Former Deacon volleyball star Hailey Brooke McFadden making all the right power moves

Hailey Brooke McFadden makes power moves.

Paige Sebesta, McFadden’s former teammate on Wake Forest’s volleyball team, remembers watching in awe as the Deacons’ 5-foot-7 libero threw her body underneath a fast-moving ball thrusted over the net by a powerful ACC right side hitter.

“Oh wow,” Sebesta said from the sidelines. “That takes guts.”

McFadden, who played volleyball at Wake Forest from 2015-2018 and led the Deacons with 372 digs in her senior season, knew her athletic career would eventually come to end. And when her time making power moves on the court came to a close, the 23-year-old recent college graduate found another way to stay competitive — by starting up her own digital marketing company.

“I ended up being, as nerdy as it sounds, super excited to help these companies be able to quickly see a boost in revenue,” McFadden said. “At the end of the day, are they coming in green? Are they coming in red? For me, it’s really exciting to see that change happen.”

Power Move Marketing, fully organized in the midst of a global pandemic, has worked with 30 clients and employs an all-female staff. McFadden works from a home office in her Holly Springs apartment, and the rush of a growing business brings her back to the feeling she had playing volleyball.

‘Make some power moves’

McFadden already held a Bachelor’s degree in communications and had done previous sideline reporting work with ESPN, but she realized she wanted a different challenge. She also considered a transfer to play beach volleyball at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in 2018 before deciding to stay in Winston-Salem and pivot to digital marketing.

“At first, (I) kind of fell into it, but it ended up being a really great thing,” McFadden said. “There’s just not really that much for women beyond college for sports, so I definitely (thought) ‘OK, what’s going to set me up for the best trajectory in life after volleyball?’ ”

As coronavirus cases began to climb this spring, McFadden sought a way to expand her digital marketing work. Companies had been reaching out to her asking for help with social media and Facebook advertising, and Kenny Herbst, one of her professors at Wake Forest, suggested she continue to grow her own brand after graduation in May 2020.

After deciding to start up her own LLC, McFadden had to pick a name. In March, McFadden and her roommates, including Sebesta, were sitting in their living room when Sebesta threw around a phrase they often use for encouragement.

“Dude, you’ve got to make some power moves with these clients,” Sebesta said.

After tossing around different ideas, Power Move stuck, and Sebesta thinks it’s perfect.

“The word power is what embodies Hailey Brooke as a person and what she’s doing,” Sebesta said. “It ended up fitting really well.”

Despite the pandemic, McFadden said the digital marketing space has been booming. All but one company Power Move works with has made the online transition, and Power Move itself has hired one full-time employee, two paid part-time employees and 14 interns, all working remotely.

“E-commerce obviously went up during the pandemic, ironically,” McFadden said. “People were like, ‘OK, let’s go, we need to get the marketing going,’ so (the pandemic) was kind of beneficial for me.”

‘A woman’s touch’

Power Move Marketing’s logo and website are accented with shades of pink. McFadden said the feminine focus is intentional.

McFadden estimated that of the clients Power Move consistently works with, only two or three are co-owned by women, and none of them were solely founded by women.

“You walk up to these companies, it’s like, there’s definitely enough male perspective,” she said. “It’s really hard to find women in these spaces and women who have moved up really high in these spaces because I think a lot of women tend to not value what they bring to the table.”

McFadden, who graduated from Wake Christian Academy in Raleigh, said a majority of the people making final buying decisions are women, and she sees the benefit in encouraging Power Move’s clients to market to women. McFadden said Power Move has recently worked to help some CBD companies clean up their advertisements to look less “grungy” and more appealing to women.

When she worked in sports broadcasting before graduate school, McFadden became used to hearing about the need for a “woman’s touch.” Now, she’s proud to see Power Move virtual meetings filled with female perspectives.

“Women are just as capable of having a full women’s team, but I’m definitely not averse to having some men,” she said. “I do think it’d be funny to be like ‘Oh, what’s your man’s perspective on this?’ ”

Back to volleyball

Ryan Weiss, McFadden’s boyfriend, has watched her find a way to not go “stir crazy” despite the pandemic because the work she does relates well to her experience with sports.

Numbers from a client, like results from a match, relay similar feedback to McFadden.

“Because now that she’s not an athlete anymore, your numbers never lie,” said Weiss, who’s a pitcher in the Diamondbacks’ farm system. “So when you’re a business owner, the numbers will tell you … the numbers will never lie.”

Thinking back to her volleyball days at Wake Forest gives McFadden confidence when she meets with potential clients.

As she stepped out to greet representatives for Nava Pouch, McFadden remembered her experience entering a filled 10,000-seat arena in Lincoln, Neb., as the Deacons faced the reigning NCAA champion Nebraska volleyball team. She remembered watching phone lights flash to the beat of Nebraska’s warm-up song, anxious for the daunting match ahead.

The memory brought her a sense of calm when she pitched Power Move to Nava Pouch.

“If I can stand there as a libero in front of Nebraska and keep it together, there’s no reason I can’t stand in front of a couple of men and just give them my spiel,” McFadden said.

Though they now happen in conference calls instead of on a volleyball court, McFadden’s power moves continue.