Cheldin Barlatt Rumer Wants To ‘Scream Your Dream’
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – Cheldin Barlatt Rumer wants to scream your dream, but first she had to learn to scream her own.
Rumer, the chief executive officer of i-g Creative, is the host of the daily streaming series targeting up-and-coming entrepreneurs called “This Is It TV” and is the entertainment reporter for SNJ Today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAKvnOIDdI8
As a mother of two small children, Rumer said her goal is to share her enthusiasm about business and marketing with others who have same goals. The self-proclaimed extrovert, who also teaches marketing at Temple University as an adjunct professor, said she has no problem helping others find their voice the way she has learned to do.
“I-g Creative was thriving, doing what it needed to do, and I went through some personal pivots and some personal hurdles to be able to determine what I really loved to do,” Rumer told Front Runner New Jersey recently. “And while I was going through that, I was helping clients in determining the best way to go after publicity-driven activities. So, preparing them to sit in front of the camera and be able to answer questions and be able to really engage with reporters.
“I started (i-g Creative) in 2009 and I was well into my career at that point, but I decided to go out on my own and create a PR marketing firm that’s really focused on grass-roots, which is the ‘g’ in i-g, efforts for small-medium businesses. And what we were doing was helping them, in essence, find their marketing voice through the marketing tools that were available. So web design, graphic design, social media publicity. And aiding them in making that makes sense,” she continued.
Rumer, the former head of public relations for Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, developed what she says is an effective yet cost-effective online marketing course and program called Scream Your Dream. She said the digital, hands-on, educational tool was created to specifically support the needs of small business owners, entrepreneurs and independent sales professionals.
The program helps those looking to take their marketing efforts to the next level while achieving realistic and measurable on-going business goals, Rumer said.
“We would record these fake interviews where I would pose specific questions about their brand, about their features and benefits, and then look for them to give me feedback,” Rumer said of clients she worked with. “And a majority of my clients – and the majority of small business owners, I’ve learned to date – are very much in this whisper type of space.
“Where they come to you, they’ve sacrificed time with their families, they remortgage their house for whatever concept, whatever idea that they have. The problem lies in the fact that they have a hard time communicating it with confidence. So they would come to me in a whisper and by the end of the interview, I found them screaming,” she added.
Rumer said that is where the “Scream Your Dream” philosophy was born.
“Interviewing these people and watching them transform from this timid space to where they feel comfortable enough to let people know with confidence what it is that they were doing is what Scream Your Dream is about,” Rumer said.
“Because, as you can probably understand from now talking to me for only a few minutes, I’m not very shy. Being able to really love engaging with people, I knew that I was pivoting in my career, this is definitely a space that I wanted to live in. In the story-telling space. How do I get in touch with people? How do I aid them in telling their story? And This is it TV really stemmed organically from me helping my clients in finding their marketing voice,” she continued.
As one of precious few African-American women on television in South Jersey, Rumer said she has always worked to be her best and proud of where she is in her career.
“I’m honored and I thrive within it and in my space,” Rumer said. “I was born in Sierra Leone in West Africa. That’s where my family’s from. I’m an immigrant. I became a citizen when I was about 17 years old going into college. At that point, I’ve come from a space that you…always have been raised to go in early and leave late.
“That’s my space. It’s the work ethic of don’t look to be the best African-American in the room, best black woman in the room, best black person in the room; look to be the best person in the room. It’s always been what has been instilled in me. I’m not naive to the fact that not everyone was born as blessed as I was. Not everyone had the opportunities, the work ethic provided, or examples on how to behave as I have. So I know the importance of being an example to others by simply existing and thriving within my space,” she added.
“I felt comfortable with later in my career. I’m 41. I’m not one of those people that is ashamed of how old I am. If anything, I wear it with a badge of honor to say I’ve survived the entrepreneurial space and with that comes a sense of living through it and not only thriving in the hills but living the valleys of everything,” she concluded.
She has recently been appointed to the board of directors for The Griffin Gives Foundation, a philanthropic, nonprofit dedicated to supporting the military, those affected by debilitating disease and the health and wellness of children.
Through her varied experiences and personal pivots, Rumer is relishing the chance through her businesses to help others and “scream your dream.”
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