What are you doing to stand out from the crowd?

The marketing agency landscape is full of behemoths focusing on delivering traditional marketing services via old-school media. In 2006, my partners and I started focusing on a new niche — social media marketing [That is, using online networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to build brands] — and have since built a successful business creating campaigns for large brands like Microsoft (MSFT), Corbis, Paramount Farms, and several advertising agencies.

Name: Clay McDaniel
Business: Spring Creek Group, an interactive marketing agency.
Industry: Marketing Services
Location: Seattle
Year founded: 2006
Number of employees: 12
Web site: springcreekgroup.com

What's the best part about owning your own business?

We are building a completely new breed of agency. The corporate world has heard about social networking and social media, but most companies are afraid or unsure about how to leverage it to increase their brand awareness and drive sales. I love being able to sit down with large companies to help them devise an effective marketing program.

What's the biggest challenge of owning your own business?

Keeping my eyes focused on our long-term strategic business goals while we maintain attention to the daily needs of our clients. This takes discipline and avoiding the temptation to always say "yes."

What's the biggest hurdle you've overcome?

Convincing large brands that having a presence on social media platforms is a must. Many companies are holding tight to their marketing budgets in this economy and they are afraid to try something new. But, in fact, social media makes more sense now because connecting with consumers via online networks is one of the most effective (and cost effective) ways to drive business results.

What's the biggest mistake you've made?

Underestimating the need to educate our marketplace. We have a passionate, well-informed team with tons of ideas and ample access to data and research. However, with our first few large projects we had difficulty translating that knowledge to clients. We've learned that because of the new and evolving nature of social media, it's the customer — not the company — who really owns the brand. That's a huge shift from the top-down marketing methods of the past, where a brand forced its message onto people. Now, it's more of an ongoing, open dialogue with consumers. That can be scary for some companies to both understand and accept.

What's the best business advice you can offer?

Make sure all of your potential customers realize the true value of what you do. It’s not enough in today’s economy to say you have a great product or service. You need to prove it. Come to sales meetings with measurable results your current customers have achieved and present a clear roadmap of the potential results (increases in revenues, return on investment or brand impressions) your prospective client can hope to achieve. As a services firm, the best way to grow your business is to prove to your clients that you are experts in what you do, you understand their business and you have the ability to deliver tangible results.

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