Growing up Chip LaFleur always loved technology, figuring things out and building relationships. When he started working in marketing, he said it was just the perfect intersection of all of those interests coming together. After honing his craft for a few years and authoring a book, LaFleur opened his own agency and branded it LaFleur Marketing. The full-service agency specializes in digital, branding, web design and development, marketing strategy and execution across both traditional and digital spaces.

According to LaFleur, “We faced challenges just getting off the ground, of course, but then as we grew we faced a very different subset of problems. We had a structure that was in place that supported and worked very effectively for eight to 15 people, but once we exceeded that size we realized that there was much more that we needed to figure out.” LaFleur said his team “stumbled upon the MI-SBDC” and realized that a consulting engagement would be a great fit.

Acting as the lead consultant, MI-SBDC Growth Team member David Beeson said, “This is a great example of the value the Growth Team brings to growth-stage clients across the state of Michigan. Multiple members of the MI-SBDC Growth Team were engaged in their specialty areas to assist LaFleur’s team in defining the company’s values and mission, benchmarking and assessing its financial position, creating and implementing policies, assisting with long-term strategy development and acting as objective accountability partners. We are pleased to see the growth that LaFleur Marketing has achieved and we are excited to continue working with them for what the future holds for their organization.”

LaFleur continued, “Since we’ve been working with the SBDC, we’ve doubled in size in terms of employee count, we’ve seen significant growth in our revenue, our profitability has improved; we have an environment that supports our team. The central driver of our business is our core values, and one of those core values is our commitment to relationships and how much we value relationships. Luckily for us, we’ve been able to partner with the MI-SBDC in that journey and not only build relationships with the consultants that we’ve worked with, but we’ve also been able to grow and extend our reach as a marketing agency. All of those things have come together and really benefited us, and I attribute much of that to the work that David did with us and to the MI-SBDC.”

Learn more at https://lafleur.marketing/