Hello Bold Ventures followers!
I’m Jenna Sykes and I’ll be joining you all every Wednesday night as the Bold Ventures guest booker, blogger, and tweeter. Occasionally, I may even jump in on Jean Creech’s interviews with a few questions of my own.
This past week, Jean interviewed two interesting entrepreneurs: David Marcks, Founder and President of Geese Police and Kevin Murray, Founder and President of Murray Associates.
I was most intrigued by these New Jersey gentlemen’s out-of-the-box insights that can only come from years of experience in entrepreneurial endeavors.
Here’s a recap in case you missed our live interviews on Wednesday night:
David Marcks began his career as a Golf Course Superintendent in New Jersey. Like many aspiring entrepreneurs, David was moved to action by an existing problem he encountered every day at work. His golf course had a serious geese problem. He said his boss had the following mentality: “Get rid of the geese or get rid of Dave.” By chance, a book on different dog breeds fell into David’s hands one day, presenting him with the answer to his geese problem: Border Collies. David joked that these “highly intelligent, working breed dogs” will for better or worse invariably “find something to do.” So he gave that first dog he bought something to do. Typically, that job would be herding cattle. However, David’s problem was geese. He described his first dog’s initial training:
“Border Collies, when they’re working, they use a wolf like glance called ‘the eye’ that they use to influence a herd either in flight or movement. Their posture is their tail shot between their legs, their heads are down, and they’re literally stalking. They’re not barking. They’re not carrying on. So in the geese’s mind, they’re counting them as a natural predator such as the coyote, a wolf, or an arctic fox. By coming out on the course or property several times a day, the geese count them as several different predators. And we just make the property an unsafe haven. We’re literally playing with hundreds of thousands of years of predatory instinct.”
Fast-forward to today and over 32 dogs and 385 clients later, the Geese Police have begun to franchise into nearby states. Every day, the Geese Police endeavor to remove geese from large corporate properties, playgrounds, athletic fields, cemeteries, and golf courses.
My favorite sound bite from the interview: “I traded in one boss for 385 bosses. Every client is my boss.”
Kevin Murray’s company, Murray Associates, is an Independent Security firm specializing in eavesdropping protection and counter-espionage services for companies and government entities. In case you were wondering, yes, this is the kind of exciting work you’ve seen in movies like The Conversation and Enemy of the State. In fact, Kevin even says these films are pretty spot-on. Furthermore, Hollywood often comes calling on Kevin’s company for guidance on realistic circumstances and storylines. Yet, it isn’t this particular kind of excitement in the industry that appeals to Kevin. He cites two specific pay-offs to his line of work:
“It’s fascinating for me because I’m very interested in the technical aspect of all of this. And with everything changing as fast as it does, there’s never a dull moment. There’s always something new to learn, some new instrumentation to work with, and some new science to bring to the field to help people protect their privacy. And that’s just half of it. The other half is the satisfaction that you get out of helping people protect their privacy.”
Murray Associates works with the Security Director, Corporate Council, CEO, or COO of anywhere from Fortune 500, international companies to mom and pop businesses. They even help individuals that are high profile and require extra care.
My favorite sound bite from the interview: “The thing that really makes me feel good each day is that I’m out there and I can solve problems for somebody and it makes them feel a whole lot better.”
Something that both guests said on Wednesday night was that they rely on “word-of-mouth” marketing based on their impeccable, reliable reputations. They not only get the job done, but they go above and beyond for their clients. There’s a lot to be said about that kind of client-based marketing. When you can get a client to do your selling for you, you’re doing something right.
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