Julia Y. Huang
Intertrend Communications
Long Beach
BUSINESS: Advertising
Year Founded: 1991
EMPLOYEES: 80
2021 Revenue: $33 million
NOTABLE: Huang’s dream job, if not “the one I have now,” would have been a librarian.
Rank on List: 26
Words and images mean a lot to Julia Y. Huang, the chief executive officer of Long Beach-based creative agency Intertrend Communications, which she founded in 1991. They are, she knows, among the prime motivators of human beings.
And motivating people is what Intertrend does daily, whether it’s travelers choosing an airline, consumers looking for their next car, or savers and investors seeking a consumer banking partner. Her company creates successful advertising campaigns for businesses in those sectors and many others, and motivation is the keyword each and every time.
Huang, who is Taiwanese American, was raised in Taiwan and Japan, attended graduate school at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and worked in mergers and acquisitions in New York and Los Angeles before founding Intertrend. (She also heads Imprint, a business incubator that is part of the Intertrend family.)
The agency has won a multitude of industry awards, including the American Advertising Award and the Asian American Advertising Federation’s Gold Award for Creative Campaign of the Year.
Huang answered Business Journal questions via email to discuss owning her own company and being a woman in business.
Question: What prompted you to go out on your own and become a business owner?
Answer: My journey into entrepreneurship was more accidental than intentional.
About 31 years ago I was working for a management consulting firm, and one of our clients was establishing a mergers and acquisition company in Los Angeles and recruited me to be a part of their strategic planning group. While consulting for the mergers and acquisitions company, I was having a social dinner with an airline executive and his lawyer. The executive had purchased a lucrative route from Pan Am, which then had the best American-owned airline route to Asia.
This executive was bemusing the fact that their company didn’t have a lot of Asian passengers. I decided to tell him that their advertising to the Asian demographic was ineffective. I said, “How could you attract more Asian passengers if you aren’t even talking to them?”
Three weeks later, the CMO of this airline company called me to say, “I heard that you had a point of view on our advertising. Would you be able to help us fix it?” He thought my remarks meant that I had an advertising background and worked for an ad agency, which were both untrue.
I told my boss about the mix-up, and he responded, “Well, why not?” We then created an advertising unit within our company, putting together a team of three people to make up our new division. That’s how we pitched and won the business without an actual advertising agency.
I was lucky that a great opportunity presented itself; I grabbed it and ran with it.
In your experience, has being a woman helped you more or hurt you more in starting or operating your business?
I can’t speak for all female entrepreneurs or female businesses, but I’ve never had the time to stop and think about how being a female business owner was a benefit or a disadvantage. When you are building a business, moving at 100 miles per hour, you don’t stop and ask, “How can I take advantage of being a woman?”
Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs no matter what their gender. It’s a mindset that puts fear aside and focuses on forging a path. I know society likes to break business owners into categories of entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurs, but building a business takes the same drive, determination, and hard work from both men and women, so it was never something I thought about.
That is why this question has always stumped me a little bit. I know how important it is to share my experience as a female and as an entrepreneur, but I never really focused on being a female entrepreneur and what that may mean. I was always just an entrepreneur; it didn’t have anything to do with my gender. I am certainly proud of all the female entrepreneurs out there and I encourage them to keep knocking down doors!
What’s been the biggest challenge to you in your business? Conversely, what’s been the biggest reward?
The answer to both of those questions is: people. A large part of building a business is engaging with people, whether that is your employees, vendors, potential clients, or channel partners. It has always been a challenge in some ways for me. Not because it is difficult, but because you must be very thoughtful in how you engage and create and maintain those relationships internally and externally. That introspective way of thinking is challenging, and I am constantly thinking about and trying to find ways to improve that engagement. Those relationships are at the core of a successful business, and you must continuously maintain and strengthen them, or your business will falter. Relationships are your most valuable assets. The flip side is you get the opportunity to work with the best people in each space, in each industry, and learn from them, partner with them, and engage with them daily. It’s rewarding and indeed the most remarkable part of being an entrepreneur.
What’s your assessment regarding the likelihood of the US economy entering a recession? And what are you doing to prepare for such an occurrence?
With all due respect to the economists, it often feels like we are already in a recession, even without the official announcement from the Treasury. But what alarms me the most this time is how the pendulum has swung in a much shorter period. One minute Wall Street is going gangbusters, and the next we see broad-based weakness in the economy. The rapid fluctuations have me more alarmed than an actual prediction of whether we are in a recession.
As an advertising agency, we are always in a recession simulation plan. For the past 30 years that we have been in business, there has not been a year in which we haven’t been preparing ourselves for some type of recession, even if it’s a minimal market pullback. To maintain stability, you must make sure you have healthy cash flow and that there is a cash reserve. Business stability isn’t the only reason you want to maintain cash flow and reserves; it also allows you to take advantage of any opportunities that may arise during tumultuous times.
According to historical evidence and a recent Harvard Business Review article, companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it. Many company executives should consider that if they cut their marketing spend, they’ll end up with a reduced sales pipeline, making recovery even more difficult.
What advice would you give a woman who wanted to start and run her own business?
The most significant piece of advice that I can give any entrepreneur would be to trust your gut, trust your instincts and be confident in doing so. Don’t be afraid that you may have to pivot or change your mind. Just run with your intuition and surround yourself with the best people. I would give this advice to any man or woman, but one advantage that, anecdotally, women seem to have in this area is that they tend to have these gut feelings and follow them more often than men do.
I believe following your gut or instincts has, to some degree, been trained out of us. As Americans, and especially in corporate America within the management world, there isn’t a lot of emphasis or value put on gut feeling and instinct because it’s not supported by data. But your instincts and those gut feelings are powerful assets.
So many people just leaving college or looking to change their career are hesitant to start a business, but it doesn’t matter if you are just beginning or age 60. If you have a passion for running a business, just do it. Take the necessary steps and ensure you have the proper runway; meaning don’t sell your house to start your business, but have a Plan B and a Plan C – be prepared to pivot at all times.
As part of Intertrend, we also have a complementary business unit called Intertrend Imprint Lab, which supports integrated projects geared towards accelerating experiences, spotlighting discoveries, and improving communities. The Lab functions as the vehicle that contributes toward the company’s goal of contributing to the well-being of society and the communities we affect and on which we depend. It also gives me a lot of opportunities to speak with those looking to fund their business.
Right now, there are a lot of women looking to start businesses – a lot more than there were when we first started the Lab. The first thing I tell potential business owners, and this again would be the same for any entrepreneur no matter their gender, is not to take money from outside sources in the beginning, but do the best you can in terms of stretching and sustaining until you have a foundation, because taking other people’s money means that you will be beholden to their objectives.
Sometimes — not always — that outside interjection can sway you a little from why you wanted to start your business in the
first place.
If you could turn back time, what would you do differently regarding your business?
If I could turn back time, I would give myself the same advice that I give to others – follow your gut and feel confident in what your instincts are telling you. That is the one thing I would do differently if I were starting my business today; I would be more confident in what I felt was the right thing to do and then move forward. Like many business owners, I’ve spent too much time second-guessing myself, keeping me from moving forward as quickly as possible. I’ve learned that life is too short. Don’t waste it worrying.
– James Brock
