Made by Mary’s Journey from Hypergrowth Stress to Strategic Success with Ampleo Experts

Background

In 2013, Mary Moody was a new mom navigating life with a sweet baby and seeking a new routine and purpose. Drawn to the idea of creating jewelry to represent pivotal moments in life, she created Made by Mary, a handcrafted jewelry company. As the business grew, her husband, Taylor Moody, joined the team full time as chief operating officer (COO), helping to scale the company.

Challenge

In 2018, Made by Mary experienced a period of hypergrowth. While it was exciting, Mary and Taylor found themselves overwhelmed by the growing pains that came with rapid growth. Issues like hiring and keeping high-quality employees, managing funds, and making strategic investments in the business were daunting tasks for the leadership team.

“There were things that we didn’t know such as how do we manage our funds and what investments do we make in the business?” Taylor says. “We needed support and advice to help us grow as a company.”

To overcome these challenges, they reached out to Amplēo for finance, marketing, and human resources support to help guide and navigate them through this next phase of growth.

Engaging with Amplēo

When Amplēo’s fractional CMO and HR executives joined Made by Mary, they became more than just advisors: They became an integrated part of the executive team, collaborating closely to address key business gaps, make informed decisions, and execute on strategy.

“Even though we are a fractional resource, we fully integrated into the team,” says Joe Grover, fractional CMO at Amplēo. “We had Made by Mary email addresses, we attended leadership meetings weekly, we led teams, and had direct reports.”

Amplēo CMO

Amplēo’s fractional CMO brought strategic focus and operational clarity to Made by Mary’s marketing efforts. By establishing clear goals and KPIs, the CMO provided a roadmap that unified the brand and growth functions with stronger collaboration, accountability, and alignment.

Operationally, the CMO led the relaunch of the Shopify store back end, significantly improving site speed and enhancing the customer experience. They also worked closely with the leadership team to refine and roll out new company values, fostering a culture of alignment and shared purpose.

The CMO also collaborated with the CFO to create more robust reporting and models to increase transparency and keep stakeholders informed. With more visibility, they were able to optimize paid media strategies, prioritize profit metrics over ad efficiency, and improve agency management. Additionally, the introduction of customer satisfaction flows provided actionable insights into client happiness.

These comprehensive efforts equipped Made by Mary with the tools and strategies to scale effectively, ensuring that marketing became a driving force for sustainable growth and customer connection.

Amplēo CHRO

Before bringing in Amplēo CHRO, Made by Mary lacked a people strategy, which made hiring and retaining high-quality talent a struggle. Amplēo’s CHRO was able to develop an employee engagement survey and gather feedback to better understand the company’s strengths and gaps. This survey helped create a people strategy informed by the needs and insights of the employees.

Based on the feedback, Amplēo helped Made by Mary develop a clear roadmap of people programs, outlining expectations for both employees and the company. They also conducted a robust organizational design process, ensuring that the company had the right structure to support its goals. The process resulted in a more future-proof organizational structure, improved role clarity, and increased leadership expertise through the creation of new leadership positions.

Once roles were defined and expectations set, Amplēo revamped Made by Mary’s existing performance management process to be more action-oriented and trained managers in how to provide productive feedback. This led to improved managerial capabilities, better performance data, and streamlined processes through implementing an HR platform.

As the company continued to grow, Amplēo’s HR team also streamlined the recruiting process, helping Made by Mary hire high-quality talent to meet their needs.

Results

“I couldn’t believe how much frustration and stress I was living with as an owner before Amplēo’s marketing and HR help,” said Mary, “Amplēo came in, saw the gaps, addressed them, and created a timeline for execution and decisiveness. The confidence all came when they came in to help shoulder these existing problems.”

With Amplēo’s help, Mary and Taylor are now focusing on what they do best—creating meaningful jewelry that celebrates life’s most important moments—while knowing that their HR and marketing are in capable hands. “There are many moments when operating a business that will shake you to the core and you need someone sitting next to you and that is what Amplēo has done for us,” Taylor says.