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

Nikki, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

This is such a thoughtful question. I’m very happy and grateful as a business owner. I must say I could never do it alone though. My husband, Chris, and I make a great team. He’s good at everything I’m not and vice versa. He’s great at managing all the tasks I hate, like taxes, operations, contracts, systems, equipment…all the stuff that I forget is necessary to run a business successfully. I prefer to focus on getting to know people – our customers, vendors, partners, etc. or getting locked into working on a particular project for longer than I should, and especially continuing education to make me better at my job. These are just a few of the things I love about being a business owner.

The things that make me not love owning a business are usually twofold: first, when people make obvious their lack of integrity, character, or forethought and it thusly affects others negatively. I don’t think that’s exclusive to business ownership though. One of my mottos in life, if you can call it a motto, is “Don’t be a jerk”. I know it sounds trite, but I mean it. Just be good to people. Be honest. Be human. Be kind. Think about how your decisions and your actions affect others. Too many people fail at this or never even bother trying to begin with and though I don’t have a particular story or any tea I want to spill, I will say that being forced to accept that these types of people are just part of “being in business” really just irritates the heck out of me.

Secondly, it’s just “regular job” things like health insurance or a retirement plan. Most recently, we had to renew our health insurance, which I hatttee doing. We have a fantastic health insurance broker though, who spends more time than I deserve answering all of my questions and works so hard to make sure we have the best coverage for the best price. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider just for a second, giving it all up for a 9-5, just for the benefits at least once during the health insurance shopping process though. Ultimately, I feel like the tradeoff is worth it though. I think most business owners have moments when the grass looks greener on the other side and a 9-5 temporarily seems like a good idea.

For me, the pros of business ownership outweigh the cons though. 2024 has been a rough year for everyone. Chris and I have both had some health issues and on top of that, we became caregivers for his dad after we lost his mom in 2021. With my family all back in Tennessee, it’s just the three of us here, now. So, having the freedom and flexibility to care for one another without a needy or micromanaging boss, is more than a blessing.

We’re so fortunate to have the option of being somewhat selective with our customers, too. Family comes first for us, always, and likewise for our clients. We’ve each worked for companies and bosses who liked to talk the talk but failed miserably when it came to walking the walk because they were more concerned about the bottom line. And while of course, we’re always keeping an eye on the numbers, people are what matter the most at the end of every day. Our family, our customers’ families, everyone’s wellbeing, health, and mental health. I feel like our customers understand that and they feel the same way, too. I see it in how they relate to their customers and how they present themselves as brands. It makes me feel like a proud mama bear to help them grow and reach milestones in each of their respective businesses.

Nikki, 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’m Nikki Garrison. I’m one half of Garrison Agency. My husband Chris and I provide web design and SEO services to small, mostly local businesses. Most of our customers are right here in the Phoenix area, with a few others scattered all over the country who were referred by our lovely Phoenix customers. He’s in charge of the web design and running the backend of the business, while I take care of the SEO and the people.

I fell into marketing by accident. It started in 2007, back when marketing was mostly tradeshows, radio spots, and driving around Tempe touring print shops. I was in school to be a high school English teacher at the time. I also worked for a startup that eventually grew to be a multi-billion dollar IPO. The business was in its infancy stage at the time, so no one really had job titles. We all just helped with whatever. They asked if I could help with marketing, and I said yes. I didn’t know anything about marketing at the time, but they said they’d teach me. Turns out, I loved it, which worked out well because, as it also turns out, I kind of hated teaching high school kids. I did my practicum teaching earlier that semester and it was nothing like what I expected. Guess that’s what college is for! I loved the teaching part, and I loved the English part – languages, grammar, writing, I love all that! But the teenagers, I’m not sure what I was thinking. I didn’t even like teenagers when I was one. They’re like little aliens to me, except they’re all taller than me. So, marketing worked. I love the psychology behind marketing. I had an incredible, creative, genius marketing mentor who taught me a lot that I still carry with me today.

Fast forward a few years, a few more startups, a few more successes, and a few lessons learned, as startups go. We launched Garrison Agency in 2013. We started out as a mobile app development company. We were contracted out to help build apps for the golf industry and amusement parks for several years. I also took on projects where I got to practice my marketing chops.
I learned SEO in 2016. A small business in Scottsdale hired me to bring them “into the 21st century”. So, they paid for me to learn a bunch of stuff through HubSpot. Like most things with marketing, I was hooked immediately. But with SEO in particular, I was straight-up smitten. It was just writing stuff and putting it on websites…ok it’s more than that, but at the core, that’s it. I’m a big geek, so I’d taught myself to code for funsies the way any normal girl did in 2003, using Myspace. Then, I honed those skills professionally with our app development projects. So, SEO combined three of my favorite things – marketing (psychology), obsessing over words every day (English/copywriting), and using the technical side of my brain (coding/being a geek)…I haven’t stopped enjoying it since.

I know it’s weird for anyone who doesn’t do SEO to hear, including my husband, but I am genuinely passionate about SEO. I legitimately love what I do. Now, I get to teach other small businesses one-on-one how to do it, which is an even bigger bonus. I still get to teach, which is all I ever really wanted to do. I’ve opened up my calendar to office hours. SEO is not as difficult as some of the dude bros make out to be. It’s mostly about content creation now. When I first started, back in 2016, there were definitely more technical aspects. But now, it’s like 90% content creation and 10% technical. So, I love teaching small business owners how to do their own SEO and how to rank higher on Google. We offer two tracks for my SEO classes, 1) For beginners – this is where I walk you through a presentation of what SEO is, the basics, the terms. I familiarize you with the language and get you comfortable with having a conversation about it. I assign a bit of homework. Then, we dive in and actually do the SEO together on your website. 2) If you’re already familiar and just have specific questions, we dive right in. In the most perfect example of irony, the internet is one of the hardest places to find straight answers about SEO. I won’t jump all the way up on that soap box right now though. My point is, that sometimes you just need to ask a human a question. That’s what I’m here for.

We also offer monthly SEO maintenance and web design. Our roster is currently closed for SEO maintenance. We believe in quality over quantity. So, we only take on the number of clients we can handle successfully at one time. But we’ve got a couple of spots open for web design. Chris does our web design. He’s so much better at visualizing what something can be, than I am. He’s meticulously detailed on both the backend and frontend, which let me tell you, isn’t something you often see in web designers. Check out our website for examples of his work. Our favorite web design clients are those in the trades or service industry with great branding.

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

So many. I’m never not reading a book. I have favorite books about writing, favorite books about managing a business, and favorite books about just being a decent human. I’ll just list them because if I start writing about each of them, this will wind up being a novel. So, you can judge me however you wish based on the titles/authors alone:

– I’m Judging You – Luvvie Ajayi Jones
– The Professional Troublemaker – Luvvie Ajayi Jones
– Driven – Steph Hammerman Roach
– The Light We Carry – Michelle Obama
– Becoming – Michelle Obama
– The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls
– An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth – Christopher Hatfield
– Lead from the Outside – Stacey Abrams
– Level Up – Stacey Abrams
– Building a StoryBrand – Donald Miller
– Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style – William Strunk and EB White
– The Story of You – Ian Morgan Cron
– I See You – Terence Lester, PhD
– The Bible

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Everyone isn’t good. This one broke my heart a few times before I accepted it. It’s a real downer of a lesson though, so I don’t want to dwell on it too much or share anything specific. I think I mostly covered it earlier. I just want to believe that every human is worth dignity and kindness. Even if (and when) someone chooses to be unkind, unfair, or unloving to me or to anyone for whatever reason, it doesn’t mean I have to do the same to them. It doesn’t mean that I have to like it or them, but it doesn’t mean that I should treat them the same way they choose to treat others. There’s a Tupac quote that sums it up perfectly, “Just because you lost me as a friend, doesn’t mean you gained me as an enemy. I’m bigger than that, I still wanna see you eat, just not at my table.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.garrisonagency.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrisonagency/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GarrisonAgency/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-garrison-94b54516/