About Suasion
Suasion’s Story….
Suasion began in 2008, when founder Victoria Lindstrom decided to launch a different kind of communications firm. Her vision was to bring a high level of marketing expertise to nonprofits who traditionally did not have access to this. Suasion soon built a reputation for developing innovative strategic approaches to helping nonprofits achieve their missions. Seeing this work, organizations and businesses outside of the nonprofit realm pursued Suasion’s unique services and the team selectively supported these goals, as well.
Suasion received broad attention for work that resulted in thousands of people being positively impacted by the firm’s communications. The firm continued to grow and prosper, amassing many success stories for the nonprofits and for-profits they served. All the while, Victoria continued to develop deeper expertise in social and behavioral sciences and applied that to influencing target audiences, as well as employees, leaders and others. Suasion used this unique approach to support organizations beyond their marketing needs. The firm created large scale outreach and engagement campaigns, conducted experiential events, executed intensive leadership development programs, trained diverse teams to collaborate more effectively, and facilitated comprehensive strategic planning processes.
In 2019, Victoria went to Cuba and taught a leadership class. The participants were extraordinarily hungry for what she brought them since opportunities for this type of personal development do not exist in this communist country. It was an eye-opening experience for Victoria and reinforced her growing desire to work with those who have fewer resources to advance their missions.
This calling grew and, eventually, Victoria decided to alter her business model to focus on helping nonprofits with limited resources, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. This allows her to offer impactful services at affordable rates, making high-level expert strategic planning, communications and consulting attainable for smaller organizations.
The Suasion story is still being written and, most importantly, helping shape others’ stories.
My Story . . .
We are each gifted with personalities, experiences, skills and knowledge that are uniquely our own and can bring great benefit to others. I often refer to this as our “who-ness” – it’s the compilation of all these factors that make us who we are.
In terms of my personality, I generally test “middle of the road” in having equally balanced personality traits. For example, I have fairly equal introvert and extrovert traits. I have been wired with both creative and intuitive right brain thinking and equal logical and analytical left brain thinking. These give me a unique ability to see multiple perspectives and a greater understanding of all types of people.
My education and work experience have formed the foundation of my skills and knowledge. This has encompassed marketing, including market research, advertising, and public relations, as well as leadership and business operations. Here is a summary of that experience:
- After college, I worked at a small business which allowed me to wear many hats. There, I not only was responsible for marketing activities, but also applied my classroom knowledge of accounting to setting up their accounting system. This experience proved to be invaluable in later positions.
- My career really launched at a start-up technology firm that is now a Fortune 500 company. As Director of Marketing, I helped grow the firm’s revenues from $5 million to $350 million in just seven years. I started in a two-person marketing department and built the department to a team of forty-five employees.
- I later worked for several different advertising agencies helping a variety of regional, national and international clients achieve their marketing objectives. I was appointed COO of a leading central Pennsylvania advertising agency, where I was also responsible for strategic planning and client services as well as all human resources and operations functions of the firm.
- Ultimately, I determined my passion for creating positive social and individual change could best be served by starting my own firm and, in 2008, I launched Suasion.
In addition to my background in marketing and business operations management, I spent years studying and applying the theories of behavioral and social sciences to understand and influence the way people think and interact with each other. I have employed these techniques in marketing, as well as leadership, facilitation, and coaching. I have also studied and earned certificates in several coaching disciplines.
In addition to the work I do with organizations, I have a coaching practice, Abundantly More, which focuses on supporting individuals in discovering and living their purpose and provides relationship coaching to pre-marital and married couples.
Together with my husband we have a wonderful, blended family consisting of five children and eleven grandchildren.
Victoria Lindstrom
President of Suasion
Victoria@Suasion.us
717-432-2468 x101