Powerhouse 2021 Year in Review
New Powerhouse Team Member
Crystal Toy is an ambitious and energetic Coast Guard veteran turned digital marketing specialist. She is a Coast Guard spouse and mom of two with several specialized college degrees, bringing over a decade of technical expertise to the Powerhouse lineup of independent contractors. Her robust career experience in learning and development, event coordination, and project management is a powerful addition to any team.
After transitioning out of the Coast Guard to support her husband’s active-duty career, she has remained committed to developing her multifaceted toolbelt by serving in several creative volunteer roles such as event coordinator, photographer, and social media manager. Fueled by her dedication to lifelong learning, and several professional certifications later, she has made an impressive pivot into the world of digital marketing, with specializations in project and social media management.
Crystal is a goal-oriented team player with a creative mind who thrives under pressure and is semper paratus (always ready) to roll up her sleeves and get the job done. In her free time, she enjoys traveling with her family, staying active outdoors, and seeking out the best Baja-style tacos wherever she ventures.
New Powerhouse Team Member
Beth Soto was born and raised in a small town near the north Georgia mountains. She attended North Georgia College and State University for two years before transferring to Lanier Technical College where she studied interior design and architectural drafting. She graduated in 2007 and worked in both residential and commercial construction as an architectural drafter, estimator, and project manager for 15 years. She is the current owner and lead designer of Coastal Peach Interiors in Melbourne, FL. Beth and her husband, Steve, returned to Melbourne after Steve’s military retirement in 2020 following his 22-year military career. They were married in 2013 and have a blended family of five children, Hunter, Chris, Emma, Savannah, and Dean. They enjoy traveling and making memories together as a family as well as playing board games and spending time by the pool.
Beth has admired the Powerhouse Planning team and their work for years. She is excited to join Powerhouse Planning as an architectural drafting and design consultant and is looking forward to being part of such an amazing group of people.
New Powerhouse Team Member
Nicole is a milspouse of over 12 years and mom of a daughter, Itahlee, and two Dobermans, Luther and Lexie. Along with a love of traveling and exploring the country, which has been easily done as a Coastie wife, Nicole enjoys creating memories with her family. She grew up in Pennsylvania, but throughout their Coast Guard career, she and her family have spent time in New England, Texas, NYC, and NorCal. Professionally, Nicole has a passion for business, leadership, achieving goals, supporting a positive people experience, and organization. (Yay for spreadsheets!)
Nicole earned her B.S. in accounting and her M.S. in organizational leadership with a focus in human resources. She brings a background in retail management, both big box and specialty, as well as in recruiting and training in early childhood education to the Powerhouse Planning team. Nicole views the challenges faced as a career-driven milspouse to be developmental opportunities and is grateful to put that experience and drive to work for her clients at Powerhouse!
New Powerhouse Team Member
Amy grew up in Macon, Georgia and attended the University of Georgia, graduating with a degree in education. She then pursued a Master of Education degree from Mercer University while teaching full-time in the public school system. After marrying her high school sweetheart, they began military life together, moving all around the world from North Carolina to Germany with countries in between. They have been married for over 20 years and have raised two children, both of whom are now adults. After Amy’s husband retired from the Marine Corps, they settled in Peachtree City, Georgia.
Amy joins Powerhouse Planning as a freelance project liaison. Between her teaching career and volunteer endeavors, Amy has worn a variety of job hats over the years. She worked many years as a full-time classroom teacher as well as a virtual ESL teacher. As many of the Powerhouse family know, military life brings many moves, deployments, and sometimes “single parenting” moments. Because of these circumstances, there were times over 26 years of military spouse life that Amy did not “work” but instead volunteered her time/talents. She volunteered in school settings as a classroom helper, reading tutor, and PTO board member. On the military side, Amy volunteered to organize and run several fundraising events for military-based clubs, as well as coordinate and advise families before and during deployments.
Amy believes that working as a project liaison will give her the opportunity to utilize skills/talents that she has developed from her previous positions. Amy’s instructional, organizational, problem-solving, and curriculum development skills have all been honed as a result of her teaching career and volunteer duties during military life. Amy enjoys working as part of a team and feels that she is at her best when she is helping others.
When Amy is not teaching or volunteering, you will find her lunching and shopping with friends, exercising, reading books, and vacationing with her family.
New Powerhouse Team Member
Anne Jeanene (AJ) McCoy Bengoa loves design, data, and working with a team of positive people. She is excited to begin a new journey of learning and growth with Powerhouse Planning, contributing however she can.
AJ grew up in Miami, Florida and moved to Washington, D.C. upon the completion of her undergraduate degrees. There she worked full time for a small business government contractor and pursued her first master’s degree. She then moved to Florida’s Space Coast to pursue post-graduate opportunities. There she met her amazing husband, a real-life rocket scientist who works for NASA, and they have been married for over 15 years. She has been busy raising their two kids, working part-time, and volunteering while enjoying the beauties and wonders of Central Florida’s waterways and all the joys of living where rocket launches may be common occurrences, yet are a marvel every time.
Never one to be idle, up until she had kids, AJ was almost always managing at least two jobs and volunteering on the side. Her life and career have been guided by her heart more than any goal, and she has constantly tried to embrace the many amazing opportunities that have come her way. Therefore, her experience is peppered with all sorts of jobs: graphic designer, teacher’s assistant, research scientist, dive master, and GIS specialist, just to name a few. Her two primary focuses have been science and design, but other interests and skills have managed to employ her as well during her life. These broad and diverse interests keep her happily engaged and learning all the time, as the pace of the career landscape is constantly changing.
AJ’s most recent degree was a master’s earned from the Geographic Information Science & Technology program at the University of Southern California. AJ has three additional degrees from the University of Miami and the University of Maryland, in marine science, biology, and graphic design, which allude to the dual careers she has maintained throughout her life. Over the years, she has worked for NOAA, University of Central Florida, NOVA Research Company, National Park Service, Disney’s Animal Programs, University of Miami, Brevard County Public Schools, the Florida Department of Health, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. She has been involved in all manner of graphic design; data collection, management, analysis, display, and distribution; as well as every aspect of publication, from literature reviews, writing, editing, and printing, with a particular focus on the visualization of data.
AJ loves camping, crafting, and any activity that involves water. AJ’s favorite place in the world is floating in an inner tube down one of Florida’s many spring-fed rivers, and scuba diving anywhere is a very close second.
A Few of Our Favorite Things
Have you ever checked out the Resource Library on our website? It is full of helpful, free resources that cover everything from small business start-up to coloring pages for your kiddos. We’re dedicated to providing resources that provide the most up-to-date information to help you make the best decisions possible for your careers, your life transitions, and more. Here are a few of our favorite resources.
We’re all about small businesses here at Powerhouse (being one ourselves, after all). Having been through the entire process herself, Powerhouse President Jessica Bertsch wants to do her part to make the process easier to navigate for others. So, if you’ve ever even thought about opening your own small business, you should check out these resources.
- Starting Your Small Business is exactly what it sounds like—a resource that will take you through the initial steps necessary to get your small business off the ground.
- Business Plan takes you through the process of setting up your own business plan to ensure you stay on the track you want.
- Branding Your Business introduces you to the basics of marketing your business.
- In-Office Team Building and Virtual Team Building are resources designed to help you build and maintain a strong, dynamic team whether your business have in-person employees or virtual ones.
- Business Refresh, Goal Brainstorming, and Spring-Clean Your Business will help you redirect your goals and discover what’s working and what needs a little tweak.
- Direct Sales is for all of you out there who are thinking of starting your own direct sales business. This resource even has tips for those of you who have been doing direct sales for a while.
- Need to attend or plan a conference? Check out our Conference Attendance Checklist to ensure you don’t forget or miss a thing.
- Nonprofits, do you need to start writing grants? Our Grant Library and Checklist for Grant Writers are exactly where you need to start.
Bonus resource: We even have a handy calendar of notable American holidays and military dates to help you plan your year.
Career and Life Transitions Resources
We all experience those times in life where we’re preparing for, or in the midst of, a life change. Whether it’s a career change, a personal change, or an organic transition from one phase of life to another, we’ve got you covered. Most of us at Powerhouse are veterans in the transition game, and we want to help others by providing some resources based on our “lessons learned.”
- Moving soon? Check out our Move Binder. This handy resource will help you keep track of every part of the moving process. From deciding how and what to pack, to scheduling movers, to making travel plans, the Move Binder keeps you organized during a traditionally chaotic time.
- Do you find yourself faced with becoming a military spouse? Don’t worry, a lot of us did too once upon a time. Our Transitioning to Military Spouse Life resource will demystify the transition period and help you gain an understanding of an utterly unique, and rewarding, life change.
- Retiring soon? Check out our Transitioning Toward Retirement Designed specifically with our active-duty military families in mind, it helps you keep sane during a stressful time. With checklists to guide you through the process, beginning one to two years preretirement through to the “other side,” this resource gives you timelines and tips for dealing with all aspects of the process.
- Finally, no matter what your career stage, we’ve got resources to help you find the right job for you. From resume tips and samples to interview checklists, we’ve got the resources to help ease the process, whether you’re changing careers, reentering the workforce after an extended leave of absence, or transitioning from the military to the civilian workforce.
Bonus resource: Want to do something simple to support our military families that doesn’t cost a thing? We have a 30-day calendar of ways to pray for those families who sacrifice so much for all of us.
In 2020, we created a “20 Tips” resource every month that focused on a different aspect of small businesses. These are some of our favorites:
- “20 Tips for Time Management”
- “20 Tools & Resources for the Small Business”
- “20 Ways to Measure Business Growth”
- “20 Tips for Freelance Success”
- “20 Tips to Have Fun at Work”
Find them all here, including one particularly relevant to today, “20 Tips for Leading Your Business Through Challenging Times.”
Finally, our military kids are some of America’s smallest heroes. In honor of the sacrifices they make, we have created a gallery of Military Kid Hero coloring pages. Perfect for those long hours in the car during PCS season, or just to keep your youngest “office assistants” busy and productive while you check out our other resources, download and print out all these coloring pages.
Powerhouse produces a quarterly newsletter delivered right to your inbox. Full of stories for inspiration, business tips, and tons more, this is one of our favorite resources. Sign up to receive our newsletter and check out past editions anytime. In addition, we are always updating our website’s blog, which is full of tips, additional resources, and lots of information on the Powerhouse team.
We’d love to hear what resources have been most helpful to you. Please contact us, and always remember, the resources are here for you to use whenever and as often as you’d like (or share with a friend). But if you find yourself in need of more help, Powerhouse’s team of freelancers stands ready to assist you.
The Importance of Brand Consistency
If you’ve ever done a branding exercise—designed a logo or rebuilt a website, for example—then you’ve already begun to embrace the idea that branding is an important part of business. And yes, the visuals of your brand, like logos and websites, are important. But your brand is much bigger than the aesthetics.
Your brand is everything that a customer or perspective customer encounters when it comes to your business. It’s your mission statement, your values, your written communications, your commercials or print ads, and, of course, it’s your products and services.
If your brand were a person, it would be the equivalent of its personality. There’s even a term for this: your brand identity. And the people interacting with your brand make purchasing decisions based upon emotion, not logic (even when they think they’re being super smart about “doing their research”).
Your job as the creator or manager of your brand is to make sure the emotions your customers feel include sentiments like familiarity—they recognize and know your brand—and dependability—they feel like they can rely on you to be the company you present yourself as. If you don’t care about your “brand identity,” if you think that’s a bunch of fluff that has no substance, you send that message too (one that’s better for your competitors).
So, what’s the secret to sustaining a brand that’s easily recognizable and trustworthy? Brand consistency is everything. And yes, you can hire very expensive consultants or teams to support this effort, but if the budget’s not there for the pros, you can also still be mindful about brand consistency and reap the rewards.
Get team buy-in. Your employees should be experts on not just your products/services, but also the story your company tells—its value proposition. This is true whether their job description includes sales or not. When everyone working for you is clear on your “why” and “how,” they’re better able to support your brand consistency efforts from within.
Refer to the manual. Create and enforce brand guidelines that are to be used by everyone involved with the business. These are the colors and fonts we use. Here’s our origin story. This is the tone/voice we write with. These are our target demographics. Mapping out the visuals and storytelling choices you’re committed to as a business in a set of brand guidelines means everyone has and can easily follow the same set of rules. That translates to greater brand consistency.
Pro Tip: Your brand guidelines can be an informal document or a beautifully crafted packet. Either way, they are (should be) a living, breathing thing that is regularly revisited, reviewed, and updated as needed. If there are changes made as you do business (e.g., new product offerings, new graphics, etc.), make sure those are reflected in your brand guidelines and then implemented across all platforms and branding assets.
Promote accessibility. The best way to get everyone on the same page—your best chance of having consistent brand promise and delivery—is to make sure your branding assets, including your brand guidelines, all live in the same place and can be accessed by the content writers, web designers, and marketing specialists who need them. This way, everyone is pulling from the same agreed-upon sources. And it’s an easy way to avoid version confusion too. This folder/file/drive should always house the most recent versions of any branding collateral you use.
Pro Tip: Worried about losing or deleting the older versions of things? Make a sub-folder in your branding assets collection for archived materials, and you can easily go back and reference what has been used in the past.
Whether you dive in and fully commit to revisiting and revamping all the elements that together make up your brand identity or decide just to dip your toe in, like with one of the suggestions above, it’s worth the effort. Your customers and potential customers will get to know you better when what they see is consistent in all the places you interact with them (social media, website, etc.). As that happens, you’ll show yourself to be familiar, reliable, and trustworthy. And ultimately, that will allow you to share more of your special brand of value with the world.
New Powerhouse Team Member
Emily brings her passion for helping others and experience in operations, marketing, event management, and customer service to every project and team. Emily served in a number of operational, logistics, event management, and client care roles in both professional and collegiate sports. Following her time in the athletic world, Emily transitioned into health care, serving in business development roles for both a hospital and a pharmaceutical company.
Emily grew up in a small town in Kentucky and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. After graduation, she started her career in sports in California. Always up for a challenge and new adventure, Emily has had experience with teams and organizations across the United States, from the west coast to the southeast and a few in between. Emily brings her passion for helping others to her personal life as well. She served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children, working to meet the needs of children in the foster system of Kentucky. Outside of her professional and philanthropic endeavors, Emily is a newlywed who lives in Atlanta with her husband, Eric, and “fur babies,” Oliver and Brady.
New Powerhouse Team Member
Sarah is a Marine Corps veteran, military spouse, and mom of two children, and she is excited to share her leadership and project management skills with Powerhouse Planning. After attending the United States Naval Academy and graduating with distinction and a B.S. in aerospace engineering, Sarah served in the Marine Corps as a helicopter pilot for six years. Her favorite part of the Marine Corps was leading and being a part of a motivated team of dedicated individuals who were committed to serving the greater good. Ultimately, Sarah decided to transition out of the Marine Corps in order to grow her family while her husband, whom she met at the Naval Academy, continued to serve in the Marine Corps. When her husband transitioned to the Marine Corps Reserves, they moved back to Sarah’s hometown,
and it became the perfect time for Sarah to reenter the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom. Sarah has been watching Powerhouse Planning grow for the past four years and truly believes in the company and its group of military spouse freelance employees. In her spare time, Sarah loves sharing her passion for photography. She enjoys volunteering as a youth cross country coach and serves as a chair for a local swimming pool committee. Sarah is currently working toward earning her Project Management Professional (PMP) certificate and is eager to bring those skills, as well as her leadership and positive attitude, to Powerhouse Planning.
