"Focus is your best friend."
Daniel Booter is the CEO and founder of D.B. Marketing Group, a marketing company that assists celebrities and businesses with developing and implementing marketing strategies.
The company specializes in social media, public relations, photography, cinematography, graphic elements, branding, and crisis management, among other areas of marketing. Daniel’s unique work with the NBA, Capital Hill, and his contribution to the United Nations with the coordination of marketing work for their globally recognized large-scale events are all lauded. Daniel, in addition to acting as CEO, donates his marketing expertise to non-profit organizations that support underprivileged children in many countries, believing that he can utilize his marketing expertise to encourage young entrepreneurs and people all around the world.
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Table of Contents
Welcome to your ValiantCEO exclusive interview! Let’s start with a little introduction. Tell us about yourself.
Daniel Booter: I’ve always had two main strengths: being creative and having a business-oriented mind, which I’ve had since I was a child. Having a natural drive, I used to think of inventive methods to make money. I began my first endeavor when I was six years old, selling simple trinkets to my classmates. I began another while I was in high school, and I was able to earn enough to purchase my dream camera. That led me to university, where I studied marketing, and founded D.B. Marketing Group. Instead of hanging out with my colleagues on campus after class, I would leave and immediately begin working on my business. Through my early years in business, I was able to build many amazing contacts in a variety of sectors, including the entertainment industry, Capitol Hill, and the NBA, and this provided me with the foundation on which my marketing company sits today.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get to where you are today? Give us some lessons you learned along the way.
Daniel Booter: I was a very active child growing up. I would play basketball for hours a day, and it was my biggest passion at the time. Naturally I progressed to dreaming of playing in the NBA myself and becoming an all star. Although my dream of making the league slowly slipped away as I got older, I never lost my passion for the game. My career headed towards a different path establishing D.B. Marketing Group and there I learned to combine my love for the game of basketball and my company. My business started to target NBA players where we have found success. We are able to help them with press, personal branding and a host of other services.
While working with the NBA I find myself having such a great time along with enjoying my work. To be around the game so closely is something most fans of the game dream of doing. I learned a very important lesson along the way. Allow your passion to drive your goals, but be inclined to adapt them along the way. It may bring you to places you never imagined. If it wasn’t for my ability to adapt and thrive I wouldn’t have thought of targeting NBA players to work with.
In a way, I was still able to achieve my dream. Although I don’t play in the NBA I am in the ecosphere. I’ll take the win on that.
Tell us about your business, what does the company do? What is unique about the company?
Daniel Booter: D.B. Marketing Group is a unique combination of resources and expert business techniques available nowhere else. Whether you’re starting a business or rebranding yourself, D.B. Marketing Group offers a wide range of services. Because of D.B. Marketing Group’s broad network, we can not only help you with marketing but also connect you to some of the industry’s most powerful people.
We at D.B. Marketing Group genuinely want you to succeed, and we will go to any length to ensure that you do. A client approached us with the goal to raise their public presence. His initial goal was to increase his social media brand recognition and 500 followers by publishing more frequently; but, after reviewing his goals, my team and I felt we could do even better. Fast forward to now, we were not only able to post more on his social media, but we also helped him get Instagram verification by strategically posting to his now 50,000+ followers and obtaining features on several major publications. At D.B. Marketing Group, we love putting all of our expertise to work for our clients.
How to become a CEO? Some will focus on qualities, others on degrees, how would you answer that question?
Daniel Booter: Realistically anyone can become a CEO but becoming a thriving CEO is what you want. Fundamentally the CEO is responsible for the success or failure of an organization. If you plan to thrive you need to know that organization inside and out. You need to understand your products, your customers, supply chain, strategy, and implementations. Any flaws in those systems will be on you, so you need to be aware. It’s not an easy job. Your responsibilities aren’t run thin and you will find yourself balancing implementation of current and future policies and strategies. If you want to be successful, you need to learn to be organized. Lethargic work ethic won’t get you anywhere. And you need to be able to stay calm, adapt, and be steadfast making important decisions. It takes a certain mindset to be successful as a CEO.
What are the secrets to becoming a successful CEO? Who inspires you, who are your role models and why? Illustrate your choices.
Daniel Booter: Focus your work: Focus is your best friend. You can avoid lost time and effort with the right focus and having the ability to make the smart move instead of the more demanding. Working smarter is something that is overlooked quite a lot. There is always a better way to do things. Be patient, take a minute and find it.
- Be the master of delegation: Realize that you can’t do everything. If you have the ability to connect the dots then you are able to get more done than possible. There are people that can do the job better, you just need to find them. In my business I know about all of our services and operations, but my employees are the experts and I am not afraid to give them a task that they can thrive in.
- Ask Questions: If you don’t know about something, ask. I learned when I was a child to ask questions even when it could be awkward or should be assumed that I already know the answer. Sometimes you don’t! & that is okay. You need to be comfortable with that and willing to simply ask. I notice many people will nod their heads going along with conversations when they are oblivious of what is happening. Instead of staying quiet, speak up and ask questions.
Mark Cuban is a huge inspiration to me. In the corporate world, he is one of the individuals I most admire. He is a an eccentric thinker. In 1999, he made $5.7 billion in Yahoo! shares by selling his companies Audionet and Broadcast.com. I want to have the mentality to be able to identify an issue and come up with unique solutions like this. Not only that, but Mark Cuban was one of the nicest people I’d ever encountered when we first met. When it comes to work, on the other hand, he is all business. I admire that most.
Many CEOs fall into the trap of being all over the place. What are the top activities a CEO should focus on to be the best leader the company needs? Explain.
Daniel Booter: You should schedule your time and activities. The day in the life of a CEO is too hectic not to be organized. You can find yourself most productive with multiple tasks when they are scheduled and have their own time blocks during the day.
Work on being a mentor for your employees. You should be able to develop them into better people and employees. You are the captain of the team, and it’s your job to make the team better.
Focus your efforts on business strategy. The strategy of the business should be solid yet adaptable. Successful businesses are able to adapt in hard times, but if there is no focus on strategy from the CEO then you the company will suffer.
Company culture can be the Difference between a successful business and a failing one. It is the heart of the organization & you need to take care of it. A lack of company cultures are quite often cultivated in older more traditional businesses. Just as your business strategy should adapt, so should your company culture, adapting to the time. Your employees are the most important part of running the business so you should make sure they are mentally jovial as they work and their minds are at ease.
The Covid-19 Pandemic put the leadership skills of many to the test, what were some of the most difficult challenges that you faced as a CEO/Leader in the past year? Please list and explain in detail.
Daniel Booter: Before Covid-19 commenced its first lockdown in the US, many of the businesses that we were serving at D.B. Marketing Group were slowing down, or had to simply shut their doors because of their importations from China as the country had already shut down. This wasn’t looking good for the US economy and as a CEO I noticed how this could affect our business in the future. I never thought that our country would lock down as it did but because of the foresight I had of that current situation I decided to look at different options to make sure we were able to be ready if anything happened.
I decided that we would try to focus on businesses that sourced all of their business in the US only, and that gave us a better success rate, avoiding businesses that might be on a path of turmoil because of the Chinese lockdown. When Covid hit the US, we lost about 50% of our clients. This Number would have been closer to 25% if we did not refocus our targeting, but the drop was still way too high. We needed to reinvent. I decided to then focus our targeting to businesses that would thrive in an economy of a lockdown country.
We found that online retailers were thriving more than ever. So we focused our efforts there. It was a perfect segment for us to work because of our deeply entrenched roots with social media growth & online marketing presence. Because of these decisions we were able to recover from our loss quite quickly and we were back on track to hit our goals.
What are some of the greatest mistakes you’ve noticed some business leaders made during these unprecedented times? What are the takeaways you gleaned from those mistakes?
Daniel Booter: I’ve notice many business leaders holding back execution of their innovative business plans. They hunkered down for the long hall waiting for the situation to pass. It seems like a safe move, but they’re only wasting time while losing the credibility of their plans. Noticing this I make sure my organization doesn’t make the same mistakes. Instead of halting plans we would rather restructure and continue, although this may be more costly. Having a plan for a situation like a pandemic is crucial. But something just as crucial is having preparation for after the pandemic. If you’re not ready for the next step you can be left behind. There will more than likely be long lasting affects on their businesses lasting the next few years.
In your opinion, what changes played the most critical role in enabling your business to survive/remain profitable, or maybe even thrive? What lessons did all this teach you?
Daniel Booter: These changes during the pandemic were the biggest changes D.B. Marketing Group had to take since the inception of the business. They were all very strategic moves that in the end, helped the business thrive. If it wasn’t for restructuring our target market, twice!, then we wouldn’t have had the success we did and we could have been on the brink of closing the doors for good. I learned that adaptability is key during turbulent times. If you can’t create creative solutions and execute then you’ll end up burning out with an unsuccessful legacy. Mentally, I prepare myself to be receptive to new knowledge.
What is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
Daniel Booter: With all of the up’s and down’s of the pandemic I’m finding that creating a personal touch with our clients is getting harder and harder. In years passed it was very to visit clients and perspective clients for lunch or dinner, but now things are different. It’s been increasingly difficult to have these types of meetings & I find them quite useful to really understand the businesses & individuals we are working with in a deeper level.
You already shared a lot of insights with our readers and we thank you for your generosity. Normally, leaders are asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is the most useless skill you have learned, at school or during your career?
Daniel Booter: I learned how to get things done without sleeping at university. It wasn’t healthy, and it’s not a talent I’ve maintained since, but it did help me get through those late-night study sessions. Sleep has become one of the most crucial aspects of my day. I also work out every day, expending up to 2,000 calories, so sleep is critical for my recovery.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. We will select these answers for our ValiantCEO Award 2021 edition. The best answers will be selected to challenge the award.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make, this past year 2021, for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Daniel Booter: Removing myself from the day to day business has been one of the most tough decisions for my company in 2021. But it will benefit my employees and the business. I enjoy being a part of the day to day. However, I trust my management & employees and I know tasks will be completed without my oversight. I am therefore able to concentrate on other outside ventures in order to broaden the company’s horizons. I have been able to devote more time to meeting with potential high-end clients and setting even higher goals for the future.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Daniel Booter for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Daniel Booter or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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