We were lucky to catch up with Justice Sims-McCray recently and have shared our conversation below.

Justice, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Please tell us about starting your own firm and if you’d do anything different knowing what you know now.

Since day one of knowing each other Jaquez (Co-founder) & I noticed something dire, but unfortunately very common for most people within our communities that we’ve even begun to fall victim to. We didn’t know whether it was just our college environment or if others were experiencing more of the same thing. As soon as we stepped foot on campus freshman year we saw some of the most fashionable, expensively dressed 18-25 yr olds we’ve ever witnessed. Although this was a culture that we embraced & actually enjoyed, we soon realized everyone was stuck doing exactly what others were indulging in as well. We noticed how those around us were working so hard for money to then frivolously spend more money than we are making, ultimately being ignorant to financial literacy in general. Like most founders, we recognized an opportunity and set out to solve it! B.i.B then set out to create a blueprint to help financial professionals connect their skills, knowledge & expertise to the communities in need of their services by keying in on enhancing their marketing approach through their brand image, style & messaging.

Starting off, we didn’t have a manual of what to do and how to do it handed to us on how to build a business. However, we did have a drive, ambition and a vision for the type of impact we wanted to have. One of the main things we learned along our journey when building the right team is the importance of building and growing a strong network & putting yourself in position to be around the right people. We learned that we couldn’t put up a “Open For Business” sign up and expect customers and partners to come flocking to us. Instead, we had to put ourselves in the rooms of the individuals who already have a vision of their own, and make it our job to connect with them to see if our values, visions & interests aligned. The number one piece of advice we give to young professionals in business is that building a firm is just like building a romantic relationship; you have to attract the right people through demonstrating value, engage them through commonalities and then convert them through vision.

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

We got into business by recognizing a major problem around us, that problem is as simple as businesses needed help and a lot of entrepreneurs were recognizing their downfall. Through marketing ourselves as entrepreneurs we saw the opportunity we had to fill the need we’ve been trying to direly solve.

We solve the core problem of attracting high value leads and converting qualified prospects into long term, loyal customers/clients. In our 3 step formula we re-innovate the way an entrepreneur/business is able to do business. As a digital marketing firm we focus on the 3 keys of each brand to create an indestructible sales funnel process to always keep high value, profitable, successful business flowing. Those 3 keys are your brand image, brand style & brand messaging to take your business to the ultimate peak performance that will require your company to grow and expand much greater than you ever have before.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Throughout the lifetime of our firm we have encountered a large amount of major pivots that needed to be taken within our business. Each pivot offered a new challenge of its own for us to solve that ended up providing us an equally great opportunity & amount of positive growth. But, by far the greatest pivot we’ve experienced within our business ended up being the ultimate shift within our game plan. When we started off, we focused on servicing a certain market of people. We thought that helping newly formed businesses and growing entrepreneurs within their business & professional development would be a great start. We soon realized that it would not be feasible to do simply because they were in the exact same position we were in. So began to pivot, we changed our market, our marketing approach and even our offerings to fit a whole new market. But again we realized how insufficient and even unsatisfying our approach was, so we kept searching and kept pivoting in order to build a successful firm. Three years later, we struck gold and finally found our perfect formula that invoked every bit of our passions, our talents, our network, the right plan of action as well as an applied faith that has helped us to thrive through the early years. We now service professionals all over the nation with invaluable digital marketing techniques, with the focus of growing our business to offer a very unique marketing software that will change the face of marketing completely.

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

The most effective strategy we have employed within our business model is also one of the core philosophies we follow, which is building genuine connections & establishing a resounding network. The reason we follow such a principle is because people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. So having a strong relation of networks that has been built through genuine & authentic relationships has become a major piece in our growth and stability as a company. We set out to be builders & major players within our communities and we know it’s only possible by being of the community and not just within it. Subsequently because of our efforts to create genuine connections, word of mouth has been one of our strongest resources & marketing tactics to effectively continue to grow our firm.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://keap.page/rea256/the-connect.html
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconnectbib/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theconnectbib/
• Youtube: The Connect BiB

Image Credits
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