Today we’d like to introduce you to Kim Kramer.
Hi Kim, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My path into running a marketing agency wasn’t exactly linear—it came out of a season in my life that changed how I think about almost everything.
I’m Kim Kramer, and today I lead Square Peg Marketing & Branding, a Kansas City-based agency that partners with growing brands to help them show up more clearly and intentionally. But Square Peg wasn’t something I set out to build. It was something that came out of that season of my life where everything shifted.
Before that, I was running a sports marketing agency in Dallas, working with large national brands. On paper, everything looked great. But life has a way of changing your perspective.
My husband was diagnosed with late-stage cancer in his 30s. We had two young daughters, a growing business, and suddenly everything changed. I was trying to hold it all together, running a company from hospital waiting rooms, while also preparing for a future I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about yet.
We made the decision to move to Kansas City to be closer to family, and thankfully, against all odds, he’s still here. But that experience changes you.
It forces you to ask better questions. What actually matters? How do I want to spend my time? What kind of life do I want to build?
That experience didn’t just change my life, it changed how I see business.
Square Peg was born not long after that, initially through small conversations, referrals, and people just asking for help. It grew organically, but it was grounded in a very different perspective.
Today, I lead a team of incredibly talented women working with brands across Kansas City and beyond. But at the core of it, I’m still doing the same thing I started with, helping businesses figure out who they are and how to show up in a way that actually means something.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Has it been a smooth road? Not even close.
The challenges just evolve. Early on, it was about getting clients and proving credibility. Then it became about building a team. Then it became about leading that team well. And that’s probably been the biggest shift for me.
Being good at the work and being good at leading people are two completely different things. I’ve had to learn how to communicate more clearly, how to set expectations, and how to have hard conversations, even when I don’t want to.
I’ve also had to learn how to let go. I held on too tightly for too long, which probably slowed our growth. At some point, I realized that I was the ceiling. The more I stepped back and trusted my team, the more everything actually started to grow.
That shift has probably been one of the most important lessons for me—that leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about creating the space for other people to do their best work. And when that happens, the results are always better than anything I could have done on my own.
We’ve been impressed with Square Peg Marketing & Branding, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
At Square Peg Marketing & Branding, we partner with small to mid-sized businesses, often in growth mode, to serve as an extension of their team. That can look like brand strategy, creative development, digital marketing, web design, social media, or PR, but the goal is always the same: helping businesses show up in a way that is clear, consistent, and aligned with who they actually are. We’ve been fortunate to be recognized as ‘Kansas City’s Best Marketing & Advertising Agency” the past three years, which has been especially meaningful in such a talented market.
Our foundational approach is that marketing isn’t really about “marketing.” It’s about clarity. Most businesses don’t actually have a marketing problem. They have a clarity problem. They’re not clear on who they are, what they stand for, or how they want to be experienced, so everything they put out feels disconnected.
We see this all the time. A business thinks they need more content or better ads, and sometimes they do, but more often, they need alignment first. When a business is clear, everything else starts to fall into place. When it’s not, no amount of marketing is going to fix it.
At Square Peg, we prioritize understanding the people behind the business, what they care about, and what they’re actually trying to build. Because at the end of the day, people don’t connect with tactics—they connect with something that feels real and consistent. From there, we translate that clarity into marketing that actually performs—strategic, creative, and built to drive real growth.
How do you think about luck?
I think luck plays a role, but I don’t think it’s what drives the outcome.
There have definitely been moments of good timing, meeting the right people, opportunities showing up when I needed them. But I also think you create more of those moments by consistently showing up and doing good work.
From the outside, it might look like luck. From the inside, it’s usually a lot of persistence and a willingness to figure things out.
And honestly, some of what felt like bad luck at the time ended up being the most important turning points. Those experiences force you to get clearer, both in business and in life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://neverfitin.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/squarepegmarketing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SquarePegMarketingBranding
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/square-peg-marketing-&-branding
