Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Vicki Severson and Mark Leffingwell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Vicki and Mark, appreciate you joining us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

The craziest thing that happened to us, so far, was also the start of creating Oddvark Media. We met on a dating app. Hit it off right away talking about what we both did as a living. Vicki ran a small marketing firm and I was a freelance marking photographer. We enjoyed talking about how much we loved what we did for work and almost forgot to go on our first date. During our first date, we felt that something special was in the works. By the third date, we knew this was something special.

Vicki hired me to do a shoot for one of her clients, and Vicki helped with some things with I needed for my clients. The big thing that put us where we are now is last March Vicki was approached by a hunting show, Adaptive Pursuits, about producing a show in Colorado.

They asked about a film crew and Vicki introduced me to them. Over a few weeks, Vicki planned, location scouted, tracked down help, land to take the host and guest hunting on, and a place to stay. The catch was the host and hunter were both blind. Yep, blind. Adaptive Pursuits is a hunting show where the host, Lance Mathena, an Army veteran who lost his sight due to a surgical accident, takes other sight-impaired people hunting using adaptive technologies and guides.

Vicki played the roles of producer, location scouter, travel agent, sandwich maker, morning motivator, keeper of the schedule, and was one of the show hosts. I was the driver, camp builder, Walmart wrangler, Turkey Caller, cinematographer, audio engineer, and DIT. On top of both hunters being blind, one was recovering from 11 broken ribs and the other was recovering from a broken leg and sepsis. He needed an IV with antibiotics twice a day. Just another Day in the Life right? The last couple of hiccups were that Lance and Chris, our hunters lived at sea level and we were at 9500ft in Colorado. So add in a bit of altitude sickness and brisk 50+MPH nonstop wind and it was a piece of cake.

Four 17-hour days later, tired and un-showered, we packed up all the gear, broke camp, dropped the hunters off and the airport and went to catch up on some much needed sleep. The feedback we got from Lance and others involved in the show was that under some pretty demanding conditions, we never once lost their composure. They were able to adjust and find a solution to every problem that popped up. We held it together, kept the production on schedule, and did our best to make sure the talent was cared for. We held hands at dinner, and snuck kisses when we could. Not once did we argue. Lance nicknamed Vicki and Mark “Vark” and it stuck.

After that, everything else seemed easy. We started entertaining the idea of combining forces. Everything Vicki does enhances everything I do. We are truly yen and yang. Down to my ADD and her focus. We have so much in common, both in business and life. I have 3 kids. 24, 19, and 13. Vicki has 3 kids. 23, 17, and 13. We love being outdoors, we love the country and mountains. We both hunt and fish. We both are creatives. We are both former journalists. This working together just made sense.

In August we decided to blend our families. Both of our older kids are launched and living on their own. We live with the 3 younger ones now.

We continued to talk about creating our company. Vark kept coming up as a name but by itself, didn’t resonate. One day we were talking about what an odd couple we are because we are so silly all the time. Vicki has a “no peasants’ policy and feeds the pets from the table and will do about anything for the kids at any time. I like to jump on the kitchen bar stools and give the kids Tony Robbins-style motivational speeches and cannot make a simple meal. Go big or go home in my kitchen.

Odd, in the best possible way, kept coming up. Odd and Vark became Oddvark and here we are today.

Vicki and Mark, 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?

Both Vicki and come from journalism backgrounds. She was a journalist and I was a photojournalist. A funny thing about that is that we both worked for the same company, just different papers, and never met.

We both love stories. Reading them, writing them, and learning about people and places. Vicki is good with words and I’m good with visuals. We both feel that there is a lot of BS in the marketing world. If you need to write a script, hire actors to play a part, or put on a big production to try and sell your product or idea then maybe you aren’t getting the connection you want with your audience.

Oddvark’s philosophy is we don’t create an ad for you. We facilitate a path for our clients to get their message out and to connect with their target audience. We authenticity and honesty engage and promote better than anything else in our opinion.

As a small marketing and production company we believe in the power of good storytelling and how a well-told story draws people in.

At OddVark Media we use our backgrounds to help brands connect with their audience by telling deeper stories and guiding that audience on a journey by introducing the people who do the work.

Who would have thought that being authentic would be disruptive marketing? Vicki helps the client to tell their story and I capture video and still photography to illustrate that story.

We’ve learned that two people, wearing many hats can get a lot accomplished. We also have very good relationships with other independents in the production world. The person we use for nearly all of our editing, Nick Orris Productions, is a brilliant video editor and an amazing person. Through relationships, we can be agile and mobile or we can scale up to large productions.

Add that Vicki is a social media guru, an internationally published copywriter, a radio personality and an influencer marketing pro, we can build a very engaging and relatable campaign that’s all about connecting our clients with their followers.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

What we’ve learned about our business model and how we are growing is it’s all about being ourselves. For both Vicki and me, being honest and selling authenticity truly resonates with our client base. We are outdoor people, we love people and companies with who we share that commonality.

Our strategy is reaching out to people and companies who are involved in the things we do when not working. We hike, hunt, fish, explore, run around in the woods, find hard-to-reach places. We like horses and ranches, and family businesses. People who work the land and finsh the day with dirty hands. This is our arena. These are our people.

If you make products or create experiences for these interests, we are looking to meet you.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

We have 2 sources for new clients. The best is word of mouth. We get most of our work from clients recommending us.

Vicki and I don’t spend a lot of time talking about ourselves. I actually hate it. We are only concerned about what our clients need, what value we can provide and what problems we can solve.

It’s not about us. These aren’t our stories, these aren’t our products or services. They are our clients. When you demonstrate how important it is to be of value to your customers, they want to stick with you.

Our other source the LinkedIn and doing Google searches for things we like. I’ll search for Colorado Ranches, hunting backpacks, guide services and companies that may have solutions for problems we are trying to solve.

We don’t like mass emailing or spamming. We are very targeted in who we are looking to connect with.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.oddvarkmedia.com

Image Credits
All photos were captured by Mark Leffingwell, Co-Owner of Oddvark Media