Video Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello. I am David Laurenzo, founder of David James Group.
(00:09):
The agency was founded after I had worked for an agency in the Chicago area for a number of years. And my brother, well, was not in the agency business as he was a recruiter, but he’s very good at sales. And so he and I decided to start a business together. And we started in 2002 out of his house and I will never forget my first day walking up to his second-floor bedroom, sitting down, and saying, what the hell am I doing? We had no clients. We had really nothing to start out with, but we worked really hard. But anyway, that was a kind of the very, very humble beginning of the company.
(00:59):
Well, when I was at Tucker Knapp, I really liked what I was doing, but I wasn’t really excited about the way it was being run. I felt that there could be a better way to run an agency and actually started the agency very hybrid. In other words, no full-time employees except myself and my brother. So we contracted everything out and people worked remotely. So, you know, you see what’s going on with COVID and we were experimenting with that back in 2002, but you know, it all worked out really well for what we needed at the time. And, you know, I was very glad that I switched—never regret that day of deciding to start an agency
(01:51):
The moment when I thought, okay, this is might work out is when we landed our first major client. And that is about seven months after we opened our doors and a great gentleman by the name of Greg Dummer, who I had worked with previously had done an RFP for an association he was working with and we won the business. And so that was the client that just kind of allowed us to keep the doors open, to pay the bills, and to hire. And I think that was definitely kind of one of the early turning points in the company. And thank you, Greg Dummer.
(02:39):
David James Group came from David Laurenzo and James Laurenzo; so the two founders of DJ G. There is no David James, although the mail that I used to get every day declared that there was one I’m, I’m convinced he’s somewhere. I don’t know where.
