About
Evan Palmer
East Coast - West Coast
Having grown up in Massachusetts, I came out to California after college, met a girl, and never left.  Just like the movies.  Luanne and I have been together since 1987 and we have two adult children, three cats, and a pug named Maximus Prime. 

San Rafael, CA has been home for us since 1991. 

I love skiing, martial arts, and playing in a rock band on the weekends.  Oh, and did I mention long walks on the beach?  That too.
Business makes the world go 'round
Looking back, I realize that I've worked in a small business environment all of my adult life.  Over the years, I amassed a wide array of experience working for, managing, and eventually owning numerous small businesses.

As an entrepreneur, I always have several businesses in motion.  At present, I manage a:
  • Utility auditing company (Expense Management Group)
  • ​Credit repair company (Bay Credit Restore)
  • ​Music listing site (North Bay Live Music)
  • ​Rock & roll band (Key Lime Pie)
  • ​Credit repair membership course (in development)
  • ​Educational travel company (in development)
In addition to having a “creative” side, I also possess a “technical” side, as my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering will attest to.  As the years went on, I found that I was more interested in the big picture of how businesses succeeded, which led me to go back to school for my MBA.

I found the aspect of business I consistently enjoyed the most was marketing and advertising. It provides a nice blend of the creative and the analytical which plays to my personal strengths. Therefore, it made sense to specialize in those areas.
Social Media
My social media education started in 2015 when I launched a credit repair business.  I realized that in addition to business-to-business, or B2B marketing, I was also going to have to, for the first time in a long time, market business-to-consumer, or B2C.  And in order to do that I realized that I was going to have to figure out how social media marketing worked, because when I learned marketing back in the Dark Ages, social media didn’t exist.  That’s right.  When I got my MBA, we didn’t have wifi and smart phones.  We had dial-up modems and pagers! 

So I formalized my education in the field by searching out courses from a variety of experts.  My Social Media Marketing training to date has been based on the following curriculum:
  • Paid Traffic Mastery Certification (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn advertising),     Digital Marketer
  • Facebook & Instagram advertising and landing page design, Automate & Convert Academy
  • ​YouTube Advertising MasterClass, AdOutreach
  • ​​​Facebook & Instagram advertising, Connect.io Academy
  • Facebook advertising and landing page design, The Fletcher Method
You may be asking, “Sure, but what have you actually done?”  That’s a fair question.  As you can see from some of the testimonials on this site, I have been designing and implementing campaigns for other businesses as well as for my own endeavors.  In summary, I have:
  • Designed advertising campaigns for a wide range of industries: music, finance, software, real estate, health, retail.
  • Currently the Facebook Ads Manager for Future Bright, a web development company
  • Used organic reach on LinkedIn to promote my credit repair company, growing contacts from 20 to over 2300 in just over a year resulting in a 100% referral business
  • ​Used Facebook advertising to increase my performing musical group's Facebook followers from 487 to over 5,300 in 6 months. Also used Facebook advertising to draw 1400 viewers to the band's Facebook Live performance in Dec. 2020
I’ve spent a bunch of my own money and years of my life not only learning how it works but also doing it.
“At my agency, I always say I’d rather hire a marketer who has spent $1,000 of their own money than someone who spent $100,000 of someone else’s money.”

David Nadler, Founder of Automate & Convert, Digital Marketing Agency

What I’ve learned from managing my own businesses as well as working for other businesses is that:
  • Each business is unique.  Some are B2C, B2B, non-profit, etc.  There is no one-size-fits-all approach.
  • Advertising and marketing are two separate and equally important things.  Each by itself can have a positive effect but the true power comes from using them in tandem.  That’s what really moves a business forward.
  • Social media is critical.
  • ​Email is king.
  • ​Too many businesses rush into advertising BEFORE they are prepared to accommodate the traffic.
  • ​Impatience is pervasive.
  • ​Facebook is a gateway drug.
"You can't just play music!"
My mother was an outstanding organist and I enjoyed learning to play the family console organ in our living room when I was young.  By the time I was finishing high school, I was playing keyboards at local bars, parties, and dances in two bands.  Since I was a good student, this concerned my parents, and they would kindly remind me that, "You can't just play music. You need to go to college." 

So I did, but I never saw that as an "either/or" choice.

The older I got, the more I realized that ... I’m a musician.  First and foremost.  I am very clear that my purpose in life is to create and perform music in order to bring joy to other people’s lives.

While I would love to spend every waking moment playing music, the reality is that (like Mom told me) the music life is rarely financially lucrative, with travel requirements akin to joining the circus, and virtually incompatible with a family lifestyle.  None of that sounded attractive to me.

The music industry itself is not the healthiest place to hang out.  In the words of the late Hunter Thompson:

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.  There’s also a negative side.”

For these reasons, I decided to make a career elsewhere, thus giving me the ability to play and write music ONLY for enjoyment. This strategy has worked out well.

Thank you, Mom.

You can check out my band, Key Lime Pie, by going to our website HERE.
The Great Outdoors
If I'm not working or playing music, you can usually find me in the mountains skiing
... or on a beach somewhere.
You Have A Story Too
A big part of marketing and advertising is storytelling. People receive information more easily when it's told in story form. I'd love to work with you to help you craft the messaging for your product or service so that more people could receive the benefits they provide to the world.