John Corcoran: 12:42
Not buying real estate. Yeah.
Brendon Dennewill: 12:44
At that point and yeah, we I mean the business was pretty much done in about 48 hours.
John Corcoran: 12:49
Oh, jeez. Wow.
Brendon Dennewill: 12:50
So it was a yeah, it was a rough time. But, you.
John Corcoran: 12:55
Know, what about you. I mean, that’s an interesting pivot from managing fishery businesses to real estate. Tell me a little bit about that. Like what gave you the confidence to completely pivot from one completely different industry? What gave you the know-how? You know, there’s a lot of people that would be like, I can’t switch. This is all I’ve ever known. I can’t switch to something completely different like that. And on this beautiful island in the Mediterranean.
Brendon Dennewill: 13:19
Yeah. I mean, it was. Well, I mean, it turns out Kristen and I are both fairly entrepreneurial. Her father built his own business with a partner in the real estate industry here in the US. And I guess through seeing what he had done. That’s probably part of what played into our interest in real estate.
John Corcoran: 13:42
That gave you kind of some confidence going into it.
Brendon Dennewill: 13:45
Yeah, absolutely. Just having more context as to how the industry works. Of course, what we weren’t expecting was, you know, one of the biggest financial crises, you know, in three decades or whatever it was. And but, you know, in hindsight, which of course, is always that much easier. We realized, you know, we realized now that it was the greatest opportunity, because 2008 was also a turning point in so many ways.
Some of it related to the zero eight crisis and some of it not. From a technology perspective, you know, where the iPhone had just become a thing. Facebook had just become a thing. And anyway, so as I was, you know, clearly very concerned about what had just happened. You know, losing the real estate business, you know, what one does in that situation is you call every friend and family member who will meet you or have a conversation or a coffee and.
John Corcoran: 14:48
You know, see what you can do.
Brendon Dennewill: 14:49
See what see see what advice they have. Right. And pretty much everybody, you know, said to me, just go back to what you like doing and what you’re good at, which is, is really, you know, business. But thinking more about it. So in my experience in the fishing industry, when I was running the fishing business, what I spent most of my time doing was all on the marketing and the packaging and the exporting of the fish.
But also running a lot of the operations. But I was always, I always leaned towards, you know, the sales and marketing aspect. And, one friend of mine in particular, who was a South African living in Majorca said to me, You should check out this whole digital online marketing world. It’s quite fascinating. And of course, I went home that evening and took his advice and in about an hour of research realized that he was definitely onto something, and it seemed right up my alley and sort of dove into it head first and essentially hung up my shingle as a solo consultant.
Because coming back to, you know, Facebook and the iPhone and the iPhone and how Google’s Google Search was developing, I realized that there were so many small and mid-sized businesses out there who were going to want to figure this out. Yeah. And I would need help. So it didn’t it didn’t take me long to figure out how to do that. And in fact, Kristen decided to start a home staging business again, thinking that that might be a solution to the real estate market where we were living, which was just crumbling really, really fast.
John Corcoran: 16:34
Is this still in Mallorca in Spain?
Brendon Dennewill: 16:37
Yeah.
John Corcoran: 16:37
Mallorca, Spain.
Brendon Dennewill: 16:38
Okay. Which for those folks who, you know, listening, who didn’t, who don’t know, Spain was one of the worst hit countries by the oh eight crisis. Yeah. You know, it’s a relatively small market, you know, relative to the US. But there were 1 million new homes that were unsold at the time that the crisis hit. So that just took, you know, a lot of the banks and of course, the real estate developers and companies and the, the people who were making the investments down with it.
John Corcoran: 17:10
So did you I know you then shortly after that, moved to the United States. At what point? It was a.
Brendon Dennewill: 17:16
Couple of years. Yeah, it was a couple. So. So what happened is Kristen started this home staging business called Mallorca Home Staging, and I started when she became a client of mine. And the next thing we knew, we owned the first page of Google for all things home staging, to the point where the Spanish national news called us or called her and said, oh, we’d like to interview you because no one in Spain is familiar with home staging. You know, this is back in, in oh nine, I guess.
John Corcoran: 17:44
Was it still taking an idea that was more popular, like in the States and bringing it there?
Brendon Dennewill: 17:48
Correct, correct. And anyway, so we you know, it was interesting but realized that that wasn’t that wasn’t moving the real estate market either. So later that year, in 2000, it was 2009, Kristen and I were chatting and saying, you know, we have very complementary skills and strengths. Why don’t we, you know, get together and build a business together. And at this point, what I had started seemed a lot more, had a lot more legs and a lot fewer limitations.
And that’s when we also decided we needed to, you know, give a name to this thing. And we had a friend who was an ex X Razorfish strategist who was, you know, an Englishman living on the island as well. And he said, oh, I can help you figure that out. And so we went, you know, he invited us up. He lived up the street from us, and his office was his garage . Of course, the weather there is amazing.
So, you know, every morning he’d open up his garage and there was his office and we, we we sat in there and he pulled out his, his, you know, whiteboard and, and we, we did the, the exercise in, in both English and Spanish because all the work we were doing was typically in at least two, but often 3 or 4 languages. Because on the island they speak Spanish, Catalan. And then there’s a huge German and English presence. So you were typically doing things in those languages. But we decided to do this exercise in two languages, English and Spanish. And the word that very quickly floated to the top of the board was the Spanish word for dynamic, which is dynamical.
John Corcoran: 19:27
Oh, cool.
Brendon Dennewill: 19:28
And that was prompted by. By Neil, our friend, asking us the question continuously. Well, what is it that you’re going to be helping your clients with and do? And we said, oh, we’re going to help them navigate the changes in their business that will come from changes in technology and how they will stay connected to their customers. And so it was this, this sort of this whole ish, this whole thing of this dynamic nature of how business was going to have to evolve over the, you know, in the future. And it’s been very consistent.
John Corcoran: 20:00
So I’m curious, so you I can see how you had the vision, you had the background, you’ve done sales and marketing for the fishery business, and then the real estate market drops out. And so you’re interested and you hear there’s this opportunity with marketing with digital marketing. So you start doing that. How did you get clients, you know, how did you find clients that were interested in hiring you for these services?
Brendon Dennewill: 20:23
I mean, not that different to how we would do it today. Really? It was networking. And then of course, promoting, you know, our own business online, which we got fairly good at. However, with the Spanish economy just getting worse and worse, every, you know, 2010 was terrible and then 2011 was even worse.
There was just no sign of a recovery. And we actually happened to be back in South Africa, in Cape Town for Christmas of 2011 with my family. And of course, as we always did when we went back, we got together with all my friends and this was kind of the moment where all our South African friends were saying to us, wow, Spain’s really in bad shape, right? And we looked at each other and we went, oh my God, we, you know, what are we doing? Yeah, because we love the lifestyle.
I mean, the lifestyle there is unbelievable. But We realized at that moment that it was time to make a move. Yeah. And we, we we got back to to Mallorca and, you know, a week later was, you know, I guess the first week of 2012 and I had a trip to Madrid and I, Kristen and I had spoken and she sat down with the kids and told her, you know, well, sort of told them we planned this to make it think that was their idea that we were going to go and live with, with, with grandma and grandpa in Minneapolis because, you know, they’d they’d visited many times because we, we’d alternate Christmases between, you know, Cape Town with my family and Minneapolis with her family. And of course, you know, the kids at this point are, you know, five, six and seven.
And they were like, oh, that sounds exciting. That’s great. So, you know, we had them think it was their idea. And then on February 29th, we arrived in Minnesota. I had a leap year in 2012. And again, you know, so Denamico Denamico isn’t necessarily the easiest, you know, name to pronounce in the US, especially if you’re English speaking, but we just haven’t found a good reason yet to change the name.
John Corcoran: 22:39
It’s distinctive. It’s different. Yeah.
Brendon Dennewill: 22:41
So then and it’s very true to, to what we started with and what we still do, which is, you know, help, you know, businesses navigate the change that comes with technology and just being in this very dynamic space.
John Corcoran: 22:56
Right. And so you’ve really had to evolve and change. You started as a kind of general digital marketing service. And then I believe it was around 2014, you decided to hook your train, so to speak, to the HubSpot train and, and evolve with them. And so talk a little bit about that decision and that evolution.
Brendon Dennewill: 23:16
Yeah. So in those first two first two years, you know, being in the US, which, of course, you know, Kristin had been gone for 19 years, pretty much her entire professional life. I had zero, you know, network here. We, you know, we but we figured out, you know, through networking and what have you. We figured out how to get some clients, but we very quickly realized that there was something missing.
From a systems perspective, our clients became more sophisticated. And we actually got a call from a HubSpot sales rep in probably March of 2014. And up until that point, we’ve been following a company in Minneapolis called magnet 360 that had hitched their wagon to Salesforce. And we were like, wow, that’s whatever they’re doing seems to be working. And then this call came from HubSpot, and we were like, tell us more.
And we pretty much signed up, you know, the next week. So we became partners in April of 2014. And that same year, you know, at that point, HubSpot was a marketing platform, but they were already working on their very, you know, basic CRM. But as they evolved the product and became more of a full suite about six years ago, we realized that there was kind of a fork in the road, and we had to make a choice to where we were going to be. Because we were doing more and more, you know, large scale implementations of HubSpot.
And we felt we had to make a choice because we felt like we were running two businesses, the marketing services business and then the technology implementation business. And it wasn’t a difficult choice for us. It’ll be different for everybody who’s in that situation. But we decided that we wanted to focus on the CRM technology implementations and integrations part and then the hard part was letting go of the marketing services because, you know, the retained revenue there was very, very interesting and very hard to let go of. But the hardest part really was realizing that we were going to need very different people to run the technology business than we had.
We had all these incredibly smart marketing folks before, and we just assumed that they would make the switch. And of course, they’re just different people. Yeah. So that was the part that we had not really thought through. And that was the hardest part to navigate. Yeah. But in hindsight, we still, you know, know that it was the right move. And we feel really good about it now.
John Corcoran: 26:01
I have made the opposite switch over the course of my career because I was an attorney practicing law 15 years ago. And, you know, that’s very transactional short term projects for a month or two and then it ends. You know, sometimes the benefits can be very profitable. But, you know, it’s very stressful too, because you don’t have longer-term engagements. So you switched from longer-term engagements to shorter-term engagements. I assume the trade off is they paid a lot more, or there was a higher volume of people who are looking for HubSpot services.
Brendon Dennewill: 26:34
Yeah. Well, and it’s not exactly. I mean, our goal was never not to be in the recurring revenue business anymore. It was just we didn’t know what recurring revenue services looked like, looked like in the CRM space. Now we’ve introduced those services because the reality is when, you know, when we implement or when a company implements a CRM and especially if it’s they have it across marketing, sales, and customer service, and they have it then integrated with an ERP or whatever other integrations they have. It’s very seldom just a set it up and up and forget it kind of deal.
John Corcoran: 27:13
They’re going to need some kind of ongoing support.
Brendon Dennewill: 27:15
Exactly. And that’s where, again, you know, the recurring support that we provide to our customers again, has come back. But yeah, there were a couple of years there where, you know, we had to say goodbye to some, some decent revenue.
John Corcoran: 27:29
But now this is a challenge that every business runs into when they’re in this kind of transition. Do you at some point just tell the old clients that we’re not we can’t serve you anymore. You have to find someone else to help you. Or do you just let them kind of winnow away? And eventually you look up one day and you’ve got 1 or 2 left or none left?
Brendon Dennewill: 27:47
Yeah. No, we were very proactive about it. And we started looking for and you know, it’s one of the, the amazing things about becoming more focused as a business is that you suddenly see opportunities for partnerships everywhere, right? And because, again, we knew who our competitors were when we were, when we provided marketing services. And we knew who the good ones were. And so it became really easy for us to, to recommend alternative agencies for, for the clients of ours who really just needed the marketing support.
John Corcoran: 28:21
And you could I imagine you could then partner with them because you’re niching down into something. You’re no longer competitive with those other marketing agencies.
Brendon Dennewill: 28:28
Yeah. If that was relevant, then yes. But what’s also happened is we’ve started working with bigger businesses than we used to work on the marketing side. But we actually still have a couple of clients where we, you know, we started eight years ago on providing the marketing services, but, you know, using HubSpot as kind of their core system. And they’ve continued to see the benefit of having HubSpot.
And in this and I’m thinking about one in particular where they don’t even they don’t have a marketing agency. And we don’t provide any marketing services. It’s just that everything is kind of done through the HubSpot work that we do for them.
John Corcoran: 29:08
So for this big decision, do you remember, were there points where you were like, oh crap, this was a bad decision. We shouldn’t have done this or you just kind of like, are you a positive person? Just kind of full speed ahead? I can’t think about that.
Brendon Dennewill: 29:23
Yeah, it’s funny, you know, when we because we’ve, we’ve, you know, done two transcontinental moves as a family and you know when you go further back there have been a few more. But for example, when we moved from Africa to Europe or from Europe to the US and, you know, all the friends that we had in each of those places obviously knew what was going on. They were like, oh my gosh, how do you do that? How do you just pack up and move to another continent? But for us, it was always the excitement of the adventure and making the decision. And just there was never any looking back, it was just really more of, you know, how are we going to make this work? Versus did we do the right thing?
John Corcoran: 30:04
Yeah. That’s great. Speaking of not looking back, one interesting thing that you did recently is you. You and your wife became empty nesters and you decided to do a free bird trip, which I love that term. After dropping off your youngest at college.
Going back to your roots to Africa, and you actually helped some local schools that you’d been involved with through a nonprofit that you’re involved with. Talk a little bit about that. That’s so cool that you did this.
Brendon Dennewill: 30:29
Yeah. So, you know, kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier. So when we moved to Minneapolis, I didn’t know anybody. So whether this was socially or from a business perspective. So I joined a few different, you know, networking type groups, one of which was, you know, really amazing for me, which was rotary. I joined the Minneapolis, Minneapolis Rotary Club.
John Corcoran: 30:53
Yeah. Great organization.
Brendon Dennewill: 30:54
Yeah. And anyway, I was very, you know, very happy to be there. And I was probably there for about six months when someone came over to me who I hadn’t met before and he said, oh, I heard, you know, you grew up in southern Africa. You know, can we talk? And I’m like, sure.
You know, tell me more. And it turns out he was the founder of Africa Classroom Connection. So he was on a trip in South Africa once, and he happened to be sitting at a restaurant with some people next to some people who were in a local Rotary club in KwaZulu, in South Africa. And they got chatting and they were like, oh yeah, this is kind of one of the main projects that we work on. And he’s like, oh, great, I’m going to set up an organization in Minnesota and I’m going to help you.
So this was back in 2006. So it’ll be you know, we’ll be celebrating the 20 year anniversary next year for that. And yeah, so he started a, you know, a nonprofit here, 501 C3 raising funds. And every time we have enough funds, we send the funds over to our local partners. In South Africa, who all happen to be rotary members, but they also have a another non-profit based there that then figures out how to get the classrooms built or added to a school and all the the, you know, the administration of because the deal that they have with the government is that if we build a school, you’ll provide the teacher.
And that’s kind of how that works. And it was just incredibly rewarding after, you know, doing this work for, for eight years, for me to finally go and visit some of these schools, because every school, every classroom that we build educates 50 kids per year. So we know that, you know, a classroom that we built, you know, 19 or 20 years ago, cumulatively has now educated almost a thousand kids that would not have had a classroom if it wasn’t for this organization. And if they were lucky, they might find a teacher who would, you know, sit around or sit under a tree on days when it’s not too hot or raining?
John Corcoran: 33:19
Wow.
Brendon Dennewill: 33:20
Yeah. So just to see the impact that, that that’s that these kids will have from having an education is, is. Yeah. So quite incredible.
John Corcoran: 33:30
That’s so cool that you did that. Really neat. You know, we’re almost out of time. So I want to wrap up with my gratitude question. And I’m a big fan of gratitude, especially expressing gratitude to others who have helped you in your journey. I wanted to allow you to shout out anyone in particular, any peers, contemporaries, mentors who have helped you in your journey.
Brendon Dennewill: 33:50
Wow. Yeah, there’s so many. Well, I guess I didn’t forget. I, I mean, a lot of them were like, if I go back to my earliest Mrs. MacDonald, who was my, I guess here would be like, you know, grade two teacher or whatever. I even forget what she did, but I guess she gave me a lot of confidence.
And then in middle school as well, I had another teacher who again gave me a lot of responsibility. And then a big one at that same time, when I was in the choir school, I was there for three years because you age out at a certain age. In the second year that I was there, the choirmaster came over to me, and I’d never been in a leadership role of any kind by that point and never thought I would be. And he said to me, you know, Brendon, I’d like you to be the head of the choir. In other words, so, you know, I’m essentially the president of the choir or the general manager of the choir or whatever.
And I was like, oh my gosh, because I’d always looked up to the two guys that were in that role before me as being true leaders. So that was a really, really big one for me. And that probably kept me going for a few years. And then in my, you know, I guess in my professional life, I also had mentors who I’ve, I’ve learned a lot from. The one I worked for in the fishing company, you know, he taught me a lot of the things that I didn’t yet know. And of course, I still learn every day. I’m. And I’m currently very, you know, indebted to and grateful for my, my Vistage network. You know that again, that’s been incredible.
John Corcoran: 35:51
Support for Me.
Brendon Dennewill: 35:52
And then three years ago I also joined the strategic coach community, which has also been an incredible way to learn.
John Corcoran: 36:01
Sullivan. Yeah, yeah. Great community.
Brendon Dennewill: 36:03
In fact, his book is probably one of the best books I’ve read on gratitude, which is the gap in the game.
John Corcoran: 36:09
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And who not how I think is another one more. Another one that he has. Brendon, this has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you and connect with you? I know you have Denamico of course and.
Brendon Dennewill: 36:22
Com and.
John Corcoran: 36:23
Africa classroom connection and the RevOps Champions podcast and anywhere else they can go to learn more about you.
Brendon Dennewill: 36:30
I get well I guess LinkedIn. LinkedIn is probably another good, good place.
John Corcoran: 36:35
Perfect. All right Brendon, thank you so much for your time.
Brendon Dennewill: 36:38
John, thank you so much for having me on the show.
Outro: 36:43
Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.