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Meet Randall Hartman of Groundwrk in Cherry Creek

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Randall Hartman.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Randall. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I graduated from CSU in 2011 with a Business Marketing Degree, which translates to a sales degree from a middle of the road school. Nothing against CSU, I love the school and am among a handful of people that follow their sports team religiously.

After receiving multiple interviews for unpaid internships at the large ad agencies (CP+B, Draft FCB, Saatchi, etc.) followed by rejections from all of them, I decided to go out and get my own experience by consulting with small business in Fort Collins. It is funny to think about as my only paying client was a Labradoodle breeder that paid me $100 to create a brochure. I still have the brochure. It is terribly wonderful.

This experience allowed me to put SOMETHING, ANYTHING on my resume which helped me get an unpaid internship at a small branding shop here in Denver. I commuted from Fort Collins for six months, unpaid, and worked at a bar in Old Town to make ends meet. You can imagine the toll this took on my 2004 Volkswagen Passat. As an intern, I wrote creative copy, managed a few social campaigns, and interacted with clients frequently. The agency owner noticed my comfort with clients and said to me, “you know, you can be successful at sales”, which disgusted me at the time but was the turning point in my career.

With the help, coaching, and guidance of the agency owner and business coach, Brenda Abdilla, I was able to nearly triple the business within the first year of signing clients which caught the eye of a larger, more established creative firm called Zenman. Zenman is well known for web design, and during my tenure there, I signed and oversaw projects for Frontier Airlines, The Boppy Company, GolfTec, and RE/MAX Corporate. This was the experience that helped me build a reputation in the Denver branding and web community.

After three years at Zenman, I was asked to lead a small firm looking to build its reputation, but after one year there, I had the itch to start Groundwrk and do this for myself. Groundwrk was created to break the traditional agency model of over the top offices and bloated staff that translates to crazy agency fees. We are a team of ex-agency folks doing work we love for a price we think is fair. No ego, no overhead.

Giving back to the community is very important to me and while it was not mentioned in my work history, it is worth mentioning. I joined Denver Active 20-30 Children’s Foundation and quickly became the Marketing Chair for the four years I was in the group. I only left the group to focus on my business and plan to be back in soon, if they’ll have me. I also host a large event called Snow Day with a few friends every December. The event is at Union Station and we raise around $20k for a local non-profit with this single event. I have also helped Access Housing Broomfield in setting up their annual gala using my experience from DA2030 and Snow Day. As a business owner, I have pledged 1% of all company income to local non-profits through Pledge 1% Colorado.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Roads are never smooth and mine is no different. I got rejected by countless firms, large and small, worked for free for more than a year just to build my experience, borrowed money to put gas in my car for the long commute to Denver. My mother is disabled and my father lost his corporate exec job, unable to find another job for seven years. My experience with local non-profits has made me grateful for my life and given perspective to my lack of struggle. I am a privileged middle-class half white half Hispanic guy and my obstacles are nothing compared to so many people here in Denver.

Over-committing has always been a weakness of mine. While I was the Biz Dev Leader for a small firm, I was also the Marketing Chair for Denver Active 20-30, co-hosting a fundraising event called Snow Day and helping Access Housing setup their first gala. I was over-committed and completely overwhelmed. I had the worst sales quarter in my career which lead to laying off team members, including myself. I stayed on for commission only and got us back on our feet. During this time, I had a panic attack that only my girlfriend witnessed. My extreme care for what other people think of me had finally floored me.

Groundwrk – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Groundwrk was born from the old school agency world where we worked on some of the nation’s most recognizable brands, industry-shaking startups, and some flat out cool local companies. We noticed that the traditional agency model was broken and set our sights on providing big-agency branding and digital experiences without the crazy agency fees and bureaucracy.

We believe the “full-service” model creates an atmosphere of generalists rather than specialists. Groundwrk specializes in branding and creating kick-ass digital experiences (websites and UI/UX) only. We are known as a bespoke agency that handcrafts websites from scratch, no themes, no templates.

I am most proud of our unwillingness to accept work outside of our expertise area and our standard for client care. Being a small shop with an odd business model, our clients are always pleasantly surprised at our responsiveness, communication, and process.

As for what sets us apart from others. I firmly believe there is no “best design agency” anywhere. Design work is so subjective and relative to whoever is critiquing it. What we do better than anyone is communicating and stick to a defined process that allows for creativity, teamwork, and a timely project. Also, with our size and pricing model, you’d expect to get one of the hundreds of commodity marketing firms around town. Instead, you get a big brand and traditional agency experience for a price that agencies just can’t beat.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success means to be completely independent of anyone or anything else. Personally, this means debt (student loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc.). Professionally this means the ability to generate my own business without the help of others. Granted, a lot of my business comes from referrals, but every day I work to create a business that thrives off of leads generated by the business, not someone else.

Also, success cannot exist without philanthropy. You simply are not successful in my eyes unless you donate your time and talents towards a greater cause than yourself.

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