Building a Business through Branding, Storytelling and People Power

Please join us for an author event with Cathy Goodwin and Alex Hillman.

Cathy Goodwin is the author of Grow Your Business One Story at a Time (2017), and the more recently published book Your Mess Is Not Your Message: Branding Strategies for Solopreneurs (2025). As a marketing strategist, she helps service-based business owners and solopreneurs build their brands and increase sales when the brand is you. Cathy specializes in strategic storytelling, showing business owners how to craft compelling narratives that build trust and attract clients without oversharing. Through one-on-one consulting, training courses, and copywriting, she teaches a structured, results-driven approach to branding that aligns storytelling with marketing goals.

Alex Hillman has nearly two decades of experience with helping people start and grow independent businesses that give them more freedom and control over their work. His book, The Tiny MBA, distills hard-won lessons about business and independence into mental prompts to help entrepreneurs re-center their focus. As the founder of Indy Hall, he’s seen first-hand how community and collaboration help entrepreneurs succeed. Through Stacking the Bricks and 30x500, he’s taught thousands of solopreneurs how to find customers, build trust, and create businesses that support their lives—not the other way around. And with the 10k Independents project, he’s working to help even more people break free from traditional employment. Alex believes that success isn’t about scale, but about independence, and that the most valuable resource for any business isn’t funding—it’s the relationships you build along the way.

This event is co-sponsored by the East Falls Development Corporation & the Friends of Falls of Schuylkill Library. Light refreshments will be served. Please use the Midvale Avenue entrance.

The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.

Host or Publisher Falls of Schuylkill Library, Free Library of Phila