About

In 2000, Jennifer founded Second Summer Inc. to offer Brand Development and Brand Coaching to the upper echelon of established advisors nationally. Jennifer has worked with many of the industry’s top private firms and their affiliate organizations.

On behalf of Scott & Todd Fithian, Jennifer ghostwrote their book, The Right Side of the Table. She served as co-creative counsel in the development of The Ultimate Gift Experience and is a member of The Ultimate Gift Experience Founders’ Circle.

Second Summer’s trademarked philosophies and strategies, and the creative materials that tactically implement those strategies, have helped advisors engage clients worth $5 million to $5 billion.

Jennifer Summer Tolman

Founder & Owner

Jennifer has been an avid writer since age eight, and during high school, gained a heightened interest in business-to-business copywriting. With this in mind, she enrolled in the Advertising Major program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism.

After college, Jennifer worked as a Vice President of Marketing for two start-up companies that marketed financial products to entrepreneurs and accountants. At both companies, she wrote and managed all of the print advertising and direct mail programs while also recruiting, training and managing the sales teams.

At this early stage of her career, Jennifer discovered a natural affinity for connecting the Brand Development process to business development. She also became attached to the accountability inherent to helping advisors – not just unearth their story – but to likewise use it to achieve quantifiable business results.

She joined a regional office of Lincoln Financial Advisors in 1994 as their Director of Marketing and Recruiting. While there, she provided one-on-one consulting to the company’s top advisors nationally and successfully recruited multi-million dollar advisors away from other firms. She was engaged as a consultant by three additional offices to develop marketing departments in their regional profit centers. Jennifer founded Second Summer in 2000.

  • M Financial Marketing Meeting, featured speaker in 2008 and 2016
  • The Legacy Companies, featured speaker
  • London Life, Wealth & Estate Planning Group, featured speaker
  • ValMark Securities, School of Life, featured speaker 
  • Ash Brokerage Summit, featured speaker
  • Communication Arts, national award winner
  • Denver Advertising Club, gold award winner
  • Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism, Advertising Major, University of Colorado at Boulder

Second Summer: what’s in the name…

Second Summer is named after Jennifer Summer Tolman’s grandmother, Frieda Summer. Frieda was an artist and was always Jennifer’s creative inspiration. Growing up, while other kids were making Santa Claus ornaments out of popsicle sticks, Jennifer and Frieda were carding raw sheep’s wool, dying it on the stove, spinning yarn on their spinning wheel and then weaving it into tapestries on Frieda’s giant floor loom in the attic studio of her New York apartment.

From Frieda, Jennifer discovered the importance of texture and connectivity in the creative process. Never a business woman, on her death-bed Frieda inspired Jennifer to start her own firm so she could do only the things she loved to do, and only with mutually inspiring clients. Second Summer was founded six months after Frieda’s passing. Her wisdom became the foundation of The Shared Purpose Cycle.