We recently connected with Reid Carr and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Reid, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

It is common that agencies, as they grow and attract an appealing client list, the big agency holding companies come to acquire the agency. The holding company’s story is that they want to put the agency into a larger network to “help them scale” by increasing their geographic footprint and making investments in their growth.

However, it is important to recognize that those holding companies are public companies with the fiduciary responsibility to deliver financial results to shareholders. It is less about the quality of the work and more about delivering growth and a financial return to shareholders. There is nothing wrong with that, but it changes the focal point for the business.

I believe that independence, which can sometimes feel like living in the wild by yourself without protection, is necessary to drive us to adapt to a changing environment and I believe it contributes to the longevity of the agency. We do this for our primary stakeholders: Our employees and our clients. Together, we want to create a home that we all have a connection to and can shape as our own over long careers in one place.

So, while selling to a holding company can provide a financial windfall to any agency’s owners, it is also a short-term attitude: Built to sell. Agencies that are built to sell, as if they were a physical product rather than a collection of wonderful people, has become increasingly common and something we’re just not interested in doing.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We started Red Door Interactive 20 years ago, in 2002, with the intent to take advantage of the explosion of ways to reach customers via marketing. When I started my career in advertising, there was only a handful of largely unmeasurable ways to reach prospective buyers — TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, etc. As the web came into play, more options opened up to marketers, but those tactics, such as SEO, email, etc. — also required expertise to take full advantage of the channel. However, it was still critical for brands to keep the messaging and creative consistent.

We created Red Door Interactive to merge brand and marketing expertise with the technical expertise for multi-channel marketing. What we’ve learned over the years, as even more marketing channels have opened up, is that the magic is in how we keep everyone on the same page about who we’re trying to reach, what stage of the buying process they’re in, what tactics are appropriate at each stage, and how to keep messaging and the brand on the right track. It is a balancing act of art and science that keeps things interesting!

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

I have always hated “sales.” However, I have always loved what we sell; I believe in what we can do for clients so deeply. So, early on I had to force myself to make the cold calls to drive business. I tried hiring other people to do it, etc. but eventually, I had to suck it up and do it myself as much as I was afraid of it.

Thankfully, back in 2002 and 2002 in the first years of our business, a lot of companies still were building their first websites to reflect their brand. If a company was relatively large, in San Diego, and didn’t have a website, they were an easy target for a cold call from me. As those opportunities dried up and more of the established brands built their sites, or at least were underway, opportunities were hard to find, so I began tracking who was getting funding.

One day I read an article about a skincare company getting funding, I saw they had a placeholder page up for their website, so I nervously gave them a call. The receptionist referred me to the person who was both hiring employees and charged with building the new website. I got a hold of her and she said, “Oh, I am sorry, I already have proposals from a few companies, you’re too late.” To which I said, “If I can get you a proposal by the end of the day, can I be considered?” Thankfully, she said, “Yes.”

We ended up winning that client, which ultimately became a long-term large, important client to us for many years. The decision-maker, thankfully, was entrepreneurial, appreciated our spirit, and became a good friend along the way.

I learned then that I was going to need to do a lot of things that I feared in order to help us succeed. I have had that feeling many times since then, but I draw on this successful outcome often to provide me the courage to go for it.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I am grateful for the reputation we have, particularly here in San Diego. We were conscious about that concept early on because I figured that, if you can’t win in your own backyard, then you really shouldn’t win anywhere. Having started my career in LA and watching shady people get ahead, I learned that, in an expansive market like that, people can hide. Here in San Diego, you really can’t. So, if you do bad work here or aren’t trustworthy, then you’re career here will be short-lived. I am thankful we’re here 20 years later and thriving.

What got us from 2002 to 2022 is knowing what we shouldn’t do and learning how to tactfully and strategically decline work in order to focus on the right stuff. There is a lot of reflection that goes into that process. What are we good at? For whom do we do our best work?

Now, my driving principle when speaking to clients and prospects is just to “be helpful.” I try to sit in their shoes, strategically, and think, “Knowing what I know about us, and if I were them, would I hire Red Door Interactive for this particular need?” Sometimes I know that we’re just not right for them and I try to help them think through who or what else might be the right fit as well as be clear to them about what is right for us (so we’re considered later if something changes).

We only want to be in positions to do our best work, so I think that’s helpful to everyone, our people and our clients. And, I think that is why we have the longevity that we do. In our 20 years, we have several clients that are well past their 10 year anniversary with us, which is rare in our industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.reddoor.biz
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reddoorinteractive
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reddoorinteractive
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/24295
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/reddoor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/reddoorinteractive