We recently connected with Jono Diener and have shared our conversation below.

Jono, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

It was a long, odd journey to create a full-time living as a creative. Starting out as a drummer in a band who traveled the world, I’ve had amazing experiences that continually turned ideas into tangible objects. Song ideas into physical vinyl records. Lyrics into album artwork. And accidentally became the Creative Director of my band.

Now for the fun full-transparency part: you can be rich with life experience and a killer creative resume, but it doesn’t mean it pays well. Sometimes, unfortunately, it pays nothing.

My boredom on tours got me documenting our travels, writing blogs and taking photos, which was a pre-social media way of storytelling. That got me freelance gigs writing for music magazines or local publications. I got to add a lot of cool accomplishments to my arsenal, meanwhile I was barely able to pay rent.

You have to chase the idea, pitch the work, nudge the editor, and hope it gets released until you wait another month to get paid.

After doing a few dozen too many things, the pandemic was a force reset on my life and it led me to full-time marketing. And instead of traveling and doing odd jobs in between, I finally had a driver. I was the windup car that was finally placed on the ground and went full speed.

Starting a coffee company to becoming the Creative Director of KARMA jack, our marketing agency, I realized I was actually good at making and selling things that weren’t subjective, like music or art. And better yet, I got to implement my creativity on a daily basis while making a wage I didn’t know was possible.

If I knew jobs like this in marketing were possible, or was given encouragement early on that my life experience could actually pay off more than a college degree, I think it would be a whole new world. But I wouldn’t change a thing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m the Vice President of Brand and Creative at KARMA jack Digital Marketing Agency based in Ferndale, Michigan. Our inside joke is that we’re in the Brooklyn of Detroit.

My day-to-day is overseeing our Creative Department, which entails graphic design, copywriting, photo, video, and implementation into advertising, websites and a multitude of marketing services.

Overall, I love having deep conversations with our clients or prospective clients and figure out their overall problems. It’s usually related to overwhelm, a lack of resources, or the feeling of having plateud and being stagnant in a world that rapidly grows around them.

No matter how big a company or brand may be, we all tend to have the same problems. Which makes the solutions rather simple to materialize, identify, and execute.

Again, not just in a buzzword “storyteller” way, but if you start with the pain point and reverse engineer the overall goal and who the organization is trying to reach, you start applying a messaging strategy, tactics, and a timeline and it goes from “what if” to “wow, we did it” pretty quickly.

I’m most proud of our work for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear. We’re approaching our third year with this amazing organization and event weekend that has transformed my life and our agency. It started with taking on social media, and got us to doing full-on video production for the event and telling stories with drivers, community leaders, and even celebrities. Last year we helped get them a whopping 38 million in social reach, and we’ve been exponentially growing their online presence just through awesome content and storytelling.

I’m also proud of our from scrappy solo venture turned full creative production wing of our company. I think we’ve filmed in 5 states already this year, with plenty more to come. I just love making stuff with my friends.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My primary driver is curiosity. Always. I just want to find out how things work, how people work, and see if I can help provide them relief. Maybe it’s a toxic trait, but I love helping people a little too much.

After reading The One Thing, I made the mission statement or mantra for myself: Create a comfortable and compassionate life of creativity for myself and those around me.

It stems from wishing I had someone give me a cheat code early on. From sleeping on floors on tour so we can save up enough money to pay ourselves anything after a two month tour. From watching my overwhelmed or underpaid friends struggling for so long, knowing by simply working together we can grow something incredible and solve all of our collective problems.

I had the joke of being the unproblematic Don Draper, or a more attainble and less-smart version of Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy fame. Using marketing psychology and storytelling to take big swings and move mountains.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I absolutely adore the following books for a few different reasons.

Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara taught me the importance of hiring people you believe in, trusting them to take ownership, and surprising your team and clients with goodness that was never asked for, but proving they were heard. I wish I could do everything myself, but after years I learned I can’t. So if I bring on people to our creative team, it’s because I know they can make decisions and do what they do best. If they fail? They learn and adapt, and I grow from not enabling or fixing the problems for them. It stung at first, but I watched them wildly grow.

Alchemy by Rory Sutherland showed me the importance of trusting your gut and experience to test big swing concepts rather than only letting the data do the talking. Imagine a world where new ideas could shape new data, instead of being beholden to it. Plus, psychology that makes an impact and leads to a jaw-dropping campaign is a blast.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://KARMAjack.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jonodiener
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KarmaJackNow/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonodiener