As CEO of Creatively Disruptive, Andy Seeley heads a “digital marketing agency” composed of a team of professionals that “work together as the Small Business Champions!” With team members dispersed across several time zones, they can help clients around the clock, leaving no stone unturned in their mutual pursuit of growth in the market. They help several clients in “fighting those pixels, keeping up with all the latest algorithms, and making sure [you’re] getting [your] money’s worth for [your] online advertising.”
At Creatively Disruptive, Andy Seeley and his team have devised effective methods that have saved countless businesses. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has lost “very few clients,” while “over 70% have been able to keep their business open.” Additionally, the company’s tools have helped a small California tea shop not only stay afloat, but even prosper, having seen a jump in online sales from $5,000 to $250,000 in August.
Andy Seeley has said that “small business are ‘where hopes and dreams are made.’” Small businesses doing well is a sign that the world is in a right place, according to him. However, when they begin to struggle, there is something wrong with the country and the world. Since he works with eighty small business owners, Andy understands this phenomenon very deeply.
For his job, Andy Seeley takes care of making audiences begin to care about a small business and to want them to succeed. His years of marketing experience have helped him crack the code for online marketing for small businesses.
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Jerome Knyszewski: What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Andy Seeley: Our company is firmly committed to the belief that people matter and small businesses, including our own, are made of people. Our clients are people, and their clients/customers are people. That is important to remember this possibly more now than ever. That if you take care of your people that they will take care of you.
This is based on our experience and struggles as small business owners in the past. Especially that of feeling alone with no help trying to figure everything out, trying to be an expert in everything, feeling disconnected, that we didn’t matter.
We focus on working with good companies that do good things owned by good people. It’s truly been a game-changer. We treat our clients like we would want them to treat our family. It works, It’s real, and it’s authentic. People feel it.
Jerome Knyszewski: Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Andy Seeley: Build your team, work on your business, not in it. Don’t try to do everything yourself. Develop experts and help them find their happy place where they are most likely to discover their genius. Internally hire based on character and personality rather than skill. Do this, and you will have a top-notch team delivering top-notch services and products.
When partnering with agencies and vendors, make sure they align with your way of doing business. Personally, in every interaction, I’m looking at the character and personality of those my company or I am involved with. Do they have our back, and most importantly, do we have their back. When the going is good, we prosper; when the going is tough, we not only survive but thrive. The better I do my job, the less I have to do because my team takes care of business. Invest in your people, and burnout simply won’t happen.
Jerome Knyszewski: None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Andy Seeley: Actually, two people: my wife Tiffany and my business partner Russell.
Tiffany, while working our businesses after the great recession, worked two jobs and never gave up on the goals and dreams and allowed me to continue my efforts to build a company of real purpose and strength. Without Tiffany, I may have been tempted to give up and return to New Zealand or, (much, much worse) become a corporate employee. Her support truly allowed us the time to make things happen.
Russell because he is the yin to my yang. My specialty is in revenue-driving and people management. Russell is technical know-how and has the ability to build processes and find answers to most digital problems and challenges. In a real sense, he is our product and services; I am our sales and marketing. It’s a perfect fit.
Jerome Knyszewski: Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. The title of this series is “How to take your company from good to great”. Let’s start with defining our terms. How would you define a “good” company, what does that look like? How would you define a “great” company, what does that look like?
Andy Seeley: Good is a financially sound and operationally stable company with a solid customer base and following. They also have a fleshed-out brand and efficient marketing and sales process for revenue-driving with solid systems of delivery of quality products and services. There are many, many well run businesses like this. They are somewhat unremarkable and are continually struggling to separate themselves from the rest of the good businesses that exist. But they survive and roll on sometimes for decades and generations.
Great: Is a company that has all those characteristics of the good company. But with a couple of significant differences.
1) Great Companies thoroughly understand their “why” and can communicate it in a way that inspires both its clients and its employees. They remember that their why is the mission of what they have and why they do everything they do. They would argue it’s the true product they offer. Their manufactured product or supplied service is the vehicle for that ultimate “why” product or solution. For example, the supplied service we offer is Google Adword and Facebook ad management, email marketing, and website development. But our ultimate “why” service is that we specialize in Small Business Growth with certainty, putting control of growth and how much to grow in the hands of the small business owner. Everything we do is geared to this “why” product.
2) Great companies are made up of great people. Those great people are inspired by the company’s mission or “Why.” They love their company, and more importantly, their company loves them back. This in turn means the company and its employees love their clients, causing a fanatical love of the brand and company by their clients. It’s underlined in action that proves this inspiration and love. My strategy and the bedrock of building this is our ability to hire employees of great character and personality. We don’t focus on skill because we can train skills but not character. But with good character, our employees learn quickly, and because we are very concerned with helping them find the work they love to do, they often find their genius. The result? Extremely happy customers that are fanatical about the brand, employees that love what they do and produce genius-level work for our clients, which results in a great company.
Jerome Knyszewski: What would you advise to a business leader who initially went through years of successive growth but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth and “restart their engines”?
Andy Seeley: Often the standstill or stagnation is one of a couple of things: a lack of motivation and passion or an inability to scale. This is typically due to leaders working far too much in the day-to-day of their business, causing burnout and loss of motivation or an inability to delegate and team build, leading to the inability to scale the business. As leaders, the one job we can’t delegate is the guiding and strategic direction of the company. Everything else can be delegated if you trust your team to do it. It’s easy to get drawn into the day-to-day, but it’s tremendously important that you don’t so you can focus on Strategy, Planning, and Development. Your primary role is to communicate direction, monitor and manage the performance of your team executing everyday operations. Find your passion and motivation again, and build your team and resources to allow you to scale. A good captain keeps his eyes on the horizon and destination goal, not only on his ship’s deck.
Jerome Knyszewski: Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?
Andy Seeley: Our primary strategy is looking at the problems people have in our industry and pivoting quickly to solve and support them. Tough times often unearth more opportunities than good times do. The key is to have the ability and confidence to take them on.
More people are looking for help and answers during rough periods, be a source of knowledge and help, and at minimum, you will grow your brand and reputation. Most likely, you will draw many more new and ultimately very loyal customers. Remember, pain adversity is the most potent driver of change in humans. Challenging times unfortunately, creates a lot of pain and adversity. Ask yourself how you can use this to drive results for both yourself and your clients and if you can, you have a recession-proof operation. For example, we pivoted hard quickly to our eCommerce offerings, knowing with lockdowns in early pandemic that people would be purchasing more online than ever before, that secured revenue.
In our KAC (Kids Activity Centers) niche, we focused on supporting those clients that were closed and supporting in a real way.
When they reopened, they remembered what we did for them when they were closed and flocked to use when they reopened. Lastly, we decided to open a new niche during the pandemic and lockdowns a niche that has been crushed. Restaurants, We have added so many new restaurant clients who are now desperately looking to connect digitally with their communities, something they had neglected during the good times. We also have very little competition in this niche due to people assuming it’s a lost cause. These moves have allowed us to have the best 3rd and 4th quarters in our history and three back to back record months. Who would have thought solving problems and helping people during challenging times would be profitable?…We did.
Jerome Knyszewski: In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?
Andy Seeley: Team and culture building.
Jerome Knyszewski: Great customer service and great customer experience are essential to build a beloved brand and essential to be successful in general. In your experience what are a few of the most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience?
Andy Seeley: The people-centric approach has always worked for me, giving your staff a wow experience to work in, and giving your clients a wow customer experience. Make the people you manage and serve feel important and special and mean it. If you don’t care, you will struggle. Be authentic and real… It goes a long way.
Jerome Knyszewski: What are your thoughts about how a company should be engaged on Social Media? For example, the advisory firm EisnerAmper conducted 6 yearly surveys of United States corporate boards, and directors reported that one of their most pressing concerns was reputational risk as a result of social media. Do you share this concern? We’d love to hear your thoughts about this.
Andy Seeley: I don’t share this concern. However, I’m not surprised by corporate boards being concerned about this. They tend to move slowly and change course like the Titanic; they are also massively risk-averse. I see social media as just another two way channel of communication with our audience, clients, and potential clients but on a mass scale. Not that much different from email campaigns and other forms of communication. What my advice regarding this is to treat your social media as you would a print magazine or tv channel populating it with interesting, useful, and inspiring stories and content that inspires and excites your audience to engage with your brand. Showcasing your culture and the way you operate and develop the Fear Of Missing Out and a sense of connection with your target audience. Considering corporate America’s poor reputation on how they treat people, I can see how they struggle to do this.
Jerome Knyszewski: What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?
Andy Seeley: Poor hiring and lack of focus on staff development and care, forgetting that culture is important.
Avoid this by developing processes and operations that make these things a focus. As a CEO, it is your job to be the facilitator and developer of a great staff and the culture they work in. Be relentless; it never stops. As a wise woman once told me to say “better never stops.”
Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Andy Seeley: I feel people are very divided the world over between those looking at government to solve their problems and those that want government out of their lives. It causes a lot of angst and ill feelings. The truth is I believe the cause and solution can come from the same place — placing people 1st in our lives. If, as communities and as people, we supported one another as a village did 200+ years ago, there would be little need for government and its encroachment on our lives. I would love to start a movement that supported people and community efforts to support each other — bringing communities closer and people together. Something we have missed in this digital and pandemic age.
Oh, and I would teach people to turn notifications off on their phones and re-engage a little with their lives and loved ones.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Andy Seeley: Follow our company FB and Instagram pages and Youtube channel, Creatively Disruptive.
Connect with Creatively Disruptive on Linkedin. Personally, you can follow me on twitter @AndyDisruption. You can check our website at www.CreativelyDisruptive.com.
If you run a Kids Activity Center or Restaurant you can join our groups at The Gymnastics Marketing Group and the Restaurant Marketing Group.
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
