Company: CMOco
Owners: Lori Asbury
Year Started: 2011
Employees: 11 – 25
“An Agency Story” is a compelling podcast series that delves into the intricacies of running an agency, showcasing the journeys of dynamic leaders in the industry. This episode spotlights Lori Asbury, the founder behind CMOco, offering a deep dive into her entrepreneurial journey, unique insights, and the wisdom garnered from her extensive career in the media industry.
In this episode, Lori shares her transition from a successful career in television to founding her own agency. Key themes include Lori’s early career in television, her decision to return to business school, and the entrepreneurial spirit that led to the creation of CMOco. The episode also touches on the challenges and rewards of balancing a high-powered career with motherhood.
Lori’s journey is filled with significant highlights, including her leadership roles at major media companies like CBS, Fox, and HGTV. She candidly discusses the pivotal moments that shaped her career, including the unexpected loss of her job at HGTV, which ultimately propelled her into entrepreneurship. Lori’s story is rich with humorous anecdotes and powerful quotes, such as her realization that “great creative is only great if it accomplishes a goal,” reflecting her strategic mindset. One of the episode’s standout moments is Lori’s recounting of the innovative ways her agency navigated the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. From maintaining client relationships to exploring new revenue streams like selling COVID testing swabs, Lori’s resourcefulness and adaptability shine through.
Lori Asbury’s contributions to the podcast are significant not only for her professional achievements but also for her personal journey. Her story of resilience and determination is inspiring, particularly her commitment to being a present single mother while building a successful business.
Lori Asbury’s story is a testament to the power of adaptability, resourcefulness, and strategic thinking in overcoming challenges and achieving success. Tune in to this episode to gain a deeper understanding of her journey, the innovative strategies behind CMOco’s success, and the ongoing themes of growth and reinvention. This episode will leave you contemplating the importance of resilience and creativity in navigating the ever-evolving landscape of the business world.
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Show Transcript
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel:
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast, I’m your host Russel. In this episode we’re joined by Lori Asbury, the inspiring founder behind CMOco based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Lori shares her remarkable transition from a high flying executive career in television to establishing our own business after a job loss and the desire to put down roots. I absolutely love Lori’s energy and resourcefulness in running her business. Be sure to check out the part of the conversation around how her business navigated the COVID era and some important takeaways to help navigate some of the recent economic slowness within the marketing industry. Her story at the end is just as epic as she tells of an unexpected gift from a client, a light-hearted twist to our outstanding professional journey. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Lori Asbury with CMOco Marketing and Advertising with us here today. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Lori.
Lori:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to our conversation.
Russel:
I am too. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go right out of the gate. What does CMOco do and who do you do it for?
Lori:
CMOco is a by nature a traditional advertising agency. Although I would like to say we have a little bit of a twist. Our name is indicative of who we are, which is Chief Marketing Officer Company. In most cases we operate as a company’s chief marketing officer and their marketing department. We really bring that high level strategy and then we really handle the day in day out execution of that strategy. Our sweet spot in terms of our target customers are anywhere from, million dollar to a hundred million dollar range, and those are companies who may be in high growth mode, but don’t necessarily have an internal CMO or an internal marketing department. We can step in and bring that senior level strategic marketing approach and then bring all the resources and infrastructure to be able to execute on any strategy that we develop. That is how we operate. In most cases, having said that, we do also a lot of project work. We have companies come to us and they just need an ad campaign. We can develop and execute ad campaigns just like any other traditional advertising agency.
Russel:
I’ve got a lot more questions on the agency side, but I’m curious, what was life like for young Lori? Where was she headed? What did she want to be when she grew up? What does all that look like for you?
Lori:
I grew up in, in middle America. I got my undergraduate degree at the University of Oklahoma. Was really blessed to, attend that university that happened to have a really outstanding marketing and advertising, communications, journalism school. The bulk of my career, out of the gate and actually up until about 15 years ago was all in, in television. I worked for major media companies, on the creative side, behind the scenes. Primarily working in marketing and advertising departments, really working inside the internal agencies for television networks. Developing the creative, establishing the branding, developing campaigns to promote local newscasts, to promote television shows. That was a big chunk of a chunk of my career. Midway through that journey, I actually decided that I wanted to learn how to think a little differently. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit to me to an extent, and so I wanted to be able to feel more comfortable, and have a better understanding of how business really works. I decided to go back and get my master’s in business. I did that, while I was working. I attended Cornell University and, got my MBA, which was, I think, a really great, pivot for me at that time, because I had really good expertise and on the creative side of advertising. All the things that go along with really understanding the business side, whether it be within television or any type of business, I think that business school really helped shift my thinking and helped really shift the way I approach even the creative that we would develop. After, a long career in television, I decided that I wanted to have my own business. That really gave me the comfort and the foundation and truly the confidence to start my own company.
Russel:
I feel like you had this really amazing career, that you kind of just glossed over. Which is fair, right? We only have so much time, but I’m just curious, in this amazing career you had pre starting your own agency, what was just a highlight or two, during your time and in the big world of media?
Lori:
I had a really great, fun journey because I really moved around a lot in terms of not only the roles that I was in my career, but also geographically. My career in television, the way you move up in that industry is you move up to bigger markets. Right out of college, I actually moved back home from Oklahoma to Kansas city. Then I worked in actually for a small toy company there actually just writing and producing training videos. From there I got a job back in Oklahoma City, which would have been my first job in broadcasting. I went from Oklahoma City to Miami, Florida. Then went from Miami to Chicago. Got a big promotion when I went to Chicago. Then I got promoted within the CBS group to do the same thing, but in New York. I went from there to over to Fox, as head of marketing and advertising for the Fox network owned and operated TV stations. I oversaw from the Midwest over to the East Coast, all the TV stations. That really required me to be on a plane almost every week. I would go into the local TV stations that were Fox owned and operated stations, and basically, I was a consultant or a troubleshooter working with the general managers, the news directors, the promotion managers on how to increase ratings and, you know, how to help those TV stations grow. I loved that job. It was great. Then I went from New York to DC that was more of a personal move than it was a professional move. I was in the same role but I was working out of DC and commuting back and forth between D and, New York. Had my son in DC, moved to Atlanta. Had my daughter in Atlanta. Did not work while I was in Atlanta. I took a year off. Moved to Knoxville to head up marketing, creative, and brand strategy for HGTV. Did that for about four and a half years and then left there and then started the agency. That’s been the journey. I’ve been a all over the place, but it’s been a lot of fun and such a great learning experience.
Russel:
Is your resume 12 and a half pages long? I don’t think you can do yourself justice, that is a fascinating journey. I’m sure we could even dive in even deeper. We could probably have a podcast per episode per role that you had in your career there. What sounds like this really massively successful career that you’re having, what made you decide to want to give that up and pursue the world of entrepreneurship and business?
Lori:
It was two things actually. One was, my hand was forced a little bit. I’ll explain that in a second. The other was I really wanted to really take charge of my own destiny. I love working for major media companies. I had such a great experience. I honestly was so blessed to work with some of the best and brightest minds. Highly intelligent, highly creative people. Many of which are really good friends to this day. I wasn’t really in control of my destiny. In the media industry, especially when you’re at a senior level role and what I was in, you don’t get a lot of time. You maybe get four years, five years max in a specific role. There’s just a lot of turnover and a lot of change and a lot of consolidation and just, in the age of media, consolidation and so forth. You just have to constantly be ready to change jobs. At the time in my last role with a HGTV, I had very young children and, they were going through a complete corporate restructure and I actually lost my job there. I was living in Knoxville, Tennessee at the time, this is where HGTV was based. My son was, he was maybe five and my daughter was three, two or three. I could have easily moved and taken another executive level television job somewhere else. But I really wanted my children to be rooted somewhere and to grow up and have a home in one place. I was blessed with that upbringing. I was native Midwestern. Knoxville, Tennessee shared a lot of the same values that I was raised with. I just made a purposeful decision that this was where I was going to stay and raise my children. I figured that, with my background and my experience that I could make a go of having my own company. How it all transpired was really, my hand was forced a little bit because I lost my job. But also I made that decision to say, hey, I want to be in one place. I want my children to be one raised in one place. This is the best opportunity for me to, now’s the time. Now’s the time for me to make a go of this.
Russel:
I’m curious that. If you hadn’t lost your job, do you think you would have eventually done it one way or the other? Or was that really just the catalyst moment that gave you that opportunity?
Lori:
No, I think I would have. I don’t know that it obviously would have happened like it did, but because I do think, the doors were all opened and the stars were aligned and God had a plan. That was what, what my fate was at that time in my life. But I do think ultimately I would have made a go of it on my own. I was getting frustrated in my career. It’s hard because when you get to that kind of level, senior level management within major media companies, I mean, you have a lot of really great perks and benefits, so it’s hard just to walk away from that. You have really good income, really great, all the great benefits that come with it, but you, it really becomes a big bureaucracy too, that you’re trying to navigate and deal with. You start to feel like you can’t really be yourself. You have to really navigate a lot of the politics around it. I’m not knocking that environment at all. It was a phenomenal environment for me and one that I’m so thankful that I had the experience to be able to work in, but I had just reached a point that I was not feeling like I could be myself, not feeling like I could reach my full potential, within that type of environment anymore. I think ultimately I would have taken that leap. I would have had to have maybe figured it out, maybe had more time to figure out what that might’ve looked like instead of being thrust into that right away, but everything really worked out the way it was supposed to, and CMOco has been in business now going on 14 years and it’s worked. I’m super, super thankful.
Russel:
Sounds like there’s no looking back. Love to hear that. I’m curious, to someone that built up this wealth of experience, both on the job experience, and even from an education perspective, when you think back about your journey, I’m sure there’s a million things you could throw into this bucket. What did you feel like all that experience most prepared for you could leverage and lean on when you started your business?
Lori:
The thing is, it’s so tricky and actually I’m still learning today. Even when I think, oh my gosh, I’ve been doing this so many years and having the business now 14 years, we should be firing on all cylinders and I should know everything. That’s just so, so not the case. Things come up, whether it be from dealing with a client or a client situation or dealing with the business and administrative situation or dealing with, personnel. Day in and day out, everything is a learning experience and even just the direction of which, how to take the company is figuring that out. I’ve had a vision of maybe it should be one way and then, being challenged to think of things differently. I try to be extremely open, to really thinking of things, as differently and as uniquely as I possibly can. What prepared me, to be able and gave me the confidence to be able to do this, it’s just that I had a really great foundation and really great security and confidence in my ability and in my expertise of advertising, marketing, digital. All of the things that, make up an ad agency and having a pretty solid understanding of a lot of the broad, aspects that go into an advertising agency. Also, having gone to business school and kind of getting that business side. You got to learn how to read a P&L. You got to do financial forecasting, budgeting, work with accountants, work with financial planners, all of those things. I felt more comfortable having gone to business school. Had I not done that, I would have been super confident on the creative side, but maybe a little bit more cautious, going into business for myself. I think having those two things, the many, many years of, foundational experience and then the business education and the pedigree on the business side. Having those things did not make me intimidated at all to start my business. I felt like, well, I can do this for a year and a half. Let’s see if I can make this work and then if not, then, hey, great, I’ve got this great career that I can lean on and maybe go get a job if I have to. But if I’m going to do this,now is the time.
Russel:
I imagine you would ask anyone, no matter how much experience they did or didn’t have, nothing prepares you like all the things that you’re going to face and learn and have to figure out owning a business, like owning a business. I’m sure everyone is shaking their heads at home there. As I remember it, you started out or had some kind of partnership situation. How did that form and how did that end up shaping up?
Lori:
The stars aligned, really great thing. Right after I left HGTV, I had actually been connected to, somebody had introduced me to a gentleman in town, who had gone to Cornell also. He had a Cornell background and they were like, oh, you went to Cornell and he went to Cornell, you two should know each other. He was the head of the executive MBA program at the University of Tennessee. I met with him and just to pick his brain, get his advice. This was when I was really trying to figure out, do I want to go the entrepreneur route or should I stick in television? Just was really wanting to use him as a sounding board. He said, I really think you should meet a friend of mine, a gentleman who owns a web development and design company here in town, he really wants to build out the advertising and marketing side of his business. You might be able to really help them do that, or maybe you guys could talk about what that might look like for the two of you. I met him and we ended up going in business together. We started CMOco together, great friend of mine to this day. His web development and design company really was the back end for kind of the support of all the client accounts that we would get. My job was really getting the accounts, managing them from a strategy standpoint, really deciding what these accounts needed in order for us to help them grow their businesses. It really was a great opportunity for me to get the company off the ground and not have a lot of overhead. Over the years as the company grew, I was continuing to pass a lot more work through to him and to his co and to, my sister company, if you will. I just wasn’t making a lot on the margin. I needed to figure out a way in which I could retain more of that income on the CMOco side. I started to build some of my own staff so I could internalize some of those things. I could make more money by hiring somebody than I could by passing it through. Ultimately, decided that the best, step moving forward would be to exit the company or come up with a way for me to separate CMOco make it its own standalone business. Back in 2015, I purchased, their share of the company out and became a sole woman owned business. Have been on my own since then.
Russel:
Wow. In every story you tell, I just, I get this sense of hustle, kind of a no stop, right? No looking back aspect, which I imagine has to be very helpful when not only starting a business, but running a business. We can’t capture every point in your story, but one of the things that I feel like was unique that you spoke to is, I’ve heard a lot of COVID stories in terms of how those affected businesses, particularly agencies. They run pretty common at this point, but I feel like yours was a a turning point in your business.
Lori:
Just like every other business, we really had to pivot during COVID. We were working from home, which I’m not a fan of, especially as an advertising agency because we’re so collaborative and so spontaneously collaborative. We had some, legacy clients who had notified us and said, hey, we’re just going to have to pause our services right now. It was pretty scary, being a small business. We were like, wow, are we going to be able to survive this? But I would say within about a week and a half after them doing that, they actually came back and said, we have to, move forward. We can’t sit still during COVID, we need to continue to market and advertise. We’re going to stay on. We were able to retain the majority of our legacy clients, with maybe the exception of one or two. But where we got creative was we really brainstormed, how can we be smart about maybe generating nontraditional partnerships or coming up with ways in which we can generate income that we necessarily haven’t thought of that aren’t necessarily related to our legacy accounts. I had met this gentleman. We had done worked on a couple of projects together and he had actually recently, at this time, partnered with a medical supply company out of California that made swabs for testing COVID. The long tip swabs that you would, that would go in your nose and so forth and so on.
Russel:
Oh yeah. I won’t call it nightmares, but some painful memories of those swabs.
Lori:
Yeah, no kidding, right? They were a competitor to some other medical supplies company that sold these swabs, but they had a little bit of a unique technology to their swab, if you will, had like a groove tip to it or what have you. He said to me, like, hey, I, you know, they were looking just trying to get traction with medical companies or with hospitals or laboratories or that type of thing. He said, listen, if you can connect me with any of your health care clients, because we had a couple of clients that were labs, to see if they would be interested in purchasing these swabs, we’ll give you a commission on anything you sell. We had a couple of really good, clients that we had worked with in this space and we opened doors for them and it just took off. We were selling tens of thousands, of these swabs and it just became really great mailbox money. We really tried to say, okay, well, look, we have a portfolio of clients and they all do all these really great and different things. There are people out there that need to be connected to this. How can we broker these relationships? How can we be a middleman and actually monetize that to an extent? We’d never do anything that wasn’t, ethically in the best interest of our client. We’re always looking out for our client first. But we’re going to say, hey, look, if this helps your business and we can make a connection, then we’ll do it all day long. We actually tried to elaborate on it. Even on our website, we have a partnership program and we’re like, hey, if you have products or you have services that could benefit some of our clients, let’s talk, there may be a way that we can make, a connection or create mutually beneficial partnerships. Why not do things that are in the best interest of your client, create a new revenue stream for yourself if possible, think of things a little differently?
Russel:
What I love, you shared there and I think this is a little more relevant even to some of the talk of the town today, that we’re in this slower period of sales cycles and things like that. And I’m no economist, but I think we are feeling what a recession looks like, even though we don’t have your typical indicators of it. What I think that speaks to is thinking back to even in our agency, when we had the 2008 recession. COVID itself was kind of this mini incubator or time capsule of a recession in a very fast time period. You have to start looking, being a little more creative, asking yourself these tougher questions of how who needs value? How can I give that? Where do I go find, as you said, non traditional partnerships, things like that? That we just got to work a little harder for the dollars we want or the dollars to keep when things are a little slower. We don’t have to be a victim to it. We just have to be a little more proactive with it.
Lori:
100%. Another thing that we did during that time frame is that we started what we call a white label program because we were thinking, okay, what businesses are out there that they also are looking for new reverse revenue stream opportunities? What are the types of services companies who have a bunch of clients and their clients may need marketing services? Could we become the marketing arm of these organizations, but to their clients, they are now offering a new service? To us, that was like, okay, that’s another way to think of how we can add value, to companies out there and maybe give them an additional revenue stream. We let them obviously share on a percentage of the revenue that they generate from, selling those services. If we’re buying or selling media, we let them, capture some of that income as well. It’s just really thinking about what are all the things that we do as a business and how can we leverage every aspect of it to create new revenue streams, provide more value to our clients? Just be, resourceful so that when you do hit times like this, like we’re in right now, and I would say it’s, I do see that the market contracting some and people’s really tightening their belts, that you’re not in a position where you’re, if you lose one client or two clients, it’s the end of the world. It’s because you’ve got multiple revenue streams.
Russel:
A lot of things I talk about with folks and where the market is moving is this idea of getting more specific about our positioning, who we do things for, and what we specifically do for them as being a very core aspect of growth, as the world of digital marketing just becomes all the more complicated. It’s important that we refine our path. As I understand it, you’re on the cusp of this journey towards identifying your positioning and I’m really just curious, as you’re approaching this, why do you feel like this is an important step for you? Talk through some of your feelings about as you’re navigating this.
Lori:
I feel like we’ve grown quickly. The last three years have been really great, but I feel like we plateaued. I’m not a super patient person, so I don’t want to sit here for a really long time and just be comfortable where we are. I think, how can I add another million dollars in twelve months? How can I add 2 million after that? That’s where my brain goes. That’s how I like to think. I don’t like to get super comfortable. I’m restless in regards to, being super comfortable with, hey, we’ve had some success, let’s just enjoy it for a hot minute. That’s great, but you got to keep moving, you got to keep moving forward. I evaluate my own business and where it is in its life cycle and then where I’m at personally, I’m getting towards, I would say towards the end of my career. What does that look like? How does that all look and how do I start to frame up the company as we enter a new season? My kids are off to college. My youngest is going off to college this year. Yes, I survived kids, thankfully. It’s a fun spot to be in. Having the opportunity and, you know, working with somebody who can really challenge me to think of things a little differently and really, how do I take it to the next level? How do I really add that million dollars, in 12 months or 14 months or whatever my goals are? I know it’s doable, I, and I’m not gonna rest until we get there. I think we definitely can get there, but you gotta be smart about how you do it. What we’ve been doing in the past has worked well, but I don’t think continuing to do the same thing will elevate us where I want us to be elevated to. I think you’ve just got to say, okay, we’ve made some great accomplishments, but to get from A to B, what do we have to do? I think you do have to really adjust that and really look at things differently. Where are we strongest, whether it be industries or services that we offer, what are the things that we’re best at that we can leverage? Honing in on that and making sure that every activity that we do from marketing and advertising ourselves is rooted in that strategy. It’s really practicing what we preach? We tell our clients all the time, hey, these are the things that you’ve got to do to grow your business. How are you differentiated? How are you going to add a million dollars to your top line? Who are you targeting? What’s the lowest hanging fruit? What are the services that you’re offering? Where do you fit in in your competitive space? Those are all things that we need to be doing, and we are doing for ourselves, is really, truly taking a hard look at ourselves and saying, okay, what are the things that we’re going to do? What purposeful steps are we going to take to achieve those revenue goals? That’s where we’re at right now.
Russel:
Beautifully put. Obviously you’re, I think just in general, you’re a fast mover. I don’t know if you’re moving faster than you would have otherwise come into this realization, but it makes me think of, I heard this a long time ago, this quote of, the problem is we think we have time. For maybe some of the younger folks out there that are in their agency, like I’ve got years and years to figure this out. Maybe some don’t want to, but the idea of if you were up against the wall and had to make a more radical shift,, in your business, that’s maybe not always such a bad thing because, maybe the frog in boiling water or just if you’re not growing, you’re dying. There’s lots of different ways we could probably pull some analogies to look at that. But I can sense your sense of urgency to get to a certain place.
Lori:
It’s exciting to be honest. It’s like I’m reinvigorated too, because I feel like we’ve accomplished so much in the past, I would say really three years have been really great for us. It’s exciting but I’m like, wow, look what we did in three years, what can we do in one year? Now let’s amp it up and get super focused and get really purposeful about what we’re doing. And let’s maybe set shorter term goals for ourselves still looking into the future. But if we’re saying, okay, me, I’m personally towards the end of my career, then to me, the timing contracts a little bit. It’s more okay, I want to accomplish a little bit more in a shorter amount or maybe a lot more in a shorter amount of time. You gotta be more purposeful about it. But it’s exciting, it’s fun. It’s oh, it’s a new challenge. It’s something that, hey, this could really elevate us and take us to a whole new level and how exciting is that,? And getting my team excited about it too. That’s one thing that I’m super, super, excited about as well is that every team member at CMOco participates in this journey. It’s not me sitting here in my office by myself. We strategize together about the business. I’m extremely transparent about our financials, where we are, what our goals are. We go through our financials line item. Everyone participates in that. Everyone participates in making decisions about what are we best at, what target industries do you think that we excel at in terms of serving those industries? Everyone really participates in that.
Russel:
One other question I wanted to ask you before we start to wrap up here is, I know motherhood was an important part of the start of your journey and your motivation there. I feel like it’s also part in how CMOco’s journey may or may not be extended. How has motherhood been a part of your business?
Lori:
To be honest, it’s been the framework for everything. When I moved to Knoxville to take on, um, the job over at HGTV, I was actually also going through a divorce. A very unexpected divorce. I had a brand new baby. My daughter was five months old, four or five months old. I’d been a single mom during this whole journey and so it’s been a lot, but it’s, part of the reason as well, when I talked about what were the decisions that made me start CMOco, not only was it because I wanted my children to be rooted somewhere and because, I wanted to be in control of my own destiny, but it was also so that I could be a present parent. My kid’s father did not live and this does not live in the same location that we do. He’s in a different state. He was involved and saw the kids and so forth, I was the person, the parent that was there to manage the day in and day out. My kids were active in sports and active in school and all of the things, and I wanted to be present and having my own business, while you work all the time, it gave me the flexibility to manage my own schedule and make sure that I could be there. I don’t think that if you asked either one of my kids, they would say, hey, mom was never there. I was always there. That’s the beauty of it. I walked away from big salary, great benefits, and some of the beautiful things that come from working, for major media companies and took a substantial pay cut and obviously lost a lot of benefits. No stock options, no insurance, you know, all those things that you kind of love, you know, they, they disappeared, but hey, it was a trade off to be a present mother. I’ll take it all day long and I’ll rest on my, in, in my belief that, I can make it work. It’s really worked out great. Now my kids, as they’re growing, as they’re grown, if you will, my daughter just turned 18. Like I said, she’s heading off to college. My son’s a junior. He, went to my alma mater, the University of Oklahoma. He’s actually in the Gaylord School of Mass Communication. That’s so awesome. I’m passing on that legacy, he’s interning for our company this summer. It’s really thinking as I think about transitioning, for me over the years. Is it I stay on and he ultimately comes in a capacity? Is this something that he has an interest in? It really does start to make you think of things a lot differently. There’s not only one exit strategy. I mean, honestly, Russel, you’ve really opened my eyes to that really. It’s like you think, oh, I’ve got to have a finish line and I’ve got to get the company to, this amount of money in EBITDA in order to have a multiple so that I can sell it. Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. It can be a lot of different ways. As long as I can get out what I need to get out of it in order to ride my horse and do the things I love to do. It’s fun because it really does, again, challenge you to think a little differently and say, hey, don’t feel locked in by only one type of, strategy or one type of exit strategy. There’s other things that you can look at. You’ve got family members who may be interested and, and what does that look like? Is there a legacy strategy there? I don’t know, it just opens up a lot of doors.
Russel:
That is the name of the game. We never know did we choose the right door or the wrong door? We make the best of the door we open and know that there will be other doors in front of it. But you speak to that so well. I applaud you for just the grit and the determination that I know that had to be. I think if I had to raise my kids as a single father, they’d be feral. I don’t think that would turned out very good, but thankful for their sake that didn’t have to be the case. What a wonderful story and to come full circle, same school, have them part of your business.
Lori:
Yeah, it’s fun. We’ll see where it all goes but yeah, it’s exciting.
Russel:
Very poetic. That’s awesome. Well, you paved the way. Last question for you. I think we’ve covered a lot of parts of the business in the future, but what’s your answer to the question, are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Lori:
I think it’s a little bit of both, actually. Is that a fair, is that a fair answer? To say you think it’s a little bit of both?
Russel:
Everybody’s a little apologetic I say, that’s okay.
Lori:
I’ll be honest. I think you’re more born than you are made. That’s my personal belief. I think you’re, your personality and kind of your, the innate characteristics that you get from your parents or your DNA just shapes or molds you, to probably make you more suited for one thing over another. But I do think, you can learn a lot of things to, help you have more confidence, to be entrepreneurial. It’s not necessarily, oh, I, come out of the womb saying I’m going to run my own business one day. You may have that propensity or that, the characteristics that make up a good entrepreneur. You may not be risk averse and again, that’s just more of your personality or your general nature. Those are attributes that really help you become a good entrepreneur. But I think things happen in your life, such as my story, for example, that kind of force your hand a little bit. Then you’re like, okay, I’m ready to take that step, but I’ve prepared myself for that step. I’ve taken some things and I’ve learned some things in this life, that were not innate, that were not given to me by my parents that, helped me make those decisions to say, yeah, I have the confidence to go start this business. I think it’s a little bit of both. But I do feel personally, I feel like entrepreneurs, most entrepreneurs, if you listen to their stories, um, they’re a certain type of personality.
Russel:
Beautifully put. Well, if people want to know more about CMOco, where can they go?
Lori:
You go to CMOco.com. You can check out our website, learn more about us, learn more about our story, see our team, see examples of our work, some of our campaigns that we’ve produced, the types of clients that we work with. You can always email me at Lori@CMOco.com.
Russel:
All easy words, letters, et cetera, to remember, go check it out, folks. If you are listening closely, there was no less than 53 nuggets of wisdom, insight, or otherwise you could pull from Lori’s story and the way she shared just from a mindset perspective to specific things you’ve had to overcome and otherwise be challenged with in your business. Thank you so much for taking the time to share that with everyone today, is absolute pleasure to get to hear more and more of your story.
Lori:
No, thank you so much. It’s been a lot of fun.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast@performancefaction.com. An Agency Story is brought to you by Performance Faction. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million dollars and more in revenue. To learn more, visit performancefaction.com.
Lori:
We had a client, a cannabis client, and it was really funny because one day he walked in and he had this big box and he like brought us all these products. I mean, all this stuff. You know, gummies and cigarettes and buds, salt and, I can’t even think, oh, it’s stuff you put in tea and all this stuff. And we’re like, okay, this is either going to be really fun or we are going to have to hide this and lock this down so we don’t get thrown out of our office building.
Russel:
That’s awesome. I could see that being an interesting thing, like some people are like, you know, some people are unabashed about it. They just stick their hand in and grab it. Some people would be like, uh, I don’t know. I don’t know. Should I?
Lori:
When you put it in the back closet and you have a lockdown and then your staff right at the weekend comes around, they’re asking for the keys to the closet, you know what they’re going back there for.
Russel:
I think you’ve inspired agency owners to go find their next client to be a cannabis client.
Lori:
Yeah, make sure you get to, you just say, hey, in order to really market this, we have to test it out.
Russel:
We have to know our product.
Lori:
Exactly.
