We recently connected with Brent Feldman and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brent thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Along with taking care of clients, taking care of our team is one of the most important things we can do as leaders. Looking back on your journey, did you have a boss that was really great? Maybe you can tell us about that boss and what made them a wonderful person to work for?

Early on into my working career I had a couple bosses that really had a big impact on how I see leadership now. First was my manager at a Domino’s Pizza, yes, this was impactful. Rance was the GM of the location and showed leadership by willing to work every position, stepping in and making it happen when things got busy but also just letting people know expectations and letting them work. He wasn’t high strung, didn’t hawk over you but you always knew when you were doing the right thing or the wrong thing – the expectation had been set as opposed to vague and inconsistent.

The second boss was at another restaurant. I was a server and he was the GM as well. Steve was a great leader, knew how to relate to people, get on their level and inspire people to action. Being relatable is a huge component because it helps those you lead know where they are coming from and how best to communicate important information.

Brent, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was 12 years old in 1995 and my family had been early adopters of computers and the internet. At that time I got a chance to build websites of my own on Geocities, make logos for my band with graphics software and learned how to develop in Visual Basic. All of these things that I was just experimenting with really became what is now my livelihood.

Having this broad foundation did also help us look at problems through more than one lens for our clients. Even though we may not be able to provide our clients every service they might need, we’re constantly meeting people or discovering new tools that help us continue to be a great resource.

At the end of the day, I’m proud of the work we do but I’m even more proud of the work culture we created. We won awards from business publications locally for Winning Workplaces, Best Places to Work and Best Bosses awards. All of these mean the world to my business partner and I.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

We had a lot of work wrapped up with Energizer in 2009-2011. They ended up consolidating this work into a larger agency partner and we lost about half of our revenue. It taught us a really tough lesson but also a really good one about being more diversified in our revenue from clients. It also taught us to go back to our core line of services and that spurred our growth till now.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We foster brand loyalty by just being a great team to work with. Yes, staying in touch, listening really well and making sure we’re by the client’s side with great recommendations, whatever the need might be. Also, everything doesn’t always go to plan and so I think another extremely important factor is accountability. We’re always happy to acknowledge issues, hit them head on and work towards a solution. It’s just the right thing to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://matchboxdesigngroup.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matchboxdesigngroup/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matchboxdesigngroup/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchbox-design-group/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwbrfJt_APT669I4GLDclRg