Community Highlights: Meet Will Riley of COOP

Today we’d like to introduce you to Will Riley.

Hi Will, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
As a marketing executive for more than 20 years, I sat in meetings day in and day out. I watched personalities clash and people with great feedback not be heard. I saw marketing agencies not look at the big picture and charge high fees while over-promising and under-delivering. It was like this never ending cycle of churn both inside and outside of companies. And it was everywhere – Aflac, Newell Brands, Home Depot, Zaxby’s. Everywhere I worked, I kept seeing similar themes. I burned out being a part of it. I kept thinking, “There has got to be a better way to work and grow a business.”

In 2017, my husband was in business development for a hospice company. I came home from work one day around 8PM exhausted and he looked at me and said, “I help people your age (38 at the time) that are terminally ill spend their last days in comfort. Life’s too short. Take the risk and do it. We’ll be fine.” So, I made the leap from corporate-life to entrepreneurship and started COOP (pronounced /ku:p/ … like chicken coop). I set out on a mission to make top-notch marketing, strategy and professional growth accessible to anyone. The purpose of COOP is simple – do better business. Whether it’s helping internal teams grow and rally around a strategy or helping brands crush their marketing, design and social media goals, we are all about being better.

We’ve doubled growth over the past couple of years and work with businesses of all sizes – from start-ups to big, global brands. We’re fortunate to have clients that have been with us from the start and looking forward to expanding our influence in the coming years. Today we have 7 people on our team – myself and my husband, Danny, a Creative Director, Social Media Director, Business Development Manager, Marketing Consultant, and our Operations Coordinator. We’re lean and scrappy but we get it all done.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Oh absolutely, not! I remember being curled up in a fetal position crying on the kitchen floor about 1 year into it. For someone that spent so many years in big corporations, I thought I had the whole entrepreneurial thing in the bag. If I could run marketing for a $1 billion brand, then marketing my own company would be easy, right? Nope. Entrepreneurship isn’t for the faint of heart. If talking about yourself and what you bring to the table feels braggadocios to you, may the odds be ever in your favor. If you’re a perfectionist and want immediate results like me, it can be even more challenging. For one thing, I kept changing how I approached clients – whether it be pricing, services, messaging, etc. If my pitch didn’t stick within one or two conversations, I changed it. Big mistake. If I didn’t think a client would pay “X” I would lower it to “Y” without even asking budget. Even bigger mistake. I was literally my own worst enemy and kept getting in my own way. As COOP’s Creative Director likes to say I was “chasing the cash and not the vision.”

Immediately after the fetal position moment, I was asked by a well-known craft brewery if I would help set-up their marketing team and programs. I knew it was going to take a full commitment for about 2 years, and I wouldn’t be able to focus on other clients and COOP during that time. So I viewed it as God and the Universe’s way of telling me I needed to take the opportunity to get my s*** together, learn a different industry, and come back when I was ready. I’m thankful for that COOP hiatus every single day. During my time with the brewery, I was introduced to an organizational behavior consultant that changed my life because he taught me the tools to fix the inside of organizations and not just the outside. Double digit growth never would have happened if it weren’t for that consultant and that experience. Like I tell people all the time, it’s not just the outside of the organization that has issues, it’s the inside too.

We’ve been impressed with COOP, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
COOP makes companies and their people better. Every person on our team came from corporate marketing backgrounds and saw how things could be better. So we set out to offer a faster, better, more affordable way to do marketing, grow a business, and, as we like to say, “tell ’em who you are.” We handle typical marketing project work (logo design, websites, social media, etc.) but we also offer affordable, bespoke full-service marketing packages from $500 – $4,500 per month that cover:

– Social Media Management
– Photography and Video Needs
– Website Updates
– Graphic Design Support
– Review Management
– Campaign Planning
– Marketing Consulting
– Marketing Management
– Sales Support
– Ad hoc marketing needs

For growing businesses, it’s often better to use us than to spend the overhead of building an in-house team. Save the cash to invest more in the people you’ve got!

COOP takes pride in authenticity and equality. We operate with the mindset that no one is above anyone else and the same goes for our clients. We have three sayings that we abide by and encourage our clients to do the same:

“Tell ’em who you are”
“All y’all are welcome but you gotta act right”
“Chase the vision; not the cash.”

How do you define success?
Do something better. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t haven’t to exceed goals. It just needs to be a little bit better. Everyone can better something. If money matters to you, be better managing it. If travel is the most important thing, do something better for your next trip. Better doesn’t always mean bigger or bolder, it’s just an improvement. And if you can get in the habit of making something better, that is success.

Pricing:

• Bespoke marketing programs from $500-$4,500 per month
• Branding packages from $1,500
• Websites from $3,000
• Speaking Engagements from $1,250
• Business Coaching from $250

Contact Info:

• Website: https://coopcco.com
• Instagram: @willrileycoop
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willrileycoop/
• Other: wriley@coopcco.com