2020 Dynamic Dozen No. 5: OMG Commerce

Springfield Business Journal: What has been the key to your recent growth?
Brett Curry: It’s a combination of team building and culture. The other piece is thought leadership and being able to be in the right places, right events [and] right circles to meet great prospective clients. One of things that I’ve focused on is speaking at big industry events, podcasts [and] writing articles ... so that our ideal, prospective client consumes our content and says, “Wow, this group really knows what they’re doing.”
Chris Brewer: Reputation. You’re not going to find really any dirt on us online. Also we’ve got a reputation for turning away business in a way that leads them off to where they need to go in a positive way.

SBJ: You’ve said that you’re looking for a client that has a threshold of spending power. Is that a way you’ve managed growth?
Curry: For sure. It’s focusing on an industry that we felt like we could do really well in and that met our criteria for having great clients. That’s e-commerce. We’re focused just on rapidly growing companies that are investing a lot in digital marketing. Even more specifically than that, we started focusing on two key areas: Google and Amazon, and those ad ecosystems. And then digging in even more to YouTube, specifically for e-commerce.

SBJ: In late 2018 you moved to your current office and then late last year you expanded to the second floor. How has that move allowed you to grow your team and services?
Curry: The other piece is we leased a space in New Jersey, which was at the end of 2018, as well. The team growth is directly in step with the office growth.
Brewer: It fits with our culture. There’s plenty of companies that would have never leased an office (in New Jersey) because there’s three or four people. They can all work from home. But we really believed in the quality of the work and them being able to collaborate as a team.

SBJ: How have your goals changed?
Curry: It still goes back to culture. We’re just continually blown away by when (you have) the right person in the right position, what that can do for the company, what that can do for our clients. We’re also looking at maybe we start building our own tools. The other thing that I think has shifted as we’ve grown is looking at understanding we can help some pretty large companies. We’re now pitching some pretty large brands.

SBJ: Do you see the COVID-19 pandemic boosting the e-commerce space?
Curry: We believe that it will. The interesting thing about this rapid growth of e-commerce is it’s actually created some problems, too, with inventory and shipping and warehouses being shut down. It’s had some clients who are doing so well, they’ve had to slow down on ads to keep up with things. We feel like this is going to help fuel our growth into the future. There was about eight to 10 years’ worth of e-commerce growth that happened in about two and a half months.

SBJ: Where is the tipping point?
Curry: With a business that’s very labor intensive, we couldn’t add 100 new clients tomorrow. It would break us.

SBJ: What’s the worst business advice you’ve ever received?
Curry: Follow your passion and the money will follow. That’s real B.S. What you should find is where you have an area of passion that also lines up with a deep market need.