Remember Why You Started

Hi.

It’s Cass. It’s been a while since I’ve pulled myself into our own WordPress window. It’s comfy here! This morning Sarah of Silly Grrl wrote a great post – you should read it – and it was exactly what I needed to read this morning.

Sometimes this business of running a business is stressful and lately that’s been the case. It’s good stress – all of the problems are good problems – and it all adds up and before you know it you’ve run yourself into another night of working until 11pm. And here’s where that great trigger phrase came up for me today:

remember why you started

You may have read this at the bottom of our homepage.  It’s why Capra Strategy is Capra Strategy.

Capra strategy was founded in 2013 when Adam Burton and Cass Comerford were having a conversation that was supervised by the most condescending goat they’d ever seen. It was in those early conversations that the idea of a joint venture sounded like perfection. Things picked up steam quickly – people, and then clients agreed – this was the right thing to do. So there is a goat. We like them. They’re nimble and thoughtful and they scream like little girls and we think that’s hilarious. You should work with people that are willing to admit how funny it is. Authenticity is important. Why all this about a goat? Capra is Goat in Italian. Now you’ve learned something today.

But before Capra Strategy there was CC Interactive Marketing Services.  Which was my little company. It was me and sometimes another person – but mostly just me for the past nine years.  I look back at why I went off on my own and here were my reasons …

  • I want to do great work. I want to do work that I’m proud of. I want to be all in on what I deliver. I want to be able to deliver four amazing ideas and know that the client would be a winner with any one of them. 
  • I want to own everything – which is really  about accountability. When I tell someone that something is going to be done on October 4th – it will be done on October 4th and I won’t have to make excuses about why other people didn’t do what they said they were going to do. I want the ability to ensure that delivery will happen.
  • I want to stand behind what I built. When a client sends me an email on Friday night and says “something isn’t quite right here” I want to fix it – I want to fix it right away. I don’t want to have to talk to them about change orders – because the right thing to do is to fix it.
  • I want to have the flexibility to be the kind of person that I want to be. And sometimes that means I work at 4am so I can pick up Lexi from school. And sometimes that means I take Friday off so I can take a hike and get back in touch with what it means to exhale. And I want to be able to do that AS NEEDED and without someone else getting a vote.
  • I want to have people on my team that feel the exact same way. I want to treat them the way that I treat myself. And because of that I want them to respect their role in this company and the money they earn from doing great work the same way I do.
  • There are a lot of choices in this marketing vendor agency space. Some of them are cheaper. Some of them are more expensive. But no one can beat us on passion. Meet us? Sure.  Beat us? Not even on our worst day. And when you’re a business owner or you hold responsibility on a big project you want people like that standing next to you. You want us.

When I look back at why I started CC Interactive Marketing Services – on how that evolved to Capra Strategy I can tell you this:

We’re nailing it. And that makes me proud.

1 reply
  1. BeckyMillsDaye says:

    Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from “The Lion King” (because right now, pretty much all I am watching has animated animals in it!)- “Remember who you are”.  This post makes me smile!

Comments are closed.