No billionaire parents.No secret laboratory.Wasn’t bitten by anything radioactive.
I started working the Burger King drive-thru in Waterloo, Iowa.
Eventually I found the internet. Things got weird from there.
Talk to Aaron →
THE ACCIDENTAL CAREER
$3-ish an hour.
Fifty-hour weeks.
An irresponsible amount of Whoppers.
My first education in customers, work ethic and what happens when someone has been waiting too long for lunch.
⚡ SUPERPOWER UNLOCKED: WORK ETHIC
Sometime in the ’90s, my mom, Joni, brought home a 386 running Windows 3.1 from a local garage sale and it had a 3600 Baud modem.
Then somebody mailed me one of those AOL free-trial discs with 500 free hours.
I plugged it in.
And found the internet.
And 18,345 Screensavers
I had absolutely no idea that stupid little computer was going to change the rest of my life.
⚡ SUPERPOWER UNLOCKED: TECHNOLOGY
I went from screwing around with a 386 and an AOL trial to working for an actual Internet Service Provider, learning Linux, and sending my very first bulk email to 10,000 or so local residents!
From there I just kept building things — hosting companies, teams, products, partnerships, SaaS companies, marketing systems and, for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear, a beef jerky subscription business.
Some worked.Some didn’t.Every one taught me something.
⚡ SUPERPOWER UNLOCKED: BUILDING SHIT
I originally joined a shared hosting company run by two 16 year olds and together we launched FastServers.Net, who was acquired by LayeredTech in 2008. This is where I busted my chops on product positioning, marketing, SEO and large marketing spends.
PPC. Email. Pricing. Promotions.Sales. Partnerships. Lead generation. Branding.
Then things got bigger. ↑
FastServers taught me how to market.
cPanel taught me how the whole business works.
Turns out, getting attention is only one part of growing a company. You still have to build something worth buying, take care of the people who bought it, and get a whole bunch of humans pulling in the same direction.
That’s where I learned the difference between doing marketing… and understanding the business behind it.
Then Nick fired me. ↓
Through The Kickass Network — my consulting practice — I help technology companies execute marketing strategies, improve user experience and grow their market share.
Just kidding — mostly, buddies that worked at big brands called. Which is how I got to work with longtime friends on big projects, like Deluxe.
ANDY
JASON
And weirdly, this might be my favorite chapter. These days I’m building two things — both for the same people.
Hey Aaron! Marketing is me, doing what the five superheroes on this site promise: websites, visibility, content, ads and leads for service pros.
Because the scoreboard is refreshingly simple:
Did the phone ring?Did you get the job?Did we make more money than we spent?
That’s marketing I can get behind.
⚡ CURRENT MISSION: MORE JOBS. LESS MARKETING BULLSHIT.
SOCIAL PROOF
I could tell you I’m creative, dependable, driven and occasionally funny. But that’s exactly what somebody writing his own About page would say.
So here’s what other people said when I wasn’t allowed to edit it.
“Funny. Smart. Kind. Engaging.”
Success isn’t about ego. Aaron taught me to test, experiment and quantify results.
RAQUEL GUARINO
“Aaron advocated fiercely for his people and would never ask someone to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself.”
STEPHEN MAY
“The single best career advice I’ve ever been given came from Aaron Phillips: ‘Become an expert.’”
JR LEVI WYNTER
“Always creative, always with great ideas, great follow up and great execution.”
IGOR SELETSKIY
“He does not only think outside of the box, he will create a new box that everyone else wants to be in.”
KEITH DUNCAN
“Aaron saved me from losing anymore hair than I already don’t have. In addition, he helped me sleep at night.”
AARON BRAZELL
HOUSE RULES
If we can’t eventually connect it to leads, jobs or revenue, I’m not terribly interested.
You shouldn’t need a marketing degree to understand your own marketing report.
A nail gun makes a carpenter faster. It doesn’t decide where the house goes.
I’ve been confidently wrong plenty of times. Data is cheaper than ego.
Your domain. Your website. Your accounts. Your data. I’m helping build your business. I’m not holding it hostage.
Marketing cannot save a business that refuses to talk to its customers.
