Miri Rossitto is founder and chief executive of Calabasas-based marketing and brand development COWE Communications, which stands for Community of Working Entrepreneurs. Starting in 2015 with a focus on business consulting for women-owned businesses, Rossitto and her team of 10 have expanded COWE to offer services like copywriting, graphic design and public relations.
In her role as chief executive, Rossitto has navigated the industry without a college degree, using her previous experience and love for her job as a driving force to push COWE into what it has become today.
What are the hurdles you faced building COWE?
I would say that the two biggest hurdles I have faced would be capitalizing my business making sure that there is enough money for both operating the business and paying all my people great wages and then having enough left over to pay for myself. I would also say that the biggest challenge for me, that I was not really prepared for, was how important building a team was going to be. When people think about running and owning a business, they’re very much focused on their customers, clients and their audience. For me, I was taken aback by how much I really understood through time that having the best team was really the best way to serve my clients and so it really threw a monkey wrench in there that I wasn’t really prepared for.
What’s the best part of having a team like yours?
When I started my company, I really thought that there was something wrong with me and that I was just going to work as a lone wolf. I think that when I initially started hiring, it was based on skill set, so I didn’t want a “jack of all trades master of none,” I was actually looking for masters of their craft. Over the years building the team this way, the team has an appreciation for everybody else’s talent. When we’re working with clients the output and the results of what we do is so delightful. My favorite part of the team is that we push each other, we challenge each other. There’s nothing that we could do on our own that would be near the impact that we do together.
What have you enjoyed the most about owning your business?
There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t delight in the fact that when I started this business, everybody told me, ‘That’s crazy it’ll never work.’ Now 10 years later, I have 12 employees, and we’re working on some really phenomenal projects. There’s not a day that I don’t pinch myself.
How do you feel that your failures or mistakes have helped you grow not only as a business but as a person as well?
I am a huge proponent of failing. There are a lot of people that spend a lot of time and money doing what they can to avoid mistakes. There’s really no straight path to a solution so failing means you’re getting there faster and you’re also eliminating the wrong ways to get there. I don’t look at them as mistakes, I look at them as part of the journey and not being so consumed with what other people think about what I’m doing. At the end of the day, if I’ve done right by the client, if I’ve done right by the team and if I’ve done right by doing everything that I can, then I can sleep at night.
How have you seen the industry change?
Everything is far less siloed. I think back in the day you would have (a) marketing department, copywriting department, PR department, all of these kinds of services and now everything kind of bleeds into each other. People talking about the brand is what we wanted to be, now they’re less department driven and they’re a little bit more holistic in terms of everybody should be on the same page. I know people are going to probably answer AI, and while I think AI can be both a curse and a blessing, I think it’s forcing more and more people to have conversations around where we can do better, be better and build more of a human connectedness into what we’re doing.
