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So Vicki, tell me about your vision.

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So well, my vision, you know, most of my business is the marketing shop.

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And so it's funny because I was just on a call with somebody now and we were talking

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about jointly how our visions are to really make my client's life easier.

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So it sounds kind of funny because I'm a marketing person.

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But you know, the really the kinds of clients that we like to work with are those that are

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overburdened by what maybe they're trying to do internally or they just their marketing

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isn't right, their branding isn't right.

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And when we come in and we help them and we kind of take that off that burden off of their

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shoulders again, well, it sounds silly, maybe it's just marketing, but it's maybe one piece

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of the pie that they have of responsibilities.

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And when we're able to help them with that and do it right and they feel good about it,

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it's who it's like that sense of relief.

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And so the best thing for us at the end of the day is when our clients say thank you

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so much for you and your team and everything that you do for us, because you make my life

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easier.

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So awesome.

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You mentioned overburdened clients.

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What do you mean by that?

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Just our clients that have just too much on their plate.

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And isn't that a common thing with business owners, CEOs and sole entrepreneurs is that

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they're just there's just too much.

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There's just too much to get done in the day and they're going to sleep at night and there's

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things still on their mind, things that are undone, things that they, oh my gosh, I didn't

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do this today and it was so important to get done.

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And so that's it.

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I just think that most of us, many of us as business owners are just overburdened with

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just too many things.

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And if somebody can help you take some of that thing, some of those things off of your

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plate, it can make it can make all the difference in your daily life and how you feel and your

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relationships and your home life and everything else.

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That is amazing.

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Yeah, you're absolutely right.

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I couldn't agree more.

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As entrepreneurs and business owners, we have a tendency of doing a lot and doing all of

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it by ourselves a lot of times and we are overwhelmed.

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Yeah.

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So I totally see where you come from.

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Yeah.

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If I were to go back in time and if you could think about this question, where did this

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vision of helping burden entrepreneurs come from?

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Yeah.

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So before I had my business 21 years ago, I was the marketing director at a nonprofit

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organization that worked with adults with disabilities.

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And so when I left there to form my company, I really wanted to work with nonprofit organizations

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and in particular because I as a nonprofit marketing director knew that I was given the

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role of jack of all trades.

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And so there was so many different things that were put on my plate.

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And so when and I knew that and at that point, the position that I had, I we didn't have

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much outside help.

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And so things just got things were left undone and our clients that we served were that that

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affected them.

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And so when I when I formed my company, I really wanted to be that help that to help

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that pain point of just helping them get things done that they was one less thing that they

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had to worry about.

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21 years ago.

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That is a long time ago.

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28.

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Wow, I can't even marketing would have been so different back then.

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Yeah.

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I bet the things that some of the things are principles probably the same and dealing with

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these for it's still the same.

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But the things that you actually do are probably very different from 21 years ago to now.

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Yeah.

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If I were to ask you, Vicky, would you say that is of what's your bio?

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What you do?

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Is that what it is to helping entrepreneurs or there's something more, something different

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that I'm not seeing?

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So I mean, I think that while my job is the owner of my company with having graphic designers

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that work for me, my job is to make sure that the pipeline is full, that they have great

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projects to work on and that they are, you know, that they keep busy during the day.

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And so that's important.

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So that's a big part of my why is why, you know, I'm out on LinkedIn and doing direct

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mail and different things to bring in clients.

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But we really have a passion for working with nonprofits.

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We work with for profit and nonprofit organizations, but we really, really love the work that we

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do for our nonprofits.

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There's nothing like having my team walk in a 5K that is being held by one of our nonprofit

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organizations for us to proudly have those shirts on and say, we're part of this team.

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You know, we are honored to be while we're doing the marketing for this organization,

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we're part of this team and we're just honored to be part of that mission.

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And so that's why we have really decided that going going after working with nonprofits

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is so important because at the end of the day, it feels so it feels so good to know

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that we are part of making those missions happen and having an impact in not only our

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communities, but communities around the country in a small way, you know, that we are part

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of what their missions are.

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Is that what what's the reason you get up in the morning every day?

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Gosh, you know, I really do love what I do.

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I love my team.

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My designers are amazing.

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They're not only amazing designers, but they're amazing people.

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And so if we can keep this business going and I can keep them employed and give them

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work that makes them confident, feel good about what they do and just have a have a

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job they enjoy coming to and we can have a sustainable business and we're also helping

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our clients.

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You know, that's that really is that's that's really important to me.

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It's amazing that I can still go in the office every day after 21 years of owning my business

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and say, this is my business and we're going to make this work.

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And what's what's today got in store for us?

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Who am I going to meet?

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And I do a lot of a lot of zoom calls and I have just a lot of I meet a lot of amazing

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people.

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As I was saying, I just got off the call with somebody just before this call as rushing

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to it.

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You know, I said, oh my gosh, I've got to go.

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I've got only four minutes left before my podcast.

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But it was just an amazing, amazing connection.

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And so it's still exciting for me every day.

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Thank you for sharing that.

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My next question for you is how you get started.

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But you've already mentioned some of the things that what you did when you got started, but

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essentially leading the path to your digital marketing world and what you do.

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Did you have everything figured out?

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What systems or what did you have to learn?

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What lessons did you have to go through to rise?

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Oh my gosh, this is what I'm building.

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This is what I should be building and have some of the things you want to share.

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Sure.

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So, well, it's interesting is my career started out as working in the automotive industry.

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So I worked for Saturn Corporation, which is there's no Saturn car anymore.

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But I did work in the startup marketing team, saw the first car roll off the line.

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And that was a very exciting.

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That was a very exciting time.

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I was young.

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I got to travel around the country shooting TV commercials for Saturn.

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And then I got to a point where I realized I wanted to do more with my life.

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And I had left my career and joined the Peace Corps.

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And I lived in Nicaragua for a while working with small business owners in Nicaragua.

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And then I came back and I really realized that I wanted to do more as well and not go

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back to my corporate job.

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And that was when I went to work for the nonprofit.

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And after five years, when I started to when I went to open up my business and marketing

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shop, I had no idea how to run a small business.

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I just knew that I loved doing graphic design and marketing and that I wanted to have my

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own company.

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And I learned how did I get started as I talked to people.

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I learned I reached out to the Chamber of Commerce.

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I reached out to people I knew.

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And I said, my gosh, what do I need to do here?

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I had a great coach who knew a lot about being a business owner, who really gave me some

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great tips in the beginning.

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And I learned a lot along the way in trial and error.

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Try this didn't work.

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Oh, gosh, try this.

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Oh, my gosh, this worked wonderful.

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And so I had the opportunity, I say, to ramp up my business in the time that it that made

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sense for me.

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So I didn't have to all of a sudden hire for graphic designers and make this multimillion

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dollar business.

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I was able to ramp it up more slowly, hire when I needed to hire.

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And it's grown at a wonderful pace, but enough time to acclimate to the changes, the new

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people.

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But, you know, I think that always reaching out to others and recognizing that you don't

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have all the answers.

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And that's okay.

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It's okay to be transparent, admit that I don't have all the answers.

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Oh, my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing here.

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And always be open to that, too.

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When things come up to think I'm not sure if I'm in an area here that makes sense that

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I really don't know and to not be afraid to ask for help.

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That is awesome.

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If I were to this is a deep question.

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I'm sure throughout your 21 years of business, you have followed a business model or, you

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know, a little bit of a business model that you were trying to replicate or you maybe

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invented one.

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If you want to share some insights on that, that'd be amazing.

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Yeah.

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Well, so I think that being that my startup, rather my first job out of college was working

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for Saturn Corporation.

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And I wrote a thesis, too, on target marketing.

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And I really learned it really solidified my philosophy of target markets and really

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looking at who you are marketing to and to not market to the masses, to not market to

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everyone, to be smaller and more focused in what you're doing and really specialize in

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who you can serve.

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We meet plenty of people who say, well, who's your audience?

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You know, who are you trying to sell to?

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I'm trying to sell to everybody.

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I, you know, the people you come to say as long as they can fog a mirror, that's a client

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for me.

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Well, let's really talk about that.

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I'm not sure that it is.

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So I think that that has really carried over.

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I'm in a marketing business, so I'm in a position of being able to consult with people about

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that.

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But also, you know, in what we do in trying to, again, you know, we don't do marketing

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for just everybody in every kind of business.

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We do have certain target markets that we focus on.

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And I think that that's becoming even more important today because we're so inundated

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with information, with social media, with electronic forms of communication that we

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really need to be targeted in what we're doing, not only our message, but in our client base.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.