So Vicki, tell me about your vision.
So well, my vision, you know, most of my business is the marketing shop.
And so it's funny because I was just on a call with somebody now and we were talking
about jointly how our visions are to really make my client's life easier.
So it sounds kind of funny because I'm a marketing person.
But you know, the really the kinds of clients that we like to work with are those that are
overburdened by what maybe they're trying to do internally or they just their marketing
isn't right, their branding isn't right.
And when we come in and we help them and we kind of take that off that burden off of their
shoulders again, well, it sounds silly, maybe it's just marketing, but it's maybe one piece
of the pie that they have of responsibilities.
And when we're able to help them with that and do it right and they feel good about it,
it's who it's like that sense of relief.
And so the best thing for us at the end of the day is when our clients say thank you
so much for you and your team and everything that you do for us, because you make my life
easier.
So awesome.
You mentioned overburdened clients.
What do you mean by that?
Just our clients that have just too much on their plate.
And isn't that a common thing with business owners, CEOs and sole entrepreneurs is that
they're just there's just too much.
There's just too much to get done in the day and they're going to sleep at night and there's
things still on their mind, things that are undone, things that they, oh my gosh, I didn't
do this today and it was so important to get done.
And so that's it.
I just think that most of us, many of us as business owners are just overburdened with
just too many things.
And if somebody can help you take some of that thing, some of those things off of your
plate, it can make it can make all the difference in your daily life and how you feel and your
relationships and your home life and everything else.
That is amazing.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
I couldn't agree more.
As entrepreneurs and business owners, we have a tendency of doing a lot and doing all of
it by ourselves a lot of times and we are overwhelmed.
Yeah.
So I totally see where you come from.
Yeah.
If I were to go back in time and if you could think about this question, where did this
vision of helping burden entrepreneurs come from?
Yeah.
So before I had my business 21 years ago, I was the marketing director at a nonprofit
organization that worked with adults with disabilities.
And so when I left there to form my company, I really wanted to work with nonprofit organizations
and in particular because I as a nonprofit marketing director knew that I was given the
role of jack of all trades.
And so there was so many different things that were put on my plate.
And so when and I knew that and at that point, the position that I had, I we didn't have
much outside help.
And so things just got things were left undone and our clients that we served were that that
affected them.
And so when I when I formed my company, I really wanted to be that help that to help
that pain point of just helping them get things done that they was one less thing that they
had to worry about.
21 years ago.
That is a long time ago.
28.
Wow, I can't even marketing would have been so different back then.
Yeah.
I bet the things that some of the things are principles probably the same and dealing with
these for it's still the same.
But the things that you actually do are probably very different from 21 years ago to now.
Yeah.
If I were to ask you, Vicky, would you say that is of what's your bio?
What you do?
Is that what it is to helping entrepreneurs or there's something more, something different
that I'm not seeing?
So I mean, I think that while my job is the owner of my company with having graphic designers
that work for me, my job is to make sure that the pipeline is full, that they have great
projects to work on and that they are, you know, that they keep busy during the day.
And so that's important.
So that's a big part of my why is why, you know, I'm out on LinkedIn and doing direct
mail and different things to bring in clients.
But we really have a passion for working with nonprofits.
We work with for profit and nonprofit organizations, but we really, really love the work that we
do for our nonprofits.
There's nothing like having my team walk in a 5K that is being held by one of our nonprofit
organizations for us to proudly have those shirts on and say, we're part of this team.
You know, we are honored to be while we're doing the marketing for this organization,
we're part of this team and we're just honored to be part of that mission.
And so that's why we have really decided that going going after working with nonprofits
is so important because at the end of the day, it feels so it feels so good to know
that we are part of making those missions happen and having an impact in not only our
communities, but communities around the country in a small way, you know, that we are part
of what their missions are.
Is that what what's the reason you get up in the morning every day?
Gosh, you know, I really do love what I do.
I love my team.
My designers are amazing.
They're not only amazing designers, but they're amazing people.
And so if we can keep this business going and I can keep them employed and give them
work that makes them confident, feel good about what they do and just have a have a
job they enjoy coming to and we can have a sustainable business and we're also helping
our clients.
You know, that's that really is that's that's really important to me.
It's amazing that I can still go in the office every day after 21 years of owning my business
and say, this is my business and we're going to make this work.
And what's what's today got in store for us?
Who am I going to meet?
And I do a lot of a lot of zoom calls and I have just a lot of I meet a lot of amazing
people.
As I was saying, I just got off the call with somebody just before this call as rushing
to it.
You know, I said, oh my gosh, I've got to go.
I've got only four minutes left before my podcast.
But it was just an amazing, amazing connection.
And so it's still exciting for me every day.
Thank you for sharing that.
My next question for you is how you get started.
But you've already mentioned some of the things that what you did when you got started, but
essentially leading the path to your digital marketing world and what you do.
Did you have everything figured out?
What systems or what did you have to learn?
What lessons did you have to go through to rise?
Oh my gosh, this is what I'm building.
This is what I should be building and have some of the things you want to share.
Sure.
So, well, it's interesting is my career started out as working in the automotive industry.
So I worked for Saturn Corporation, which is there's no Saturn car anymore.
But I did work in the startup marketing team, saw the first car roll off the line.
And that was a very exciting.
That was a very exciting time.
I was young.
I got to travel around the country shooting TV commercials for Saturn.
And then I got to a point where I realized I wanted to do more with my life.
And I had left my career and joined the Peace Corps.
And I lived in Nicaragua for a while working with small business owners in Nicaragua.
And then I came back and I really realized that I wanted to do more as well and not go
back to my corporate job.
And that was when I went to work for the nonprofit.
And after five years, when I started to when I went to open up my business and marketing
shop, I had no idea how to run a small business.
I just knew that I loved doing graphic design and marketing and that I wanted to have my
own company.
And I learned how did I get started as I talked to people.
I learned I reached out to the Chamber of Commerce.
I reached out to people I knew.
And I said, my gosh, what do I need to do here?
I had a great coach who knew a lot about being a business owner, who really gave me some
great tips in the beginning.
And I learned a lot along the way in trial and error.
Try this didn't work.
Oh, gosh, try this.
Oh, my gosh, this worked wonderful.
And so I had the opportunity, I say, to ramp up my business in the time that it that made
sense for me.
So I didn't have to all of a sudden hire for graphic designers and make this multimillion
dollar business.
I was able to ramp it up more slowly, hire when I needed to hire.
And it's grown at a wonderful pace, but enough time to acclimate to the changes, the new
people.
But, you know, I think that always reaching out to others and recognizing that you don't
have all the answers.
And that's okay.
It's okay to be transparent, admit that I don't have all the answers.
Oh, my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing here.
And always be open to that, too.
When things come up to think I'm not sure if I'm in an area here that makes sense that
I really don't know and to not be afraid to ask for help.
That is awesome.
If I were to this is a deep question.
I'm sure throughout your 21 years of business, you have followed a business model or, you
know, a little bit of a business model that you were trying to replicate or you maybe
invented one.
If you want to share some insights on that, that'd be amazing.
Yeah.
Well, so I think that being that my startup, rather my first job out of college was working
for Saturn Corporation.
And I wrote a thesis, too, on target marketing.
And I really learned it really solidified my philosophy of target markets and really
looking at who you are marketing to and to not market to the masses, to not market to
everyone, to be smaller and more focused in what you're doing and really specialize in
who you can serve.
We meet plenty of people who say, well, who's your audience?
You know, who are you trying to sell to?
I'm trying to sell to everybody.
I, you know, the people you come to say as long as they can fog a mirror, that's a client
for me.
Well, let's really talk about that.
I'm not sure that it is.
So I think that that has really carried over.
I'm in a marketing business, so I'm in a position of being able to consult with people about
that.
But also, you know, in what we do in trying to, again, you know, we don't do marketing
for just everybody in every kind of business.
We do have certain target markets that we focus on.
And I think that that's becoming even more important today because we're so inundated
with information, with social media, with electronic forms of communication that we
really need to be targeted in what we're doing, not only our message, but in our client base.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.