IAM1207 – CEO Helps Small Business Entrepreneurs Grow through Great Marketing

Amie Thompson is an executive, investor, mentor, and leader and the current President & CEO of Creative Allies, a minority-certified marketing firm for entrepreneurs. Her company offers a wide range of marketing services to grow our client's brand. Creative Allies creates best practices from the lessons learned over its 10-year history to connect our clients with buyers, fans, and followers to enhance the brand story. Amie's passion is helping other business owners grow their businesses through great marketing.

• CEO Story: Started investing in a company along with my partners, over time, there was an opportunity to lead the company, so I took advantage and focused on marketing services which inclined to my background.
• Business Service: Provide augmentation to small business owners to let them focus on growing their company while they handle marketing services like Website Design and Development as the top service that they do, as well as Photo and Video works, Social Media Management, etc.
• Secret Sauce: The familiarity of my clients on what they are dealing with which I can relate to. Honesty, asking for feedback, and trust.
• CEO Hack: I have a Trello Board that helps me prioritize and organize a lot of things in one tool and we use ClickUp, a project management tool. Those two apps are my favorite which are simple to learn and low cost.
• CEO Nugget: Know yourself. Know where you’re strong, so you can hire the right people for the right skill you need.
• CEO Defined: As a CEO you are the captain, guiding everything, setting and changing the direction. Tough job but very rewarding.

Website: http://creativeallies.com

Twitter: amie_ceo

Instagram: amie_ceo

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00:13 – Intro

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

00:40 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Amy Thompson of Creative Allies. Amy, it's great to have you on the show.

00:49 – Amie Thompson

Thank you for having me.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, super excited to have you on. What I wanted to read is Amy's bio so you can hear a little bit more about all the awesome things that she's doing. Amy is an executive investor, mentor, and leader in the current president and CEO of Creative Allies, a minority-certified marketing firm for entrepreneurs. Her company offers a wide range of marketing services to grow their client's brands. Creative allies create best practices from lessons learned over its ten-year history to connect their clients with buyers, fans, and followers to enhance the brand story. Amy's passion is helping other business owners grow their businesses through great marketing. Amy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:26 – Amie Thompson

I'm ready.

01:27 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So, to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:34 – Amie Thompson

Sure. So I certainly like to call myself an accidental CEO. It wasn't something that I, that I set out to do. I've spent most of my career doing sales and marketing operations and different leadership positions, but always working for another company, working for someone else. I've been investing probably for like 1015 years now. Then we came across me and some of my partners came across creative allies in 2015 and decided to invest in the company.

So the company has been around for a while. We invested in the company in 2015, but over time, the original folks started to do other things and an opportunity came up in 2018 to actually lead the company. So I took advantage and here I am.

02:17 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. Especially how, you know, I think so many times we forget that there are multiple ways you can, quote, unquote, start a business, or get into a business. So I love that you mentioned that story. I think so many times people don't realize that there are a lot of opportunities from sometimes existing businesses to invest and support them. Maybe you can step into that as well, too.

02:35 – Amie Thompson

That's right. Absolutely. It was really, the timing was really great because I was actually looking to wind down in my current role. I just felt like I needed something different and more. So really the stars are a little bit aligned. But I think, as you said, people sometimes think they have to start something from scratch, and that's not the only option to get there.

02:54 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I think even if you decide to start a business, it sounds like with yourself, I want to put words in your mouth because I know we're going to hear a little bit more about what you're doing, but I think you get to kind of make it your own or make those adjustments and changes according to what you see would improve the business as well.

03:08 – Amie Thompson

Yeah, absolutely. Creative Allies started actually as a company that was really focused on the entertainment industry, doing marketing services. So, like you said, one of the cool things about running a company is you can make those changes and adjust. I don't personally have a long history of entertainment. In my background, we still do that, but now our company is really focused on providing marketing support to entrepreneurs. That's more me, it's more my style, my background. So, yeah, over the years, we've kind of just slowly changed the focus of the business. So it's exactly what you were saying.

03:43 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. I absolutely love that. Yeah, you get to be, when you're the quote-unquote captain or you have that opportunity that you get to kind of redirect as you see fit and what you feel can create that impact. So I know you touched on it a little bit. I wanted to hear a little bit more about the impact that you're making. Take us through, like how you serve your clients and what services you're provided for.

04:01 – Amie Thompson

Absolutely. So we are a full-service marketing company and we're small, but the way that we work is we actually have a community of freelancers and partners that we work with. So we have a team of about six people, six to eight at any given time, but right now, six people. If we take on a project that needs certain expertise, then we pull from our freelancer community or our partners to do that. It's been really great over the past couple of years because the customers get kind of the best person in every role. But I'm not having to manage that overhead and keep those people employed the whole time.

So we have a core team that's varied and can do a lot of things, but when we need to pull from our community, we do that. So we offer, I would say website design and development is probably the top service that we offer and what we do the most, but we do video work, we do photography, we do social media management, et cetera, et cetera.

So the idea is that we want to provide a kind of that, augmentation for small business owners. A lot of times if you're a company like us, four, five, six people, you don't have a full-time marketing person. But marketing is actually one of the most critical parts of your business and helps you grow your business. So in many cases, our clients don't actually have internal marketing resources. It might be the CEO that's doing marketing or they have an intern or something like that.

So we're able to augment the team. Let the CEO, let the leadership focus on growing their business from the technical part of the special, you know, specialization that they have. Then we handle the marketing for them. That could be project-based, like a website where it's a, you know, certain start, certain finish. Or it could be something ongoing where we're managing their social media, for example, or we're writing blogs for them, something that's ongoing. So we're really flexible in what we do. My goal is to help the entrepreneur run and grow their business. So if that means, you know, take some stress off of you, take something off of you by handling your marketing, then that's what we try to do.

06:00 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. Kind of like a partner, for lack of a better term in terms of being able to do that. But I think so many times, and I know you, you mentioned your background is in sales. You had positions in sales and marketing. I think so many times. You have sometimes people within the organization, sometimes as a CEO that don't even want to deal with marketing, don't even want to deal with sales. They're, you know, icky words and icky things they have to do.

So I love that you're able to kind of partner, but on an even deeper level, to be able to, it sounds like have that conversation and be solution-oriented where you figure out what will help them to reach their goals and then you have a slew of freelancers and people that you can kind of lean on, on top of the team that you have in place.

06:37 – Amie Thompson

My main goal is to see other people succeed and know that our team helps play a part in that, and that's really rewarding for me and the rest of my team.

06:45 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a big kind of misconception as well, too, is that even. Even things that you can do, just because you can do all things doesn't mean you should do all things. You should be able to kind of lean on people that have that expertise, that knowledge, that experience. To be able to tell you what you should or maybe shouldn't do is absolutely huge. But I think it's so important, as leaders and people that are making those decisions, to be able to kind of lean on the expertise of those that are. That is, I guess, working with them.

So I love that you're able to do that. So I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for yourself personally, the company, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

07:22 – Amie Thompson

Yeah, it's a great question. I think running a company, you learn more about yourself than you ever have or ever want to. But I think the things that set me apart, are a couple of things. One is that most of my clients are just like me, so there's a familiarity where I can have a conversation with the client and know exactly what they're dealing with. Perhaps two years ago, I was in the same exact spot.

So even though I'm coming to you offering marketing services, I still run a business. So I still hit all the same pitfalls that most of us hit. So there's, like, a relatability, I think, with me and my team, compared to some of our competition, where it is about being a small business owner and being successful in that way.

I think the other part is honesty. I know I would say this, a lot of people say that they're honest, and it's not that people are dishonest, but I'm more brutally honest and transparent. It's, you know, I have thick skin. So if we deliver something or we recommend something that you don't like or you don't want to do, or it doesn't work, not everything we do is going to work. It's okay. My focus is always on how do we help. How do we get better? How do we help you get better? I think asking for feedback is something that I try to get all of my clients to do. So I think that trust is also another thing that in combination, those three things, I think, makes me a little bit different.

08:45 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I absolutely love those three things. I often say that you know, especially when you put yourself in somebody else's shoes or you can see or you're literally going through the same experiences as they are, you start to realize, like, how would I want to be treated? I love how they trust that accountability. A lot of transparency as well too, because I think a lot of times, at the end of the day, business owners, CEOs, and entrepreneurs want to be successful and they need that person to tell them, this may not work, this is not my recommendation.

So that they do at least have that partner so that they can make the as best decisions as they can to get to where they want to be.

09:18 – Amie Thompson

That's right. Another kind of motivator for me. I don't ever want someone else to feel that way where they feel like they're being taken advantage of just because they might have the money to spend. It's really about helping. How do I help you? How do I teach you, you know, some of the things that you can do on your own, et cetera? So it certainly was partially from a bad experience that I had, with a vendor to making sure I don't treat my clients that way.

09:43 – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate you so much and sharing that. I think that aligns with what you said about putting yourself in a client's shoes. Many people have had that experience, it's like having a really beautiful business card. It looks phenomenal, has all the flash and pop, and all of those things. But who's going to hand it out to people? How is it going to get out so people can call you? I think so many times, you know, people that are making the decision, CEOs and business owners don't realize that marketing piece. So I love that you understand that, understand their goals, and make sure that you try to marry both of those as best as possible.

10:15 – Amie Thompson

Yep, absolutely.

10:16 – Gresham Harkless

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

10:28 – Amie Thompson

For me, one of the things I use all the time is Trello. I kind of live by my Trello board and that helps me prioritize, and stay organized, a lot of different things in one tool. So I love that we have a couple of tools, other tools that we use, are more team-oriented, but we have a project management tool that we use called ClickUp. I love that. It's, you know, one of the things about some of these apps, I look for simplicity and cost. So I want something that is free or very low cost and something very simple so I can learn how to use it in a day or so. Just, you know, it gives you the core of what you need.

At this point in my career and in the company, I'm not looking for all the bells and whistles. I'm kind of looking for the core of what I need to be more productive. So I would say those two things are probably my favorite tools that I use.

11:18 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love both of those. Any kind of project management software that allows you to kind of take all the things that are moving and all the parts that are moving, even the people that are involved, and be able to kind of put that in one place. But I love that simplicity piece because I think so many times when you get tools, you kind of have, feel like you have to have a PhD to figure out exactly how to use them. But that simplicity to kind of get you to where you want to be, to get, you know, whatever it is your goal needs to be, is so huge and important. So I love that. Those are two hacks you kind of work with.

11:47 – Amie Thompson

Yep, absolutely. Yeah. I think, like I said, when you're a CEO, you have no time.

11:51 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Just as you said, you know, when you, you decided to turn your business and kind of work on the websites in that process, I think a lot of times these people that create these hacks and these tools, a lot of times they see that there's something that's missing in the market and it may be a tweak or a change that speaks directly to a person.

So like you said, you know so well, just having a conversation, and asking people what they're using helps out so much because there might be the same type of quote-unquote systems, but they might be communicated or designed differently, and that speaks directly to you and there's nothing wrong with using that.

12:24 – Amie Thompson

Absolutely. Absolutely.

12:26 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your best client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your business self.

12:37 – Amie Thompson

Yeah, I definitely would say know yourself, you know, and that is another thing that I think sounds simple, but people don't spend enough time just with themselves. I think that's good for your personal life. But also certainly running a company, really spend time getting to know where you're strong and where you're not, because, again, as a CEO, you don't have a lot of extra time.

As you mentioned before, there may be things that you are able to do, but you shouldn't be doing them. There may be things that need to be done, and you actually don't have the skill to do, and you have to be able to quickly identify what those things are so you can hire the right people or partner with the right people. I think that there's just such a difference between being an employee and then being it, you know, running, running everything.

So the things that may make you a great employee might not be the things that make you a great CEO. So spending time, whether it's reading, whether it's taking personality tests, whatever it might be, but taking time to really know yourself would be the advice I would give both to myself in my youth and also to any other business owner.

13:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I think you mentioned it as well. You know, kind of in the beginning when we first started out, that a lot of times running a business, you'll learn more about yourself than you care to know. I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Amy, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:01 – Amie Thompson

Well, it's a great question, being a CEO, really. It's kind of like you are the captain, like you said before, you're the person that is guiding everything. You're the person who is kind of the buck-stop-shop here type of person. You're setting the direction. You're changing the direction when it needs to be changed.

So it is a lot of responsibility and a kind of blessing and a curse. You don't have a boss, right? Sometimes that's good. There's a lot of freedom in that, but sometimes it's not good. You could have blind spots that you don't, you don't see. If you don't have a good kind of network of people at your same level to help you with that, that can be tough.

So I think there. I love it. You know, I often say I don't ever want to do anything else. I don't ever want to go back to working for someone else. But it can be stressful because everything is on your shoulders. There are times when you know you don't hit payroll. You have to take a little money out of your own pocket and make sure that gets done.

So, like, all of the responsibility falls on you. But the reward, I think, is kind of the helping. You're helping your team grow as professionals. You're helping your clients grow as better business owners. So there's a lot of reward in it as well. But, yeah, it's a tough job, but can be very, very rewarding.

15:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. I appreciate you talking about that kind of holistic definition of it, the double-edged sword, where you definitely have a lot of that opportunity to kind of work for yourself and that opportunity to kind of chart the path and do those things. But I think often, as you said, so well, times we realize that we're not working for ourselves at times, too. We're working for all our clients, the people that are on our teams. It ends up being very, very taxing as well, too. But I think, you know, if you're stepping into that position or that opportunity, it's great to know the holistic part of it.

So I appreciate you sharing that so much and appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find about all the awesome things you, your team are working.

16:01 – Amie Thompson

Sure. Well, our website is creativeallies.com. you can also find me on social media, on Twitter, and Instagram. It's Amie_CEO?

16:12 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. I definitely have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. So appreciate you again so much, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:20 – Amie Thompson

Thank you.

16:23 – Outro

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 I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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