Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Greg Hedgepeth. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Greg thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.
At Substantial Media LLC, we are proud to be a black-led multimedia company rooted in the Eastern NC community and scaling to serve those in surrounding communities across NC. Our mission is clear: to amplify positive narratives within the Black community while shedding light on critical issues that impact us locally, statewide, and nationally. The definition of the word Substantial says it all, of considerable importance, size and worth, strongly built and made. Concerning the essentials of something. That’s our people, our community, our culture, our businesses and it is engraved in everything we do.
We recognize the unique challenges faced by our community, often underserved and overlooked. There are a number of stories that come to mind, serving as a mentor and coach within the Eastern NC Entrepreneurial Promise I see local minority-women businesses owners and non-profits struggling to make their mark in a competitive market. Despite offering exceptional products and services, their lack of digital presence and marketing know-how keeps them hidden from potential customers.
Understanding the importance of representation and visibility, we stepped in. Leveraging our creative talents and expertise, we help these organizations and business owners craft dynamic digital marketing strategies tailored to their brands. Through compelling storytelling and strategic public relations efforts, for one organization in particular we showcased their rich history, quality services, and commitment to our rural communities.
The results continue to be transformative. We’ve seen significant shifts in their web traffic, online engagement, and brand recognition. More importantly, they felt empowered, seeing their business thrive and contribute to the economic growth of our their community and the surrounding communities that they serve.
At Substantial Media LLC, this is more than just business—it’s a calling. We are dedicated to serving underserved communities like ours, bridging gaps, and creating opportunities for growth and success.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
For me personally I grew up with a passion to serve and throughout my professional career I’ve continued to be a “forever learner” in the creative, marketing and communication space. I’m a first-generation college student born and raised in rural Halifax County, North Carolina. I received my undergraduate degree in Economics with a minor in Business Administration and an advanced certification in Web Development from East Carolina University. I later received my Masters in Management and Leadership from Webster University with a concentration in Marketing and I’m in the early stages of my doctoral pursuit in Learning and Organizational Change. I wear a number of hats, all of which contribute to my personal and professional growth I currently serve as the Director of Marketing and Communications for the NC State University Graduate School and I’m the President and CEO of Substantial Media, LLC an award winning minority multimedia platform that seeks to amplify the voices and stories of black and brown communities and bring awareness to important issues that impact these communities on a local, state and national level. I’ve been in the field of higher education marketing and communication for over 16 years, serving in leadership roles at the divisional and university level. I’ve been a senior web developer, marketing rep, recruitment manager, graphic designer, photographer videographer, writer, etc. As I said I grew up in this work. I’m a certified digital marketing professional, a husband, father of two beautiful little girls, an adjunct professor within the Mass Communications and Digital Technology Department at a historically black college and university (HBCU), and a social entrepreneur. It’s all of these things that make me Substantial, understanding my WHY and how I use my time, talent and treasure allows me to pour into others through my company. It’s exactly why we named it Substantial. We wanted a company that spoke to who we are as a people and to the potential each and every client, business owner, advocate, community we helped were.
We not only created a local media platform to amplify their stories we created a full service creative agency to assist them in reaching their full potential and showcasing to the rest of the world how Substantial they are. For us it’s about helping our clients understand the four Ps of the marketing mix and horning them in ways that help us craft great stories. We teach them about funnel management and the customer journey, we help them with their UVP (unique value propositions) and then provide wrap-around services to ensure a great cohesive brand.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
Absolutely! There are tons of resources out there for entrepreneurs, but being a “first-generation everything” as I like to say I’m oftentimes late to the party. I learned about Series A,B and C funding rounds late in my entrepreneurial journey, along with other venture capital opportunities. The most important and fundamental resource for me was the SBA (Small Business Administration) and understanding how they could support me as a small business and connect me to knowledge and funding. As a black owned business it was also important for me to learn about and plug into my North Carolina Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUB) Office and become NC Small Business Enterprise (NCSBE) certified to get access to contract opportunities and compete for RFPs that I otherwise wouldn’t have every known about. The key for me was learning what systems to plug into and building our brand within the small business and entrepreneurship ecosystem. In business it’s all about relationships.
Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?
I always say there are so many more important things than money, but it takes money to do all of those important things. Like every entrepreneur and small business owner there were a million and one no’s but it only took one yes to get us off the ground. Early in our business I personally funded everything and made a promise to myself not to go the loan route to fuel my business. The initial capital to start Substantial came from friendraising and fundraising. Our first investor was a mentor I admired in the creative space, I remember asking him to serve on a panel at an event we host titled “The Black Lens Symposium” on the state of Black entrepreneurship. After the event in a follow up I remember asking him to coffee to talk a little more about my aspirations as a marketing professional and entrepreneur and also to see if we could do a Substantial Media feature on him. For me it was about getting to know him and building a relationship long before I ever asked him for anything in return. Once he learned more about me, my why and what we were trying to achieve through Substantial it was a no brainer. After his initial investment in our company Substantial began to gain some serious traction, we were one of 16 small businesses to receive grant funding from the NC Idea Foundation, which is an independent private foundation committed to empowering North Carolinians to achieve their entrepreneurial potential. We won an award for our creative and collaboration on our special COVID-19 publication and coverage of the impacts the pandemic was having on our BIPOC communities and was invited to participate in the BIPOC Publishers Meta Journalism Project. When I look back on it, we’ve really been able to manage our S curve and create some sustainable momentum. While we haven’t truly figured out the magic source to grow and scale by leaps and bounds, Substantial is happy with our growth and what we’ve been able to achieve within the local media and entrepreneurship space here in North Carolina.
Contact Info:
- Website: Substantialmediallc.com and wearesubstantial.com
- Instagram: substantialmag
- Facebook: SubstantialMagazine
- Linkedin: Greg-Hedgepeth
- Twitter: substantialmag