Jacquie Brink - A Study in Persistence

Robin Keith·October 28, 2023

Jacquie Brink didn’t start out with dreams of being a Senior Vice President with a shelf full of awards.

Jacquie grew up in a lower middle-class family in Bay City, MI. During High School, she was part of a Co-Op program that allowed her to work part time in a title insurance agency a couple of days a week answering phones, filing, and scheduling appointments. During her time there, Jacquie started to understand a little bit about the title insurance industry, which would become important later in her career.

But first, a few hurdles.

As a child, Jacquie was surrounded by dysfunction and chaos, which ultimately led her to leave home at a young age. She was married and had two sons by the time she was 18. After a few years of struggling to work and go to school, while being married to an abusive man, she made the decision to leave him and venture out on her own.

As a single mom with two little boys to take care of, life was not easy. There were times when she didn’t eat so her boys had what they needed, and she admits she had to use the system to her advantage to help her get by. At one point she had to live with family members because she just could not afford to live on her own. However, Jacquie was determined not to be a statistic and wanted more for herself and her children. Being savvy and creative, and with the help of friends and family, Jacquie pushed forward and finished college and received her BBA. She accomplished this while working a full-time job and also starting a small business on the side.

Always ready to take a creative risk, Jacquie ran a boat cleaning biz for a while. Living in a community surrounded by water, she initially believed she could grow a big business cleaning boats, and she did indeed build a good list of repeat clients. The work paid off her student loans but she realized it wasn’t her true calling.

And so Jacquie returned to the title insurance industry and learned even more about the business. In the late 1990’s while she was working at a small local title agency, she had an awful supervisor that was verbally abusive and unprofessional to the staff. After about a year she couldn’t take it any longer, so she took a huge risk and started her own title agency. It was during that time that Jacquie met several title professionals who would help guide and mentor her throughout her career, and who are still a big part of her life today.

Seeing that things were changing in the real estate market, Jacquie decided to sell her company and accepted a statewide Sales Rep position for a national Title Insurance Underwriter in the early 2000’s. That risk would prove to pay off for her in the long run, but in 2009 she found herself unemployed like millions of other people around the country during the real estate crash. This caused her to pivot once again, and due to the high volume of foreclosed properties at that time, she found work at a local REO (Real Estate Owned) Broker’s office. Although it wasn’t the best paying position, it proved to be a valuable learning experience that helped her understand yet another piece of the real estate industry

Eventually she moved back to working for a Title Insurance Underwriter and focused on the Executive Path. Her years of experience in diverse but related fields provided Jacquie with a valuable perspective. Today Jacquie is Senior Vice President, Great Lakes Region Manager of the First National Title Insurance Company. Along the way she discovered that sales and marketing is “her wheelhouse”, and her passion is learning about marketing, studying how to do it well and increasing her knowledge.

At some point in all of this career adventure, Jacquie remarried. But she was emphatic that her new partner, as wonderful as he is, did not rescue her financially. As a very independent person it was important to Jacquie that she succeed without his help. As she most certainly did!

In regards to the workplace in general, Jacquie talked about how difficult it can be to work in a male dominated space and how sometimes it feels as though you have to give yourself every official advantage just to compete.

Jacquie also knows that women continue to face unique challenges in the work place, often feeling the need to compete with other women in the field. The truth is, insecurity can breed sexism in many forms, creating unnecessary hostility or road blocks to success.

As a result of her desire to tackle these challenges and give back, Jacquie is the Founder and CEO of GLOWE (Gathering Leaders of Women Empowerment). This organization has the involvement of several other women who refer to themselves as the “OQ’s” (The Original Queens). They all have the same goal; to support and empower other business women, and young women who want to become successful in the business world. The unfortunate truth is that fear and insecurity often keep women from succeeding. As a student of psychology Jacquie has seen how head games can really keep women from moving forward. Her goal is to help women entrepreneurs recognize and eliminate the hurdles that keep them from reaching their full potential.

In April 2023, hundreds of women in business gathered in Bay City, MI for the first annual GLOWE conference. This yearly get together provides women the opportunity to showcase their own business, as well as support other women owned businesses with a little shopping. In addition to valuable networking opportunities, the lineup on the agenda includes award winning keynote speakers and covers many different topics women face on a daily basis. (For more information about GLOWE, see the section at the bottom of this post!)

As a business consultant and coach, Jacquie currently helps women past their personal and professional roadblocks. She has successfully helped numerous women achieve their business goals, including learning how to negotiate a salary, how to overcome imposter syndrome, as well as how start and scale their own business.

She tells the story of one of her most important mentors, a top level, very successful senior marketing guy. She thought of him as the company’s “secret sauce” and she didn’t want him to share his experience and knowledge with the competition. But he told her he’d be happy to speak at conference and tell them how to do what he does. His words were that “99% will not execute, or know how to proceed, or have the funding to do what we do.”

Competition is not to be feared.

Jacquie’s focus is to share her experience with others, to help them do well. She feels deeply that everyone has their own path, their own life events, successes and failures that bring them to where they want to go.

Her message – “Failure is part of the process. Embrace it!”

To those who would like to meet a goal, whether personal or business related, Jacquie advises the building of a “strategic plan” to really dig deep and figure out what’s needed to get to where you want to go. She told me about her first attempt to run a marathon – a disaster. But she dug in and detailed all the bits needed to improve (exercise, increasing distance, nutrition, sleep, etc.) and after time and practice she succeeded. A detailed plan can make all the difference!

She also advocates keeping journals – for planning, for ideas, and for tracking progress.

By the end of our conversation Jacquie was in full consultant mode with me. I was writing as fast as I could to catch all the great notes on her suggestions and advice for Lady Brave, and how to take next steps towards success. When I wished out loud that someone would look at me every morning and tell me I could do this she quickly corrected me by saying “YOU need to look at yourself and say you can succeed, that you’re worthy of success!” Wowzer.

To put it simply, Jacquie is an inspiration. She travels internationally, works full time, volunteers for a variety of worthy organizations, does guest lectures, organizes GLOWE events, and she’s always encouraging other women entrepreneurs.

Jacquie’s words of wisdom: “Mistakes will be made, but you have to keep trying.” She doesn’t like excuses! Her phrase was,

“Don’t give me an excuse if you haven’t tried. Do it!”

And this is probably my favorite Jacquie quote: