Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Boyd.
Hi Jeremy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve been in the field of sales and marketing for approximately 20 years now. I studied business and marketing in college during my time at Radford University in Virginia. This was prior to the new digital marketing studies many universities are offering these days so I definitely had a more organic path to discovering this great world of opportunity. I’ve always enjoyed the role salespeople play in the world today, and always knew I would enjoy creating relationships and working with clients and their businesses. My business is essentially my clients’ business these days.
I started slinging mattresses in Christiansburg, VA for two different mattress stores during college. It was a commission-based job and an easy way to make a few bucks for a young guy. This was something everyone needed after all. I also had my share of sales jobs, one of which was working with Vector Marketing selling their top line cutlery products known as CUTCO. In fact, I was able to break their company’s “Fast Start” record for the month of May. Before I knew it, I was raking in better money than I had ever made, and I owned just about every piece of cutlery in their line.
I founded a chapter of the internationally known men’s fraternity, Sigma Pi, which originated in the year 1897. We started our chapter at Radford University in 2003, some 106 years later! I was the founding President of this chapter and this was an incredible life lesson from management to leadership and beyond. Much to my pleasure, our executive office in Nashville, TN felt I had done the job so well that they wanted to bring me on board to do the same thing for them on a national level. That was my first real, professional sales and recruitment job. I would travel the country from campus-to-campus meeting with university officials, leveraging our organization’s benefits and bringing onboard a new group of young men to lead on their campus. This was undoubtedly one of the coolest jobs but one problem… there was not great money in this field. It was a somewhat philanthropic position being that the income was not terribly impressive.
I went on to leave Tennessee on a whim after two years with the Sigma Pi Fraternity International Executive Office. I moved to Florida and had my fair share of very interesting positions along the way from working at an international language school to working in sales for a web design and digital marketing/SEO firm in Miami Beach. Then I found the Miami New Times. New Times was owned by a much larger parent company called Village Voice Media (later was moved to Voice Media Group). This was a pretty cool job with respect to culture, fun, and the fact that it was the hottest media outlet in the city, but there were bigger plans. Several years later we launched V Digital Services, which has grown to become one of the largest and most successful full-service digital marketing agencies in America over the last decade or so.
I have found great success with V Digital Services over the years. I work with clients now in about 30 states across the U.S. We have offices in 13 cities in America and approximately 400 employees at the agency. I still manage accounts under Miami New Times and New Times Broward-Palm Beach, but this has given new life to the opportunity out there. Every business needs marketing and most utilize some form of digital marketing, whether its social media, SEO, google ads, websites, TV advertising, radio, or beyond…. we do it all.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Every single day there seems to be some new insurmountable challenge, but the highs are certainly better than the lows. After all, this is the customer service business. We are tasked with guiding our clients and creating robust, effective, and detailed marketing campaigns across various channels. There are headaches from differences in opinion for design work, to managing a schedule that is ever-shifting, managing a great deal of volume of clients at once, while ensuring they all feel taken care of, working on accounting and collections for customers, billing them, designing ads, managing campaigns and account managers, sifting through 10-15 daily zoom/call/meetings… really, it’s just a VERY busy life. Often times this bleeds into personal time, and clients become friends, and not just associates or business acquaintances. It’s a great business to be in, and it can really be a lot of fun too!
We’ve been impressed with Jeremy D. Boyd Advertising + Digital Marketing, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I am a 15+ year digital marketing and advertising veteran offering an array of groundbreaking digital marketing products and services, advanced marketing strategies, and event sponsorships all under the umbrella of Voice Media Group & V Digital Services. We operate in 13 cities nationwide and are one of the largest digital marketing agencies in America. We are a Premier Google Partner, a Facebook Marketing Partner, and own a seat on The Trade Desk, which many consider the #1 DSP in the world. I have effectively led the charge for the majority of my time as one of the top volume producers on the nation, continually ranking top 3 year after year, and in recent years have managed to consistently remain number 1 in the country with respect to volume and revenue overall. I pride myself on the ability to manage a large number of clients while continuing to provide personal service to as many of them as possible.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
I have learned never to take your business for granted. Things can change in a heartbeat. In March 2020, I lost nearly 70% of my business which had taken me over a dozen years to grow. This happened nearly all at once. It was a nightmare. My phone was ringing like crazy, my text messages were blowing up, my inbox was lighting up. I didn’t even have enough time to get back to everyone before the next escalation came through. This was all of course during the whole Covid shutdown. This was a nightmare, but I quickly adapted and moved into other industries; some which weren’t affected by the pandemic and some that actually benefitted. I went from a net loss of 70% of my business to an increase of 170% year over year during this period. It was truly a remarkable time, but I have never, ever worked as hard as I did in the year 2020 to hold it all together while I felt the walls were caving in. Wild times indeed!
Contact Info:
- Email: jeremy.boyd@vdigitalservices.com
- Website: https://jeremy-d-boyd-advertising.business.site/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremydboyd_miaminewtimes/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremydboydadvertising
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremydboyd
Image Credits
Jeremy D. Boyd
