Our CEO and Founder, Patrick McKenna, was recently interviewed for Authority Magazine and Thrive Global. The following is an excerpt:

In this first part, we get a retrospective look at DMi’s start, growing pains and learnings but mostly we get a glimpse into the foundation that has built the agency today.

Introduction. Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started? My path to marketing was a winding one. I was pre-med at Harvard but decided to go in a different direction as I found myself more drawn to politics and business than medicine.

I had the opportunity to work for Joe Kennedy in Boston at an incubator for profit and non-profit businesses. He had a very talented team, and I was able to help them startup two businesses. I learned so much, and it was exhilarating to start a business. I desperately wanted to start something up myself.

After moving back home to Philadelphia, I reached out to my old college roommate, James Delaney, who was looking to do the same, and so we decided to go in together.

1. What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us? As we were graduating from college, we had a front row seat to watch the dot com bubble of the late 90’s burst. While this created short term challenges, James and I agreed that the dynamic nature of the internet marketplace at that time made it an ideal place to develop sales and marketing expertise. We felt that if we could become experts in digital marketing we could leverage that expertise as an agency, in joint venture relationships and through businesses that we started or joined as a partner.

2. Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? If you run a business over a period, you inevitably go through hard times: financial crises, growing pains and mistakes along the way. It is unavoidable. We made an acquisition in our early days that didn’t work out despite a lot of time, money and energy invested. I have always taken the approach that every misstep is a learning opportunity.

We certainly never considered giving up, though. From day one, I was committed to the business. I find that the commitment of starting a business grows roots quickly. Whether it is commitment to clients who are putting their trust in us or commitment to employees who have staked their careers on us, it is incumbent on us to take that commitment seriously. I guess thinking a level deeper, that sense of commitment is a deeply driving element of who I am and it has been a principal driver in my life.

3. So, how are things going today? 2020 has, of course, been a tumultuous year, but we have made the necessary adjustments in-house and have worked with our clients to ensure that their marketing programs are best positioned for success.

Our founding partners always stressed that the three keys to business are cashflow, cashflow and cashflow. As a bootstrapped business, that has been a focus for us from the beginning. As a result, we have been able to deal with problems that pop up and tackle opportunities that present themselves. I think that was a particularly advantageous characteristic to possess in 2020.

We have actually been very fortunate. I think the biggest area that we have had to focus on is making sure that we are all taking care of each other. We are very lucky to have an organization where people look out for each other. It’s something that happens naturally when our team is together, but it requires more purposeful attention when we are all remote.

4. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that? This is not business-related per se, but I distinctly remember a moment in college when James and I were at the Jersey shore for a weekend. We were sitting on the beach with our friends, and we started digging this hole in the sand. No shovels, just our hands. We had to decide whether we were going to keep digging or just stop.

I remember looking at each other and it was understood that we were taking this thing all the way. We just kept going until we had dug a hole that was about six feet deep. That personifies a little bit of who we are and that when we commit, we are going to see it through.

5. What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story? I believe that what makes us stand out is our commitment to partnering with clients and doing whatever it takes to help them grow. A good story that illustrates that is back towards the beginning of DMi when a client of ours, Mitchell & Ness, needed to sign licensing agreements with each retired baseball player whose jersey they wanted to sell, and they needed to sign them quickly.

Overnight, we went out and helped sign those players up. It was not what we were being paid to do, but it was extremely important to the client, so we helped. That night I was on the phone negotiating terms with Willie Mays, the estate of Mickey Mantle and other Hall of Famers to make sure that the job was done and the deadline was met.

6. Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”? The biggest challenge that we have had is getting our team members to take time off. With the COVID-19 situation, most people are not traveling or taking vacations like they normally would. Time off is important for each of us, and we have had to work with our team members to make sure they are taking the personal time that they need. When you build a culture that promotes clearly defined goals and emphasizes communication, team members are more likely to trust their colleagues to carry the load when they step away.

7. None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story? There are a lot of key figures for me, but Michele, my wife, is the one who keeps me centered and is that anchor point for me. She will see if I am overexcited and encourage me to reel it in. If I am anxious, she will help me find perspective in the problem. Small things in the day-to-day from her help me stay focused on what I need to get done.

8. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-) There is so much social change going on in the world right now, it is an amazing thing to witness. At DMi, we try to foster a passion for advocacy and encourage employees to get involved in their communities. We do this in a number of ways, but one that I think would be great for more companies to adopt would be to offer paid time off specifically for service. At DMi, these days are separate from other forms of PTO and they are to be used solely for service opportunities. Our team members use these days to support organizations that are critically important to them personally and to their communities. I make sure to use my days every year.

About Patrick McKenna With decades of industry knowledge and unique insight into client needs, he leads DMi with the belief that each challenge requires its own distinct strategy and a reasonable appetite for risk. Building a client roster that encompasses disruptive startups to Fortune 100 companies, Patrick excels at crafting campaigns that shatter expectations and drive brands to higher levels. To execute this vision, he has built a world-class team at DMi and established a culture that reflects his enthusiasm and passion for trailblazing new marketing territory. Patrick has structured DMi with a guiding principle that can be encapsulated in a word - growth. Growth in client success, employee development and DMi’s top and bottom-line. It is what unifies every client and campaign. Always be growing and pushing the envelope on what a marketing campaign can accomplish.