Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Holdmeier. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, John thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Most brands and creative contractors or agencies in the outdoor industry focus on showing the “epic” apex experience photos and creative. I ran into this issue as a brand manager for a large publicly traded camping brand. I struggled to find creative content that felt “real”. Creative projects that we hired out always came back looking staged. It was not believe-able. This is normal and mostly considered standard in the outdoor industry, so these creatives are not necessarily to blame … they were just creating things that looked like what they saw on magazine covers and packaging for years. Our brand persona, however, really relied on an authenticity and feeling that we had to create internally. This lead me to see a need in the space and when I left that job, I knew that I wanted to start a small agency to deliver creative assets and branding that felt real and authentic. My agency focuses on “keeping it real” and showing the true outdoor experience.

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?

I got into my industry through my knowledge of the outdoors and outdoor products. I have been camping, kayaking, canoeing and fly-fishing my entire life. This lead to a job a the local gear shop when I was 16. From there I continued on to work in product development for a camping brand. After that I became brand manager for a camping tent manufacturing company. We made private label tents for big chain retailers and prominent brands like Coleman, Dicks Sporting Goods and Snowpeak. After that role I took a position at a large parent company with a legacy camping brand in need of a makeover. As brand manager I lead a team through a refreshing re-brand and product line overhaul. I left that corporate environment to start my own agency (where I am now)!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Anything by Seth Godin about marketing is incredibly relevant and helpful for modern business owners and marketers. I personally really love his book “This is Marketing”.

I also recommend Leidy Klotz and his book “Subtract”. It is a learning experience about how to accomplish more with less and how to re-imagine our approach in an “more is better” culture.

Finally I always recommend the book “Essentialism by Greg Mckeown. It’s a great perspective on how to prioritize things and how to determine what is truly important.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I don’t have a degree. I went to college straight out of high school and failed out. I tried again to graduate several times but could not make it happen. During this time, I struggled greatly with alcohol addiction. During the worst of it, I was living out of my car, disconnected from friends and family. In 2014 I got sober and things began to turn around in my life. My career and life have blossomed since and I attribute any success or happiness I’ve found to my sobriety and the support system that came into my life when I finally stopped drinking.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.actualoutdoors.com
• Instagram: @actualoutdoors
• Facebook: Actual Outdoors
• Linkedin: John Holdmeier
• Youtube: Actual Outdoors