Q: Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: Morrison Digital Marketing, located in beautiful Denver CO, serving the Colorado business and Non-Profit communities. Morrison Digital Marketing provides Multimedia Production and Internet Marketing Services that deliver results. We accomplish this by, making it easy and stress free for our customer to work with us, by creating intentionally messaged content tailored to their target audience, by using cinematic story telling strategies, by applying ethical internet marketing best practices and delivering an outcome that exceeded our client’s expectations.
Q: Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: I have lived in Colorado nearly my entire life while Julie is a Colorado native giving us both strong roots in the community. We are both degreed professionals with expertise in Graphic Design, Video Production, Web Design and Digital Marketing. We are an award winning video production team having received 3 Telly awards for our production of a marketing piece for 360 Engineering and a Vega award for a marketing piece produced for Flat Irons Chemicals.
Q: What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Ans: We started Morrison Digital Marketing to help businesses tell their story and connect with their audience. Our passion lies in the art of storytelling, and it is used across all the services we offer. Whether it is the website that walks the customer through a buying process or a web commercial that introduces the viewer to the story and culture behind the business, our unique skill set brings it to life and creates engages.
Q: What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans: Never stop learning. Be flexible, willing to adapt to change. Don’t get discouraged when you run into a challenge.
Q: What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: The ability to sell yourself and the product or service you offer. The ability to persevere through the ups and downs of being in business. The vision to see where you might want to go and the ability to create a strategic plan to accomplish the vision.
Q: How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: There was a time when I was working 60-70 hours a week. I am know at a place in my life where I am trying to find balance between work and life and generally am able to keep my work week under 50 hrs a week.
Q: To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: First in foremost that passion that I have for the creative process and secondly my passion to help other business achieve their success.
Q: How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans: We take a diverse approach to marketing. The top of the list is Digital Marketing and focus on the three pillars of internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing and Pay Per Click Ad Placement. We also use direct sales through cold calling and community outreach in addition to direct mail and email.
Q: Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it?
Ans: How did you obtain investors for your venture? We have built this company from the ground up with sweat equity. We work hard to bring a new client on board and then work harder to deliver on our promises.
Q: What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans: The first step is to define for yourself what success looks like to you. Not what the world says success looks like, rather determining what is most important to you. Then set goals and lean on a coach or colleagues to hold you accountable to those commitments.
Q: Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: Five to ten years. Well that is a great question. I see myself continuing to make family a priority with work as a close second.
Q: Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: I have several friends and colleagues that I look up to. Honestly anyone willing to step out on their own and serve their community with their time and their talents is my hero. It is a bit unnerving to decide to not rely on someone else to provide the work for you. To trust in yourself, suit up and show up every day, and deliver what you promised, there is no better achievement.
Q: How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Having the ability to surround yourself with great talent is a skill set in of itself. It is imperative to be able to attract good talent to grow your company.
Q: How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: It depends. If I know this is what I want and there is a need or market, giving up is not an option.
Q: What motivates you?
Ans: My wife, kids and now grandchildren all motivate me. To some degree I will always be an example to those that come after me and I want to pave a path that sets them all up for success.
Q: What are your ideals? Family first.
Ans: I work to live, not live to work!
Q: How do you generate new ideas?
Ans: Brainstorming can be a daunting task and does not always come natural. Sometimes it takes getting away from my desk and working on something mundane and simple minded. This allows me to distract myself a bit and get out of the tunnel vision. Also it is important to lean on and rely on the other talent in the business. Getting a conversation going with some friendly banter back and forth can unearth some great starting ideas, then you can dig in and get to work.
Q: How do you define success?
Ans: The world would put a number on success. I am not sure that is really where success lies. I think success is the continues action of earning an honest living while accomplishing all of the things in life that are really important. The relationships with friends and family in addition to serving the communities we are members of.
Q: How do you build a successful customer base?
Ans: You build a successful client base one client at a time. You sell the first job. You wow the client delivering above and beyond. Repeat.
Q: What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans: I love the flexibility in my schedule to prioritize family first. Secondarily I love the ability to help tell my customers stories.
Q: What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ans: This last couple of years have been very difficult especially for the business owner. However during these tough times we have been able to help several of our clients shift their marketing approach to digital marketing. This has helped them to continue to connect with their customers allowing them to retain their employees and those families continue to sustain.
Q: What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Ans: The main difference between the entrepreneur and those that work for someone else is their ability to have complete faith in themselves to succeed and meet their goals.
Q: What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
Ans: We have a very independent work environment and work diligently on attracting staff that are looking for that freedom. Yes we of course have large projects and deadlines to meet and we work hard as a team to get that done. However, within our teamwork environment, individual staff have their own tasks and deadlines and work independently to get their portion done.
Q: In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Ans: My life as an entrepreneur has never been dull, has always met my financial needs and has given me the flexibility to enjoy life outside of work.
Q: How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
Ans: There have definitely been some sacrifices over the years and most of that has been time away from family. However, the benefits have always outweighed the sacrifices by allowing me to schedule around the big events in life like graduations and weddings.
Q: What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?
Ans: Fear is a funny thing. At least for myself it mostly consists of dwelling on things that I do not have control over or focused on distant future “what if’s”. The way I tend to deal with this type of fear is to understand truly what I have the means to control and let go of the rest.
Q: What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Ans: I have way to many hobbies and living in Colorado is part of the problem. During the summer we take the boat out for wake boarding, tubing. I also love fly fishing our streams. During the summer we also hike and bike. During the winter it is skiing.