When you’re passionate about something, you find the energy to do it. So says Jody Ferrer, president of West Hartford-based The Perfect Promotion.
The 48-year-old comes across as passionate about everything: Her work, her children, her husband, her dogs or the array of charities and causes to which she donates her time and considerable energy.
Ferrer’s success, and the success of The Perfect Promotion, began as a commitment to her family.
She started her business from home on a part-time basis while she was raising her children, who are now all in high school or college.
“I didn’t think, ‘I’m a woman, this is going to be tough.’ I thought, ‘I’m a mother, this is going to be tough,’” Ferrer said. “I had worked all my life, but I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.”
But what Ferrer considered being a stay-at-home mom, anybody else might want to call a working mother. When the children were babies, she worked while they napped. As they got older, she worked while they were in school.
“As they’ve grown, I’ve grown my business,” she said.
In doing so, she’s developed a reputation for fairness and delivering on time.
Six years ago, Ferrer moved The Perfect Promotion out of her home and into leased space in West Hartford. In the last two years, she has bought the Farmington Avenue building the company calls home and has been on a bit of a hiring spree.
Obviously, Ferrer is passionate about the business. The fact that she stuck with it through her children’s infancy and schooling — and on her own terms — is testament to that.
The fact that the work she juggled while raising her family is her own probably had something to do with her success in both areas.
Early in The Perfect Promotion’s life, Ferrer got some advice from her father: “If you’re working as hard as you work, you might as well have your name on the door,” she quoted him saying.
So, for as much time and energy as The Perfect Promotion requires, Ferrer doesn’t limit herself. She commits fully to the things about which she is passionate.
And those things include the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, the American Heart Association, and most prominently, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, for which she is the 2011 sponsorship chair.
“As a business woman, as a woman, I think it’s important to give back,” she said.
But her involvement with Komen and breast cancer awareness in general is about much more than that.
Fifteen years ago, Ferrer lost her mother, then 56, to breast cancer.
“When I was starting my business, she was the guidance. I had more from her in her short life than a lot of people have with their mothers in their whole life. That’s why I do what I do. It’s my way of fulfilling something within me and to give back to her.”
Ferrer’s passion comes across in her interactions with colleagues and the community, as well.
Ken Cook, managing director of Peer to Peer Advisors in East Hartford, said Ferrer’s passion is unmistakable and genuine.
“She is real all the time,” Cook said. “She has passion for her business, her family, her clients and it comes through in a real way.”
As far as Cook is concerned, those characteristics aren’t just what make Ferrer happy, they make The Perfect Promotion a success.
“Every moment you spend on your business has to be passionate, and I think that’s what Jody has.
Her clients should really appreciate that, Cook said.
“She’s very generous and very aesthetic at the same time,” Cook said. “She’s looking creativity in how companies project themselves. She more of a marketing company than she is a products promotion company. She wants to understand what you’re doing and be passionate about it.”
Jeffrey Cohen, vice president of ImageWorks LLC in Vernon, keyed in on Ferrer’s charitable work and said it’s more than society has come to expect from businesspeople.
“All of Jody’s selfless fundraising for underprivileged foster children, breast cancer awareness through her own gift giving efforts as well as work with the Susan G. Komen group and Rae Lasky scholarship go well beyond the normal activities of a a business person.
Ferrer’s marketing specialist, Nicole Salvatore said, “Jody definitely doesn’t stop going; she’s like the energizer battery. She really is amazing.”
In nominating Ferrer for the HBJ’s Women In Business award, Laurie O’Neil, owner of Innovative Financial Solutions LLC in Hartford was all business.
She noted that Ferrer has been recognized for her strategic business decisions and operational procedures. In 2010, Ferrer was a winner in the 2010 PPB Best Bosses. Ferrer also educates her peers and others by participating in many speaking engagements at the Simsbury Public Library.
And remember, all of this is done with a high-school age son, a daughter in college, two stepchildren in college and three dogs.
“My family is my most important thing,” she said. “My house is actually quite calm.”
President of The Perfect Promotion, West Hartford
Name: Jody Ferrer
Occupation: President, The Perfect Promotion.
Location of business: West Hartford.
You should know: She is active in the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, the American Heart Association, and is the 2011 sponsorship chair for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.
Favorite spot for coffee: “I’m not really a coffee drinker at home. I need chocolate more than I need coffee,” Ferrer said. But “a cup of coffee over conversation with a good friend” is ideal.
– Ken Cook, managing director of Peer to Peer Advisors in East Hartford
