AL EP 20: Barrett Bogue – You Are The Person With The Vision

Show Notes

Connect with Barrett Bogue & Evocati Public Relations here –
Web: https://www.evocatillc.com/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/evocatillc

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:32:22

Hey, everybody, this is Jessie Michael Gilmore, agency and transformation coach and founder of Mission Control. Creator of leverage for growth and I’m Lucas James, founder of that I am, which scaled from 0 to $200,000 a month with my own agency. We are the host of leverage for growth, podcast agency leverage and episodes. We know that in order to scale your agency successfully, there are multiple shifts that need to happen within the founders mindsets, skill sets, and leadership styles.

00:00:32:24 – 00:01:02:02

We are on a mission to interview marketing and PR agency owners on their journey to six, seven and eight figures and leverage the lessons from their journey to save you time, energy and money in order for you to get your agency to the next level. If you find value in these episodes, watch the case study video to learn more about leverage for growth and how we successfully scale agencies quickly at Niche in Control Decomp case study at Niche in Control Accommodation.

00:01:02:04 – 00:01:25:28

You are now listening to leverage for growth. Hey everybody, this is Jessica Gilmore, founder of Niche in Control and creator of leverage for growth. Welcome to the agency Leverage Edition. For today. I am here with Barrett Bogue, founder of Bacardi, a public relations agency that empowers clients with a cost efficient means of communicating, activating and inspiring underserved communities.

00:01:26:00 – 00:01:49:11

Thanks for coming to our show today. Thanks, Jesse. Really appreciate it. Really happy to be here. Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and background of your agency? Yeah. So we were I founded the company in 2018. And to understand kind of the why, we have to go back to my own journey as a military veteran.

00:01:49:13 – 00:02:11:03

I served in Iraq, and I, I joke with people. I took a gap year in between my my bachelor master’s degree and spent in Iraq. And I came back home to school and I found a a, you know, a college that was deeply, deeply respectful of of my service and wanted to support me, but they didn’t know how.

00:02:11:06 – 00:02:31:27

And that’s where my passion for, the military connected community was born. I took that passion, into the Presidential Medal Fellows program, where, I was accepted into an analyst role with the Department of Veterans Affairs. And one of the first things that I worked on was this piece of legislation called a new GI Bill for New Century.

00:02:31:27 – 00:02:53:22

And the GI Bill pays for servicemembers and their loved ones to go to go to school. And it would have represented the largest expansion of the GI Bill since World War two, which, you know, is credited with building the middle class in America. And we we reviewed it and said it was going to be so expensive that there’s no way in heck that this thing was going to become law.

00:02:53:22 – 00:03:22:24

And nine months later, it was law, and we had 12 months to implement it. So we were going to go from a $3 billion allocation a year to around $12 billion, and we had 12 months to get it ready. And part of that was in marketing and messaging to prospective veterans and service members who wanted to use the GI Bill, and at the time, Facebook and Facebook groups were were becoming popular and I was using them.

00:03:22:24 – 00:03:44:22

But the people higher up in the chain of command didn’t have a lot of, experience in social media. So I, we said, you know, I’ll, I’ll take the lead on doing this. And that’s really where my passion for PR and storytelling was born, was in kind of activating that community of servicemen and veterans to go and apply for the GI Bill.

00:03:44:25 – 00:04:11:01

So I did that, and I worked for about, 15 years in various executive roles in the federal and nonprofit sectors, primarily in digital marketing, PR and comms. And I was about to turn 40, and, I had a, you know, an identity crisis, and said, if I didn’t start a business before I turned 40, I wasn’t going to do it.

00:04:11:03 – 00:04:35:01

So I went to my boss, Jared, at the time and I said, hey, man, here’s my two week notice. I’m going to do this business called evil Car-T. Yeah, it’s a silly name. And that was it. I didn’t have a business plan. I didn’t have a website. I didn’t have anything to my name. I just knew that I wanted to go and try and start an agency.

00:04:35:03 – 00:05:00:08

And that was in 2018. and so since then, we’ve, we’ve grown and adapted and we’ll, I know we’ll dive deeper into that and some of the lessons learned, but even karate is Latin for reservist, which is what I was. I was in the Marine Corps Reserve and I was activated for the Iraq War. And we started as, I was a solopreneur.

00:05:00:10 – 00:05:22:06

so we started as a one person shop doing PR and marketing for clients, as well as consulting projects for clients that that that really was focused in on a lot of, research as well. And then we, we pivoted to doing PR full time and I’ll talk about why, in a moment, but that’s where we are today.

00:05:22:08 – 00:05:52:08

That’s awesome. I like how it was kind of born out of there was kind of like a calling part of it where you’re like, I got to do this before I’m 40. there was also kind of like this, identification of need, like no one else was stepping up, and, and so you kind of took that over, has that kind of, been a theme in your life where, you’re kind of going in a certain direction, and then you realize that there’s kind of a need or a lack within the environment, and you kind of go, okay, I’m, I’m going to be the person that kind of goes

00:05:52:08 – 00:06:21:27

into that or, it, it is that, if you’re familiar with the, cliftonstrengths. yeah. One of my primary strengths is maximizer. So I’m like a sponge, and I have to, like, soak up everything that in this moment that I’m trying to do or that I’m trying to learn. But once I have maximized all of it, I feel like I’ve plateaued and so I was at a point in my career, where I didn’t want to go any higher in the organization.

00:06:21:27 – 00:06:40:12

So I went to the nonprofit sector and in leading change and in PR there. And at that point, we had had a major legislative victory. And I really felt like I’ve kind of proven myself and learned everything I wanted to the next thing was, but what about starting in business? There’s a lot of opportunity out there in entrepreneurship.

00:06:40:12 – 00:07:06:24

It’s very scary. but I had to keep telling myself, like, you survived Iraq and Paris, Iowa, there’s nothing that’s going to be as scary as that, comparatively speaking. So I always look for, opportunities that that I can, can maximize, personally and professionally. And entrepreneurship has been the one thing that has consistently filled my cup for the longest time.

00:07:06:26 – 00:07:30:16

It’s been great. Awesome. So on your journey, with the new ad agency, no, no business plan, you got diving right, right in headfirst. you know talk a little bit about that journey. How did you learn, you know, how to run a successful agency. through trial and error. Like, how have you gotten to where you are today?

00:07:30:18 – 00:07:33:11

Okay.

00:07:33:14 – 00:07:58:09

I think so. You know, for those of you who are, you know, just starting out, one of the things that there’s really two things that I did that I would impress upon your, your audience, I gave myself permission to fail. I did not take the failure is not an option approach or the. You kind of do, you know, 1,000% grit, get up at 5:00, kind of thing.

00:07:58:09 – 00:08:29:03

It was. Now, instead, it’s okay if you fail. And here’s the timeline. I gave myself a year and I gave myself a metric if I’m not profitable. And if I made it with two kids, if our family is not able to sustain the lifestyle that we want, then I would close the business. I said, like within a year, if if we’re not at that point and we haven’t met these metrics or are not meeting these metrics, then I’m going to close the business and lesson learned.

00:08:29:05 – 00:09:01:12

I can always go back to the nonprofit sector or the federal or private sector. If I wanted to. And that was a really it’s almost like I kind of tricked myself into not failing. but it, it, it gave me it gave me, an opportunity to really focus in on radically focusing on what are the elements that I need to work on in order to be a successful entrepreneur, especially with the agency.

00:09:01:14 – 00:09:38:29

So the other thing that I determined was I need to be the best prepared, best educated, business owner and CEO before I take on employees, before I expand the company, before I do any of that, I need to know what I’m doing. So, you know, a lot of reading books, listening to a lot of podcast. But I also joined, a nonprofit called Bunker Labs, which is a a nonprofit to help veterans and military connected entrepreneurs, establish and scale their businesses.

00:09:38:29 – 00:10:04:14

So I was selected into the veteran residents cohort, which is a partnership that they have it we work and it’s it’s almost like a mastermind and how it’s structured. I was also accepted into a leadership development program at the George W Bush Institute called, the Veteran Leadership, the stand two Veteran Leadership program. And, both of those provided the the just invaluable skills.

00:10:04:14 – 00:10:32:23

But most importantly, the the the relationships and networking necessary to, to sustain people kind of PR and to, to scale the business. So those are two things right there that that made an indelible impact on the company. awesome. Very cool. And it’s so where you’re at right now. like, how big is your team? You talked about being a solopreneur and, now do you have, some people working for you?

00:10:32:26 – 00:11:02:25

I do, so I’m looking at, the company, I added a, CEO to the firm, Mark Szymanski, and he and I had worked together previously, Mark, as a wonderfully talented, one of the best in the business, especially in the nonprofit advocacy space. I brought him on board as CEO to manage the day to day client interaction as well as the the team.

00:11:02:28 – 00:11:33:21

And then from there, we did a lot of due diligence and looking at what, what can we afford to, to hire. and so since then we’ve been able to add, multiple employees. And then we also have contractors on the team as well. So it is challenging building out and scaling, but I think for us, you know, we’re we’re always we’re constantly iterating or constantly talking about different scenarios about who could fit where and, and what do we need to, to meet this need.

00:11:33:21 – 00:12:22:07

And, you know, where are we going to be a year from now, etc.. So, yeah, it’s it’s not just me anymore, which is which is great. My role has has changed. I’m with Mark as the CEO. You know, I was doing everything, obviously, and where I’ve seen my role change significantly over the past eight months is my my external title was president and founder, but internally I’m operating more as a CEO, and, and founder trying to get and like sales as well, trying to get clients, building out the team, taking care of all the, the legal stuff, the paperwork, I mean, tons and tons of paperwork, as well.

00:12:22:07 – 00:12:46:04

So I’m doing that while Mark is concentrating on making sure our clients feel satisfied. That’s awesome. And through that that time of kind of growth and then bringing on kind of like your right hand or vice versa, you know, you talked a lot about kind of like role transitions and, and kind of having to shift, your own identity within the business.

00:12:46:06 – 00:13:12:20

and I know that that’s something that a lot of people, when they’re at the six figure and trying to get to seven figure there is a role transition that has to happen either mentally or, like actual position changes. what would you say to somebody that, maybe is either a little bit nervous about making a role change or, you know, nervous about maybe bringing on somebody that could actually run the day to day for them.

00:13:17:03 – 00:13:47:05

Well. It is a it’s it’s a challenging decision to make. It requires a lot of thought and input. Mark and I, we were in a period of due diligence from January through July. So this was a months long decision, so that by the time we got to July and had to sign everything, the signature and doing all that was the easiest part.

00:13:47:07 – 00:14:12:18

So certainly give it a lot of thought. you were only under the deadline that you gave yourself in that case. but what I’ve, what I’ve seen is if you want to grow your agency, you have to take a step back and say, I’m the person with the vision, and it’s my responsibility to delegate that out towards people.

00:14:12:21 – 00:14:34:12

for for action. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourself in this really difficult loop and almost kind of like stuck in the mud. and you’re not going to experience any kind of you’re not going to leverage any growth out of that. That’s awesome. You got to lean into it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Do. Yeah. Go. So what is success for you?

00:14:34:14 – 00:14:58:00

and everybody in the next like 1 to 3 years. What do you, what are you working on. Where are you getting getting excited about. Yeah, that’s a good question. So when we during the the due diligence phase with Mark, you know, I said earlier that we were doing marketing comms and consulting primarily in the military connected sector.

00:14:58:03 – 00:15:27:00

And what I saw was that the real revenue growth potential was in PR and marketing with, with clients that there were there were so many other nonprofits and well-established companies offering consulting services in that space that we could do it, but we we couldn’t compete. And I was what I was doing unintentionally was I was creating two different businesses inside of ones that required two different models.

00:15:27:02 – 00:15:49:24

and, you know, two different pricing sheets, etc.. And so I was like, no wonder I feel torn and like I’m spinning my wheels right now. So I needed to focus in on on one area. And so what we decided to do was get rid of I shouldn’t say it like that, but we paused the consulting side of the company and we no longer do consulting.

00:15:49:24 – 00:16:28:20

We don’t do research projects or for papers or anything like that for military connected clients. And we did an assessment of, you know, what do we do really well, as a team. And what we saw was we are very effective at storytelling and, anything that requires a call to action for clients. And we enjoy as, as, as our team is primarily made up of military connected people, we didn’t want to lose sight of what we really kind of consider as our our heritage within the military kinetic community.

00:16:28:23 – 00:16:57:13

But a lot of the skills and traits, products and services that we offer for those military kinetic clients can really work for anybody. But specifically, we know they can work well in other underserved communities. And when we say underserved, we mean people and communities that are traditionally reached by by PR or haven’t traditionally had, an agency to represent them.

00:16:57:13 – 00:17:34:29

So one really good example is some historically black colleges and universities, wonderful, wonderful institutions. They have incredible stories to tell. and we’ve got an opportunity with, with an HBCU. It started out as a consulting project, and then it turned into, PR effort, where they decided that they were going to make four years of undergraduate free for anybody connected to the military in any era.

00:17:35:01 – 00:18:11:02

So from Vietnam to today, anybody could enroll. And we were like, this is this is huge. So, you know, we we developed out a, a national campaign. we got them featured in the Washington Post. we did a whole launch at Fort Bragg down in North Carolina. We got local and regional coverage, and about four days later, they they reached out to us and they were like, they said that our phone lines are melting like we are getting so many inquiries.

00:18:11:04 – 00:18:38:23

They got, 600 applications in less than 30 days. just for the they’re doing it through a scholarship and they just enrolled, I think it was the largest freshman class in, like, the last 30 years. And their, their military connected students, skyrocketed because of that. See, like, that’s a really good example. the stories that we can tell in the work that we can do.

00:18:38:23 – 00:19:09:09

So what are we looking forward to is, is more of that and finding those those opportunities, we’ve transitioned into the agriculture sector and telling stories about American growers, American farmers and just the the sector in general and any other opportunities out there like that. We’re we’re really interested in pursuing it. And, and, serving. Awesome. So what is the best way for people to get in touch with you, Barrett.

00:19:09:11 – 00:19:31:02

or do you have any offers for them that they could take advantage of? So if you want to reach out to me, I’m on LinkedIn. more than happy to talk to any agency owner, especially those of you who are just starting out. I’d be happy to talk to you about the mistakes that I made. in order to help you not make those same mistakes.

00:19:31:05 – 00:19:53:16

If you want to learn more about our company and reach out to me, just go to avocado PR evocative pr.com and just click on Contact Us and you can learn more today. the call for, for for anybody who’s listening right now is we, we put a lot out on our, our company page on LinkedIn, and we have a lot of fun on there as well.

00:19:53:16 – 00:20:21:17

For example, we did a really cool, crossover. two weeks ago was National Potato Chip day. and so we, we celebrated it was National Potato Chip Day and National Pie Day at the same time. So potato chips, potatoes because one of our clients, the National Potato Council, we, one of our team members, he made a chocolate pie that had a potato chip crust.

00:20:21:20 – 00:20:51:23

And he made that for National Potato Chip day, National pie. Then we celebrated that and put that recipe out up on LinkedIn. It’s really fun. I mean, credit to him, and the team, they had a great time doing that. But that and then we put news, tips and resources for agency owners. But also if you’re just, if you’re a chief marketing officer, we also have a heart for the, the the director of comms or marketing in the nonprofit landscape, the person who’s wearing a lot of hats.

00:20:51:26 – 00:21:11:06

And inside that organization, if that’s you definitely come to our LinkedIn page and join it today because we have a lot of information to share with you. That’s it. Oh, awesome. Well, for anybody that’s listening, all the links for Barrett, any of our Carrie will be in our show notes. And I just want to say thank you very much for being on the show, Barrett.

00:21:11:08 – 00:21:32:07

It’s my privilege. Thank you. Agency owners, if you want to transform your agency to sustain and grow without your direct involvement, where you can stop working in the business and switch to working on the business where you can regain control of your time, delegate effectively, get paid what you’re worth, and have your team run the day to day.

00:21:32:14 – 00:21:50:15

Go to Niche in control.com/case study right now to learn more about leverage for growth, you can book a free strategy session with us to look at your systems. Understand what needs to be done in order for you to scale and get a free strategic plan for the next year. To live the life of entrepreneurship that you’ve always dreamed about.

00:21:50:17 – 00:22:04:16

Go to niche in control.com/case study that is niche in control.com/case study. Now.

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On.

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Dot.

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