IAM473- Leader Passionate About Helping Businesses Deliver Value to Their Customers

Passionate about helping people and businesses achieve their dreams of success, Troy has worked with hundreds of businesses to deliver value to their customers. With a background in Finance and Marketing, Troy dedicated the last few years to developing the website division of a marketing company in the Washington DC Area. His successes led him to focus in on those skills with Red Clay Creative. Troy believes that hard work, communication and integrity are integral to any relationship and strives to help businesses with those core values at his foundation.

• CEO Hack: (1) Waking up before 7 am, (2) Zero emails everyday (3) Exercise (4) Reviewing project management tools (5) Cleaning up around my house
• CEO Nugget: Keep going after your goals
• CEO Defined: Being accountable to the people on your team

Website: https://redclaycreative.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redclay_creative/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redclaycreative/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11790339/admin/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/redclaycreative/

Location: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Red+Clay+Creative/@38.9219972,-77.2355561,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b64b5b42b10be1:0x2cb456bd117d5389!8m2!3d38.9219972!4d-77.2333674

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is IAMCEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast, I have a very special guest on the show today Troy Riemer of Red Clay Creative. Troy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Troy Riemer 0:39

Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Troy so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Troy is passionate about helping people and businesses achieve their dreams of success. He has worked with hundreds of businesses to deliver value to their customers. With a background in finance and marketing, Troy dedicated the last few years to developing the website division of a marketing company in the Washington DC area. His success has led him to focus on those skills with Red Clay Creative for it believes that hard work, communication, and integrity are integral to any relationship and strives to help businesses with those core values at his foundation. Troy, are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO Community?

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Troy Riemer 1:19

I'm ready.

Gresham Harkless 1:20

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to get started with your business?

Troy Riemer 1:28

My CEO story? Man, maybe I should have had the question sent to me beforehand. No. Honestly, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. It's kind of funny. I wanted to be a copywriter in college, and I was a marketing major. And then I thought it was too big. So I switched to finance because I'm like, this makes sense. And it seems to be harder for the other people in my class.

So I'll do this. And then I was a financial adviser for a few years, and after that, my friend was like, hey, you know, you know, business stuff, you know, finance and things? Do you want to help me run my marketing company? I was like, That sounds awesome. So it kind of came full circle. You know, like, I didn't think I was going to end up in marketing after all that. And you know, I guess I couldn't fight the creativity side of me. And yeah.

So that's kind of how I ended up with Red Clay Creative. We worked together for a couple of years. Me and my friend, John. And then we decided to split and go separate ways. We just had different ideas on where we wanted to take the company. And now I couldn't be happier. I think we're both going to be more successful because of it.

Gresham Harkless 2:57

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And it just like you said, you know, you can try to move away from stuff sometimes. But it's like a magnet, whether you hide from it or not. It can kind of pull you right back to where you're supposed to be. It sounds like.

Troy Riemer 3:08

Yeah, it's funny how that is. I don't know what I don't know why this but it is

Gresham Harkless 3:13

Yep just don't fight it. Just go with it. So I appreciate you for doing that. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper here a little bit more about Red Clay Creative. Can you take me through exactly what you're doing, and how you're helping some of the clients that you're working with?

Troy Riemer 3:28

Yeah, so with red clay creative. I, what I learned from the marketing agency is, you know, we were doing a lot of different things. We're doing ads, websites, logos, videos, photos, roads, everything, on marketing, everything under marketing. What I learned from that was that people got the most joy, and we had the best retention from the design work and the website work that we did.

And that was actually the stuff that I liked doing the most. So when I started Red Clay Creative, I was like, You know what, I'm just gonna hone in on a few key services, design, and websites. And, you know, I try and keep it simple. So it says on my business card, websites plus design. Basically, we do all kinds of marketing, material design, website design, and then we actually do the development as well.

But we try to stay in that wheelhouse. We have plenty of people that we refer out for other types of work. Yeah, and then sometimes marketing strategy falls under there, but I'd say we stick to the branding stuff.

Gresham Harkless 4:41

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And have you found like, that has definitely been, you know, successful for you and your team as far as being able to kind of hone in on those core services and services that you feel like you, you guys excel in?

Troy Riemer 4:55

Yeah, it has. I mean, it makes it easier because you're not trying to do too much So it's like, okay, maybe one week, we have two logo projects and a website project. But it's not like we are trying to film a video, go out to location, and then design a logo, you know, on the side while we're there.

Gresham Harkless 5:15

While doing Facebook ads.

Troy Riemer 5:17

Exactly. Yeah. So we're not doing too much. And I think that this gives us a little bit more clarity, and we become better experts at the work that we're doing.

Gresham Harkless 5:29

Yeah, and I always thought, you know, that was the true, you know, way to reach, you know, mastery is to continually kind of chop at the tree in the same exact place and continue to mine and hone your craft, because I think, just as you said, and we kind of touched on is, a lot of times when you are, you know, chopping on this side of the tree, then you're going up a little bit higher chopping in that side, and then the other side, and then going over to another tree and chop that it's hard to really start to see that kind of the fruits of your labor, so to speak.

Troy Riemer 6:00

Yeah, because you're just kind of gnawing at it.

Gresham Harkless 6:05

Absolutely. So now, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. You might have already touched on this, but this is for you or your organization, what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Troy Riemer 6:17

Um, so I think it's empathy. You know, in order for us to really understand who our client is and who they're going after, we have to embody that, that audience or that mindset. So we're not just doing the same designs over and over again, we're actually delivering something that speaks to those people. And so I would say, that's our secret weapon.

Gresham Harkless 6:49

Nice. I definitely appreciate that. And I know you kind of touched on and said the word, you know, branding, and definitely correct me if I'm wrong. But I feel like a lot of times when you have, you know, organizations and businesses, especially when you have like founding, you know, members that have a vision for what they want to implement with your organization, a lot of times that brand needs to take on exactly what that is.

And it manifests itself in the marketing materials and the website and things like that. But if you don't have that empathy, to be able to look from their perspective look from their, from their shoes, then it's hard to really be able to kind of create that end product.

Troy Riemer 7:25

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the benefit of working with us versus, you know, someone on Fiverr, you know, someone on Fiverr, they can do a great job, you know, that could create this cool design. But it doesn't mean that it necessarily speaks to the client that you're trying to go after. And, you know, in a couple of months, you may have another designer on Fiverr that just designed something random, and different and it's not cohesive. And you don't get you don't start to get recognized out in the marketplace.

Gresham Harkless 7:56

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like indefinitely, you know, let me know if this is a completely off. But I feel like when you do have those, you know, inconsistent I guess, you know, graphics or marketing materials, it sends brand messaging, whether you want it to or not. And a lot of times when it's not consistent, it's not an alignment, and sometimes it makes it very confusing to understand exactly what you do and what makes you unique.

Troy Riemer 8:22

Yeah, like our goal is, you know, when we design a business card, for instance, you hand that to someone, and they're like, Wow, this is cool. You know, you really put some thought into this. And then it sets, they pause for a second every networking event. And then you're remembered. And I don't know that that moment is important, because they'll remember when they pick it up the next day or a week later to follow up.

Gresham Harkless 8:49

Yeah, absolutely. And oftentimes, that's, you know, what we're trying to do is all you know, we're great at our craft and what it is that we do, but I think we always need kind of experts and people that are really great at their craft to be able to kind of communicate that because a lot of times we might be a great dentist or a great doctor or lawyer, or whatever we do. But sometimes if we aren't able, to showcase that, then it doesn't really help us out as far as driving that needle forward.

Troy Riemer 9:17

Yeah, I completely agree.

Gresham Harkless 9:19

Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or a book or a habit that you have but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Troy Riemer 9:35

So there's one thing that I guess speaking of habits, there's I have a list of habits that I track every day on my phone. And if I can get all of them, it helps me have like a really successful day. It sets me up for success the next day. So I track is waking up before 7 am You know, because if you get started off early, you're able to accomplish a lot more, you know, the first few hours of the day, you don't have as many people trying to steal your attention, and you can really focus, right.

And then I try and get to zero emails every day. I don't, I don't hit it every day. But I try because that means I'm responding to everyone that needs to be responded to, I'm tackling things, letting my team know if they need to do something, or it's just not getting left behind or delaying.

And then reviewing my project management tool, kind of a given goes with the emails, cleaning up around my house, because you know, if you have piles of clothes, just laying around or something, it kind of eats at you. And you need to focus on your personal life too, in addition to your business life, and then exercising. So if I hit all five of those things, I have a great day. And so I track those on my phone. And that's I guess that's my hack.

Gresham Harkless 11:07

Nice. I definitely appreciate the Fantastic Five I don't know if you call it that, but that's what I'm

Troy Riemer 11:13

Okay. Yeah, sounds like a good idea to me. Fantastic five.

Gresham Harkless 11:16

There you go. And it makes so much sense. And I love the fact that you know, you talked about especially that that part about, you know, having, you know, cluttered house or flooding work cluttered working area, because a lot of that clutter can infiltrate, you know, your business and your life and you're thinking about it. So whatever time and energy you're putting towards the clothes that aren't folded or whatever that might be, it's taking you away from you know, being your best self and in the business and honing in on that.

Troy Riemer 11:43

Yeah, exactly. It's like, I just noticed that if I let stuff in my personal life, bleed over into my work life, it just has an impact on everything.

Gresham Harkless 11:53

Absolutely. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can hop into a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Troy Riemer 12:05

I think the answer is you're exactly where you need to be and just keep going after your goals.

Gresham Harkless 12:11

Absolutely. No, it makes so much sense. And I appreciate you for sharing that with us. Because I think a lot of times, you know, like, Oh, if I you know life is sometimes like you know, a bunch of dominoes in order. And I think sometimes if you say Oh, I wish I would have moved that domino someplace else, that would mean that the next one didn't fall, the next one didn't fall. So anything you know that you're happy about or, or you feel grateful for in this day and age, if you took one of those dominoes, or you adjusted it a little bit, it may not have the same impact that you have, and put you in the place that you are now.

Troy Riemer 12:41

Exactly. I mean, how else do we get better at you know, the things that we're trying to do? Practice, practice, practice.

Gresham Harkless 12:48

Exactly that makes perfect sense. And I think that that's a very big thing that we sometimes kind of miss out on is doing that practice and putting those hours in that time in order to do that and make that happen. So, Troy, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on this show. So Troy, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Troy Riemer 13:13

Um, I think it means being accountable to the people on your team. You know, you wouldn't be in the position that you are unless you have the team around you. And so you really have to work for them to make sure that they're succeeding, in order to further the mission. I kind of think of it like you're on a boat. And this is your crew, and you guys are getting to your destination or you're not. And so that's what I think.

Gresham Harkless 13:44

Absolutely, yeah. And a lot of times, especially you like, when you're rowing, you know, you have a whole fleet of people that are rowing. And if one person isn't rowing, or one side isn't rowing, then all of a sudden, you're going in circles. So you have to make sure that you're all in alignment, you're all doing the same movements toward the same path. Because if you don't, then of course, you're not going to get to the goal that you want.

Troy Riemer 14:04

Yeah, that's for sure.

Gresham Harkless 14:07

Awesome, Well, Troy, I truly appreciate your time. And what I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get a hold of you to find out about all the awesome things that you're doing.

Troy Riemer 14:22

Um, I don't know. I guess, like the big thing that I'm working on right now is revamping our hosting. And so I want to get the word out about that, you know, we just upgraded to a new hosting platform that has dedicated hosting to all of our individual websites, you can get up to 20,000 monthly visits, and we're putting a lot of initiative behind that effort.

The best way to connect with me would be on Instagram or LinkedIn. Then you can find me at Troy Riemer Red Clacy Creative. I think it's red clay underscore creative for Instagram. But yeah, check out our website, let us know what you think. And if there's anything that we can do to help your community, you know, refer to our network. I don't know, just reach out to me. Love to chat.

Gresham Harkless 15:23

Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Troy, I truly appreciate it. And what we will do is we'll make sure to have those links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. Well, thank you so much for the reminder, you know, to definitely, you know, make sure that, you know, we are all in alignment for one but to make sure we're honing in on our craft and what it is that we do best, because I think sometimes we can lose sight of that, but I again, appreciate you and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Troy Riemer 15:49

Thank you, thank you and I want to say thank you, to you, you know for taking the time to interview, do these interviews, and then also, you know, helping me out with finding a designer, you know, for one of my clients. It really came in clutch so I appreciate that.

Outro 16:06

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, And leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Thank you for listening.

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