It's Time to Market Like a Human

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Dustin Brackett, founder, and CEO of HIVE Strategy, located in Denver, CO, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

HIVE Strategy is an inbound marketing agency and Diamond HubSpot Solutions Partner. We work with clients in all industries to create and support marketing campaigns, website development, and strategy campaigns. We work with medium and enterprise business-to-business organizations across the United States and Canada.

Tell us about yourself

I started my agency in 2014 as a social media marketing agency, and we quickly grew from there into the full-service agency that we are today. I am passionate about creating strong strategies to connect with humans through marketing. I think that a lot of organizations have fallen into the "quantity over quality" trap, and that has caused us to lose sight of the fact that whether we are marketing business to business or business to consumer, we are really marketing business to human. That is the methodology and idea that I have used to grow my agency and grow our clients' businesses. That is also the theme of my new book (launching March 1st), Market Like A Human (marketlikeahuman.com).

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

We have accomplished a lot over the last nine years, but at the top of that list is achieving the Diamond tier within the HubSpot Partner ecosystem and the release of my book, Market Like A Human. Achieving the Diamond tier puts our agency in the top 4% of all HubSpot agencies in the entire world and showcases our level of commitment and expertise to our craft. The book is a huge accomplishment for our agency and for me as we are able to better spread the process and ideas that have made us and our clients successful.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Everything. Honestly, what I've learned over the nine years of running my agency is that you never have fewer problems, just different ones. When we started out, we had problems that centered around revenue, identity, sales, etc. Today, we have problems with hiring, documentation, processes, etc. Being a business owner never gets easier. It just changes shape.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Be who you are. You don't have to fit a mold or change who you are because the industry has certain expectations.
Be extremely careful with who you get into business — that means clients, business partners, employees, and vendors. They all have a big impact on your success. Don't just jump into bed with anyone.
Hire people smarter than you to do things that are not your strength. When you start out, you're likely going to do everything in your business, but as soon as you're able to, you should start adding people to your team to do the things that are not your core strength. For me, that was sales. I took sales off my plate first because I was great at executing and creating marketing strategies, but I didn't want to be on sales calls all the time. I needed someone that was passionate about sales and could do that better than me. That has obviously grown to other areas of the business over the last nine years, but that is where it started, and it was a huge catalyst for our growth.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.hivestrategy.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DBrackett88
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbrackett/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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