Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Toombs.
Hi Alexandra, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started in live music marketing — running campaigns for more than 300 events a year. It was high-volume, high-pressure work, and it built my instincts fast. When you’re marketing that many shows across that many audiences, you learn quickly what works and what doesn’t.
The turning point came when I took a four-week trip to Australia and New Zealand. I was living in Connecticut at the time, deep in the rhythm of venue marketing — shows to promote, deadlines to hit, the same geographic radius week after week. I rented a camper van and drove for weeks with no fixed agenda. Something shifted out there. The scale of the world, the diversity of people and landscapes, the sheer amount of beauty I hadn’t yet seen — it cracked something open in me. I had been building a career inside a very specific box, and suddenly the box felt completely arbitrary. Before I even set foot back in an airport to fly home, I knew my life wouldn’t look the same.
On the flight back to New York I was already sketching it out in my head. How do I detach from a physical location? How do I build something that travels with me? How do I take what I know about marketing and turn it into work I can do from anywhere?
When I landed, I incorporated Toombs Creative and started taking on clients. That was 2019.
A year later, I made the move to British Columbia. The landscape there — the mountains, the coast, the pace of life — reminded me of what had drawn me to New Zealand. I went by way of a study permit, enrolling in the MBA in Sustainable Innovation program at the University of Victoria. It was something deeply meaningful, not just a credential. The program changed how I think about growth, strategy, and what it means to build something that actually lasts.
While I was waiting for my study permit visa to come through, I moved into a camper van, traveled the States, and worked remotely. It was a preview of what was coming.
After completing the MBA, I made a series of big life changes. I ended a long-term relationship, bought another van, loaded up my dog Toby, and spent six months driving across North America solo. East Coast to West Coast, up into Canada, down to Mexico, and back again. I worked remotely the entire time. It was my version of Eat Pray Love — moving constantly, seeing everything, and figuring out who I was outside of everything I’d built my life around.
I landed in Port Townsend, Washington, and it felt like a homecoming even though I’d never been there before. I’ve lived here since.
Toombs Creative has grown through a distributed contractor network, serving clients across 30+ industries with proprietary frameworks built from the work itself. Alongside that, I’ve spent years in revenue development — leading major gifts campaigns, corporate sponsorships, and grant programs totaling more than $7 million raised, including the major gifts phase of a $2.3M capital campaign. I’ve also introduced AI tools inside nonprofits and arts organizations, navigating real resistance and driving long-lasting adoption.
Today I serve as CMO at GMTech, an AI software development company — operating at the C-suite level inside an AI company, not just as someone using the tools. And the project I’m most focused on right now is the platform version of Marketing Mapped Out, a program I ran live for seven cohorts with a 100% recommendation rate across nine-plus industries. Now I’m building the SaaS version — a self-guided, AI-powered experience that gives small business owners access to the kind of strategic thinking that used to require hiring an agency. It does the thinking with them, not for them. And automates the entire implementation process.
The thread through all of it — the music venues, the van, the MBA, the consultancy, the AI work — is the same. Figure out what actually works. Build systems around it. Do less, but do it better.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth is definitely not a word I would use to describe my experience…
It has been challenging, unpredictable, terrifying, exciting, fulfilling, and occasionally all of those things in the same week. There were stretches where I genuinely thought I had no options. Times I was scared to leave a full-time job, scared to fire a client, scared to pivot — and then pivoted anyway, and then pivoted again. I’ve lost count of how many iterations Toombs Creative has gone through, how many versions of my products and services have lived and died, how many times I thought about quitting.
There were periods where I had to step back, take on work that wasn’t the dream, and sit with the uncomfortable feeling that I had failed. What I know now, looking back, is that almost none of it was failure. Things fell away because they needed to. Opportunities showed up that felt undesirable or unplanned and turned out to open exactly the right door. The pivots I resisted the most were often the ones that moved me closest to what I actually wanted to build.
That journey is woven into everything I do. Marketing Mapped Out — the course I ran for seven cohorts that is now becoming a software platform — was built around the metaphor of a road trip for a reason. The map. The journey. The peaks and valleys. Parking up next to a body of water and just sitting with it. Getting lost. Throwing the map out the window and driving without a destination. That’s not just branding. That’s the actual experience of building something from nothing.
The road is wild. Sometimes it’s terrible. But deep down, I love it. And I think the people I work with can feel that — because I’ve lived every version of the uncertainty they’re sitting in, too.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Toombs Creative is a strategic marketing consultancy based in Port Townsend, Washington. I work with two distinct groups: small business owners who need clarity and a system they can actually follow, and mid-sized organizations — typically 10 to 75 people — that need senior marketing leadership without the overhead of a full-time hire.
What I specialize in is positioning. Getting clear on who you serve, what makes you different, and how to communicate it in a way that actually resonates. Most businesses I work with aren’t struggling for lack of effort. They’re operating without a strategic foundation underneath all that effort. That’s the specific problem I solve.
What sets me apart is that I don’t sell tactics. I don’t manage social media accounts or run ads. I build marketing strategy — the kind that gives a business or organization a clear direction their team can execute with confidence. Clients describe the experience as finally feeling understood. Like someone took the mess and confusion and turned it into something they can work with and feel good about.
The offering I’m most proud of is Marketing Mapped Out — a program I developed and ran live. It walks business owners through building a complete marketing system from scratch: clarity, branding, website, email, social media, analytics, and workflows. Nothing skipped. Everything documented and owned by the business owner herself.
Now I’m building the platform version — a self-guided, AI-powered experience that makes that same strategic process accessible at scale. An AI thought partner works through the thinking with the client, remembers everything they’ve confirmed, and carries that context forward through every module. It’s the closest thing to a marketing department most small business owners will ever have.
That’s what Toombs Creative is building toward. Not more noise. A real system. One that works without burning out busy and intentional business leaders.
What were you like growing up?
I was maybe a bit of a weirdo growing up — and I mean that in the best way.
I grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, a connected, middle-class suburb just outside Manhattan. It was a safe, privileged place to grow up and I’m genuinely grateful for that foundation. But inside that very conventional environment, I was doing my own thing. I spent a lot of time alone — wandering in the trails, building forts, playing with Barbies, perfectly content in my own company. Friendships didn’t come naturally to me. I wanted them, but the social ease that seemed to come so effortlessly to other kids just wasn’t my experience.
I wasn’t an academic kid either. School didn’t light me up, and college wasn’t something I was racing toward. My parents pushed me anyway, and I’m glad they did — though I wouldn’t have admitted that at the time.
What I can see now, looking back, is that two things were always true about me. I was deeply comfortable following my own path, even when it looked nothing like what everyone around me was doing. And I grew up in a community that gave me enough stability and safety to eventually take real risks. Those two things — the privileged foundation and the instinct to take the road less traveled — turned out to complement each other in ways I couldn’t have planned.
The kid who wandered the woods alone and didn’t quite fit in eventually built a career out of charting her own course. It tracks.
Pricing:
- MMO Founders Price $97
- MMO Regular Price $197
- 90 Min Strategy Session: $397
- Consulting Engagement Starts @ $12,000
Contact Info:
- Website: https://toombscreative.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/toombscreative
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toombscreative
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandratoombs/
- Other: https://marketingmappedout.com
