spreading messaging into the world. Keeping perspective is a very important part of my daily routine as a business owner.
FWM: How important is storytelling for branding?
I ask all of my clients: would you build a house without a blueprint? The answer should be, never. The bones of the house, the structure, the space, that’s the story. The house itself is built around the foundation. A brand can have endless bells and whistles on the exterior, but the interior story powering the brand, the origin, that’s what matters.
Stories can (and should) be told across many mediums. And we pride ourselves on identifying the most important mediums for each of our clients, which includes building message-driven photo and video content for a cold brew coffee brand that armed their sales team with effective marketing materials, developing strategic content buckets to inform social media efforts for a staple NYC cafe and bakery, rebuilding an optimized website for a national co-working space to better communicate their purpose, or getting in on the ground level with key stakeholders for a wealth management firm looking to establish a new brand identity and positioning.
FWM: What will people notice about working with you?
Transparency, an unparalleled worth ethic, and relatability. I’ve worked at traditional agencies and experienced first-hand how client-agency and agency-agency relationships are. With any client we work with, regardless of the budget, the project or the duration, our goal is to make them feel like we are truly an extension of their team, in the trenches with them, and collaborating to treat their money as our own. We don’t have any overhead or an expensive office, we don’t have industrial coffee makers or seat unnecessary numbers of people around the table. We’re nimble, honest, humble, and passionate.
FWM: You were named one of Baltimore’s Finest 35 Under 35. What did this mean to you?
I was in my early twenties, fresh out of college when I was named one of Baltimore’s Finest 35 Under 35, nominated by some amazing people for my contributions to the Baltimore community through the non-profit organization I founded in memory of my father, called the Stick it to Sarcoma Foundation, donating funds to the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Sarcoma Research Group. I started this Foundation as a coping mechanism for being far away from home while my father was battling cancer, an outlet to channel positive energy into something that could benefit others, and as an event that could motivate my father to keep fighting. He was only able to attend one event in 2011, the first event the Foundation ever hosted, before he passed away on Christmas morning in 2011. So it’s difficult to put into words what this nomination meant to me and continues to mean to me, other than immensely grateful and humbled, and hopeful that by receiving this nomination, it helped spread further awareness of Sarcoma.
FWM: Share your upcoming projects/goals for the future.
In the short term, our most important goal has become to support brands during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has rocked our world to its very core, doors have been closed permanently, people have been laid off, entire business models have shifted, and now more than ever, we are relying on our digital presence and footprint to engage with our consumers. I feel a responsibility to help brands identify their new normal, re-establish their hierarchy of priorities for their business, brand, and marketing efforts, and lay out a clear path forward in 2020 and beyond.
In the long term, I would love to establish Mill + Co. as a pioneer in the shift away from traditional advertising agencies. While those agencies will always have their place, it’s important for brands of all shapes and sizes to not only have accessibility to good advertising but to be educated on what they actually need, which is marketing driven by strategy, data, and purpose. Marketing and advertising are not just for the wealthy or the elite. Everyone is entitled to sound strategy, effective storytelling, and a trustworthy partner. My hope is that the Mill + Co. model becomes the “new normal” of strategy and storytelling for the future.
