We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Steven Freivogel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Steven thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I was first was starting out, I was very unsure of what to name the company and had come up with several terrible names. Some sounded like bk but did not want to sound like the burger company. I wanted it to be unique and came up with Black Knight as there is only one Black Knight. I later added publishing. This was to signify that I did not just create sites but we publish all items related to a one stop shop for tech.

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

I started getting interested in design and creativity more when I was taking a college art course but had worked on computers most of my life. Upon graduation, I took a job gathering Internet cold call leads for a television sales company. They had a website but was basic and at the time, I was pretty advanced in computers but not nearly on the web as I am nowadays. I was playing with their ftp and learning what this was when they asked me if I wanted to work on their website. It was just I did not know anything about a website or how to do anything for it. Upon this, I would go online to find stuff to help. Now mind you, this was the early days of the Internet in the late 90’s – early 2000’s.

I was making $7.50 an hour but given leeway to learn on the job. After I worked for them for several months and continued to learn and read everything I could about web design and development online, I felt I had enough skills to get out in the real world. I tried a few jobs, even took a big tech job but it was not enough. I wanted to go for more and strive for more.

I decided to get my name out there, I took on any job I could. No matter the pay or what it was. I had taken the same concept that I was when I djed and used this for a company and web ideals. The first site I did was for my uncle. Pretty basic but utilized html for it. I think the second one was for a corvette guy and took the job for $25 bucks. I took on more and more and kept growing and growing, increasing my worth and my skills along the way. All of it by word of mouth, asking questions, grabbing any knowledge online in regard to the web and just trying to put it all into real world practice.

Funny thing is, I only read one tech book and it was Internet Marketing for dummies and on top of that 75% of the websites I have done or do, have all been word of mouth.

I try to be a one stop shop for clients. If I did not know it, I would figure it out. Never turn money away, no matter what it is. Never turn down a client down. Work within their budget if they cannot afford it because they will be beyond happy and recommend more people along the way.

Do the best you can but think outside the box. Problem solves their issues before they even know it. Yes, you will in a sense “read minds” but you should, after a while understand your clients and customer needs just by one word from them.

Setting yourself apart is not what you do, it’s who you are. If you offer more than the customer needs or wants, they will always come back for other items. Be fair to your clients and don’t over charge – no matter the issues or headaches they can cause.

I am most proud that I have designed – coming up to this year – 3600 plus websites.

The things that I would like anyone to know about Black Knight Publishing is we offer fair costs; we are here to help you solve your problems/issues and we do a job that you will be very proud of.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I thought when I first started that it would take 14-hour days and all marketing (paid or organic) to get things going. I found out once I hit a knowledge plateau that it was just doing a good job, helping the person sole their issues, getting the work done quickly and one time and making it affordable that others would come.

I stopped killing myself and start working smarter NOT harder.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

It was 2003 when the tech bust hit a wall and work dried up. No work and very little money were coming in. Tried all sorts of ways to get things going better and a huge struggle for 11 months. I almost put it all up and took a webmaster teaching job. Things settled down, started doing things differently (smarter not harder) and climbed out of the hole.

Started making my value and worth of what I could do mean something and tried to stand above others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://blackknightpublishing.net/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackknightpublishing/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blackknightpub
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/theeventmagazin
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/invasion100