We caught up with the brilliant and insightful John Tabor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi John, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Well in a world were different colors and cultures I thought long & hard on what to call my company . In our industry there are a lot of 3 letter companies .. I wanted to stands out .. so I decided to go with Zebra .. Being half white & black I thought that was a good fit & I love it when clients ask how did you get your name. When I explain I get some funny & great looks & lots more questions. It open the conversation up to a lot more things.

John, 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 started in the industry when I was young. I grew up in Papua New Guinea as a missionary kid so I got to get busy quick helping out doing events around the nation & really enjoyed it . After high school I went to college in Hawaii & got a degree in video production . Work for some local Tv Stations & decided to jump into lighting. I have had the honor to light the last 5 Presidents , National tours , Arena concerts, Super Bowls & everything in-between. Our motto is Bringing Color to Your World & we live by that lighting up stages all over the world .. even lit up a shark tank in Dubai. That was a fun time being in a boat with 30 tiger sharks swimming under you .. it has made for some great stories .
We have also got to work with some of the best in the industry witch have been s real privilege . We are based out of Colorado but end up doing shows all over the nation.
Our main goal to to bring our clients dreams to reality . Even with the ups & downs seeing the final project all done has been one of the highlights of doing this .

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I started the company with a small person loan from a family friend. Paid that off in 6 months & started to invest with our personal money I really tried had to stay away from loans . I had seen how when you have debt you can run the company like you really want to .. so for as long at I could I paid for everting with cash. I took my 1st large loan through the SBA & work hard to pay that back also . I found that if I have a small amount of debt I can make this work. The hardest part is when you need to do the big purchase & you don’t have that kind of cash on hand. Im still not a fan of loans but at times it the only way to grow to the next level . When I have taken the loan I know that I have work to pay it back I have never been a fan of taking a loan & hoping it brings in more work. I like to know I have lots of work & know that I will have more coming in.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Word of month & repeat clients is the way we have built the company. If my clients are happy they will tell there friends & will pass on the word .. social media has been good to let people know we are busy & going for it .. & yes we have had some clients find us on there & we have end up working with them. We have never wanted to do a one time event with a client we love to work with them year after year .

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.zebra-productions.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zebraproductionslive/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zproductionslive/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-tabor-1a19546/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/john24608054