Today we’d like to introduce you to Bill Harper.
Hi Bill, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
The challenge of finding a career that was equal parts theater, design, writing, photography and strategy was daunting. I left high school having convinced myself the answer was a path to automotive design through mechanical engineering – I had visions of becoming the next Pininafraina in my head. My mother famously said as I prepared for my first year of college, “You’re about as much of an engineer as I am a toaster, but if you’re dead set on it…”
Fortunately for both me and the mechanical engineering world, she was 100% correct.
It wasn’t until a random encounter with a visual communications class that the pieces fell into place.
I had transferred from engineering to business and was about to call my family to say the fit still wasn’t right and was literally walking the campus framing that conversation in my head when I happened on a presentation that quite literally changed my life. A visual communications class was presenting to a group of visiting businesses – their strategies, advertising campaigns, success metrics overview, etc. I was so intrigued that I sat in the hall for nearly two hours just watching the whole thing unfold.
When that two hour session was over, I knew exactly where I was meant to be – and I’ve never looked back.
The last 36 years have flown by – proving that when you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. From my early days working for DMB&B’s flagship office on brands like Denny’s, Blockbuster, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Anheuser Busch to the five agencies I have founded or co-founded, I’ve served more than 500 growth-minded businesses across virtually every category. Along the way, I’ve had the good fortune to generate more than $2.8B in net new revenue for my clients – which is a far greater reward than any of the more than 100 awards our teams have won for creative excellence.
I have the incredibly good fortune to spend my days helping business owners’ make their dreams come true by teaching them the strategic stories and sales narratives they need to give customers a clear reason to both care and choose these brands.
I can’t imagine a better way to spend my days.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Struggles in the marketing world fall to a number of Usual Suspects:
• Marketing isn’t well taught in business school, which leaves leadership teams focused on sales alone
• Business leaders don’t understand that their ‘better mousetrap’ is just step one, not the whole story
• People don’t understand that buyers look at the world from a WIIFM mindset – the product or service is truly irrelevant, it’s the outcome they’re buying (Not buying a drill for the drill, but because I want to hang a picture on the wall)
• Most agencies have defaulted to tactics without strategy – leaving them vulnerable to poor performance
• Most business leaders feel marketing has failed them – leaving trust at an all time low
• ROAS is the opioid epidemic of our industry – forcing attention to the bottom of the sales funnel and restricting growth
• AI has everyone convinced ‘all they need to do is…’ without realizing just how wrong this approach truly is
• Tariffs, budget restrictions, a challenging economy, war in Ukraine, trade-route disruption, etc.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
BrandBossHQ was a series of happy accidents that came together beautifully. In the wake of Covid, the marketing landscape was changing quickly. Big Business wasn’t comfortable with large-scale initiatives because both people and production were in flux. This closed off business development for many agencies. Additionally, people who had been let go for Covid only to be rehired again a year or so later only to be laid off again had lost faith in the ‘establishment’ and were gravitating to gig-economy solutions.
What became clear was that SMBs trying to reach $10M or more needed help, and the established agencies weren’t giving it.
About that same time, a colleague of mine suggested that I go on TikTok, which I eventually did. To my great surprise, this led to a huge online engagement that quickly turned global. Recognizing this opportunity, we packaged a lower-cost brand strategy and creative development solution for SMBs that gave them access to the same strategic thinking and creative power as their larger competitors – at a cost and time investment they could afford and manage. This netted us more than 170k followers online and more than $7M in net new business revenue in the first 2 years.
We have successfully positioned ourselves as the strategic branding resource for growth-minded SMBS, and have now worked virtually every continent on brands from napkin-note startups to $2B TLR category leaders. And we’re just getting started.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
There are no risks – there are just opportunities to learn that are taken or not taken. My POV on this is never to be reckless, but always open to what the situation can teach us. There is no failure, there is only learning. And the next level of success is always just on the other side of the thing you fear most. Embracing this perspective has made all the difference.
Examples:
• Working with clients who seem to be ‘too big for us’
• Borrowing money to grow
• Aligning with partners even when past partners have failed us
• Pushing clients to do the work they need to do to achieve the results they want – not protecting the check and giving them work they might like, but that has no ability to deliver
• Saying no – and walking away from bad client relationships
• Always seeing the world in terms of What If, not limiting ourselves to What Is
Pricing:
- $65,000 for Brand Story + Consumer Research
- $997 for our DIY course
- $2,000 per hour for one-on-one consulting
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brandbosshq.com
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brandbosshq
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmharper/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@brandbosshq
- Other: https://go.brandbossuniversity.com
