It’s hard to believe it’s been 22 years since the founding of kabookaboo, a digital marketing agency that began as a modest homage to my dearly departed brother, but somehow grew into an enterprise stretching from coast to coast and well beyond my wildest imaginings.  I’m amazed at what we’ve accomplished, where we’ve gone and the very fact we’re still here. We survived two (maybe even three) economic crises, a global pandemic, achieved an incredible number of milestones and awards, and most importantly, worked with hundreds of exceptional partners and people across the globe. Our work has taken us to amazing and remarkable places:  The wine countries of Napa, Sonoma and the Central Coast; to cities as varied as Cleveland, New York City and Atlanta; and to far off lands as distant as Argentina and New Zealand.

The journey, like all ambitious excursions, has been full of ups and downs but in the end, always exciting and packed full of rewards.  As I reflect on our progress to date, I’m so damn proud of what we’ve achieved together at kabookaboo. From the very beginning, my overarching goal was to prioritize people over profit and willingly aim for challenging projects versus the easy jobs, (or low hanging fruit.). To this day, I still stand by these principles. I feel more strongly than ever about this. I have no doubt it’s the reason kabookaboo has prospered as it has.

Many of kabookaboo’s most valuable and valued employees have been with me since the beginning—Dennis Diehl has been here for two decades and Giancarlo Costa nearly the same, at 19 years with the firm, to name just two. They are as tightly woven into the fabric of kabookaboo as any team-member, including me.  They are an essential part of our combined identity. They are family.  The same can be said for several of our client partners. Many return to us time and time again, with new projects or entirely new opportunities as they change employers and transition to managing new brands, in new categories and new markets.  In many cases, this has occurred with key clients throughout the entire lifespan of the kabookaboo agency.

Along the way, we’ve worked across countless industries and built extensive expertise in areas we never dreamed of.  We’ve mastered new skills, seen technology obsolescence emerge overnight and built new expertise to respond to emerging business models and constructs.  We’ve have had the honor of serving dedicated nonprofits who give back to the community on a large scale.  We’ve partnered with determined entrepreneurs carving their own path with market innovations and category disruption; and we also built a foundational client roster listing many of the largest and most respected global brands—those making a significant impact on millions of lives each day.

As I reflect on this journey, there are clear factors contributing to where we stand as an agency today. Call them intentions, pivotal moments or the application of sheer hard work to create luck. Regardless, each one of these various components have influenced the company’s character and will continue to do so as we continue our upward trajectory.

Points to Consider
For those of you building a business, working to realize your vision and guiding your own enterprise to achieve success, consider prioritizing the following business principles so you may thrive, not only in the immediate future but in the long run as well. I do not intend to preach. I merely offer bits of advice, anecdotes and lessons I’ve learned, to hopefully make your own journey a little smoother, with more clarity and most importantly a little more fun.

Relationship Building
Relationship building is, without a doubt, the unsung hero of building a successful company. Sure, you want to inspire innovation, bring amazing products to the marketplace, and be the absolute best at what you do. But those aspirations can only take you so far if you don’t treat every single human interaction, internal or external, like your company depends on it. Because it does.

I learned this the hard way. At one point in our development, kabookaboo had grown to 35 employees.  An impressive milestone for a boutique digital marketing agency, but unfortunately the increase in staff did not translate to success. Excited by our growth and the prospect of further expansion, I did not prioritize the needs of my employees and it wasn’t long before my inattention to ‘relationship health’ became a big blind spot for me, leading to system failures, client dissatisfaction and staff departures. I ultimately had to take stock, face my negligence in relationship management and pivot to a new business model, to recover from my missteps.

It’s simple: When people enjoy working with you, they’ll continue to work with you. They’ll tell their friends. They’ll remember you. They’ll come back to you. Don’t burn bridges. Keep building them. Before long, you’ll have a valuable network of employees, clients and friends. And with that, you’ll be unstoppable. You’ll weather storms, economic or natural, and enjoy plenty of support when you are ready to pivot on your own terms and carve out a new direction, based on opportunity, not necessity.

Remain Focused
It’s convenient to cut corners, easy to get distracted and natural to become discouraged. But all that stuff is part of the game. if you want to succeed, you need to stay focused on where you’re headed. Your destination.

This doesn’t mean your strategies can’t change or that you shouldn’t learn from your mistakes. (You MUST do that!)  But it does mean every now and then, you need to stop, take stock–reflect on what you’re doing and where your business is headed, and make sure you’re still pointed in the right direction.

Make strategic planning a priority. This does not need to be overly complicated. Set core goals, assess your progress and be honest with yourself and your team as to what is working and where you’re missing the mark. And be certain to write it down. This simple act will make sure you hold yourself accountable.

Keep It Simple
If something feels overcomplicated, it probably is. Keeping things simple has afforded me success and growth. I’m not saying it’s easy.  And simple does not equate to elementary. In this instance, I view simple as extraordinarily clear and direct. There’s a human tendency to overstate, strive for 100% uniqueness, or reach to ‘reinvent the wheel.’  Certainly, there are moments where epic thinking is required, but to achieve a ‘moon shot’ you still need all team-members to clearly understand each step of the journey.

One of the best ways to keep the complex simple is to create and follow a plan…an achievable plan. Grandiose schemes that can’t be realistically implemented are a recipe for disaster. Aim for clarity of action and smooth execution of each step, and you’ll have a plan that works.

Another benefit to making the complex simple: you create an incredibly flexible environment. You’ll have the ability to be nimble, making quick adjustments, taking advantage of rare opportunities and avoiding disasters. In the end, keeping things simple will allow you to do more.

Perseverance Pays Off
Every time you feel you want to quit, just know that somebody else is… and that’s a big part of getting ahead, staying the course.   You MUST push through the tough times. You will go through periods where you really doubt your plans, doubt your objectives and maybe even doubt yourself. You’ll be frustrated, embarrassed and maybe even broke. But if you persevere, you’ll succeed, proud of what you accomplished and the individual you’ve become.

This is part of entrepreneurship. It will happen. But you must be determined to push through. Every time you move beyond one of those low points, you’ll be stronger, with countless lessons to reflect upon. And if you’ve prioritized relationship building as I suggest, you’ll find yourself surrounded by what matters: a supportive and caring team who will persevere alongside of you, fueling prosperity to the firm.

Good People = Good Company = Good Decision
Another basic principle: good people create good companies. The implication is obvious. When you find a potential client, business partner or new team member that you know is a good person, ‘make the deal.’  It doesn’t matter what they currently do. If there’s a way to work with a good person, you will find great benefit in that partnership and along the way, you will grow personally and professionally. I’ve experienced this phenomenon myself, time after time after time.

When you find an individual who embodies all the qualities that make for a good fit with your organization, find a way to hire them, keep them and nurture them.  They can inevitably learn new skills and be trained to expertly serve your clients. What really matters are innate traits like loyalty, respect, determination, and positivity; the composition of a person’s character is what really matters—it’s those human qualities you can’t teach that you want in your firm.

Challenge Yourself
Sometimes the best decisions are the hardest to make. This axiom rings true in business. Get comfortable in pushing yourself out of your comfort zone as often as you can. Once you’re there, challenge yourself to be ‘true’. This is how you’ll build skills, make discoveries and allow innovation to flourish. By pushing yourself to make the hard decisions, you’ll learn, and you’ll grow…and when you learn and grow, your business follows suit.

More importantly, every time you push past an obstacle, you’ll make tackling the next one easier. Over time, previous challenges will become simple choices and what’s impossible for others, will be achievable for you.

Learn from Your Mistakes
There is no such thing as success without failure. It is a crucial element that can’t be avoided. As such, it should be embraced. What is important, however, is that you learn from failure and apply the lesson to your next move.

Take educated risks, and if they don’t work out, evaluate every element of your decision. Adjust according and push on. Failure often leads to the best discoveries.  But those discoveries are only made if you take the time to analyze and learn from your mistakes.

The Result
So how do all these points add up for me?

Being an entrepreneur is tough.  It’s certainly not easy owning and running a business with clients, employees and suppliers that depend on you, in various ways, every day. But it is, without question, one of the most rewarding lifelong pursuits you will ever experience. The hard work, challenges, and difficulties I have faced in over two decades leading the kabookaboo agency have paid off immensely.  I’ve learned invaluable life-lessons, made incredible friendships and achieved more personal goals than I ever thought possible. This path is not one for the faint-of-heart, but that’s what makes the journey so amazing. No matter where your stand with your business at this moment, keep planning, persevere and push on. You won’t regret it.