Meet Adam Morley of Wolf and Key Marketing in Colorado Springs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Morley.

Adam, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Zion, Illinois outside of Chicago. When I was 13, my family moved to Colorado Springs on a whim, only knowing one family out here. I’ve lived in the Springs since then, except for a little time from 2005-2009 when I lived/went to college in Dayton, TN. After college, I moved back to the Springs and worked a sales job at a cable company for four years, selling cable and internet.

I lived on the north side of town during that time, until 2012 when I moved downtown, getting a lot more involved in COS from a business and community-building standpoint. I had a couple of business owing friends of mine ask for help with their social media presence, so my first marketing clients kind of fell in my lap. Between that and living in the downtown area and meeting people in the startup world, I quit my sales job soon after and became a full time freelance social media guy.

At the same time, I started a small shared workspace/event space called Welcome Fellow with Jeremy Worley. We wanted to support people like ourselves (small time creatives) and give them a community to work and grow their businesses in. Looking back on that time, it’s bananas that even worked out. I survived on literally just a few hundred dollars per month as built my little marketing business and as we built WF to sustain itself. I still remember doing all the tours, and the event setup and teardown, and all my client work at the same time. It was 12 hour days, but it was the best I’d ever felt.

By 2015, my sister got married and my brother-in-law Taylor Draper and I started Wolf & Key. By our powers combined, we could offer just about anything in the digital world that clients could ask for. We worked a little out of WF, a little in Taylor’s basement, and eventually even got a real office above a gastropub downtown. I’ll never forget those late nights either, trying to hone our craft and grow our team inside a 200 square foot office. Fortunately, beer was just one flight of stairs away, so the late nights were a blast.

At the same time (as if I didn’t have enough going on) I was beginning to transition out of WF and Boulder Street Moto became a thing. We were just a little group of vintage motorcycle riders at the time, but we were talking a lot about the idea of our garage where we could store tools, motorcycles, and host events. W&K was growing and in need of a bigger space as well at the time, so in 2017 we moved into a warehouse space, splitting the square footage between BSM and W&K. Life was really getting fun, but still, the entrepreneur hustle and grind was real, and the ramen noodle life was necessary.

Today, both BSM and W&K still share an awesome warehouse space just outside of downtown Colorado Springs. Sometimes I spend all day on one side of the building, and all night on the other. I get to be hyper-involved in the city of COS and everything going on here, and it’s especially meaningful to me since I’ve lived here for a long time. Before it was cool and getting cooler. I get to serve on boards, committees, host events, and even just have drinks with the city’s top business owners, city officials, and influencers. I couldn’t be happier with all the random events that led me here. My goal is to keep building Wolf & Key while doing everything I can to put COS on the map. We’re a city of exceptional community, relationship driven business, and ever increasing the quality of life. This is the only place I want to live and work and play (for now).

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
About as smooth as cobblestones. In the midst of starting an agency, I can’t seem to shake the need to have a passion project on the side that takes a bunch of time and makes no money. I think my struggles often boil down to trying to stay sane. Trying to do everything I want to do in life and not lose my mind, but focus on the most important things. As I said, the struggles and the joys are often the same. Late nights, penny pinching, and hustling. We’ve gained and lost clients made and lost money, and learned a ton. All I care about is getting consistently better and smart over time. Slow and steady wins the race, that’s what I always have to remember.

Wolf & Key Marketing – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Wolf & Key handles a range of projects for a range of clients. We have no niche per se, although we do work a lot in the auto repair industry these days since we’ve seen such huge success there. But we do everything from websites to design work to Google Ads and email drip campaigns. Our best work happens when we get to handle building and managing and optimizing the entire digital marketing funnel from start to finish for our clients. I’m most proud of our people. They know things I don’t, they even outwork me, and they work together as a great team like a real wolf pack should! Oh and we have a blast doing it, that’s for sure.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
There have been many proud moments, from winning awards to having conversations with the best of the best in COS. I think I’m just most proud that I get to wake up every day and run a business that helps great businesses thrive. Not to mention helping lead a great city to become greater every day.