Inspiring Conversations with Brandon Potter of Potter Creative Studios

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Potter. 

Hi Brandon, 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 backstories with our readers?
I grew up in Kinston, NC, moved away to go to NCSU after high school. I was always creative and artistic growing up but never thought it would be something I could make a living doing. After floundering around in Raleigh for a few years I came back home to regroup. I had 3 part-time jobs…selling cell phones, working at the local golf course/country club, and part-time at a photography studio. I took to the photography work like a duck to water and never turned back. Within a few months, I was full-time at the photo studio and spent just about all my time learning the craft and also valuable business and people skills. When the owner of that studio retired, I went into business myself. It was June 2007, at 25, I started Potter Photography & Design. Over the next decade, I grew PPD into a very successful business. In order to be successful in a fairly small city, I knew I would need to say YES to just about everything. As a result, I got proficient at a wide variety of skills over the years…all avenues of photography (including events and weddings, children’s portraiture, senior portraits, commercial and product photography), graphic design, web design, videography, along with all the necessary business skills and wisdom that experience gave me. Around 2015, an associate of mine got me interested in screen printing and we realized a huge demand for it in our area. I applied the same work ethic to screen printing that I had applied to learning photography and within a year or two, Magic Mile Screen Printing has turned into a very profitable business. We service downtown businesses and restaurants as well as custom orders for schools, churches, marathons, and individuals. While I continued to grow those businesses, a friend of mine BJ Murphy had an idea to start a social media management business. He moved a desk into my studio and within 2 years, Magic Mile Media and Neuse News were born. Magic Mile Media manages social media and does special video, livestreams, and media projects for its clients. Neuse News is a hyper-local digital news platform that I really think we pioneered in our area. In order to house all of our growing ideas and businesses, we needed a homebase, a headquarters. We found that in the building that I was renting a space in for my screen-printing shop downtown. After getting married to the love of my life, Amy, in 2017 and finding out we were pregnant soon after, I knew that we needed to start investing instead of paying rent on 2 spaces and a mortgage for our home. We combined all of those efforts when we purchased the Art 105 building on Blount St. in downtown Kinston. We now have in this one building, our 4 businesses as well as working studios for local artists. I also spent the better part of 2019 and 2020 remodeling the upstairs of the building for an apartment for my family. Needless to say, it has been a busy last few years…I’m not even sure how I did it all…but we are beginning to really see the fruits of all of our efforts, risks, planning, blood, sweat, and tears. We have worked very hard to live a life more fulfilled and I really think we are going to have it here. Our story is very much one of sticktoitiveness…we have had some hurdles along the way no doubt, but we are so grateful to be in the position we are now and the future seems so bright. If my story can encourage others to chase their dreams and not be afraid to create their own reality, then I would love to tell it any way I can. Thanks for the opportunity! 

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think running a small business is a lot tougher and takes a lot more dedication and determination than a lot of people understand. Late nights, weekends, stress, overhead, hiccups, personal changes…it all keeps things very…interesting. But it can also be some of the most rewarding work of your life. You learn how to lean into your strengths and you learn to get through any challenge you face…because usually you just don’t have a choice. 

Along with the regular struggles that any small business owner faces, our daughter Stella, the other love of my life, was born premature in January of 2018. I’m happy to report that after a few weeks in NICU, she has been one of the healthiest children I’ve ever seen…but that was a very tough time in our lives for sure. Once we thought we were out of the woods for a bit, my wife Amy suffered a mild stroke in October of 2020. She has recovered almost completely from it over the last year, but we still have a few challenges that we are managing from that. Rather than letting these things get us down, we focus on our blessings. Yes, life would be easier without these kinds of things happening, but it has definitely made us stronger individually and as a family unit. We are now focusing on work and family balance and making our reality the best it can be, in the face of COVID 19 and a world that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense right now, we’re working hard every day to stay positive and to continue to achieve more than we ever thought we could. 

As you know, we’re big fans of Potter Creative Studios. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We have created a multimedia factory from the ground up basically. We’ve put talented individuals in a space and given them challenge after challenge and the results have been so incredible. We work hard but we have a lot of fun too…and we feed off of each other and the quality of the work thrives because of that. We have a full-service photography studio, a commercial screen-printing shop, 16 working artist studios/gallery spaces, a social media, and marketing firm as well as a hyper-local digital news business. What I’m most proud of is the fact that we solve real-world problems for local businesses and individuals in such creative ways every day. We’ve built a team and a facility with limitless resources and we can make things happen quickly, yet very effectively. I’m also very proud of how rooted we have become in our community because of the way we operate. We’ve also welcomed in the youth of our community through paid internships and part-time jobs and we’ve left a lasting mark on lots of young people while giving them an opportunity to spread their wings. Our hard work and our vision have started rewarding us every day now and we are so thankful and proud. 

What matters most to you?
I’m such an idea man, that I really have to focus on a work and family balance. It is possible most of the time, but something I have to be very intentional about. My family is the most important thing to me…and their health and happiness trumps everything. Along with that, I need to take good care of myself so I’m here to take care of them…and so I can enjoy the bright days ahead and watch my little Stella grow up. Love is all you really need, but happiness and health, and financial security run close behind. Not to mention, you’ve got to have some fun every day! 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: bpotterphoto.com | magicmilescreenprinting.com | art105studios.com | magicmilemedia.com and neusenews.com
• Instagram: bpotterphoto
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.potter.50