Waking up each morning and having the opportunity to earn a living from your interest and passions is a rare sight to find these days. Meet Jesse D Poole, owner and creative director at Poole Media Co, located in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Jesse is fortunate enough to wake up each morning and operate a successful full-service media, entertainment, and digital marketing company with his wife where they enjoy bouncing creative ideas back and forth off one another. Get to know more about Jesse D Poole in our featured interview below.
What exactly do you do for a career?
In short; I run a creative agency with my wife. We create photo, video, and graphic content for our clients. We manage and run their social communities, build their websites, and provide professional photographic services of their staff when required. We consult them on current digital marketing trends, providing solutions, feedback, and analytics.
Can you tell us more about your business?
My company is Poole Media Co. I’m currently working as Creative Director in most projects along with most other operations that keep the company going. Photography is also an important part of what I do. I get to be creative and expressive while earning a portion of our company’s income. It’s always art first it seems with me anyway, I wouldn’t know what to do without creativity. But that’s just part of my hustle. I still sell stuff on ebay, flip sneakers some, and buy coins. So, I’m literally all over the place!
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Getting to run a business from home with my wife. We truly love getting to work together, and working off one another, it’s rewarding when we bounce ideas off each other in the moment and create something that our client really appreciates. …but as much as I love my wife, I feel the most rewarding part of my job is making our clients happy. When I can move someone through a photo, or a video, or a piece of content that sparks emotion; that hits deep.
What was the process for you to find what you wanted to do?
Geez. This has taken years to get to this point. I knew that I always wanted to be independent. My father was an entrepreneur and ran his own company his whole work life. So the hustle of doing stuff my way was in my blood. I’ve flipped stuff my whole life, bought and resold music gear, when i was doing music full time; and bought and traded construction tools, while I spent time as a contractor. I eventually got burnt out on construction, the passion of hammers and nails died with my passion for digital. I painted in the mornings and built websites at night. After 13 years of construction and over 15 of contract labor doing all kinds of other things; from learning professional matting and framing, and cutting glass at an art gallery in New Jersey.
What are some of the challenges you faced along the way?
Struggle. It’s real. Hustling my things and tools, my guitars and gear to be able buy diapers and pay bills. I’ve done it. The struggle is real. The streets don’t care about you or what you’re selling or slinging. It’s every man for himself, and if you build a fan base and an audience you can do great things. But you gotta start, and start at home, in your hometown, in your ‘backyard’ and just grow.
What is your greatest success so far?
In business; independence. In life; I have an amazing wife of 15 years that I get to work with and we have two amazing kiddos.
What does it take to be successful?
I think how you define success first defines how you view ‘being successful’ … I’m happy with what I do for our clients on the whole. We have hiccups, miscommunications, and we fail sometimes. Generally, I’m happy that the clients we do have are happy with what we do for them. Monetarily we aren’t struggling, but we can’t pack up and leave for vacation weeks at a time either.
What is some advice you would give to a young entrepreneur?
Learn to accept defeats. It’s truly how you level up. You get to alayze, adapt, make changes and redirect. In boxing it’s called parrying, you block the heavy punches and set up the counter. Once you get that; you can turn every failure into a learning opportunity.
Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
Hitting all this just with five more years of experience – hopefully with a team or a crew behind me.
Who is your biggest inspiration?
My dad first for always being headstrong, independent, and overcoming adversity. Photographers include Peter McKinnon & Ansel Adams. Entrepreneurs include Gary Vaynerchuk and Kerwin Rae.
What would would you like to end on?
I’m just like you. I’m a regular dude, trying to do regular stuff, for regular people. I have dreams and aspirations just like anyone else. I think the biggest thing that people are stifled by is fear; fear of failure, fear of not being accepted… 96% won’t care, the 4% that’s your fan, family, and true supporters will rally behind you.
You can keep up with Jesse D Poole by visiting his official website, and you can find him on Instagram to keep up with everything he produces creatively by searching for him @jessedpoole.
Website: https://jessedpoole.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessedpoole/