GigSesh Expert Profile: Trevor Sumner

Ever wondered what it takes to start a successful digital marketing company? One of our experts here at GigSesh knows all about that: Trevor Sumner is the CTO and Co-Founder of LocalVox, a platform that makes local online marketing simple for businesses. Not only was LocalVox named one of the top NYC startups by Business Insider, but in under 7 years they have gone multi-city and become a nationally recognized player in the online marketing space. Let’s have a chat with Sumner and get some insight on what inspires his career and what he’s done to lead LocalVox to success.

GS: Why did you decide to go the digital marketing route?

TS: I have spent my entire career in emerging startups and growth companies that were using the Internet to change mission-critical elements of business. If anything, marketing has been more disrupted by the Internet than any other function, redefining how we discover, connect, understand and communicate with brands. With the costs of creative and technology development dropping, marketers have more options than ever, requiring both an expansive imagination and a disciplined methodology. It’s such an exciting time for marketing right now.

GS: What was one of the biggest struggles you ran into when you first started LocalVox?

TS: Delegating enough to focus on high level strategy in a limited resource environment was a constant struggle. Cash is like oxygen and needs to be preserved and it was a difficult funding environment. On one hand, you want to keep your burn as low as possible, but that also means holding off on key hires, especially high level managers who you can delegate to without a lot of training and oversight. The result was that I was often caught in managing or even executing low-level tasks, and in an ideal world, you can keep that to a minimum. A good rule of thumb is that if someone can do the job 80% as well as you can, start delegating it.

GS: When was the first time you realized your company was going to be a success?

TS: After we raised our Series A, I knew the company was going to be worth something. Having the largest private equity firm put a multi-million dollar bet on you adds a lot of confidence.

GS: When you started off, did you have a mentor or industry expert in your life?

TS: At every stage of my career, I have had key mentors that guided me along the way. I was very lucky to have admirable people like Rita Selvaggi, Phil Gilbert and T.J. Marchetti to learn from, to help guide me and to drive me to be better. Ultimately, my mentors showed me how much more there was to learn, taught me about business fundamentals and about integrity, both to people and to ideas. It’s my number one piece of career advice: Find a mentor as fast as you can.

GS: What advice do you have for anyone looking to start their own marketing company?

TS: Focus on what makes you different and hone that practice. Marketing is such a generic term. It’s easy to get sucked into every opportunity and spread to thin; you become a jack of all trades, but master of none. At LocalVox, every day for five years, I was told how critical it was to launch a paid SEM product. Every day I said the same thing. “It’s huge market and remarkably effective for a subset of customers. And we are not going to do it.” It was more critical that we focus on our organic offerings so we could become the leader in organic local marketing (SEO, social, email, websites, etc.).

Curious to learn more about Sumner and his road to career success? Sign up for GigSesh today to schedule a call with him or one of our many other career experts!