We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Connor Lock a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Connor, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
“Oh, look. A pandemic is sweeping across the globe” “This would be a great time to start up a second branch of my company out west!” (warning, I suck at grammar things and I just write with emotion so hang on). Yup, I did that. Talk about a risk. My creative business in Charleston, SC was running perfectly smooth but I knew that I needed to shake things up out of my comfort zone to grow as an artist, designer and above all as a human. 14 years of living full time beach life, this guy had a calling to the mountains of the west. I had some great connections out in Denver, CO from my music, skateboarding, design, and adventure lifestyle. The world was shutting down so I figured this was the worst best time to see if I could make this work. Plus beach life and mountain life doesn’t sound too bad, right? So I wrangled up as much of a budget I could to start my journey west. I packed my necessities into a Penske truck and hit the road. Well, before that I had to organize my life in Charleston so I could come back to work and play. Thousands of emotions consumed me as I drove out west with no idea if this was gonna work or not. Vicious thoughts of failure pummeled my brain and heart. Will my business fail, will I lose my friends, am I putting myself in danger? Like a baseball bat to a hornets nest, these thoughts were the driver of my 12 ft yellow Penske truck. Charleston to Denver is a long, mostly boring (thanks Kansas), drive. While on the verge of panic attacks, I finally pull into Denver and the my new spot. My playlist in the truck somehow shuffled to “The Final Countdown”, go figure. Once I turned the truck off and sat in silence, the panic and doubt spun down the drain of my conciseness and formed a knot in my throat. My body began to tingle and the corners of my eyes started to sprout salty crystals. I had made it. You have accomplished Step one, I told myself. This was a very powerful moment of the new adventure I has begun. After that I spent time healing my soul and my mind while planning how to hit the ground running as soon as the world open up again. “If you can make it here through a pandemic, you can make it through anything, I told myself.” Fast forward to me typing this thing out on a Monday morning listening to classical music in my studio in Denver, sipping tea, looking out the window thinking “Holy Hot Banana Bread, it actually worked” It has been three years now since I made the gut wrenching decision to risk destroying my business and my comfortable life in Charleston. There was a whole bunch for hard-work and melt downs to make this work but damn I’m glad I did. I now split my time comfortably between Denver and Charleston creating even greater work and friendships because of this decision. Wow, I really need to sit with this today and marinate on this gratitude for all the people who supported me in this decision and who’ve helped me make this wild risk a possibility. My heart is pretty damn full right now. Building connections and offering your help into new communities is my biggest lesson learned from this successful but challenging risk. As someone who was riddled with doubt I say, You can do it too, friend. I believe in you!
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 back background and context?
Hello, new friend! My name is Connor Lock. I am the owner and founder of SEVEN Designs, @7avisualcraftsman. Coming up on 10yrs in Biz! We come up with creative solutions to make your business successful. We make that work through our years of studying business, creative direction, wild ideas, brand strategies, professional art/design skills, Murals, Installation Art, manufacturing knowledge, amazing vendor connections, and above all our high energy that we pump you up with. Not gonna bore you with more of a sales pitch, let’s talk about something new. I am starting up another project in 2023 that will be based on empowering people in their own home kitchens. This project will be called Staahj. @HeyStaahj on the instagram thing. I’ll be traveling the world to challenge, inspire, and cook with people. Pretty stoked on it. Makes my heart feel full to help people and cook. Anyway, back to this interview thing. Above all, I want to convey my deep passion for creating and solving problems. Probably why I have such a fun creative company that has locations in Charleston, SC and Denver, CO but we work globally. I get to work with some incredible humans and I’m truly grateful for that. Follow along the adventures we go on and maybe one day we can work together. That would be rad! We would love to hear from yah and how we can help!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When I first started SEVEN, I had zero projects coming through the door. I went to every art opening, every design meetup, explored the city, I literary tried to be anywhere and everywhere I could be to make connections. I funded all of this with my own money, no business loans at all. I didn’t go into these interactions with selling to people. I went into it with getting stoked on and learning about other peoples businesses that I admired. The bi-product hope was maybe for them reaching out to me for my services. Three years into it I was limping by with tiny projects and my bank account started to dry up fast. For side cash, I mowed lawns, helped in a friend’s machine shop, taught skateboarding lessons just so I could work on the projects I wanted to and build a stellar portfolio. I could have been a lot more financially stable if I just sold myself out to big corporate companies or took whatever came through the door but I wanted to curate the work I wanted to work on from the very start. I wanted to help people who had deep passions for want they do or sell. I then hit period of three months ZERO DOLLARS income. In that time, I had to eat from the food drive at a church near my house. Free hotdogs, baby. I got down to the $17 moment of what the hell am I gonna do to cover my rent and bills next month. I remember my brain screaming at me “who’s lawn can I mow, what can I sell, you’re such an idiot for letting your bank account get so low and not taking those other projects that came through the door, your art sucks and nobody gives a shit” This was a big time of a lot of SUCK in my life. I remember going out onto my porch, cracking a beer and gazing out into the sky to let my brain settle. After some deep breathes and swigs of beer, I thought to check my inbox for some sort of table scrap. I scrolled through the junk and then something caught my eye. It was a contact and project proposal I had made/sent out over 6 months ago that I totally forgot about. I took a big gulp of my slowly warming beer thanks to the incredible Charleston heat beating down on me. I opened the email. “Hey Connor, sorry for the radio silence. Hope you are well. Our budgets have been approved and we’d like to start that project with you!” I dropped my phone to my lap and started to cry. This project came through and paid for the next 3 months of my life. My name and company got pushed into the media with this project. Talk about hitting rock bottom to have everything telling you to quit and go get a job again only to have a rope thrown into your pit of agony for a chance at survival! I will never forget that feeling of hopelessness and panic that I felt in those first three years in business.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Pivoting my life to healthier environments and more challenging projects were dire for me. After my business finally took off in Charleston, I definitely partied super hard and only worked myself to the bone. It was not healthy. It was not sustainable. I regained my grounding but became took comfortable with just the Charleston market. I wanted to pursue bigger projects and a healthier lifestyle. So I choose to start up a second location for my business in Denver, CO. The Best Most difficult decision of my life. After three years of the transition, now I life and work comfortably between both cities.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.followseven.com
- Instagram: @7avisualcraftsman
- Facebook: @followseven
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-lock-63324624b/
- Youtube: youtube.com/@7avisualcraftsman