Exclusive Interview with Garrett Atkins

Today we’d like to introduce you to Garrett Atkins.

It’s an honor to speak with you today. Why don’t you give us some details about you and your story. How did you get to where you are today?

Well, where do I start? I am a serial entrepreneur with a successful track record of starting and scaling companies in a variety of fields. My day job is leading my team over at VIE Media as the Chief Executive Officer, which is the first company I founded back in 2016. VIE is an award winning, full-service, digital marketing firm that focuses on providing ROI focused marketing solutions to businesses of all sizes. Were headquartered out in St. Louis, Missouri. However, now I am a Managing Partner and Founder of several other companies, most of which reside in the trade services industries. That being said, the journey from where I was to where I am now was a grind to say the least. Years ago I had a vision to start a marketing agency, grow it, and then leverage it in order to quickly start-up other brands in a variety of fields in order to create more revenue streams and opportunity for people in my community. Having a reputable and effective marketing firm in our portfolio has allowed me to grow my other ventures at rates most businesses just aren’t equipped to do. Although I must mention that I come from very humble beginnings, and when I struck out on my own back in 2016, I was nearly dead broke, with a history of job hopping, and trouble making. Luckily, there’s this saying in sales that applies to my journey: “What have you done for me lately?”.

I’m sure your success has not come easily. What challenges have you had to overcome along the way?

Most of the challenges I’ve faced during my pursuit occurred internally. After all, we are our own worst enemy, right? That said, let me list some of them out for our readers today: 1) Persistence and Consistency. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to be hard on myself regarding being present for my team, creating content, completing to-do list items, utilizing routines, and such on a more consistent basis. Consistency is key when attempting to move the needle for your business, or for anything for that matter. 2) Confidence. Now this one is tricky. I’ve always been naturally self confident. However, and every entrepreneur knows what I’m talking about when I say this, there are THOSE nights. Those days and nights where you’re just not sure it’s going to pan out. Where everything feels like it’s falling apart. Where the world feels like it’s ending and you’re on the brink of mentally throwing in the towel. The thing that separates those that succeed from those that don’t, is whether or not you actually give up. I never have. I never will. 3) People. When it comes down to it, companies are just a bunch of people. If you have the right people, things are going well. If you have the wrong people, things aren’t going well. It’s as simple as that. Along my journey, we’ve chosen some good apples and we’ve chosen some bad apples. Luckily, today we’ve got an amazing team, but it took awhile.

Let’s talk about the work you do. What do you specialize in and why should someone work with you over the competition?

I’ll limit my answer here to the work we do over at VIE Media since that is where I spend the majority of my time and energy. Additionally, it’d take much longer than we have to go over the reasoning for choosing to work with the other companies in my portfolio. As I stated earlier, VIE Media is an award winning marketing firm with a focus on return on investment based advertising avenues such as but not limited to: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Video Production, Web Page Design & Development, Branding / Logo Design, etc. We specialize in creating an advertising strategy that is catered to your specific brand in order to maximize the ROI we can provide you with the advertising dollars you are spending with us. The short answer as to how we stand out compared to our competition is the bottom line we provide your company: an average ROI of 5.3 times your spends. Easy math is: if you spend $1,000 with us, we average making you $5,300 back. An investment with us cost a bit more than that, of course, but that’s the easiest way to display our value using mathematics. Additionally, we are extremely easy to work with, track every lead we generate from prospect to customer, and utilize your data in a way that maximizes your ROI and usability of said data we collect over the course of our relationship with you, the client. Bottom line: We make you money by

What’s your best piece of advice for readers who desire to find success in their life?

My best piece of advice for those reading this is rather cliche and overstated. Nonetheless, it rings true: do something that you are passionate about. However, I will elaborate. Prior to starting my first company in 2016, VIE Media, I held a variety of medium to high profile positions with companies throughout the Greater St. Louis Area. My tenure with these organizations ranged anywhere from one month, to just over a year. The reason they didn’t last wasn’t due to lacking performance on my part, but rather a lack of passion behind what I was hired to do. Despite being a top performer in a variety of sales and marketing positions, I couldn’t get behind the vision of the companies I was employed by. Whether it was their overall vision, products, services, etc. I just couldn’t find the passion in what I was doing. Before I started VIE Media, which is going on it’s fifth year anniversary, I only held two jobs for over a year, and only one of those for over two years. During this time of seemingly nonsensical job hopping, I was being very purposeful with my actions. I was figuring out what I did and didn’t like to do at an expedited pace. I was also finding my strengths and weaknesses. Moral of the story: Don’t be afraid to give up on something you hate for something you love, and don’t listen to the negative opinions of others.

Speaking of success, what does the word mean to you?

Success has a different meaning for everyone. For me, I’ve achieved success the day I am in a position to help everyone that means something to me in my life. Friends, family, business partners, my significant other, etc. Recently, I’ve found myself closer to my version of success. For instance, I have been able to leverage my position at VIE Media to help a family member and two of my best friends in starting and blowing up their new companies, and at the same time having equity in those ventures through VIE Media. This not only helps others, but helps push our agenda here at VIE Media forward as well. In turn, this only helps put me into an even better position to help more people in the near future due to the increase in revenues that we see from the success of these new ventures. Then, rinse and repeat, helping as many people as I can to achieve their version of success. THAT is success to me. Of course, all this being said, I have my monetary goals, like most professionals, and those are coming along nicely. Eventually, I hope to leverage my position in life to help even more people and reach a wider audience through my personal brand, podcasting, and books I’m in the process of writing.

What’s next for you?

A lot of fun moves are in the pipeline right now. Let’s see here. Tomorrow I am meeting with a writer that is cooperating with me on writing and publishing my first book, which is one of a few moves I am making in an attempt to reach a wider audience. In cooperation with that effort, I will be launching a podcast within the next 60 days, which will be hosted out of my podcast recording and distribution studio company, Half Coast Studios. I lead that effort with a good friend and business partner of mine, Alex Dietrich. Right now, we have two trade services companies that are part owned by VIE Media, and in Q3 or Q4 of 2021 we plan on adding a third to our portfolio. The final decision will be dictated by our market research, but will most likely end up being a plumbing or landscaping company. I’ll be making a very large effort to boost my personal brand from a social media and website standpoint in Q3, so over on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. as well as my personal website (garrettatkins.com). I’ll be putting a good amount of money behind paid ads for all my organic coming from my personal channels. I always have plans for 5-10 years out at any given time, but I’m not willing to divulge that information. I’m the kind of guy who only likes talking about what is about to become or already is a reality.

Finally, how can people connect with you if they want to learn more.

If anyone wants to get a hold of me, they can find me on Instagram and Twitter under the username: garretteatkins and Twitch and TikTok under the username GarrettAtkins. Of course, they can find that oh so coveted blue check mark verified page of mine by typing “Garrett Atkins” into the Facebook search bar. Alternatively, people can find out more about me at garrettatkins.com or by Googling “Garrett Atkins St. Louis” and “Garrett Atkins Entrepreneur”. As for VIE Media, for those readers looking to learn more about our marketing services, you can find us at vie.media.