Our guest today is Ben Landers, the founder of Blue Corona, a company which he sold in 2021. Raised in an upper middle-class family in the suburbs, he had an average upbringing and went on to major in organizational communications and business. He had a great career in tech software sales before he ever branched into the entrepreneurial world.
It was once he returned to DC where he met Bob, the man who gave him a practical MBA. Ben’s job as VP was to put in the sweat equity and come up with ideas for the business. It was here he became an expert in the world of marketing, and this is how he ended up starting a marketing and tracking business—which eventually grew into SEO and PPC.
In 2007, marketing wasn’t an easy industry to be in, especially if you were trying to track ads and focus on SEO. But in the small business world, there was a great need for businesses who were ready to transition out of the yellow pages and into something new. However, even after Blue Corona began, he was still straddled between his role of VP at the water company and his role in his new company.
In retrospect, there are so many things he did in those early days that he didn’t need to. For instance, he could have delegated the work that wasn’t very productive for him. Bringing people on who build their role in a scalable way are some of the most valuable team members you can have in any organization.
Another thing he’s learned about running a business is the importance of emphasizing how each team member’s role and tasks accomplish a bigger goal. In other words, they need to know the “what” and the “why” of their work.
Blue Corona was almost sold in 2015 to a client who owned many companies in a similar industry. This deal made it all the way to salary negotiations for Ben, but that’s when it fell through. In the end, this was probably for the best. Although Ben has left, many of the same team members are still at Blue Corona, and it’s in good hands now.
Even today, Ben loves answering questions for entrepreneurs as long as they don’t get in the way of his non-compete contract. He also recommends reading “The Great Game of Business” to anyone interested in entrepreneurship. It provides a great blueprint that Ben actually used when growing Blue Corona.
The businesses Blue Corona worked within the home services space were sometimes run by “old curmudgeonly” types, but this wasn’t an issue for Ben. The language of business is Universal. So, geeky SEO talk aside, it was easy for him to find common ground with potential clients from just about any walk of life.
Leaning on other entrepreneurs—and clients—has also been a huge learning opportunity for Ben. He even switched places with a client once to get insight into their business. Working in other roles in your business to get a better understanding of how they operate can be an invaluable experience.
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