We were lucky to catch up with Mikel Fields recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mikel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

I wanted to come up with a brand and a name that represented authenticity, hard work, strength and most importantly I wanted to stay gen[uine with my approach of how I do business with my clients. The name is Castello Branco Fields.

I met my wife , Luana Castello Branco, and mother of my two girls while I was in college. I was a student athlete in college. I grew up in Columbia Missouri and received a full ride scholarship to play basketball at Columbia College, where I triple majored in Business Management, Sports Management, and Marketing. My blue and white colors are representative of power, authority, sophistication, but also represent Columbia College and Columbia Missouri., where everything was ignited for me and my life.

So Castello Branco is my wife’s maiden Last Name and of course Fields is mine. I often work in-depth with clients, building trust and building a strong relationship in order to look out for their best interest for long-term success, so I wanted my brand to also represent togetherness, long term strategy, partnerships, relationship building and trustworthiness .

Castello Branco is also a Portuguese name, My wife is from Sao Paulo Brazil. I wanted my brand to also represent global business, communication and reach. Just because I reside in Columbia, Missouri doesn’t mean we can’t help with your brand’s strategy.

Castello Branco means white castle. in English. so my logo is a white castle on a foundation of Fields. it is in a a shape of a hexagon to represent hard work, teamwork and strategy [Like the shapes bees make in a hive] a hexagon is also a strategic shape in nature for efficiency.

The Logo also represents my mindset and approach towards problem-solving and helping my customers. I believe inorder to be the best version of yourself you must have a strong foundation of identity, understanding, and support. the lower level of my logo represent a strong foundation,
Once you have a strong foundation with support then you can build on that. The middle part of my logo represents the work you have to put in to grow.
The top part of my logo represent vision and peace of mind. once you have put the work in and know your foundation is strong and your business or brand is running smooth you can look out onto the horizon to visualize new growth opportunities and or see problems coming before they exist. My consulting approach often leads to moving back to ensure the foundation of your brand is strong first before throwing on an extra workload and wasting marketing and operations budgets.

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

I am a brand Strategy Consultant, I collaborate with businesses to develop and execute plans aimed at creating a strong and distinctive brand identity that will allow them to operate strategically and think long-term success. I often work with iconic brands that skipped the digital marketing era, but now need an updated logo or re brand, a new website or First website. Its also typical for me to work with local companies or personal brands to help them establish an organized brand identity, vision, lead generation strategy, and improve their online presence and presentation. Services that I offer is website development and website hosting, brand strategy and business consulting, and marketing and branding fulfillment services, like logo design, graphic design, brand management, content creation, SEO, video, and more. We believe its best to work with a brand strategy consultant with all of your marketing and problem solving needs so they can help you understand the why behind, getting a new website, “doing social media”, or investing in marketing. a common thing I have helped many local businesses with is. gaining access and organizing : google profile access, website domain names and logins, social media platform admins and logins, brand: [logos, icons, fonts, subfonts, colors, photos], and how to use their website and online presence for communications and lead generation strategy. It is my goal to increase awareness of the need for a brand strategy consultant as a trusted advisor that helps you make the best decisions for your marketing and operations budget

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

My background has always been marketing, consulting and working with people to solve problems. I jumped into entrepreneurship when I was employed as a digital marketing consultant. While still employed I decided to invest in a local cell phone repair [Cracked Up Mobile] shop in Columbia, Missouri. at that time in my life all I wanted was to own my own business or be an entrepreneur. Before getting to where I am now as an employee I would day dream about working for myself, investing in a property, starting a new business, or buying an existing business. In fact, at one point to fulfill the entrepreneurial itch I was even a certified personal trainer while I was working at a local bank. I say all that to say that I was scared to jump into entrepreneurship from being an employee. When the opportunity came up the former owner of Cracked Up Mobile wanted to sell his business and I was ready to jump…. kinda.

The cell phone repair industry was perfect in my mind. I love to build relationships and my skill set is digital marketing and lead generation and customer service. My strategy is everyone I meet could be a potential client and I don’t have to have a salesy approach to gain them as a customer.

After purchasing Cracked Up Mobile I was able to implement everything I have learned in marketing and business and do it in the city I grew up in. We re-branded, updated the colors and fonts, and logo and expanded the services that Cracked Up Mobile offered locally.

After 5 months of owning a local business and being employed I realzied I needed to really jump all the way in. That is when I established Castello Branco Fields [cbfstrategy.com] as a brand Strategy and consulting firm, and left my place of employment to focus entrepreneurship and how I can best serve my hometown community.

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

My entrepreneurship journey started in August of 2019. and we all know what happend in 2020. As soon as I decided to make the jump they we get hit with a global pandemic. During this time I was forced to really learn the cell phone repair industry and the real needs of our community since we never closed and our client base was growing as older and younger people needed their phones and tablets repaired.

On top of that I was an entrepreneur now and the only way I could pay myself was to make money with my marketing skills since the repair shop only made money to pay the techs that fixed the phones.

I reached out to other businesses in distress during this time to barter service, collaborate, and offer free services upfront, just to help great brands but to also help get my name out there. We built a website for the 3 of the most historic and iconic downtown restaurants in Columbia Missouri, and established a social media strategy for a local bar that helped bring them new customers during the struggles of the pandemic.

Leaning on the authenticity and genuine feeling that I want my brand to represent allowed me find ways to help my community and grow my brand during a very difficult time for everyone.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cbfstrategy.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikelfields/
• Other: www.Crackedupmobile.com

Image Credits
The picture with he food and people is a Brazilian Party event that we are going on our 4th annual in 2024, each October. The picture with the group of people with the downtown como sign and the shadow of people’s silloute is a local networking event that we organize to help local business owners connect. there are picutures that represent me as a consultant for Castello Branco Fields. there is also a picture of my wife and I. I also have pictures of Cracked Up Mobile and one of our techs doing a repair. please use any pictures from www.CBFstrategy.com that you like also, Ernies, and Booches are 2 of the historic restaurants we helped during the pandemic