We recently connected with Wil Davenport and have shared our conversation below.
Wil, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
Jim Richardson was an extraordinary man. Up into his 80s, he competed in and won Sr. Olympic competitions. He served his community faithfully volunteering multiple days a week in the hospital helping the families of folks in crisis and blessing his church family through helping with the recreation ministry. He radiated kindness. He was also a man of order and disciple. The qualities grew in him partly because of his military background, He was a detailed planner. I know I’m not the only one whose life was blessed enormously by knowing him and being in relationship with him.
When More Than Memories was in its infancy, Jim chose to work with me to prepare a beautiful video slide show to honor his lovely wife, Jo, He wanted her to get to enjoy the video while she was still alive AND create something beautiful to share with family and friends at her passing. Jim wanted the video to overflow with the love Jo showered onto others. As a result, we worked together adding in special poems, interspercing phrases that were special to the two them, and even including his voice, speaking words of thanksgiving about his wife. This video was a labor of love going through multiple iterations of intense scrutiny and revision. In the end, together, Jim and I created something he was proud to bless his wife and family with, something he felt comfident would honor Jo’s memory.
Wil, 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?
My name is Wil Davenport and I am blessed to be the husband of Celeste, my wife of nearly 25 years, and father of 3 amazing children (22, 19, and 17). I am passionate about learning and growing. I seek to have a grateful focus throughout my life. And, I am called to be a world-class encourager.
As a business leader, I am honored to get to serve my clients. I know I get to work with incredible folks, “rockstars” really, who celebrate their family, friends, and businesses by preserving the precious stories and memories that make life so special. In 2015 I started a business called More Than Memories out of a desire for a fresh start. Becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t my idea. It was actually a suggestion from my son. He told me, “Daddy, what if you started your own business?” I can honestly say I’d never thought about starting a business before. With his words a whole new category of options opened up. I chose this particular field because a very generous friend donated me the equipment that helped start this business.
At More Than Memories we know that our customers have precious, irreplaceable memories they don’t want to lose, they have important people in their lives that they want to bless, they run businesses that have stories that need to be told. We help them solve those challenges by:
1. Interviewing Folks and Crafting Videos to help clients share stories that are important to them, to create videos for businesses to leverage their history to connect with customers, and to highlight employees and customers. We develop a relationship with our clients, help them clarify purpose and scope, work with them to develop a plan of what to share, lead them through the actual interview(s), and work to edit a final video that effectively accomplishes its purpose.
2. Creating beautiful video slideshows for occasions such as Birthdays, Memorials, Business Advertisements, Anniversaries, Post-Vacation or Special Events, Graduation, and more. These videos can include still images, video footage, special music, poetry and other writing, voice overs, interviews, and more. We can be very creative if desired.
3. Preserving (Digitizing) and Enhancing the Memories Found on their Precious Old Media: 1. Home Movies (many kinds), 2. Slides, 3. Printed Photos, Negatives, Letters, and Documents, 4. 8 and 16mm film reels, 5. cassettes, 6. records, 7. floppy disks, and much more.
Many things set More Than Memories apart. We are a local business serving our community. We meet with our customers face to face and develop a relationship with them so that we can serve them excellently. Folks don’t have to put their items in the mail, risking loss or damage. Instead I pick up and drop off these precious irreplaceable items. Because we work so closely with our clients, we can be very creative and flexible in the way we create different projects. Finally, because of my background in ministry, I have the relational skills to work with a variety of people, even serving them during some of the most difficult moments in their lives.
We are definitely proud of our 5 star Google rating which represents hundreds of customers who were not only pleased with our work, but were genuinely excited about it. We’re proud of the big tough men who cried when they relived memories that were so precious to them. We’re proud that individuals and businesses trust us to do amazing work for them time and time again.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
Without a doubt, my best source of new clients are the connections I’ve made in business networking. I’m a member of an exclusive group called the Referral Excellence Organization (REO) that I meet with every week. Many of the folks in this group are mentors, many are customers, and many are amazing sales people pointing me in the direction of new clients. This group is the primary way I find new clients. I’m also a member of the Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce and have cultivated many significant friendships and client relationships with those I’ve met. This is my secondary way to find new clients. And finally, I am very intentional about visiting other networking groups including organizations like TNT, BNI, TEN, and NTI as well as networks for healthcare businesses, networks open to politicians, retired executives, and small business owners, entrepreneurial groups and more. This tertiary group provides some business and continues to expand the scope of my connections in the area. I have not chosen to invest a lot of time into Google marketing or social media marketing in part because of lack of time and also partly because for me, that work drains my energy while networking fuels me.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
One of the most influential writers in my life is Andy Stanley. He’s the pastor of Northpointe Community Church in Alpharetta GA, he’s a leadership expert, and he’s an effective communicator in writing and in speech. One lesson I gained from him many years ago was this. He said, often as leaders we discover what our strengths are and we learn that without a lot of effort we can do above average work using our strengths. As a result, if we are trying to improve our leadership and competency we tend to focus on our areas of weakness and spend lots of time trying to make them better. The problem is that no matter how hard we work, our weaknesses are unlikely to become strengths. He suggests putting all that time and energy into making our strengths even strong, multiplying their impact. In our areas of strength and giftedness we can have the greatest impact, especially if we do the disciplined work of getting even better at them. This is a lesson I work to weave into my approach to running a business.
Contact Info:
- Website: MoreThanMemoriesTn.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoreThanMemoriesTn/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wildavenport/
- Youtube: @morethanmemoriestn5738
- Other: (865) 414-3954 [email protected]